#irrepressible bastard

[flowerandblood]

The Evening Star (1/2)

[ Hades • Aemond x Persephone • female ]

[ warnings: sex content, smut, angst, kidnaping, sexual tension, obsession, incest, toxic relation ]

[ description: When the god of the underworld comes out of his caves once a year to admire his beloved constellation, he accidentally meets his niece, whom he has never seen before. Moved by sudden lust and desire, he kidnaps her, despite her despair and his brother's anger. Angst, sexual tension, dark and obsessive Aemond. ] Part 2: The Moonlight Ray

The Evening Star & The Moonlight Ray Persephone Moodboard

*English is not my first language. Please, do not repost. Enjoy!*

My others works: Masterlist

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He never understood his brother, hurling his lightning bolts from the heavens at defenceless people in a rage − he did not understand his volatility, he did not understand his irrepressible desire, his unlimited emotionality.

He did not understand how he could desire and feel so many things at once, having his sister-wife haunt and take other goddesses, nymphs, or even human women, begetting bastards on earth and in the heavens.

He did not understand him, for he was emptiness, abyss, coldness, the opposite of his impulsiveness, his eternal volatility − he was like stone, like white marble, soul as well as body.

The only desire he had ever known in his life was the desire for power, and for this his brother deprived him of one eye before casting him into a dark abyss where not even the light of the stars could reach.

Although he was a god, his brother's blow could not be undone and he was forever disfigured, the dark hole in his face filled with a precious stone, sapphire, shining with a disturbing blue light.

Accustomed to the darkness of Hades, he could no longer bear the intense light of the sun and rarely appeared on Olympus itself; he would wander through his dark caverns in his long, black matted robe and gaze at the river Styx, at its pale light and the contorted terrified faces of the souls who swam in it.

When word reached him that his brother had mated with their other sister, the goddess of the field crops, and that she had bore him a daughter, he was neither surprised nor interested − he did not come to celebrate her birth on Olympus or congratulate his brother.

His brother had often suggested to him that he should take a wife, that he should not be alone in the darkness of the underworld.

He, however, felt no such need.

Even his sister, known as the Goddess of Love and Desire, was unable to seduce him.

She touched his naked body with her soft lips and hands, but he felt nothing but embarrassment.

He left Hades only once a year, when his favourite constellation emerged in the sky − He would then stroll through the old, dense forest looking up at the stars, breathing in the fresh air, listening to the rustle of the leaves.

When this time of year came, when he left his caves and looked up, he felt contentment at the sight of the twinkling dots in the sky, the pleasant night breeze enveloping his cold body.

He strolled slowly and aimlessly, looking upwards, all around him only the quiet rustling of his robes and the sound of dew-wet grass lingering beneath his feet.

He froze as he heard someone's footsteps break a twig not far from him, he knew he was not alone and he was furious.

He thought that whoever this mortal was, he would flow right down his river of the dead.

He tilted his head to the side and saw a pale figure illuminated only by shy starlight, her body pressed against the trunk of a tree as if she wanted to take refuge in it, her face expressing helpless anxiety.

Her eyes were big, warm and as dark as his robe, her hair long, partly loose, partly decorated with rich braids encircling her head, small blue flowers woven into her hair.

Her full, moist, fleshy lips were parted slightly in an accelerated breath, her breasts which he could see perfectly through the thin, transparent material of her robe were rising and falling restlessly, her skin glistening like moonlight.

He stared at her, unable to move or make a sound, unsure if he had ever seen a being so infinitely beautiful in his life, luminous as the stars above his head.

He swallowed loudly when he saw that she had taken a step back to retreat, to escape.

"Is it the beautiful Evening Star herself who has left the sky to enchant me with her company?" He asked lowly, impassively, his voice though assured and direct trembled, betraying his desperation.

She stopped in mid-motion and looked at him again, surprised and embarrassed at the same time by his words − it seemed to him that he saw perfectly well how her cheeks flushed, giving her skin a rose tint.

She pressed her lips together watching him carefully, lifting her chin slightly as if probing him closely from afar, assessing whether he was a threat to her, whether he would hurt her.

He was unable to take his eyes off her.

"I will tell you who I am only if you tell me who you are." She whispered in a trembling, gentle tone.

A smirk appeared on his face at the thought that maybe she was a nymph who had ventured too far from her friends, and that she was at his mercy now.

He hummed under his breath and moved ahead, putting his hands behind his back, looking under his feet, moving unhurriedly towards her.

"They call me many names." He said with mischievous amusement, throwing her a piercing, disturbing look from which she shuddered all over, taking a step back again.

"My river, though water is a life-giving gift, brings death." He whispered once he was a few steps away from her, wanting her to solve the riddle herself, to exert herself.

She swallowed loudly, her eyes widening suddenly, as if she had just realised something.

"− uncle −" She whispered, and he froze, stopping in mid-step; for the first time in the thousands of years he had walked the world he felt his own heart pounding hard.

He looked at her in disbelief, and it was only at close that he saw that she did indeed have something of his brother and sister in her, though it was her she resembled more − he felt himself grow even paler than usual, his hands clenched into fists behind his back.

She, however, seemed not frightened about who he was, her face took on an expression full of contentment and warmth. She moved closer to him and now it was he who took a step back feeling a strange heat in his lower abdomen, his manhood throbbed suddenly as he caught a glimpse of the outline of her soft breasts.

"My mother told me a lot about you. About the sun hurting your eye." She said softly, and he swallowed loudly seeing that she was staring at his scar, at the stone placed where his eye once was.

He thought he was like Hephaestus, hideous, disfigured, and that she would never desire him.

He felt his jaw clench tightly, his body tense, hard as granite when she tentatively placed her soft hand on his shoulder, he felt the warmth of her flesh through the thin material of his robe.

He didn't know what was happening to his body, he felt tickling and tension in his lower abdomen, a strenuous need for some kind of relief that he didn't understand.

"Stay with me to watch the sunrise. Don't sink into darkness yet." She whispered as if in worry − he couldn't tear his eyes from her face, from her warm gaze.

He was unable to comprehend how any living being could be so beautiful.

"No." He said coldly, and then grasped her in his arms, his hands clenching on her soft, hot flesh like steel tongs.

For a moment she couldn't make a sound, terrified and shocked − she didn't scream when he threw her over his shoulder and headed towards his underworld, cold, dark, damp.

It was only when she realised what he was doing that she began to struggle and cry, calling loudly for help from her mother and father, begging him not to do it, to let her go, that she would not tell anyone about it.

He, however, decided to follow his brother's advice and take a wife.

The marriage required the oaths from both of them, but this did not prevent him from acknowledging her as his wife even though she refused to speak the words.

Even though he had given her his most beautiful chamber, on whose ceiling precious minerals shimmered like stars, in which streams of water hummed, in which she could lie on a great, soft bed, she did not want to see him.

He was not his brother.

He had no intention of taking her against her will.

It was enough for him that he could look at her every day.

Only him.

He bestowed new gifts on her every day, but she still cried.

He gave her a beautiful long gown of dark, translucent material embroidered with stones in which the warm light of the sun was encased after she said she longed to see it, but she didn't even look at it.

The blue flowers in her hair withered as did the warmth in her eyes − she was slowly becoming as pale as he was and was constantly shivering from the cold.

She would not let him embrace or touch her; she covered herself with the thick furs he had given her and turned away from him.

Occasionally something would awaken in her − she would then run up to him when he visited her and beg him to let her leave to see her mother.

"I promise you that I will come back and that I will be your wife. Please, let me see the sunshine and the fresh grass one last time." She begged, touching tenderly his cold cheek with her fingers, almost as if she loved him, and he almost gave in to her every time.

"I can't, Persephone." He replied coolly, feeling some kind of pain seeing the despair on her face, hearing her helpless sobbs again, her small hands clenched on his robe, her cheek hugged to his chest.

"My name is Kora." She mumbled with difficulty, as if enraged. He hummed at her words, lifting slowly his large, cold hand, taking unruly strands of her hair from her face, all red from crying.

"Persephone, this name, is my gift to you. For my sweet wife." He whispered, and she trembled, struggling to breathe, shaking all over.

"− please −" She babbled as he embraced her uncertainly and stroked her hair, relishing its soft texture, letting her draw on this substitute of comfort.

He walked with her through the interiors of Hades, wanting to show her that besides death, there was also beauty in the underworld − underground streams and lakes with crystal clear water, his three-headed, beloved Cerberus, who in his presence turned from a monstrous beast into a gentle, docile animal.

Sometimes it seemed to him that a smile adorned her face for a moment, but then the sadness came over her again − she shuddered with cold and fear hearing the wailing of souls floating in the Styx, she glanced nervously in that direction, swallowing loudly.

"Are they suffering a lot? Can they be helped?" She whispered, and he hummed under his breath, walking beside her with his arms folded behind his back.

"They are paying for what they have done in their lifetime. Their merits and transgressions have been weighed by Temida, who has issued a judgment on them. There is nothing I can do." He admitted with a glance at her, and she lowered her gaze, looking down at her hands.

"Are you afraid of me?" He asked her at last, and she lifted her large, frightened eyes to him, her lips parted but no sound came from her throat. He pressed his lips together, feeling a sting in his chest.

He asked her if she was afraid of him after he had kidnapped her and held her against her will.

What did he expect?

The wrath of his brother and sister was quickly getting to him − her mother distraught at her disappearance had fallen into a state of utter agony, people were being starved to death by the land's failure to yield crops, there were more souls flowing in the Styx than he had ever seen in his centuries-long life.

He felt a kind of satisfaction when his brother descended into the underworld for the first time since time immemorial; he hated to think about dying and passing, and could not grasp the meaning of such a short life, knowing only the meaning of infinity himself.

He came out to meet him sitting proudly on his black marble throne, thousands of skulls at his feet.

For the first time he looked down on his brother, a gigantic cave all around them, Styx surrounding them on all sides except a small bridge.

"Brother. I warn you for the last time. If you don't give me my daughter..."

"Then what? I should take a wife at last – those are your words, aren't they?" He asked with a sneer, sitting stretched out comfortably in his seat.

"I want to see her." He demanded, and his lips tightened at his words. "Or I'll take her away from you myself and you'll never see her again."

"I poured water from my river into the honey she drank. Like any soul who has already bound herself to the underworld, she will not leave Hades without my permission." He said calmly, and his brother's face flushed red, his angry low voice echoing around him so that the ground shook around them.

"I WANT TO SEE HER!"

He hummed under his breath and nodded to his servant to bring her in.

His wife came out of her chamber a moment later − when she saw her father she immediately beamed, ran to him and threw herself into his arms.

He looked at them coolly, feeling his heart pounding fast, his stomach twisting with rage.

"My sweet daughter. Did he hurt you?" He asked as if the welfare of any woman mattered to him, as if he hadn't raped an endless number of innocent girls, forgetting them quickly because they were dying in what seemed to him to be just the blink of an eye.

He swallowed loudly when his Persephone shook her head, tightening her lips, lowering her head.

"He's good to me." She whispered and he felt a squeeze in his heart, a pain he had never known before.

His brother looked at him accusingly, trying to contain his aggressive, abrupt nature.

"People are suffering hunger because of you. Her mother has gone mad with despair, the flowers are not blooming, the grains are not yielding. Let them be together at least a few months of the year and I will recognise your marriage in the eyes of Olympus." He suggested, and he furrowed his brow.

"No." He hissed coldly, his gaze icy, piercing, furious, his hand clenched into a fist. "She is my wife. A wife's place is with her husband."

His brother moved in fury, wanting to lash out at him, the ground shook around them again, but his daughter's hand stopped him.

"Let us speak alone, father." She said softly; his brother backed away, panting heavily, his jaw clenched tight.

He hummed under his breath when he saw his wife move towards him, climbing the black, cold stone steps to finally stand before him − his brother snorted and turned, walking away, furious.

He looked up at his Persephone massaging his chin, delighted to see the outline of her body shapes beneath her thin white robe.

He shuddered and swallowed loudly, shocked as she sat on his lap, his manhood throbbed suddenly feeling her body so close, her fresh scent like a cool morning breeze.

"− husband −" She whispered with a soft click of her pink tongue, her hips innocently rubbing against his hardness, his body shivered at the sound of that word.

She had never called him that before.

She touched his cheek with her soft fingertips so gently, tenderly, slow strokes of her hips teasing him so innocently, that he parted his lips, breathing with increasing difficulty, his palms tightening on his cold stone armrests.

He could feel his length pulsing and swelling with every motion she made, he didn't understand what was happening to him.

He didn't stop her when she reached up to tie of his matte black robe, he drew in a loud breath and closed his eyelids when her delicate hand tentatively touched what was underneath.

"I am yours. I will give myself to you of my own free will." She whispered in a sweet, warm, trembling voice, her gaze misty, her lips full, swollen, red from emotion.

A quiet, low groan broke from his throat as he felt her hand direct the fat head of his manhood between her thighs with a gentle movement, he could see through the translucent material as she slowly began to sink him into her body.

He tilted his head back with quiet moan, licking his lower lip, feeling her hot, fleshy insides squeeze him wonderfully from all sides − she was surprisingly moist and warm, her core throbbing with arousal.

He felt her put her hands on his shoulders, lowering herself onto him with a loud, sweet gasp, her plump lips parted wide.

His hands involuntarily gripped her hips as she began to move, rising and falling against his length so painfully slowly that he had to close his eyelids shut, panting louder and louder along with her.

"– gods –" He exhaled with difficulty as she accelerated, the loud, sticky slaps of flesh against flesh echoing through the dark cavern, his manhood throbbing and twitching inside her, all hard and swollen with pleasure.

Involuntarily, his cold fingers clenched on the hot skin of her hips − he rooted his manhood into her tight, moist insides with his desperate, pathetic thrusts, her sticky moisture dripping down her thighs.

"– for our marriage to be valid you must fill me with yourself, my husband –" She whispered, pressing her forehead against his, droplets of sweat glistening on her body like little diamonds, her sweet moans of pleasure, her slick walls sucking him inside made him loose his temper.

He gasped weakly at her words, he had never felt a woman's insides before, had never desired anyone before her.

He felt like his manhood was going to explode with desire and lust, his thrusts became faster and more brutal, her soft breasts bouncing in front of his face − he lifted his hand and squeezed it tentatively, a soft mewl of delight erupted from her throat.

"– Persephone –" He breathed out pleadingly, imploringly, and then she kissed him, her hot, swollen, moist lips clinging to his, cold, dead, the tips of their tongues licking each other.

"– please –" She mewled although he didn't know what she was actually asking him, and then he heard her cry loudly, as if surprised, her hot insides clenching against him greedily, her tongue deep in his throat.

He felt with each thrust of his hips that he was getting closer and closer to something he'd never experienced before in his life.

Fulfilment.

The wave of heat and pleasure, his seed that spilled inside her surprised him so much that his voice stuck in his throat, and then again and again a low, helpless groan broke from his mouth − both of them were panting as they looked at each other with their lips open wide, his hands clenched painfully tight on her hips.

"I'm yours." She whispered softly, sweetly − he was looking at her feeling only peace, only love. "I am only yours, so please, let me see her."

He felt the heat in his heart replaced by coldness, his brow furrowed in a sense of anger, of pain, of betrayal.

"No." He hissed, wanting to lift her up, but she shook her head, cupping his face in her warm, soft hands.

"I will never truly be your wife if you won't trust me. If I don't come back to you of my own free will." She said helplessly, pain, fear and suffering in her eyes again, his lips tightened into a thin line at her words.

"Nine months with my mother so I can enjoy the sun, and then three here, just with you, every night, every day, I swear." She whispered tenderly pressing her face against his cheek, her scent overpowering and stupefying him, her warm insides still pleasantly enveloping his already soft manhood.

He swallowed loudly at her words, his palms digging firmly into the soft skin of her thighs.

"You're lying. You will never come back to me." He hissed and groaned low when he felt her hips begin to move up and down again with a loud click of her wetness and his spend, his manhood pulsed involuntarily with pleasure, betraying him.

"I'll come back. I promise I'll come back."

As much as she wanted him to lead her away, he didn't want to watch her disappear beyond the borders of Hades never to return.

He didn't want to watch her run merrily towards the light, thanking the gods for his weakness and naivety, for how every woman in history had been able to exploit a man's desires.

He did not want her to see his expression, his suffering and all the other feelings he did not want to feel.

The day after she left, he went to her chamber and lay in her bedding, sinking his nose into her scent.

He found, with regret and pain, that with each passing month her scent grew fainter and fainter, her silhouette in his mind becoming more and more blurred, as if he had never really met her.

He touched himself thinking about her, experiencing both wonderful and painful fulfilment with the knowledge that he would never feel her again.

He preferred to explain to himself that it was just a dream.

That he had never met her.

He knew she would not return.

She would not return to her captor, to the man who had kept her in a dark underworld for months, deaf to her pleas and sobs, a man who was crippled, who was cold, frightening and empty.

Despite this, despite knowing it, when the day came he could think of nothing else − he watched as the sand shifted in the great hourglass constructed of bone and glass as he lay in his chamber, drinking wine, feeling like a demented madman, listening for her footsteps amidst the groans of the dead.

She did not come.

He stared at the empty hourglass, which turned and the sand began to shift again, counting down the time of the new day; he wondered how he could have been so naïve to wait.

For the first time in ages he felt an embarrassing, burning wetness under his eyelids − proof that he really loved her.

He shuddered when he heard the quiet rustling of robes − he glanced sideways and saw her standing in the doorway of his dark chamber, in her hair beautiful small yellow flowers, her face bright and warm.

She wore the gown he had given her, black, decorated with sun rays stones.

"My mother kept me. She couldn't let me go." She whispered, and he felt his throat tighten, his body freeze, unable to make a sound or make any movement.

He breathed hard, looking at her with wide eyes, his lower lip and hands trembling involuntarily as she approached him slowly, as her hands untied the bindings of his robe with a light, easy motion, revealing what was underneath, how much he wanted her, how much he waited for her.

"I have been counting down the days when I will see your face again." She whispered, running her fingers over his scarred cheek, sitting on top of him, gently taking his hard length in her palm, lowering herself onto the fat head of his cock as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

He wanted to tell her that he didn't believe her, but instead a surprised, throaty groan of pleasure burst from his mouth − he tilted his head back, panting loudly, his hips involuntarily beginning to root his manhood into her fleshy, moist insides, her hands clenched on his shoulders.

"– fuck –" He gasped out looking at her with his lips parted, synchronising his thrusts with the rhythm of her body − he swallowed loudly as she slid the material of her robe off her shoulders, exposing her soft, plump breasts to him.

"– touch me, husband –" She cooed, and he lifted himself, immediately pressed his lips to her breast, sucking on it greedily, licking and teasing her nipple with his tongue, all hard with desire.

She sank her fingers into his long white hair and pressed his face against her chest, rising and falling on top of him with a loud click of her moisture, moaning so sweetly and loudly that he felt like his manhood was about to explode.

"– were you touching yourself? – did you touch yourself when you weren't with your husband? –" He hissed out in a trembling voice between flicks of his tongue, she kissed his hair in an attempt to soften his question and her answer.

"– forgive me, husband – forgive me, I've missed you so terribly –" She mumbled helplessly as he ran his fingers down her hips, twisting with her so that she fell on her back.

He gripped her thighs in his hands, looking down at her − her face all red with exertion, her hair scattered in disarray around her head, her body all bare before him, hot, beautiful, his.

"– I think I should remind you to who this body belongs to –" He growled, ending his sentence with a deep, brutal thrust, a loud, surprised moan escaping from her throat.

"– you are mine –"

Thrust.

"– mine –"

Thrust.

"– mine –"

Thrust.

"– repeat –"

"– I – I'm yours – I'm yours, forgive me, uncle –" She mumbled out with difficulty and drew in the air loudly as he spread her thighs shamelessly in front of him, looking down at the place where their bodies joined, her entrance clenching against him steadily, leaking with her wetness.

"– I forgive you, sweet wife –" He gasped, recognising this act of grace as an expression of his love and gratitude that she had not betrayed him, that she had returned, that he held her in his arms again.

"– I'll fill you with my seed and it'll be just as it should be –" He exhaled as he watched the perverse sight of their bodies slamming against each other with a loud slaps, his thrusts deep and sure, each time opening her wide on his thick, swollen cock.

He couldn't believe that she had come back to him, that he could smell her wonderful, floral scent again, that she was allowing him to possess her of her own free will.

Her fingers grasped his hand and sank it between her thighs − he felt her direct him to the small bud between her soft folds, she moaned when he touched her there.

"– here, husband – please –" She mewled and moaned loudly, throwing her head back as he began to rub her there, simultaneously caressing her inside and out, her core beginning to pulse greedily against him.

"– gods – stop clenching –" He exhaled with difficulty, rooting into her with quick, brutal thrusts of his hips, stretching her fleshy walls apart with the sticky click of her moisture.

He felt that if he went on like this he would simply come inside her, when he wanted to torment her, to prolong the moment of this immense pleasure and encounter after so many months.

"– I can't – I can't –" She sobbed loudly and he saw her fulfilment in all its glory, her hot, soft flesh went through convulsions, greedily sucking him inside, her lips parted wide in pleasure, her gaze misty and warm.

He cursed loudly, coming inside her so painfully hard that he clenched his eyes shut, panting loudly, rooting into her for a moment longer, the relief and delight that surged through his body was indescribable.

He looked at her beautiful face, her hands on either side of her head, her expression nothing but fulfilment and peace, her breathing uneven and ragged, her breasts rising and falling rapidly.

She looked up at him after a moment and smiled sleepily, raising her hand slowly − her soft fingertips ran over his scarred cheek and he closed his eyes, feeling pleasant, hot squeeze in his heart.

"What is my wife's name?" He asked in a whisper, kissing her warm, small hand, smelling of fresh grass and flowers. He heard her sigh sweetly at his question, her fingers sliding lower, running over his cold lips.

"Persephone."

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Aemond Taglist

@dc-marvel-girl96 @its-actually-minicika @notnormalthings-blog @nikstrange @zenka69 @bellaisasleep @k-y-r-a-1 @g-cf2020 @melsunshine @opheliaas-stuff @chainsawsangel @iiamthehybrid @tinykryptonitewerewolf @namoreno @malfoytargaryen @qyburnsghost @aemondsdelight @persephonerinyes @fan-goddess @sweethoneyblossom1 @watercolorskyy @astral-blossoms @randomdragonfires @apollonshootafar @padfooteyes @darylandbethfanforever9 @fudge13 @snh96 @rwdkarla @echos-muses @ipostwhtifeel @letmeloveyouuuu @yentroucnagol @valeskafics @verena-targaryen-writes @talesofoldandnew @happinessinthebeing @travelingmypassion

[blackjackkent]

(Last one, I think! Saved Karlach for last, which based on this dialogue the game definitely did not expect me to do, because she's acting like we just arrived. Oh well. XD )

"Oh, shit!" she cries excitedly, bouncing her weight from foot to foot, her arms spread and waving in excitement, as if to reach out and touch the open, brimstone-less air around them. "Oh my gods! He wasn't kidding."

She rolls her head back and bellows a victory cry at the sky. "Withers, you mad bastard, you brought us back!"

Across the camp, Hector can see Withers watching them with an utterly dispassionate expression, and he finds himself grinning too. Karlach's joy is always infectious, always brings him joy too just to see it. And months in the hells have not dampered her ability to find it in everything around her.

"Commander Zhula won't know where the fuck we went," she goes on with a sudden burst of giggling laughter. She swings an arm around his shoulders, hugging him against her side, pressing a kiss against his temple. He'd be tempted to wonder if she'd already been at the wine in excess, except that he knows her like he knows his own soul, and he knows that this joy comes from the depths of her, irrepressible and pure.

"Man, I can't wait to say hi to everyone," she says eagerly, looking around. "Look at 'em, the beauts!"

She pokes him gently in the chest. "Rest up, soldier. My tin can'll be all right for the night." She presses her forehead against his, grinning from ear to ear. "And you and me will get to sleep with both eyes shut for the first time in..." She considers, and her eyes widen comically. "Six months?" She laughs, squeezes him against her, then releases him again to stand next to her. "Then again," she adds with a suggestive wink, "maybe we won't sleep at all."

He hums low in his throat and gives her a slow smile in return. "I like the sound of that," he murmurs.

Her grin softens and she reaches out to brush a stray bit of hair off his forehead. He knows she feels the same as he does in this moment - they have no shortage of time together in the hells, and plenty of it private, intimate, but there is something very different about being back here, in the open air, and knowing that they are both still safe and together and have survived this first round of struggle and can take the time to rest.

"Me too, my love. See you soon," she says, and a pleasant shiver rolls through him as she drinks him in with her eyes.

"Wyll seems to be having a good time," he comments, as conversationally as he can, resisting the urge to let her drag him off into a corner and have her way with him right then. "We should enjoy ourselves too, before your heart heats up and we need to head back."

She grins reassuringly. "She's got a night in her, I think," she says. "Any trouble and I'll toddle back off to hell, quick as you please."

He knows she would, but he's grateful for the reassurance anyway. And it's encouraging, too, to hear that a full night's visit is possible; it means this sort of thing might not be out of the question in the future either.

He pulls a pleading face at her, dramatically. "Can I have a kiss?" he asks innocently.

She snickers, reaches out to cup his face and pull him towards her. "C'mere, you goon."

Perhaps there are those who might find it ridiculous that after six months in close quarters fighting devils in the hells, under tremendous strain half the time and sweating to death the rest of it, that she would still be able to look at him like that and make him feel like his legs have gone to jelly, but... it's still true, anyway.

Gods, he loves her. He loves her amid the stink of brimstone and he loves her here in his goddess's moonlight, and he does not know how he ever thought he might learn to live without her.

[aristocratic-otter]

Hello all! Work is winding down for the year, so I ought to have a more regular posting schedule for the next couple of months. Thank you to @hushed-chorus, @confused-bi-queer, @prettygoododds, @ivelovedhimthroughworse, @j-nipper-95, @you-remind-me-of-the-babe, @fatalfangirl, @artsyunderstudy, @palimpsessed, and @ileadacharmedlife for the tags!

My own tags and snippets below the cut

From Westward Son:

He kisses me. Again and again he kisses me. He runs his hands over my body, and kisses me, but he’s not trying to get me off, and I’m not trying to get off. Orgasm isn’t what we need tonight. We need to hold and kiss each other until we’re both saturated with each other’s feel and smell and taste, until we’ve built back what was almost lost. 

When we finally sleep, I feel like Baz has imbedded himself into my soul, and my skin is feeling like it fits me again

From my COBB (it's so soon, y'all, I can taste it! I can't wait for you all to see my partner's art!):

“We all must be responsible for the consequences of the spells we cast, Mr. Snow,” she said reprovingly. The boy wilted. “Now,” the teacher continued, “I’ve arranged to have a third bed fitted into Mummer’s house for…er…Shepard here. He’s to attend classes with you or Penelope, and eat meals with one or the other of you.”

“But what if—” Simon said, before stopping abruptly and looking at me, his eyes wary. “What if the Mage needs me for…you know…” he trailed off, clearly not wanting to discuss whatever this Mage fellow needs him for in front of me.

From Saving Simon Snow

“You bastard,” he murmurs, drifting back into the circle of my arms. He sounds almost fond. “I can’t believe you managed to keep up the act for seven fucking years.”

“You never made it easy,” I mumble against his lips as he pulls me to him again. He’s startled into a laugh. Then he kisses me, hard, and pulls back a little.  “I never made it easy? You prat, you’ve never made anything easy in your whole fucking life.”

From an Age of Sail Au

 It takes a lot of groaning and heaving for two eleven year old boys to manhandle a grown man up the ladder, but finally we manage it, and we just lay there on the main deck panting for a moment. 

After a few seconds, I realise two things: first, the storm has settled into a soaking rain, which seems to have put the fire out. And second, there’s not another sound to be heard besides the rain. 

In a panic, I run for the rail, Baz right behind me. Only to watch the lifeboats, with every crew member and passenger other than us aboard, disappearing in the distance. 

We’re alone. 

From my COTTA, Snow Fox

Simon pulls me in for a fierce kiss, and then pulls away. “I’m sorry to leave you hanging, my love. But you’re right. There’s little time.” 

I nod, and fight back the tears that threaten every time we are parted. “Go on, darling. I’ll be waiting for your return.” He nods, his eagle gaze softening when he looks at me. Then he pulls himself astride Dragon, and kicks the horse into motion without another word. 

I stand in our little hollow until I can no longer hear the sound of hoofbeats

From: To Heal a Broken Mind

I’ve just managed to reach level 19 on Candy Crush when Baz storms into his office, eyes wild and hair flying around his head. “Get up, Simon!” he barks. “We’ve got to go!”

I don’t argue. I’ve never seen Baz like this, so whatever’s the matter has got to be urgent. I shove my phone in my pocket and bounce to my feet. “Where are we going?”

“Radiology,” Baz calls over his shoulder as he heads out the door and down the corridor at a rapid clip.

From Raising Dragons

I relieve him of Nat, and he glances back to give me a grateful smile, before grabbing Ebb around the middle and, holding them securely, doing a backflip into the water. They rise out of the water together, and Ebb is squealing with delight. Nat whimpers by my ear, and Violet ignores their dad and sibling and continues to doggie paddle with my hand under their belly. 

“Again, Again!” cries the irrepressible Ebb. Simon’s grin is positively wolfish. It makes a shiver run down my spine, settling in my belly and making it clench. I watch my husband cavort with my child with love in my gaze and lust in my heart. 

Now revealed, from my Star Trek Voyager AU, a gift fic for Raen, The Naked Next (Chapter 1 going up tonight!)

I can’t help but be amused, though more by the expression on Basilton Grimm-Pitch’s face than by the story he’s telling me. He looks like he’s just bitten into a lemon that someone told him was a sweet. 

Though the idea of our stoic chief engineer parading around in her underwear and asking my very gay first officer for advice on women…well, it’s objectively funny. I’d be rolling on the floor (privately) with laughter, if it weren’t also so absolutely terrifying. 

“So you’re telling me that it seems like our chief engineer is completely trolleyed,” I say, failing to keep all of the amusement out of my voice.  Baz quirks a reproving brow at me. “Trolleyed, sir?” His voice is so dry it rivals the Sahara.

Tagging for Wednesday (or just blowing y'all a kiss): Everyone above, plus @bazzybelle, @bookish-bogwitch, @carryonsimoncarryonbaz, @dragoneggos, @erzbethluna, @facewithoutheart, @giishu, @ionlydrinkhotwater, @ic3-que3n, @jasonfunderberkerthefrogexists, @krisrix, @larkral, @letraspal, @messofthejess, @moments-au-crayon22, @moodandmist, @frjsti, @nausikaaa, @nightimedreamersghost, @prettylightsbigcity, @raenestee, @thehoneyedhufflepuff, @theearlgreymage, @tea-brigade, @technetiumai, @upuntil6am, @whogaveyoupermission, @whatevertheweather, @yellobb-old

[visenyaism]

lear girlies!! im curious as someone who never rly vibed with it, what abt lear makes u go insane i love ur thoughts

So King Lear is at its core a play about how the power dynamics of dynastic politics just absolutely tear a family apart, and the entire country as a result. Daughters who are raised in a household where love is only something that can be exchanged for power love their father until he is weaker than them, and then they cast him out into the storm. It’s like nuclear-level emotional fallout from the relationship between love and power at all times it’s so crazy good.

I really am a sucker for cognitive dissonance as a theme in any and all narratives, like the mind in conflict with itself and the desire to repress the irrepressible. King Lear doing the sight without seeing AND the truth in madness bits simultaneously is so compelling to me. Gloucester can only see the truth after his eyes have been carved out of his skull, Lear can only understand the emotional reality of his family after he has gone completely insane. The only real and honest characters in the whole play are completely removed from power: the fool, the unnamed servant who decides the de-eying of Gloucester is too much to be complicit in, edgar specifically when he’s in disguise as poor tom, and cordelia. King Lear is so bleak but so so compelling.

​Also i feel like most shakespeare plays only have one thing going on but king lear puts some of the juiciest most compelling bits into its B-plot. Edmund as a bastard being more aware of how power dynamics have warped his family and having no room for love being a perfect foil to King Lear who refuses to see that and mistakes one for the other and yet they never have a conversation. it’s so good

[musewrangler]

“Father.”

Anakin glanced back toward his son, unsurprised that he had found him unerringly.

“Anything regarding the shooter?” Luke asked him, coming to stand at his side on the rooftop, the stiff wind whipping the blonde hair about.

“He has entered the building across the way,” Anakin replied, gesturing at the blue glass and durasteel monstrosity before them. “Your associate entered a few minutes ago. Her reasoning was that she could get more from him seeing as subtlety was not a Skywalker family trait.”

His irrepressible son snorted loudly.

“I mean…is she wrong?”

Anakin sighed. He would have preferred to terrify the bastard into peeing his pants, but given what they desired, this was the better way.

Still.

[sezja]

Febuwhump: Epilogue

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six, Part Seven, Part Eight, Part Nine, Part Ten, Part Eleven, Part Twelve, Part Thirteen, Part Fourteen

The package from the carpenters' guild arrives that morning - five days after their fraught night in the Shroud, and four after Sanson was sentenced to house arrest. The guards at his door, a pair of Adder lancers, cast incurious glances over the package and its contents, finding nothing objectionable therein; they've not been instructed to deny him any deliveries.

Nor have they denied him his few visitors.

Eve had arrived on the third day of his imprisonment. Even if the guards had been inclined to deny her access, her rank in the Twin Adder far superseded their own - and even had it not, who in their right mind could think to deny the Warrior of Light herself? So she'd passed a few bells with them, lamenting that she'd been unable to help... but, as Sanson explained, things had simply happened altogether too quickly for him to send for aid from anyone, let alone Eve, who had problems of her own to attend to.

But her visit had been good for Guydelot's spirits - aye, and Sanson's own, too; he'll not deny that.

Jehantel had visited the next day... and it was he who had mentioned that Guydelot's harp had been found deep in the East Shroud, cast aside into the underbrush with the strings severed. A bit worse for wear after its time in the elements, Jehantel had informed Sanson that he'd had the harp sent to the carpenters for repair and restoration...

And here it is, delivered at last.

Sanson hums quietly to himself as he carries the box toward the bedroom. Despite everything, he finds he's in an irrepressibly good mood - Guydelot is alive, after all, and with few lingering wounds to show for it. If his hands are still a touch stiff, 'tis no matter; the healers remain optimistic that with a bit more time and healing, he'll make a full recovery. But he is alive. Little else matters. All else is insubstantial next to this singular victory.

Sanson has not been relieved of his rank, though the matter hangs in limbo; much rests on Vorsaile - he has argued that extenuating circumstances demanded drastic action; that there was little time to seek aid through legitimate channels. That at the end of the day, Sanson's "quick thinking and decisive action" served to foil a plot that threatened to kindle the flames of war.

Too, it seems likely that Sanson's fate rests with Astarnaix's testimony, and how eager the man may be to incriminate himself.

I remember him giving the order to kill Guydelot, Sanson thinks, his grip tightening on the box in his hands. I remember it all too well. He'd arrived as the order was being given.

He remembers the Ala Mhigan sword, awkward in the grip of a man better-accustomed to a lance, hovering above Guydelot - ready to strike the killing blow. And he remembers his own howl of rage, the world going red at the edges, terror and fury surging like a black tide, and...

And then he remembers little else, only cradling Guydelot in his arms while the healer worked. He'd not even recognized her at first - all he'd cared about was Guydelot; Guydelot's safety, and getting him home.

He lets out a slow breath, pausing in the doorway of the bedroom.

Sleeping again.

Guydelot has slept a good deal of the past five days; the healers assure Sanson it's simply his body's way of recuperating after his three-day ordeal, to say nothing of healing from his injuries. His hands are still a mess of bruises, fading to brownish-green, and the corners of his mouth remain red and cracked where the bastards had muzzled him-

Calm.

"Guydelot," he says, gently, sitting carefully on the bed. He watches the man sleep for a moment longer: he's peaceful, his chest rising and falling beneath the blankets, eyelashes fluttering as he dreams. Sanson considers setting the box aside and curling in beside him, sleeping the day away - as he had the first day of his willing imprisonment, simply spending the day nestled beside Guydelot, letting each breath reassure him that his bard was home and safe and alive. Not the worst way to pass the time.

But he shakes the man's shoulder instead, as gently as he can. Guydelot's eyes flutter open, distant and dreaming a moment longer... and then they drift to Sanson's face.

A slow, dreamy smile spreads over his lips.

"Mornin', Chief."

Affection leaves him breathless and dizzy for a moment. He returns the smile, willing himself not to get choked up; each time he does, Guydelot fears it's distress over the prospect of losing his rank, his unit, his career-

It's the furthest thing from Sanson's mind.

Instead, he presents the box. "I've a gift for you," he says. "Delivered just this morning, care of Jehantel."

"Jehantel," Guydelot repeats, quizzical, as he sits up. He takes the box, lifts the lid...

And then he does choke up, blinking back tears as he lifts the harp from the box. His hands shake, and Sanson suspects it isn't lingering pain from his injuries. Guydelot cradles the mended harp in his hands, smiling at it as though he's been reunited with an old friend.

"Hells," he whispers, delicately plucking one fresh string. A note sounds, pure and sweet. "Swive me, I thought it'd been lost. I remember that bastard cutting the strings, and then..." He trails off.

Sanson sets the empty box aside, peels off his clothing, and climbs into the bed beside his lover. "It seems Jehantel went searching for it, after your rescue. I confess, I'd not thought to search, myself - I was more concerned with finding you."

Guydelot carefully, reverently sets the harp in its familiar place on the bedside table - his hands have some healing left to do before they're fit to do more than pluck a note or two - and then he lies back down, curling into Sanson's embrace. He settles his head on Sanson's chest, heaving a sigh of quiet contentment.

Little by little, their lives return to normal.

"Heard anything from Vorsie?"

"Don't call him that," Sanson says, playfully tugging on the bard's ear. "No. Not yet."

Guydelot's eyes close. "Sorry about all this, Sanson."

Gods, I don't care about any of it. Strangely, uncharacteristically, Sanson finds himself content to drift without aim for a time; he's spared little thought for the Adders these past five days. Perhaps that may change once Guydelot makes a full recovery; perhaps then he'll find himself anxious to return to his duties and worried to find there are no duties to return to - but for now, little matters beyond this bed, this man, and the way Sanson's heart feels full to bursting every time he looks at Guydelot.

"I've every confidence things will work out," he says, for what feels like the thousandth time. He wraps his arms around Guydelot as best he can, pressing his lips to the top of the man's head. "Commander Heuloix assures me he has involved the Seedseers in this matter, and they cannot help but see that my actions are outweighed by the threat Astarnaix's plan posed to the Twelveswood."

Guydelot nuzzles Sanson's collarbone. "Aye, well, I'll put my faith in Vorsie, then."

"As will I." And if the Commander should fail, then... what? He'll be stripped of his rank, Sanson supposes; demoted, if not outright dismissed from the Grand Company. Strange, how little the prospect troubles him. But he recalls how swiftly his men followed his orders, despite knowing they would likely face punishment for it, themselves - if he is forced to leave the Adders, will his men follow?

They very well may. Guydelot will; Sanson doesn't begin to question that. And then what? He supposes he could follow Eve, join the Scions...

"And what about Nourval?"

Sanson blinks, surprised. "Nourval?"

"Any word about him?"

"Nothing new, I'm afraid." Jehantel had brought word about Nourval, as well, during his visit several days ago: the man is being kept under close watch as he convalesces, but the healers remain optimistic that he will make a full recovery. What becomes of him - whether his sentence is lengthened, as befits a man who escaped from prison, or shortened, as befits a hero of the Twelveswood, remains to be seen. It likely rests upon the knife's edge that is Sanson's own fate, and what the Seedseers make of his rash decisions. But he will live. And so will his willful, stubbornly determined sister, currently still in the Order's custody.

Her own fate depends strongly on whether or not her parents can be proven to have been complicit in Astarnaix's schemes. Sanson hopes, for Raicheille's sake as well as Nourval's, they were not.

Guydelot heaves another sigh, the breath of it tickling Sanson's skin. "Can't believe you put me in that bloody bastard's debt," he says, without heat. "Now I'll have to write him a thank-you note or something."

"I doubt he likes it any more than you." Sanson slides his hand into Guydelot's hair, threading his fingers through it. "Though I daresay he appreciated the opportunity to confront his past."

"That's me," Guydelot teases, letting his own hand slide over Sanson's skin beneath the blankets, drifting lower. "Proper charitable, always giving people the chance to be their best selves-"

"Guydelot-" Sanson arches, startled and aroused all at once; injured or no, the bard's hands are skilled. "Guydelot, your wounds-"

"Are healing nicely." The bard grins, lifting his head from Sanson's chest. "See? Getting plenty of dexterity back."

Indeed you are. Sanson grasps Guydelot's wrist, stilling him. "Guydelot..."

A shadow crosses the man's eyes. "I'm fine, Chief. It's just a few bruises; I'm not made of glass."

Sanson sighs; he remembers feeling much the same way after his own rescue... aye, and seeking to claim control over his own body again in much the same way, too. And he recalls his own frustration when Guydelot had been reluctant, so careful with him...

He understands a little better now.

Sitting back up, he straddles Guydelot's hips. "Fine," he says, fighting the urge to smile, to laugh. To sing. "But lie back and rest, then. I've had precious little work to do, these past few days."

Guydelot does smile, his grin returning in full bloom, as his hands slide deftly up Sanson's thighs. "That's me," he says again. "Proper charitable, letting my favorite workaholic get the itch to do all the work out of his system."

The future may be uncertain, Sanson thinks... but the present is all he needs for the moment.

[huremics]

had to valet at my ex's memorial cos it was a packed house... i wasn’t the only former girlfriend there, either, i shared the distinction with at least six other women present (that i was aware of). 5'8" jewish brentwood lothario comedic stylings of a master referenced his own letterboxd in his 1.5 hour long audio suicide note ultra-gourmand ultra-cynic always on the very edge of an authentic lived experience. despite every possible advantage, somehow couldn't hack it without drugs. he gave up on the dream but the dream curdled inside him and i wanna be like so what but he's gone. i cried when his eldest sib read one of his last messages....content was vulnerable, mordant, icy...but irrepressibly real.

caught a classismo white bread vibe from his university crew but maybe i was being weird myself for expecting them to be friendly to me, a perfect stranger. our connection was more important to me than to him, which is something he had let me know loudly and often, but seeing the peanut gallery of other girls was funny and strange. left without eating the catered tacos, which i regretted immediately.

his room when i first saw it in 2018 was nearly free of decoration save for three posters: children of the corn ‘84 (japanese import) hung irreverently but with distinct intention, too far above eye level. huge funny games ‘97 behind the door, ulrich m​​ühe’s terrified visage parallel to the bed (implicit relationship of proximity). glacial andrei rublev ‘66 by the light switch. maybe a fourth one, ephemera culled from a CD jewel case, of what i guess i’ll never remember. for some reason i didn’t take off running.

i feel for his family and friends and most recent ex gf, who read an incredible eulogy. am indignant and pissed off at him for many things...still hard to believe i'll never see him again

rest EZ i guess, bastard

[che-bur-ashka]

ANDOR; water/rust, revolution/realpolitik

I’ve been thinking a lot about Andor recently and more specifically how much I love the many, many answers it’s given to the question of “how is this whole rebellion thing going to work.” I’ve been wanting to get (some of) my thoughts down on it for a while, and (worse!) promising it to people and then not delivering, so, here we go—long awaited, slightly belated, twice as long as  it needs to be.

part one: vox dei

Before we get into it, I want to do a brief aside and a wholehearted recommendation: I would not be thinking with Star Wars in the way I am if it wasn’t for the work of the folks at A More Civilized Age over the course of the last two years. Their mode of commentary is a breath of fresh air in an ecosystem of easter eggs and surface-level thought, and everybody who reads this should give them a listen.

More specifically, I want to start with something the folks at AMCA (particularly Rob Zacny) have noted over their Andor coverage: the significance of water, especially flowing and flooding water, as a recurring symbol through Cassian’s journey. Cassian (among other things) is captured by the seaside, bursts a waterline to fry the electric floor, must swim to escape from prison, and hears of his mother’s death by the water—Zacny points out that we can place these events in contrast to the repeated symbols of classic Star Wars movies: the two suns and dry desert of Tatooine, and the broad thesis of leaving home to find adventure (the heroic core of Luke’s story) are substantially different from Andor, with its emphasis on the community-first calls for revolution anywhere, everywhere.

I want to read this conversation with Marva’s eulogy, where she says (among other stuff) that:

“There is a wound that won't heal at the center of the galaxy. There is a darkness reaching like rust into everything around us. We let it grow, and now it's here. It's here and it's not visiting anymore. It wants to stay. The Empire is a disease that thrives in darkness, it is never more alive than when we sleep. It's easy for the dead to tell you to fight, and maybe it's true, maybe fighting is useless. Perhaps it's too late. But I'll tell you this, if I could do it again, I'd wake up early and be fighting those bastards from the start!”

And this part of Nemik’s manifesto:

“Remember this, Freedom is a pure idea. It occurs spontaneously and without instruction. Random acts of insurrection are occurring constantly throughout the galaxy. There are whole armies, battalions that have no idea that they’ve already enlisted in the cause.

Remember that the frontier of the Rebellion is everywhere. And even the smallest act of insurrection pushes our lines forward.”

Flooding water is Cassian’s personal symbol, but it is also a helpful metaphor for the rebellion as Nemik advocates it. In such a spontaneous, irrepressible rebellion, fought on all fronts and by all hands, we are all only drops in a larger sea. Marva, too, calls for us to fight, though fighting may seem useless, and to wake up and  realize that we are powerful—we might even imagine that the “rust” of Imperial control is to be washed away by the water of our forgotten strength. In this sense, water takes on a purifying—almost baptismal—significance: we join in the flood and are swept away, washed clean, and awoken.

The folks at AMCA have rightly pointed out that, through Nemik  and Marva’s respective recorded voices, Andor echoes the thematic resonance—the meaning—of the appearance of force-ghosts, giving us an understanding of the powers of teachers, ancestors, and memories without relying on the metaphysical discoveries of a late stage republican super cop (admittedly one of  the coolest late stage republican super cops). One of the show’s strengths, I think, is its willingness to hold this resonance with prior material without making those connections diegetic. Nemik and Marva are, for all thematic intents and purposes, tapping into the Force—and the story is all the better because they do not do so narratively. More importantly for our discussion, by putting Nemik and Marva in the position traditionally held by Force users, they are given the legitimacy given to the Force. Nemik and Marva are proven right. There are whole battalions who do not yet realize they’ve enlisted in the cause—Cassian is a part of one, awakening to a fight he has always been fighting. He already knows everything he needs to know—he does, and is (more or less) victorious at the end of the season.

But lets talk about Cassian.

part two: ideal reader

Cassian Andor is placed in special relationship to both our thinkers—son and ideal reader—before he has a hand in either the Narkina 5 or Rix Road uprisings. In both these cases, Cassian’s actions directly contribute to the revolt, but it will be someone else who takes the true lead. Throughout season one, in fact, Cassian serves as a kind of an ultimate protagonist—a plot-mover who interacts directly with every major character outside of Coruscant—and makes personal decisions which seem to reflect and anticipate social shifts that he has only an individual’s part in. When Cassian decides to buy-in to the Aldhani heist, the others grow more confident and pull it off. When Cassian decides to rise up on Narkina 5, the other prisoners rise too. When Cassian takes direct, unmitigated action against the Empire and then to commit himself wholeheartedly to the Rebellion, so do the people of Ferrix. This is critically different from Luke killing the Emperor or blowing up the Death Star—there, the hero’s actions trigger change. Throughout Andor’s first season, we see instead a broad portrait of how people come to bring about change in their own lives—Cassian is just one representative sample.

When Cassian first meets Luthen, he is offered a more complicated choice than his mercenary antecedents in Han Solo and Lando Calrissian. Whereas historically the question has been Are you in this for the money, or are you in this for real? (which invites us to imagine a kind of fringe class of apolitical actors—mercenaries, thieves, and bounty hunters—who, though operating outside the law, are nonetheless not actively anti-Imperial, Andor’s first season is about showing us that Cassian was in for real from the moment the Republic landed on Kenari, engaged in what we might understand as political resistance by virtue of his survival alone. Rather than being given the opportunity to decide, Cassian must come to the realization that there is no getting out of this fight, no cutting and running—only standing up and pushing back or laying down and taking the hits. 

This is both Marva and Nemik’s fundamental stance—that we have been sleeping, thinking that they’ll go away, or that everyone is in the war, on one side or another, whether they realize it or not. It is no surprise, then, that Nemik comes to the conclusion that mercenaries, too, have a role to play in the breaking of Imperial control. Mercenaries exist, and, by virtue of their existence, are involved in the ongoing battle for one side or the other.

What does it mean, though, for Nemik to call Cassian his ideal reader? What does Cassian represent to Nemik? For that, we have to come back to water: healing, purifying, rust-removing water. Water is a life-giving substance (a contrast to the desert sands of Tatooine) and water is a purifying substance (to wash away the rust of Imperial control) and water is an overpowering, uncountable, collective substance (which, made from many pieces, becomes something much, much larger than the sum of its parts). Through all that runs, in my reading, a trait:

Water is virile. 

Consider Luke Skywalker, who must try and fail and try and fail and try and fail to become a master of the Force. From early in the first movie he knows what he wants—his journey is one of personal growth to be able to reach it. On the other hand it is remarkable that in a show like Andor, so concerned with how the revolution will take place, that there is little to no conversation over whether or not the revolution could take place. Part of this comes from Nemik’s philosophy—the  revolution will take place and will succeed because it is natural and tyranny is not—but consider also that, throughout the first season, Cassian Andor almost never fails. Once he puts his mind to something (escaping Ferrix, the heist on Aldhani, the prison break, the rescue attempt) Cassian succeeds—not without cost, but to great effect. He can do it—he just has to say he’s going to. He just has to try. 

This is the lesson of Andor, delivered through Nemik and Marva: to try is to succeed, to wake up and fight is to wake up and win. We (Cassian, but also the people like Cassian—the listless oppressed, the undirected proletariat) have all the knowledge we need, all the power we could ever want, all the strength to break our bonds. You just have to do it. Andor season one is the story of getting people to wake up, to see who their enemies are, and to try, and Cassian is a prophet of this kind of awakening. 

(This absolutely rules, incidentally, because it means that the battleground of Andor is not one of ability but of commitment—not can you but will you. In a franchise which has spent decades preaching detachment—because attachment will lead you down the path to fear, anger, hate, suffering, and so on—Andor rightly says that getting your skin in the game is the only way to ever start to win.)

With this in mind, Nemik calling Cassian his perfect reader can be read as a comment on Cassian’s great potential—his great potency—and his lack of formal ideological training. Cassian is, as I said, one representative sample of a group of people who Nemik hopes to win to the cause—the bottled up power of the proletariat, the force which cannot be truly eliminated and so is diluted by the many opiates of the masses (if y’all know me, you know I think religion gets an unfairly high billing in this one—lots of things serve to keep us from exercising our full capability for liberation, from schools and prisons to peezos and revnog). Andor might not be doing explicit mythopoesis in the Joseph Campbell, Hero’s Journey, go fight your psychosexual demons sort of a way that the “Skywalker Saga” did, but I do think there is something mythic in Cassian Andor’s awakening. If we understand him to be a kind of “proletarian protagonist,” standing in for narrative purposes as a token of the untapped power of the people, it is no wonder that so much of this season is made up of people trying to control him.

part three: how we respond

Andor is full of people saying they understand Cassian, from Luthen’s first conversation with him to Skeen’s attempt to get him to cut and run to Marva’s last blessing as conveyed by Brasso. Reading Cassian’s mythic meaning into this, we can see these claims (as well as in the violent attempts to control him: Kleya’s commitment that he must be eliminated, Dedra’s manhunt, the prison on Narkina 5) as an effort to control this font of productive power—economic and political—from which the people cannot be isolated.

This power at the core of both Nemik and Marva’s last speeches, and in the water-symbolism. The power of the people is a wave waiting to be unleashed (how interesting that the heist on Aldhani took place at a dam, how interesting that Cassian liberates the water from Imperial pipes to start the prison riot). Nemik and Marva are confident in the ability of this flood to self-direct—it is just their job to wake it up and give it something like a direction, and then to join in it (take the plunge, try to swim) and see where the water takes them.

Luthen, on the other hand, has a different approach. At his most effective a clever player of a game of chess, Luthen seems to handle his whole network as resources in a project only he (and Kleya) can grasp in entirety. In this model, the power of individual pieces is only permissible so long as that piece can be steered and managed. When it slips from his grasp—cuts and runs after seeing too much, for instance—it must be eliminated. The piece must be destroyed.

I want to make one thing perfectly clear: sometimes Kleya might be right. It may, in fact be, that some operatives—mercenaries of questionable commitment, for instance—must be destroyed before they can pose a security threat. The problem is that these decisions are being unilaterally made by Kleya and Luthen, not by the people on the ground—if you want to read a really good book, this is one of the big themes in China Mieville’s Iron Council, which expresses what I’m trying to say better and more specifically than I’m going to be able to do here.

There is a tyranny to Luthen’s decision making, but also a severe ego. If, as Nemik suggests and the show seems to believe, the revolution is being pushed forward by uncountable hands across uncountable star systems—battalions who don’t yet know they’re in this fight—imagine the self-confidence it takes to believe that you are the one and only individual who, sitting at the core of the spider’s web, can make all the right decisions, all the time. This is the pride of kings and emperors. 

The folks at AMCA have been joking about Luthen being a Jedi for a while, now—ironically enough, Luthen is making the same mistake as Yoda, believing that if he has no true investments, if he is really untouchable, he can see clearly enough to make all the right calls and play the game to completion. This Jedi realpolitik contributes directly to the Sith takeover, as they refuse to play the game messily and do what’s right—take a stand against chattel slavery, for  instance—constrained by an aloofness that they believe will save them. It is also the same call made by the Empire, who milk their subjects for productive value (in prisons or scrapyards or Coruscant office-blocks; in cells or relay stations or as a mole in the ISB), and then, when they are no longer productive, to eliminate them. I don’t want to get too much into thinking about Rogue One until we’ve seen the rest of Andor, but—this criticism will, to some degree, also become true of Cassian Andor. 

This approach might be helpful in some places and times, but it will never bring about the final victory of the rebellion. It can’t commit in that way. Luthen Rael calls himself a coward. He’s right. There comes a moment when you have to buy all the way in.

The scary part about all of this is that Nemik is wrong. Maybe not in the universe of Star Wars, with the Force moving things behind the scenes—but it must be said, out loud, that there is no reason Cassian should have ended up making the right call, or that the power of the people of Ferrix will necessarily become unshackled. The people can just as easily be bridled and controlled, transformed into a force for economic production or—worse—a gun, a Syril or a Dedra, pointed and fired by the Imperial system. This is the risk of  Luthen’s approach—he is turning people into guns and saying that he knows that he’ll aim right. This was the downfall of the Republic—they made a gun and then handed it to Palpatine. 

This is the benefit of Marva and Nemik’s approach, even if we disagree with their belief that the universe is on their side. They call for full buy-in, right now, right here, and damn the consequences—for teaching people how to point and fire themselves, rather than forging them into a gun which can be aimed from afar. This is a chaotic view of liberation—undirected, uncontrollable, necessarily coalitional—but it is the shift from order (in space, thought, control) to chaos which  marks the two most substantial uprisings in Andor: the jailbreak and Rix Road. In both cases the lines of behavior (the riot cop captain calls “Placement” to have his soldiers deploy shields as the crowd surges forward: he might as well have said “On program”) are broken, the people seize control, and what will rise in their place is not entirely clear. It is not that these movements are entirely without structure—One way out and Wake up early are incredibly powerful political directives—but neither are they motivated by a centralized hand (Luthen, critically, flees from Rix Road). It is in these moments of chaos, rather, that not only is the nose of the Empire bloodied but the power of the people is given room to stretch, breathe, and test it’s strength. 

We haven’t reached any kind of revolutionary utopia (and I have no doubt we’ll see repercussions for Rix Road next season—but then, the Empire was already cracking down, that’s how empires work). Still, Andor is clear: You cannot win a war without risking yourself completely, over and over  again. This frightens Luthen. It should. It is exactly the commitment he shies away from every time—the moment, to use Andor’s language, when the one way out is to swim. I’m interested to see how Luthen reckons with the need, sooner or later, to go all in, and how Cassian comes to hold the position he will in the Rebellion. So far he has been one drop in the bucket—but he will become the fulcrum, to, I think, his own detriment.

[kscribbs]

ITS ME! I've come for your ass! I got questions about the blorbos!

Mel:

🐹 Which would be your OCs favorite Pokemon? What kind of trainer would they be?

🌈 Does your OC speak more than one language? If so, how many and which?

🔪 What does your OC think how they’ll die? 

Lucy:

🥪 On a scale from 'burns water' to '5 course menu' how well can your OC cook?

📅 If your OC had one day left to live, how would they spend it? (I HAD to give lucy this question by the way. I thought it was rather poignant 💀)

🎨 Does your OC have any craft skill, as a hobby or profession? If so which?

Ozzy:

🪨 Someone gifts your OC a shiny rock. What do they do with it?

Thanks boo!

HELLO!

SO sorry this took as long as it did! Been a crazy few days.

I kiinda went off on one? 😬 So reader discretion is advised, lol.

Mel:

🐹 Which would be your OCs favorite Pokemon?

Magikarp, hands down.

The way Magikarp is described in Pokédex always tickles me. SO unnecessarily brutal:

“Underpowered”, “pathetic”, “only capable of flopping and splashing”, “no one knows why/how it has managed to survive”, “famous for being very unreliable”, etc., etc., etc....

Poor lil’ meow meow, right? Ha ha. 

—Wee Bastard Shocks the World by evolving into Gyarados and just, fucking. Annihilating everything around it with irrepressible rage.

Slippery lil’ fucker w latent anger issues? Underestimated, looked down on… Ultimately lethal and very, very unstable? Mel af.

We haven’t arrived at her backstory yet but girl CAN and WILL go John Wick on a bitch given the right circumstances, and is far more powerful/capable than most give her credit for. I mean, she controls water. People are MADE UP of at least 70% water. Mm. 

What kind of trainer would they be?

Fisher, lmao. Seeing as they’re most often depicted as middle-aged/old men, which is what Mel is at her core. And then ofc there’s the fact that they specialise in Water-Type Pokemón, and those that benefit from rain. 

(I did also consider Free Diver).

🌈 Does your OC speak more than one language? If so, how many and which?

Mel speaks many languages! All European:

Hungarian, Russian, Basque/Euskaran, French, German, Faroese, Swedish, Norwegian, Dutch, Finnish, Czech and probs several others. Girl’s moved around a LOT. 

🔪 How does your OC think they’ll die? 

Either doing something extremely brave/selfless, or extremely stupid. Possibly both. Her hydromancy talents don't work quite as well on herself, so she doesn't know for sure.

Luce:

🥪 On a scale from 'burns water' to '5 course menu' how well can your OC cook?

Digressing for a sec to bestow a Fun Fact: I once made a batch of banana nut muffins that, at some point during the baking process, acquired the structural integrity of a Nokia 3310, so long were they left in the oven (I forgot about them). They were also jet black. You know that blacker than black, True Black colour — or lack thereof — that like, absorbs all light? Yeah.

Anyhoo, I did a wee sketch (bonus Jacquie/Ozzy(!)), because, despite the disastrous results, Lucy is rather proud of her efforts! :3

So yeah, burns water, essentially. 

Jack affectionately refers to her as “ICBM: Intercontinental Ballistic Miller”, bc of her tendency to nuke everything she touches.

I can see her smothering certain bakes in copious amounts of pink frosting, to hide the taste of… well, charcoal.

(In an earlier draft of ML she was actually a fairly proficient baker, but then I realised two things: A. She can’t be good at everything and B. It would be sweet/funny if Jack gave her cooking lessons at some point (and did so in the style of Gordon Ramsey), seeing as CS!Jack is, as I understand it, quite a capable chef. He can make a mean omelette, at the very least! So yeah, she does improve eventually. And she’s quite passionate about the craft, despite her poor skills. Loves GBBO. Owns numerous Mary Berry cookbooks. Would sell her soul for a Paul Hollywood handshake, as would we all). 

I realise this question is about Lucy, but I’ll just throw in that Melusine isn’t a particularly good cook either, which is where she and I differ bc, despite the above anecdote, I’m actually not that bad in the kitchen. (She DOES however make REALLY good sushi). 

(I seem to remember Dite also enjoying baking. That being the case it sparks joy to picture her, too, giving Luce some pointers).

📅 If your OC had one day left to live, how would they spend it? (I HAD to give lucy this question by the way. I thought it was rather poignant 💀)

Hahaha haha ha… Wowww, I mean. Not like I’ve had annnyyyyyy reason to consider this scenario, AT ALL.

BUT.

Imma going out on a limb here and say she’d probs spend the day Planning.

ML!Lucy is v much a doer. Very driven/practical. She’d want to ensure that whatever enterprise she’d embarked on prior to her untimely demise was seen through to the end, one way or another. She’d write letters to all her loved ones, not only leaving instructions but also -- I'm guessing -- spilling her lil' heart out. So that they could be left in NO doubt as to how she really felt about them.

And then she’d just… enjoy the time she had left. Not make a big fuss, stoical as she is :(

🎨 Does your OC have any craft skill, as a hobby or profession? If so which?

I thought about this long and hard and eventually came to the conclusion that she and Ri once went on a jewellery-making course, which Lucy particularly enjoyed, thereby inspiring her to take it up as a sort-of-hobby.

Ozzy:

🪨 Someone gifts your OC a shiny rock. What do they do with it?

Two possibilities:

Possibility 1:

Treasures forever. Probs stores in his lil’ Trinket Room.

Possibility 2:

The book title is a callback to THIS absolute stroke of genius.

ANYWAY THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE ASK, LMELS. APOLOGIES FOR SPLURGING 😂😂

[wearestalwartdefender]

Name: Ruur Stonestrike

Age: 58

Race: Dwarf

Class: Fighter 7/Stalwart Defender 4

Special Abilities: Intercept, Unexpected Strike

Signature Weapon: Bastard Sword, Dwarven Plate Armor

Alignment: Chaotic Good - Ruur is guided by an internal code of ethics, so you'd not be wrong to assume he's Lawful Good. However, his code of ethics can be summed up rather easily into "Protect people, and make sure they're happy." Which, unfortunately, is somewhat abstract. Those who know him well will often comment that the outcomes of that code can vary massively.

History:

Ruur Stonestrike was born to shape the stone. His father had been a mason, his father had been a mason, on and on for longer than the records even extend in Kharn Faldir. The Stonestrikes were good kin, well beloved in their community. It was often believed that they'd been blessed by the Mountain Father, as their work was of the highest quality and their lives always seemed full of joy. From the time he took his first steps, Ruur did so with a hammer in his hands. And everyone knew that he would make his father proud.

While Ruur was still young, his father began to change. Pride and strong drink had gone to his head, and he became angry. He fought often with his wife, and would spend his time tormenting his boy. He screamed more than he spoke. His expectations were unreachable. He lied and manipulated. Because after all, should he not be served? Should he not be allowed to do as he wished with HIS family?

It was evident from an early age that Ruur was rowdy, in the Dwarven way. At the age of 4 he punched another boy for taking a smaller boy's toy. By the age of 5 he often escaped from his mother, only to be found fighting with boys who were known bullies. When he apprenticed as a mason, everyone expected that the labor would be enough outlet to curb his fighting. But Ruur was irrepressible and even apprentices can be bullies. After a string of pranks and fights with several Journeymen, Ruur was released from his apprenticeship.

His father was furious. Ruur had brought a deep shame on their family. To be released from an apprenticeship was almost an exiling among the folk of Kharn Faldir. He wasn't shunned, but all knew of the shame he bore. After several months of living thus, Ruur could stand it no longer. He couldn't feel ashamed of his actions, he had been defending those who were weaker than he was. But he also couldn't live with people who saw him as an outcast. So Ruur Stonestrike did what no Stonestrike had ever done. He left Kharn Faldir.

He journeyed first south, following rumor of another great Dwarven city. At first he traveled with caravans to be safe, but after a time he set out alone. As long as he stuck to the roads, he was safe and little worried him. After 5 months of travel, he had brought himself into the capital of the human Kingdom of Relendrin. Here he spent several months as a laborer, for he had finished his coin on the road and he knew not where to go.

After some time, Ruur began to feel restless. He struck out south again, seeking once more for the Dwarven city. And eventually he found it. The Dwarves of Halbohr welcomed their kin home, for they held little of their northern brethrens attitude. His love of fighting was encouraged, and he distinguished himself among their swordsmen. He spent years in their southern stronghold, learning to fight. Eventually, he found employment with one of the city's many mercenary companies. From them he learned to hold positions, to withstand sieges both large and small. Toughened by his time on the road, he was unbreakable. Tempered by his time in the Dwaven war city, he was unmovable. He made his name as the dwarf to be called in if something could not be lost. His brothers in arms became his brothers in heart.

One day, he decided he was ready to go home. He left his new family, with a promise to return. He traveled north again. But his road home is a long one, that he seems content to make in his own time. Until then, he is an adventurer for hire. A wall of steel that his companions know can always be depended on.

Image is:

dwarf

By kikicianjur

On Deviantart

[sunlightswitchblade]

you are a violent and irrepressible miracle.

some type of creative. my only goal is to leave a fingerprint on the universe's tapestry. everything else is just commitment to the bit.

I have a lot of ocs that are part of a narrative I've been working on for over a decade. @entity-of-faith is where you'll find bits and pieces. maybe more.

I love talking -The Talker

discover more below the bunger. I love you.

howdy. I'm axel. there's a lot of ways you could describe me. art enthusiast, product of chaos, bastard, hyperpop sympathizer, apocalypse catholic, literally the joker, future improbably canonized saint, divinely transsexual, kafkaesque, a statistically significant lovepilled hopecel, just some guy, and perhaps most importantly, in the words of my old man, "a delusional anarchist faggot"

upgrade my skill tree for more concise details, lore, and an assortment of random information i acquire every single day. dm to ask for discord or just to say hi <3 I don't bite unless we've talked about it beforehand

banner by @verivititum my beloved meow meow 🩷

don't forget your daily clicks while you're here 🫶

[requitals]

#requitals, a multimuse by k (25, she/they). private & selective. very low activity—basically when i feel like it, let's be honest.

rules-wise, just don't be weird about it. this is not my most active blog and will never be.

muse list below the cut. subject to change etc. etc. i've asterisked the ones that are rattling around in my brain especially quickly at this moment in time (10/25/23).

films

john constantine / constantine (2005) - bastard first, exorcist second. more or less doomed depending on how you look at it. vague with timeline. *brendan frye / brick (2005) - grimy noir detective in modern day and very sunny san clemente, california. generally set a few years post-movie at minimum where he's grown up and has not gotten better. *bruce wayne / the batman (2022), batman: unburied, several comics of my specific choice - the prince of gotham and the bat. generally played later in his life, in his thirties or forties, where he's figured it out but still has a plethora of psychological issues. chani / dune films + book inspo (2021 -) - you know, i love when we make chani into a real character. anyway arrakis is Her planet actually and she did turn away from that holy war. also, she has every right to be blowing up the spice harvesters actually. irulan corrino / dune films + book inspo (2021 -) - i'm still sort of spinning around everything with her but by god do i need her devious little brain. and her willpower on things. she's not a good bene gesserit but she is an excellent political figure.

television

number five / the umbrella academy (2019-), canon divergent - ex-temporal assassin turned grumpy teleporting world saver. not really interested in the show's time looping thing. way more interested in revenge. *charlie cale / poker face (2023 -) - basically girl columbo but not a cop. blue collar detective extraordinaire. can be set basically anywhere with how far she travels. *dominique dipierro / mr. robot (2015-2019) - miserable lonely fbi agent, socially incapable, completely consumed by her work (unless she's not). generally set post-canon, but i can play around with this.

games

harry dubois / disco elysium (2019) - pile of neuroses and complexes in the shape of a man. irrepressible miracle. tequila sunset. i can play around and put this whenever. kim kitsuragi / disco elysium (2019) - most straight-laced lieutenant in revachol. extremely uncool unless he is standing next to harry dubois, at which point he becomes the coolest guy in the area. whenever in canon. *james savage / el paso, elsewhere (2023) - monster hunter turned vampire all because of a toxic ex. noir protagonist. recovering addict. full of the troubles. generally post-game, but you can play around whenever. *saga anderson / alan wake 2 (2023) - fbi agent caught in alan wake's horror story. descended from the old gods of asgard (both band and deity). has seer abilities and a steady hand with a gun. canon is... interesting here. we'd have to talk about it. karlach cliffgate / baldur's gate 3 (2023) - tiefling barbarian with an infernal engine in her chest that's going to erupt. fundamentally good person cursed by the narrative. literally deserves all the anger in the world, actually, even if letting herself feel it is dangerous.

novels

jade daniels / my heart is a chainsaw (2019-) - final girl who doesn't think she's a final girl. horror movie buff. recovering from a truly horrific childhood, as much as one can. we can play around with timeline on this.

podcasts

mabel martin / mabel (2018-) - girl on fire, girl with flowers growing out of her, not a girl at all but a mouth of many teeth. do not ask me about mabel podcast canon timeline. david ward / i am in eskew (2018-) - pathetic lonely cringefail history major who got trapped in a horrific city that fell in love with his pathetic vibes. might be a ghost. has a nightmarish reflection. probably post-canon unless your guy wants to end up in the city of eskew (not recommended for health and wellbeing).

[valdomarx]

Anon requested: Geralt/Jaskier body swap

“It’s not funny, Yen,” Geralt growls. Or, rather, he intends to growl, but it comes out as a petulant whine. He crosses his arms and scowls, but the effect is ruined by the ridiculous puffy baby blue doublet he's wearing and the way his hair flops rakishly over one eye.

Yennefer looks from him to Jaskier, who is trying to hide his now considerable bulk behind a tall plant. He is not succeeding.

“No, you’re right, it isn’t funny,” Yennefer soothes. “It’s hilarious.”

“So glad we could entertain you,” Jaskier snaps, and it’s so strange for Geralt to watch his own body bouncing around the room animated by Jaskier’s irrepressible energy. “But I have a performance tonight and I can’t very well play like this -” he gestures with Geralt’s thick, stubby fingers, which are admittedly poorly suited to playing the lute. “So fix it. Please.”

“You don’t want me to do that,” she says, not looking apologetic. “It’s a powerful binding spell and while I could break it forcibly, it would risk both your lives. You’re better off waiting a few days until it runs its course.”

“So we’re stuck like this?” Geralt can’t control the timbre of his voice and it wobbles and rises dramatically. It's awful.

Yennefer shrugs. “I’m sure you’ll manage. Who knows,” she smirks, “perhaps it’ll be educational for both of you.”

.

“How many times must we do this, Jaskier? I can’t play the bloody lute!”

“Of course you can. Your muscles remember how, and so do your fingers. Just relax into it. Give it another go.”

Geralt pouts (when did he start pouting?) and picks at the strings. His hands do feel like they’re itching to play, but it’s like they’re moving faster than his mind and every time he tries to exert control over them, he falters.

“Stop thinking so much,” Jaskier growls, and he’s actually a little scary like this. There’s a thunderous expression on his face and Geralt wonders if this is how he comes across to other people. “Let’s start with something easy. I’ll sing a song you know, and you play along as best you can.”

He hums a few scales and turns to Geralt, his usually stoic witcher face twisted into a mischievous grin. “Geralt! You’ve been holding out on me. If I’d know you were hiding a lovely baritone all this time, I’d have insisted you join me for a duet before now.”

Geralt groans and wishes the ground would swallow him whole.

.

“Absolutely not.”

“It’s a couple of drowners, Geralt. I could probably kill them even in my own body.”

“You really couldn’t.”

“I’ll have you know that I have been paying some attention over the last decade. I’ve learnt things. Drowners move in packs. They’re immune to poison but vulnerable to silver. When you engage a group, move in fast and hard but don’t let any get behind you. See?”

Jaskier draws his sword and drops into a combat stance. Admittedly, he moves with a grace and elegance that suggests someone well-trained. However...

“Jaskier?”

“Hmm?”

“What you were saying about having paid attention, knowing your lore, being a capable monster hunter...”

“What about it?”

“That’s the wrong sword. Silver for monsters.”

“Oh. Right. Is this not silver? Ahh. No, I see that now. Whoops. Let’s try this again.”

“You are definitely going to be eaten by a drowner.”

.

Three days later, the strain of their situation is starting to show.

“This body, it’s... I feel like...” Geralt chews at his lower lip, frustration and embarrassment racing through him with a force he’s still unused to. “Fuck, Jaskier, how are you so horny all the time?”

Jaskier laughs, the bastard, rich and warm and deep. “Welcome to my life.”

“I’ve already jerked off three times today and it hasn’t helped.”

That makes Jaskier stop laughing. Witchers don’t blush, but Geralt recognises the way his mouth gapes. “You... with my body... you unchivalrous brute!”

Geralt scoffs. “Nothing I haven’t seen before.”

“Why, you...” Jaskier glowers. “And I have been so restrained. I have controlled not only my libidinous urges but also my natural and deep-seated curiosity in defence of your privacy. Well, that’s quite enough of that! I'm off to take a bath and I'm going to enjoy myself thoroughly, thank you very much.”

That makes something race uncomfortably under his skin. He swallows and avoids looking in Jaskier’s direction.

.

“Put me down!”

“I will do no such thing,” Jaskier cackles, throwing Geralt over his shoulder like a rag doll. It’s extremely undignified. “This is too much fun.”

“Damn it, Jaskier, put me down!” He beats his fists uselessly against Jaskier’s back. “Or I’ll... I’ll wait until you’re asleep and I’ll cut your hair.”

Jaskier drops him to the ground and gasps. “You wouldn’t dare!”

Geralt levels him with his best steely glare. “Try me.”

“You’ve already made such a mess of it.” Jaskier tuts as he cards his fingers through Geralt’s - or rather, his own - hair. A ridiculous pang of jealously twinges inside Geralt. He has, perhaps, idly wondered in the past how it would feel to run his hand through Jaskier’s hair, and it’s not the same when he does it to himself.

“Even like this,” Jaskier says, brushing a finger along Geralt’s cheek, “you still manage to scowl.”

“It’s my natural charm,” he grumbles, and he has a horrible feeling he might be pouting again.

.

Geralt wakes up the next morning feeling fresh and alert to the sounds of the birds outside the window, the smell of bread baking downstairs, the feel of rain approaching later in the day... And thanks the gods, as he rubs his eyes it’s with his own hand, and he looks down to confirm he’s back in his own scarred body. 

Jaskier is sleeping next to him, splayed out across the bed and taking up far more room than someone his size ought to be able to, drooling into the pillow. It’s so unmistakably Jaskier, and somehow Geralt has missed him.

Geralt allows himself an indulgence and gently brushes the hair from Jaskier’s face. It feels soft beneath his fingers, silky and springy. Jaskier snuffles in his sleep, rolling over and scooting closer. Geralt chivalrously puts an am around his shoulders and he cuddles into Geralt’s chest with a comfortable, contented smile.

Much better. Everything back in its right place.

[sickficsies-and-whumpsies]

Ok this is for the fic requests.

Would you write a MHA sickfic where Tomoyasu (Skeptic) is ingured and cannot walk after the war arc and when they all flee, it is Dabi's duty to take care of him?

He has to carry him around and change his bandages and when it comes to sleeping, he has to stay by his side because Skeptic keeps screaming in his sleep.

Just a soft Dabi taking care of him as they are in hiding. Sprinkle it with angst as much as you like if you decide to write it. Also, take your own liberties, don't worry.

I know that you don't write much about the villain side of MHA but I am hopeful ❤

Also, take your time and tale care of yourself.

Hi there, my dear! I had lots of fun writing this, hopefully it’s similar to what you had in mind. I sprinkled it with plenty of angst just for you, heh! Please let me know your thoughts on this, everyone, and be sure to read the CWs in the tags! (OCT 19)

He comes to slowly, sore all over, immediately overwhelmed by loud noises and dust, or smoke, he can’t tell. Hidden eyes scan the surroundings meticulously, though it’s quite hard to see through the haze一 it might be in his head, too. 

Skeptic tries to stand, and fails miserably as he falls back on his butt, hands automatically gripping at his legs as he suppresses a pained cry. The man hisses under his breath, trying to force himself to calm down enough to assess the damage, at least. He feels something wet and sticky clog up his airways, breath caught in his throat, copper filling his mouth rapidly as he spits some onto the cracked pavement, a rattled wheeze escaping a pair of chapped, split lips.

And that’s when wary eyes wander towards the source of irrepressible agony, the lower part of his body, and still at the horrific sight. 

Strips of mangled skin dangle limply from his legs, blood pooling under his body, warm as his once-neat suit soaks it up like a sponge, now tinged in a darker shade of sickening maroon. Everything under his knees is gone, the bones stick out of the skin, bleeding profusely. The man’s tibiae and fibulae appear shattered and severed unevenly, stained in dark blood and shredded muscle tissue. 

And Skeptic doesn't even hear himself screaming. The world is tuned out, everything around him moving slowly, jittery. His throat bleeds more when a series of blood-curdling yells push all the little air in his lungs out, and when一 just a moment later一 he hurls onto his lap, blood and bile sticking uncomfortably to his clothed skin. Needless to say, Skeptic is more focused on his missing limbs. 

Skeptic doesn’t register the hand that grabs his shoulder and drags him into a supine position, and that proceeds to cup his face, not gently, no. The grip is tight, his cheeks get squished uncomfortably until his teeth almost cut the insides. 

“...tic, oi, Skeptic! Shit, hey, hey!” someone calls, but Tomoyasu’s not entirely there.

“Come on, oi, look at me, goddamnit!” comes the voice again. 

The hand’s grip tightens around his face, quite forcing the injured man to somewhat snap back into focus. 

His skin is rapidly losing its color, eyes duller with each passing second. The hand leaves for an instant, only for two fingers to get shoved under his jaw and press down onto his neck in an almost painful manner. It sets on his face again, and promptly slaps him, hard. 

Skeptic’s gaze shifts, finally focusing on the figure that hovers menacingly above him. He coughs up, and specks of blood are spilled on the familiar face.

“Da...bi…?”

“Oh shit, alright, you’re still alive, good. Listen, listen to me, okay? That一” he points at the bleeding stumps, though Tomoyasu can’t quite see from that angle. “一is going to kill you sooner than the bastards that will want your head for joining us. I can fix it, but it will hurt like a bitch.”

Dabi’s voice is uncharacteristically shaky, high-pitched, fast and loud, but that’s probably because of the hell on Earth that’s unraveling before their eyes. That penetrating, lapis gaze isn’t as cold as usual, there’s an unknown glint that shines in them. It’s quite the scary sight.

“Are you listening to me, shithead!?” he asks, shaking the man violently. 

The only answer he gets is a sluggish nod, but Dabi will take it.

“Shigaraki wants you alive, so I still need to rescue you despite everything. I’ll cauterize the wounds just enough to avoid you bleeding out on me while I drag you away from this shithole, and then we’ll get you to a real doctor or whatever.” Dabi yells hurriedly, cringing at his own volume一 it really can’t be helped when there’s people blowing whole buildings up in the background, civilians running down the street while holding the bloody corpses of their loved ones. 

Truly hell on Earth, Skeptic muses at some point. 

Maybe it’s the bloodloss, maybe it’s the pain, maybe it’s the desire to end it all, but he doesn’t pay attention to a single word that Dabi’s saying. And the latter, quite frankly, doesn’t care one bit.

He removes his own belt, and then moves to do the same to Skeptic’s, not even making any dirty nor snarky remark as he unceremoniously slips the leather strip out of the belt loops, the material completely unraveled at his violent attempt.

He’s quick to fasten a belt around each stump, as tightly as possible. Skeptic cringes and moans, but he’s too drained, not only metaphorically, to react more actively.

The pain clouds his mind, and his breaths are shallower than ever. There’s a tunnel before him, a blinding halo of pale light assaulting his senses, but also calling his name.

It’s so tempting.

And indeed, he gives in to the lullaby of death. For a split second, he does. Skeptic is sure that he’s dying, he’s not even upset about it anymore, body heavy, soul hefting.

But when a burning, sizzling agony rouses him, spreading throughout his decaying body, Tomoyasu’s voice is so loud to be heard from kilometers away. He screams, raw and pathetic, his eyes roll back, froth stained in pink stains the corners of his unhinged jaw, staining his cheeks and ears. 

The man’s back arches, and he instinctively tries to kick the menace away. The thought of the impossibility of his attempted action doesn’t cross his mind once.

“Shit, fuck, stay still, I’m一 fuck, Skeptic, damn it! I’m almost done! Calm the fuck down, you idiot!” comes Dabi’s voice, mildly panicked and with a hint of annoyance in it, too.

The stench of burnt skin reaches Tomoyasu’s nostrils, clogged in blood, and he’s rapid enough to turn his head to the side and dry-heave repeatedly, coughing and sputtering and blubbering like a bunny with its tiny leg caught in a rusty bear-trap. Dabi’s free hand grips at his upper leg as the other staunches the wound as neatly as he can manage, once, then twice. 

Dabi gags, too. 

But that’s not a pressing issue, now, he thinks bitterly, swallowing the memories down.

And finally, just like the agony had started, it’s over. Skeptic draws in a shaky breath, in and out of consciousness as the world around him tilts and spins, awareness splitting at the seams.

He barely protests as Dabi hefts him up awkwardly, picking him up into a firefighter-carry as he mutters something unintelligible and blasphemous to himself. 

“The truck isn’t far, stay awake. You hear me?”

“Mnh…”

Dabi takes off without hesitation. His hold onto Skeptic is solid and steady as he runs, avoiding to step onto the corpses scattered onto the asphalt out of practicality, more than respect for the dead. 

Not even when Tomoyasu brings up a mouthful of blood and stomach acid, does Dabi stop. He keeps putting one foot in front of the other, trying to keep the man on his shoulders alert with occasional remarks and a plethora of colorful insults.

It only takes five minutes, but to Dabi, who’s the only one awake between the two, now, it seems like an eternity has passed. Admittedly, taking care of others isn’t something he’s been trained to do. Ever. Patching himself up has been the norm since he can remember, but caring for others, on the other hand, is a very unfamiliar, stranger concept.

Only once he finally, finally eases Skeptic’s limp body onto the floor of the League’s dirty truck, sprawled next to Toga’s, Dabi realises just how much he’s shaking. He extends a hand, feeling his pulse again, and completely ignores the other members’ questions as he lets himself sink against the side of the truck, spent.

- - -

The problem is, Skeptic won’t rest. 

He doesn’t do that intentionally, the sketchy medics (who certainly got their licences revoked long ago for malpractice, Dabi assumes) assure him.

It’s just that healing is a painful process in this case, it can’t be helped.

“It could.” Dabi seethes, sitting at Skeptic’s beside once they’re gone, “It could be fucking helped if we could go to a real hospital instead of entrusting these shitheads with such delicate tasks.”

His eyes set onto Skeptic’s restless form. His head tosses back and forth without a break, dry mouth opening and closing without uttering a coherent sound, eyebrows scrunched in agony.

- - -

“Calm down, fuck, hey, sh一 Skeptic, please, shut up!” Dabi pleads, exhausted. Strong hands try to push the screaming man back onto the mattress, upper legs kicking the air futilely. “You need to calm the fuck down, man, you’re freaking me out!”

Dabi hisses slightly at the unnatural heat emanating from Tomoyasu’s sweaty skin. His awful bangs are plastered to his damp forehead, pillow and sheets soaked entirely. On top of that, Dabi can clearly see the blood that has started to seep through the bandages, meaning that the stitches and his (admittedly) cobbled together work at staunching the wounds have been useless. 

He extends a hand, his other pressed firmly against Skeptic’s torso, just strong enough to keep him down, and sets it onto the man’s forehead. He switches between the back and the palm of his hand before cursing profusely. 

Dabi just prays that the antibiotics and painkillers that the doctors have injected Skeptic with will work soon. And part of him wishes that his people would have access to better equipment, to a better healthcare system when ill and injured, at least. 

That last thought alone has him chuckling under his breath. 

“That’ll never happen, hm?” Dabi says out loud, subconsciously. “Minor criminals have the right to life, but what right to life do we, people who take lives, have? None, right?”

Tomoyasu whimpers under his gentle touches. Dabi sighs. 

“It’s pretty late for moral debates, I agree. Sorry, Skeptic.” 

He finds himself running a hand through the sweaty bangs, a feeble memory of what his mother used to do to him to soothe his anxiety and pain. A shiver runs down his spine, stomach twisting tightly. No. Not that. Not now, fucker. Stop it.

He keeps caressing the man’s scalp, not in a romantic way, no. It’s just muscle memory, something he’d done for Shouto once, maybe twice, and for Fuyumi and Natsuo plenty of times. It’s affectionate, caring, and something he craves dearly. 

“Do you think that… that someone not-so-human like me has a right to want that?” he asks, question met with the mutters coming out of a fever-addled brain.

“You shouldn’t have joined us, man. You should’ve stayed out of this shit. What are your life prospects with us, anyway? Just… turn yourself in, Skeptic. You’ll have access to fresh food and medical care, at least. Better than this crappy life we can offer.” he smiles, bitter and hurt.

He wishes he could do that. He wishes he still had that chance. But he’s too far gone now, too deep into this mess to back out and take care of his private business. 

They don’t have rags nor a bowl, so all the young man can do is sit and watch. Skeptic’s continuous cries for help are the only thing that keeps him afloat during that cold night.

Skeptic pants and groans, he shifts onto the mattress like a dying man. He is, sort of, Dabi notes.

The other and lets the fever consume him, upper limbs flaying incessantly as he tosses the sheets away and grabs them again an instant later. 

[wrctings]

just some (slightly angsty) eruri fluff for you all because i miss them 🥰

“And so when I snapped my fingers right beside him, I got his attention. Actually got it! I’ve never had a titan stare at me like this, so intensely,” Hanji’s eyes sparkled, aglow with both irrepressible enthusiasm and the warm reflection from the room’s candle light, her fingers eagerly curled around the handle of a cup. “If only you’d seen it... I think he may have finally recognised me, given all the time we spent together... But we have to wait and see. And there’s also that plant we brought back from the last expedition! It’s growing! We put it in a more humid zone, like where we found it, and it’s actually growing.”

Levi had always known Hanji was a little excessive. Well, really excessive for the most part - especially when she’d get into one of her endless tirades about titans, marvelling over their monstrous abilities and curious shape and reflexes and whatnot... Sometimes, it drove Levi up to the wall to watch their scientist go into raptures over the senseless beasts that had crushed or torn apart so many of their fallen comrades. Though, to be fair, he could hardly blame Hanji - she was with them, after all; among the first ranks during expeditions, flanked by the officers’ side. That titan-loving thing was just a quirk of hers, just like Levi’s own cleaning thing, which he suspected many of their subordinates looked upon as a curious and slightly frightening obsession.

So, more often than not, Levi patiently kept his mouth shut, listening to Hanji’s passionate rants and picking out the useful information only, letting the rest slide into oblivion. But tonight, Levi’s usual self-control act had been getting pushed toward its limit, a disgruntled frown hidden behind his cup of tea. And the reason? Always the same golden-haired bastard.

White sleeves rolled up to the elbows, torso leaning over the wooden table, his blue eyes bright and animated by the same radiant shimmer of curiosity as in Hanji’s gaze, Erwin was hanging onto his friend’s every word.

“So, if some plants can only survive in a special kind of climate, the outside world must be...”

“Full of plants yet unknown to us! And of landscapes we can’t even imagine! And if that plant we brought back can only thrive in a wet kind of environment...”

“...Maybe there’s a large pool of water somewhere further away, beyond the limit we stopped at last time!”

Levi cursed Hanji from the bottom of his heart. Erwin’s entire attention seemed to be focused on the subject, blind to the rest of the room.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here, we’re not quite sure of anything yet,” Moblit put his hands up with a sheepish smile, cooling off some of Hanji’s building elation. “First, let’s see how our titan and our plants fare in the upcoming weeks...”

“Our titan and our plants!” Hanji happily cried out, squeezing Moblit’s hand, cheeks burning red from excitement.

“Even if it’s only guesses, the captive titans and those plants can still provide precious information. It takes us one step closer to knowing the truth of the world,” Erwin’s hopeful and determined gaze met Hanji’s, both bound by a mutual fervour.

Levi silently watched them from the side, scowling. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t give a lesser shit about all of this - he wanted to rid the world of titans, to keep tightening until the last monster fell under their blades. Not bustle about captured titans in wonderment or waste time growing plants... In that moment, he resent their joy; joy sprung from the bloody cadavres of their comrades. Was this what they dedicated their heart for? Part of Levi knew perfectly well that, of course, all Hanji and Erwin gushed over was important to some degree. But he couldn’t quite share in their foolishness.

“Well, here’s to another step then,” Moblit raised his glass, smiling fondly when he caught a glimpse of the earnest exhilaration radiating off Hanji’s face. She did more often than not put him through the mill, but that’s also why he liked her, wasn’t it?

The other two officers followed Moblit’s lead, lifting their glasses up into the air, but before clinking them together Erwin shot a lighthearted look at Levi, raising his eyebrows as if asking the Captain to join in. With a muffled sigh, Levi shook his head reluctantly.

“Teacups aren’t meant for your drunken shit.”

He got away with a small movement of the hand, slowly shooting it upward in a way that made it seem he took part in the toast.

Erwin, Hanji, and Moblit drank on cordially, indulging in one of the rare merry celebrations they’d allow themselves to enjoy - the last expedition had been a success after all, with no casualties and only two superficially hurt soldiers! Such victories did truly raise the troops’ morale, so, in addition to the dinner feast everybody got to delight in, Erwin wanted to also congratulate the officers who had been working had on the expedition. Hence the wine. 

Only when the crepuscular haze of the night sky hovered over the barracks did the party begin to retire, tired grins and slightly dizzy heads wishing each other goodnight with remains of gaiety seeping through their lips; such a carefree, congenial time would probably be long to come again, so they had drunk from the brimming glass of furtive bliss until the very last honeyed drop dried out on their tongue. Waving Erwin and Levi goodnight, Hanji - held up by Moblit, bless his soul - stumbled around the corner of the corridor leading to her quarters, relying on the loyal shoulder that would help her get to her room safe and sound and not accidentally crash someplace else and carelessly pass out for the night. 

Much like Moblit, Levi had taken up the habit of bringing Erwin to his room after another day of exhausting work or a festive evening, watching the commander’s ever steady pace out of the corner of his attentive eye and listening to him jabber about whatever occupied his mind on that day, barely responding himself, but always paying silent attention to Erwin’s words. Although he didn’t admit it to his own self at first - he liked it. Liked having Erwin stroll beside him, his deep and slightly fatigued voice untangling the knots in Levi’s own head, keeping everything at bay but an inexplicable wave of... comfort. And, soon enough, the comfort had even turned into something more. 

“Did you enjoy the night, Levi?” Erwin inquired in his usual late-night chattery fashion, fingers already working the top buttons of his white shirt as the commander’s quarters arose in their field of vision.

The only answer he got out of Levi was a grunt, the short Captain pushing the door before them open. It slammed against the wall a little too harshly.

“Something on your mind?” Erwin persevered, trying to read the other man’s crossed features. 

“Alright.” Levi ended up conceding, a resigned sigh escaping the vexed line of his mouth. “Erwin, I can’t seem to give the slightest crap about those shitty plants.”

“Ah, Hanji may convince you they’re—” Erwin started again, smiling at what he thought was just a heedless comment of Levi’s, but the way he was interrupted soon let him guess otherwise.

“No, you don’t understand. I don’t get excited like you brats. I just... Don’t. I can’t bring myself to care about shitty glasses’ experiments. Or even... That stuff you talked about,” Levi waved his hand vaguely, hoping it was allusive enough.

A thoughtful moment’s silence passed, Erwin considering what Levi had just admitted - he began to recall now how retiring Levi had indeed seemed during tonight’s celebration, quietly grumbling by himself and even cutting short on the playful insults he would usually hand out.

“I’m sorry that you didn’t have fun tonight, Levi.”

“Feel sorry for yourself. You’re the one stuck with a killjoy of a brat,” Levi attempted a sarcastic smile, but it came out distorted by a hint of sad resignation. Ever since he and Erwin had... this - whatever it was called - Levi didn’t hold back as much as he used to anymore; something about Erwin’s kind understanding, no matter the slander ghosts clouding the Captain’s mind, put him at ease. So Levi spoke his mind.

“Sorry?”

Erwin’s reassuring arms twined around Levi’s torso, the commander’s head settling on top of his - the height difference, Levi had to admit, was convenient -, and he planted a long kiss on top of his head; the first real one of the day, after the hasty pecks he had stolen from Levi in between tasks. For Levi, those intimate hours were dreams he’d never wish to wake up from. “Why should I feel sorry, when I can’t believe my luck?”

“I’m not exactly the funniest person you can find, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“And so what? I, for one thing, think you are funny. Your dark humour may take some getting used to at first, but afterwards, you crack me up, my dear,” Erwin mused, littering Levi’s neck with sloppy kisses. “I love you.”

“You’re a terrible liar, Erwin.”

However, Levi’s heavy heart did feel lighter already; to feel Erwin’s lips on his skin, his warm hands fiddling with Levi’s uniform to help him take it off, his precious words whispered against his ear - for Levi, and Levi only, to hear and treasure and greedily take for himself - soothes the Captain’s unexpected rush of self-depreciation. But seeing how happy Erwin had looked while talking to Hanji and Moblit had left a painful imprint Levi struggled to erase from his memory. What if... what if he’d never make Erwin this happy?

“Levi, I don’t care that you don’t get excited over shitty plants. You and I can care about different things and still care about each other too, yeah?” Levi felt the nuzzle in his neck send shivers down his spine, another one of Erwin’s kisses mending the cracks in his heart one by one. “I know you press my shirts whenever they get too creased. You bring coffee and food to my office when I’m working too much. You take Hanji’s laundry into her room when she forgets it. You help the recruits who fall behind in training...” Erwin kept on talking, going around Levi to face him in the candlelit room, until his nose gently bumped against his, and their lips met in what Levi could only describe as solace. “The list goes on and on. These are all the things you care about. And I love you for it.”

“...It seems your sappy stuff still gets me. You shitty, sentimental brat,” Levi drowned a teary chuckle in Erwin’s chest, clutching the fabric of the commander’s uniform in his fist. Then, he retired in his cat-like fashion, starting to ondo the buttons Erwin had started to work on. “I had no idea you were fucking spying on me the entire time.”

“Your fault.” Erwin followed Levi’s lead, getting rid of his own uniform before he slipped into bed, a tired look softening his features, and loose strands of hair falling out of place upon his forehead.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Levi joined him, huddling beneath the clean and cosy bedsheets, and brushed the hair away from Erwin’s face, savouring its end-of-the-day softness between his fingers.

“It’s your fault for having such a beautiful soul.”

“A beautiful soul?” Levi scoffed gently, pressing his shoulder against Erwin’s. “Never heard anything this stupid before.”

“It’s true. You may not believe me yet, but I’ll keep doing this” Erwin took Levi’s hand in his, kissing his calloused knuckles - “and this” -, then wrist - “and this”, then forearm, “and this, until you do.”

“I’m no sap like you, so it might take a while...,” Levi murmured in return, pressing a kiss into Erwin’s neck. A beautiful soul? Never before had Levi heard such words - and never before had his heart skipped a beat like it did when they struck him.

“It’s okay,” Erwin cuddled up to Levi, not suppressing a deep contented sigh when the other man’s nails gently raked his scalp, playing with his hair. “I won’t quit.”

[teawaffles]

Forbidden Games: Chapter 6

“……What?”

At his unbelievable statement, Sherlock frowned.

“What did you say?”

The question was coloured with rage, but Alan responded nonchalantly.

“Oh, did you think that was it? If that’s the case, then you’ve been a little naive.”

In direct contrast to Sherlock, William pressed on in a deathly chilly tone.

“What happened to our agreement that you would let this man go if we won?”

“Indeed, I had promised that. However, there was no requirement stating that he had to be in one piece.”

Taking Alan’s answer as a signal, the accomplice who had subdued the hostage swiftly slashed at the young man’s face with his knife. The man let out a high-pitched scream.

“You bastard……”

That inhumane act made Sherlock remember his rage. It was then that William knew the premonition he had before the game began had come true.

Without a doubt, this man wanted to keep playing—— until he won.

A paltry self-respect that led him to disregard the clear settlement they had reached, and be unable to accept his defeat: in order to protect that, he would use every trick in the book to force the game to continue.

“Have you no sense of shame?”

“——I know it all too well. To me, the greatest humiliation is admitting defeat to scum like you.”

Alan had instantly discarded his superficial formality, spitting out his words in a threatening tone.

Sherlock shrugged.

“Going to such lengths for a shallow motive like this is worse than a woman’s selfishness. Well, that wouldn’t be the case if we were really playing on an equal footing.”

“Don’t act like you know what you’re talking about, lad. You hear me? You and I mean very different things when we talk about equality. The weak will always watch the faces of the strong and live off their graciousness. It is only when the balance of this hierarchical relationship is maintained, that equality is achieved. In other words, where we are standing, as the one in a position of absolute superiority, I am the very rule, the very principle of law you must follow. If you’ve got that, then get on with it and follow my instructions.”

“…………”

After hearing Alan’s perverse argument, it wasn’t just William and Sherlock, but even his own accomplices who couldn’t help but laugh.

As their ‘fair’ game continued in this small world, it seemed this man’s arrogance would only continue to inflate until it became irrepressible.

However, it was also clear that no amount of objection to this injustice would benefit the hostage.

“It seems he’ll no longer listen to reason.”

It was a contradiction: no matter how many times they won, their victory would never be acknowledged. William said so in resignation, and Sherlock let out a huge sigh in agreement.

“It’s no use. Let’s play one more time then. That okay with you?”

Alan almost laughed in triumph.

“Absolutely. ……Well then, let’s begin the next match.”

“The same game again? Or perhaps another one?”

At William’s question, Alan drew close to an accomplice and whispered into his ear. Then two more revolvers were placed on the table.

A total of three guns. In other words, the next game would have three players. If that was the case, then——.

William stared at the guns in silence.

“Just as you guessed. Our next game is also one you've heard about from that club member earlier.”

A game where three people would use three guns. Sherlock remembered hearing something like that in the hall.

“In this next game, the two of you will be playing with me. Each of us will take a gun and choose our positions. But now when it’s your turn, you will be firing at another player. The last man standing is the winner. ……Or rather, should I say there can only be one winner?”

Just a single victor. The two of them could guess what that rule meant.

If only one man would be left standing, then no matter which side won, it would still be their loss.

Between William and Sherlock, one of them would have to die.

Alan continued his explanation.

“Most importantly, each of these guns will contain a different number of rounds.”

Sherlock cocked his head.

“Different? You mean we’re not loading one bullet at a time?”

“That’s right. So the guns will have six, three or two bullets respectively. We’ll start from the player whose gun has the fewest rounds.”

Each gun had a maximum capacity of six rounds. In terms of probabilities, the chances of getting shot would be one-in-one, one-in-two, and one-in-three respectively. If they managed to reach the third player, someone would definitely be killed.

“…………”

William brooded over this new development.

A perverse game of Russian roulette where two players were sure to die. If they were to proceed as-is, one of them would be sacrificed, but Alan was also risking his life. However, for one so proficient at self-preservation, it stood to reason that he had prepared a trick to remain alive in this game. And it was—— that.

Having watched the events unfold as he had predicted, William cast a sideways glance at Sherlock.

Now all that was left, was for him to die.

With that ominous warning in his heart, William spoke up.

“As for the sequence in which we play…… how will we be deciding that?”

Alan rested his chin on his hand, and raised the corner of his mouth.

“This time, I’m at a disadvantage. So it’s only fair for me to choose first.”

“! You bastard, I’ve had enough of——“

Sherlock attempted to protest against that reversal in logic, but William reached out to stop him before he could do so. Here, where their opponent could be as selfish as he pleased, it would be pointless to say anything further.

“Then, what position will you choose?”

“I’ll take the gun with three bullets. So I’ll be going second.”

“I see.”

So Alan had chosen three bullets.

“How about you, Mr Holmes?”

“……You sure you’re alright letting me pick first?”

“I don’t mind.”

Sherlock spoke slowly, as if he had been forced to make a difficult decision.

“I’m choosing the one with…… six bullets.”

“Third place, I see. So I’ll be taking the gun with two bullets, and going first.”

With their positions decided, William and Sherlock picked up their newly-issued revolvers.

The sequence went as follows: William would go first, with two bullets, followed by Alan with three bullets, and finally, Sherlock with six bullets.

Alan watched with amusement as the two men, unable to escape, were doing exactly what he wanted. However, there was no sense of agitation among the two of them. At first glance, it did seem that they were forced to play along with his whims. But in reality, the entire situation was in the palm of William’s hand.

In the end, Alan was merely obsessed with the game. In contrast, at this point William and Sherlock had no regard for winning or losing. The games would go on forever and ever until their opponent was satisfied. They had no intention of playing along with such a farce.

“So the order has been decided. Then let us proceed to load the bullets into our guns, and as for that——”

“——There is a concern that players themselves may miscount the number of bullets, so may we invite another party to do the honours?”

As if he’d stolen Alan’s line, William personally presented his revolver to the gentleman standing behind him.

Having been preempted, Alan sniffed in displeasure.

“……We knew that already. That’s right. In the interest of ‘fairness’, let’s have a third party load the bullets.”

Saying that, Sherlock also passed his gun to the man standing behind him. Although it could never actually be fair when they were surrounded by Alan’s men, William and Sherlock had ceased to object.

Instead, William listened carefully. He took in the sounds of Alan’s accomplices loading the bullets without hesitation. Sherlock’s gun had six rounds. Alan’s gun had three. His own gun had two. That was the only aspect where it seemed they were disciplined enough to follow the rules. It was as if they were trying to convince themselves that the game was fair.

Soon the preparations were complete, and the game began.

The first to go was, William.

He looked at his revolver. As expected, there were scratches: three on the body, and one on the cylinder.

“Well then, young noble. Who will you shoot?”

His target could be Sherlock, or Alan. Or……

He cocked the hammer, and aimed the barrel at his target. Right then and there, Alan and his accomplices were rendered utterly speechless.

William was pointing the gun at his own head.

With neither hesitation nor regard for the reactions of the people around him, he pulled the trigger.

——A click.

His strange act left Alan and his men dumbfounded.

“What the heck were you——”

It seemed like Alan wanted to question the motive for his eccentric behaviour. But immediately, his expression changed as if he’d thought of something. He pointed his gun at Sherlock and pulled the trigger.

His chances were one-in-two — and the revolver fired.

“Guh……”

He’d been hit in the stomach. Sherlock’s face twisted in agony as he crumpled from his chair onto the ground, and lay still.

“With that, Mr Holmes has been eliminated,” William announced indifferently.

Taking in the extreme calm with which William accepted his partner’s death, Alan felt fear for the first time.

“Is this, what you were aiming for?”

Back then, when William’s gun had not fired, Alan needed to ensure that Sherlock was taken out before he could use his own gun, which was guaranteed to fire. If Sherlock was shot, then with him eliminated, the next turn would cycle back to William.

Things had worked out exactly as he’d hoped. In a quiet voice, William spoke to the horrified Alan.

“Have you heard the story of the three assassins?”