#is it a known or barely studied branch of existing magic??

[phantom-z0ne]

"Does Madeline Riddle live here?"

Danny squinted at the assortment of people crowded on his front steps. The one who asked, an elderly man that reminded him of Gandalf—down to the long, white beard and flowy, if not obnoxiously colored, robes—was flanked by a stringy haired wild-eyed man who looked one gentle breeze away from completely losing it, and a pale, dour faced man dressed as if he were in a competition with Vlad to look the most like a vampire and eyeing Danny like he was something unpleasant he had found under his boot. Rude.

Peeking out from behind the adults was a bespectacled boy. He adjusted his circular frames with a tinge of anxiety, looking to catch a glimpse of the interior of the house Danny blocked with his frame. They looked around the same age, give or take a year or so.

The group was odd, yes, but not the weirdest that'd arrived at their home. Though, none of the others ever referred to his mom by her maiden name.

Danny craned his neck, spotting the tell-tale glow of the FENTON WORKS sign, then turned back to the group. "Who's asking?"

"I am Albus Percival Dumbledore," Gandalf's long lost twin began, a solemn expression settling onto his face, "and I'm afraid, my boy, that you and your family are in grave danger."

Danny blinked, opened his mouth, then shut it.

When were they not, he thought sarcastically. Their basement is a certified OSHA hell, never mind the entrance to the afterlife was just a floor down. It's more surprising only one of them was lowered into a grave considering. A small, unnamed grave, but a grave nonetheless. That didn't include the many, many close shaves Jazz and his parents went through after the ghost attacks began.

"It's true. Your grandfather is a very dangerous man, one who recently learned of your mother's, and subsequently the rest of your family's, existence. There's no telling what sort of vile acts he will commit with this information."

Wild Eyes leaned against the railing and feigned interest in his chipped nails, briefly glancing up at the halfa to declare, "Probably already sent his Death Eaters to get rid of this particular stain on his image. Can't image someone like him would want a squib walking around freely, let alone if it was his daughter."

"Mind your words, Black!" Vampire-wannabie hissed as Dumbledore shot Wild Eyes an admonishing look. The boy behind them looked scandalized, his eyes darting between the adults and Danny.

It, as much as Danny loathed to admit it, did somewhat make sense. Not the 'Death Eaters' or 'squib' part, whatever they meant, but people being sent after his Mom. Both as Danny and Phantom, he's been noticing the uptick of unfamiliar faces walking about in Amity, nearly all dressed in long, dark robes like they were cosplaying stereotypically evil wizards.

He had followed after a few of them invisibly, curious, but all they did was mutter derisively under their breaths about something called a 'muggle', glare at anything that moved, and occasionally wave around a wooden stick. It didn't look like they were harming anyone, so he left them at it. There were better things to do than stalk uninteresting LARPers, or so he believed at the time.

Danny should have looked deeper. Outsiders in Amity didn't typically bode well for him. The last time there was, he'd been brainwashed into joining a circus. Ugh, he did not like that in the slightest.

There were also the throwaway lines Mom and Dad said the last few times they spoke with Danny, complaining about how their latest sensors were randomly malfunctioning and leading them straight to a living person.

He'd thought of it as odd, he hadn't had the chance to sabotage their latest inventions yet, but nothing to really worry about. His parents would never deliberately harm people. Through negligence, sure, but never intentionally.

That begged the question, what exactly were they here for?

Almost deliberately, Danny tightened his grip on the doorknob and creaked the door shut a couple inches, playing up his uncertainty as he asked, "How do you know this? You guys obviously don't like my grandfather but seem to know a lot about him."

The boy Danny's age spoke up this time, a hard glint in his eyes, "You're right, we don't like him. He's hurt—killed—hundreds of our people already, and he would go on causing more destruction and chaos if we weren't there to oppose him."

Our people. Interesting distinction, but . . . "Wouldn't I have heard about something like that, even if it happened across the pond?"

"What young Harry means to say is that we," Dumbledore gestures to his three companions, "are part of an organization that opposes your grandfather and protect the innocent from him and his followers. And I'm afraid you couldn't have known, our community takes great measures to ensure his actions are never reported to the general public. It's simply safer that way."

He had the gall to look apologetic, like it was a great loss Danny had suffered by not being part of said community.

Great. So not only was Danny dealing with a homicidal grandfather, but also a shady secret society and-slash-or cult that his grandfather, and by association Mom, are (and were) members of.

And just when he thought his (after)life was settling down—Danny was finally sleeping longer after an agreement with his rogues, his grades were steadily climbing higher, and he'd finally had the time to indulge in his previously abandoned hobbies!—he was hit with this.

Biting back a sigh, he plastered on a sugary sweet smile, said, "Well, wait just a moment, 'kay?" then slammed the door in their faces.

This was something for his mom to deal with. He had no doubt she would be able to handle whatever this situation hurled at her, doubly so if she brought Dad with her. That meant a blissful, explosion-free home where Danny didn't have to anxiously look over his shoulder whenever he went ghost.

Danny strode towards the basement door, something almost akin to excitement in his steps. Perhaps this situation wasn't all bad.

===

I know this focuses heavily on Danny, but I just couldn't get the mental image of 'some strangers coming up and heavily implying that not only was your grandfather part of a cult(and maybe even the leader??), one your mom apparently escaped from(???), but that they, as an opposing faction within that same cult, were there to whisk you and your family to safety' out of my head (￣∀￣*)

HPXDP prompt #7

Hear me out!

There's many (a lot) of pjoxhp fics about Percy Jackson, which is Voldemort's grandson.

But what about Danny being the grandson of Voldemort?

How? Well...

Everyone knows that Jack's obsession with ghosts comes from family tradition, but what about Maddie's?

Maddie's interest with ghosts comes from her want to END her sperm donor.

She's the lost daughter of the Dark Lord that runned away from England in search of a weapon that could kill immortals.

[xxwritemeastoryxx]

Demons Within

Author: xxwritemeastoryxx

Pairings: Elijah Mikaelson x Reader

Request: Angst fic where Elijah accidentally kills reader bc he’s lost control? (Red door Elijah?) -Anon

Word count: 2K

Warnings: Chatacter death, angst, canon typical blood and gore.

Author’s Note: Welcome to day two of may madness! I hope after yesterday’s fic that you guys are still looking forward to the next month’s worth! Here’s an angsty fic that I know you guys have been waiting for! Day two and going strong! 

Feedback gives me life and motivation for future things. ♥

Y/N was running for her life. Not the on the run from Mikael, running for life. This time, it was different. Y/N was running from the one person she never thought she ever would run from. 

Fear wasn’t supposed to be coursing through her, but in that moment it had. She shouldn’t have been afraid of the person that was after her. She should have been able to stand her ground and fight, just as she always had. She should have been able to break through to the man that was after her. But after several failed attempts, there was nothing else she could do. 

It didn’t matter how fast she ran or how far she went, she knew there was no getting away. She could hear the way his own feet met the ground. The crunching of the leaves under the weight of his shoes loud in her ears as she ran. She didn’t dare a glance back. She knew he was right there, almost within reach. She should know, this was her husband she was running from. 

There were many things that Y/N had known in her existence. She watched as the world changed around her and her loved ones as they went on with their lives. People they had once known long gone, either by their own hands or the passage of time. Being a vampire, an original at that, meant the lives of the people you knew were gone in the blink of an eye. 

As the years passed like simple hours, there were things they survived. Things that they faced, enemies they fought and bested. And even those that are immortal are faced with darkness that even they don’t know the depths of the darkness that lay within them. It was that darkness that was deeply rooted in her husband’s subconscious that caused her to run for her life. 

Esther’s magic had done as intended. The facade that Elijah hid behind throughout the majority of his existence, had been destroyed. The red door left wide open with slightest of triggers that enabled the darker side of himself to breach the surface. 

Y/N should have been able to break through to him. She should have been able to reach the man that she knew was currently buried underneath the darkness. For the few times she had almost lost him to that darkness, she had been able to pull him back. She had watched as her words of love and care had caused the coldness in his eyes to disappear and return to the warm, inviting brown that she had grown to love. But it hadn’t worked this time around. 

The soft touch of her fingers running along his face as the veins under his eyes played should have made him recognize who was in front of him. The way they trembled slightly as they moved down to his neck, should have recognized that she would still be there for him while he fought it. But it was the way his hand had grabbed a hold of her arm and twisted it in a way that a sickening snap could be heard before she cried out in pain that told her, he was deeper in the abyss than he had ever been. 

Her few simple steps back caused him to take a step towards her with each one. The darkness within his eyes every indication that he had no recognition of her. That the woman he loved was currently a stranger, a threat that needed to be dealt with. 

It was the reason she ran. The only reason that she decided to turn and run from him. She needed to give him time. Time to hopefully get through the darkness that was surrounding him. To hopefully come to his senses before he could get a hold of her. Y/N knew that he could and that he would.

Y/N may have been Elijah’s wife, but she had turned a handful of years after he had turned. She was strong, but not as strong as he could be. She had to at least out smart him for the time being. To keep herself alive for as long as she could, because even she knew that in a fight against her husband, she would lose. 

It was when Elijah’s footsteps went quiet that she stopped running. The woods that surrounded them thick enough for her to hide in plain sight. She turned quickly in search of him. But her eyes couldn’t spot him. Her mind screamed that he must have come to his senses, that he wasn’t going to hurt her. 

Her ears trying to pick up anything. The slightest movements of anything that would indicate where he was. But she couldn’t hear anything. Even her breathing had been silenced knowing that Elijah would be able to hear it in some form or another. She knew he was out there, she just didn’t know where. 

As her eyes moved along the trees in her eyesight, her head tilted as she took in a tree not too far off. There was something familiar about. It was the way some of the branches had been broken to one side. The leaves barely hung on as the slight breeze made its way through. 

It was then that realization had hit her. Elijah had been steering her in the direction that he wanted. She was supposed to be the one in control of this situation. But the tree proved that she had currently been going in circles. A game of chase that she knew Elijah was all too familiar with. 

That was when she felt his hand grab a hold of her arm and spun her around before pinning her to the tree beside her. A startled yelp passed her lips as he had done so. Not by the action itself but the way Elijah had now looked as he stood before her. 

The clean suit he had on some time ago had now been covered in blood. Blood had covered his lips and trickled down his neck. The blood pooled at his collar of his white button up. His eyes still filled with murder.  She lifted her hand up to cover her mouth as she looked him over. She knew that for the few moments she had lost him, he had found someone else to prey on before he returned for her. 

“‘Lijah.” She said with a slight shake of her head as she dropped her hand. Y/N knew she needed to get through to him. “It’s me. You know me. You’ve known me for centuries.”

Their eyes never left the others. Even as Elijah kept her pinned against the tree, he never looked away from her eyes. Deep down within Elijah he knew her eyes were familiar. That they were something that had always brought comfort to him. But all he could see was a threat that needed to be taken care of. 

She was to be another body that he had kept locked away behind the red door. For as his mother had once said to him, the women he loved were butterflies. Ones that he loved to tear the wings off of them. And in his darkened thoughts, Y/N was a butterfly ready to be dewinged. 

Her voice, while familiar, hadn’t brought any recognition to his mind once more. Even when he heard her words earlier that day, they hadn’t meant anything to him now. Not even as she explained who she was before he brought his hand up to her throat. 

Y/N placed her hand on top of his trying to pull his hand away from her. But the harder she fought to get his hand away from her neck, the tighter his grip became. Y/N gasped as she tried to at least break any of the bones in his hand to get some reaction out of him. Just before she expected to hear the sickening crack of a bone breaking, he had pulled her away from the tree by her neck, before slamming her back against it. 

Her hands fell to her sides as she looked Elijah in the eyes. Her mind racing for something, anything that could be done. “You know me, Elijah.” Her voice strangled against his hold. “I can show you.”

She lifted her hand once more, bringing it up slowly to his face. If she couldn’t get through to him with words or touch, she was going to try through memories. He watched as she raised her hand up to his face slowly. His eyes going back and forth between the two before her fingers brushed along his face. 

It was enough to begin a small connection. One that Y/N had barely been able to show how they met before a loud cry of pain left her lips, causing her hand to fall from his face and the connection lost. Her eyes looked down to see Elijah remove his hand from her neck, only to see the other shoved into her chest. 

The way his hand gripped on her heart told her he could feel every beat of it. Every chance it tried to pump the blood through her veins, he could feel it. He was literally holding her life source in his hand. 

Tears of pain and sadness began to flow out of her eyes as she watched him. He was studying her for a moment. It was strange to both of them. It was if there was a part of him that was fighting to save her, or even kill her. It was the way his head tilted as his hold on her tightened. 

Another scream passed her lips. She was afraid to move. Afraid to try anything. The pain that radiates through her overpowering anything else she was trying to get through her mind. She knew if she tried anything else, all Elijah had to do was pull and that’d be the end of it. 

It was then that her mind had made a decision. The thought itself had caused the tears to rush down her face a little more before she nodded her head. Her eyes took in his face one last time. She wanted to see it. She wanted him to see that it was going to be okay. 

“I-it’s okay.” She found it becoming harder to speak. Even as she spoke she felt the way his hand moved even the slightest bit, causing her to groan. “I’m not scared. I promise. It’s n-not your fault if you do this. It’s going to be okay. Just know that I love you.”

It was as she went to place her hand on top of his arm, as a comforting touch, she felt the tug of her heart. With one last cry of pain, Y/N went slack against the tree. Her heart in Elijah’s hand as he took a step back, watching as Y/N’s body fell to the ground a moment later. 

The cold unrecognizable eyes were still dark as he dropped her heart by her body. For the threat he acknowledged earlier had been subdued. The threat to his family and even to himself had been taken care of. His actions are no longer hidden behind the red door that haunted him for centuries. It became easy to walk away from the body that was now ashen gray. 

But deep down, the part of him that was drowning in the darkness knew that he had just lost the woman he loved to the very monster his parents created. Where she was the light in his life, the darkness that surrounded him smothered her and he was once again left with nothing.

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[dailycharacteroption]

Corrupting Influences: Psychometabolic part 3

 Implications

 “Akira!”

“I don’t know who that is!”

 So now that we know what sort of powers the corruption has, what does it mean for your game world?

Well, firstly, this corruption can actually exist without psychic magic or occult mysteries being a known thing, though obviously it works best if you at least have the occult adventures book nearby to help understand some of the manifestation powers that it can grant.

In a world where psychic power is unknown or rare, this corruption might a dead-end branch of sapient evolution that gets triggered by encounters with the eldritch, or the result of hubris taking its toll on the user as they go beyond what mortals were meant to be capable of.

Conversely, in a world where psychic power is more well-known, this power might be more akin to a mental injury or cancer, or the result of seeking too much power too quickly.

There���s also the matter of the wording the corruptions’ progression area, causing subjects at stage 2 to come down with the “moral insanity” mental illness. I feel like that could have been re-written to just be “the character’s alignment shifts one step towards evil”, rather than use a controversial subsystem like madness and sanity. There are much better ways to depict a degradation of moral values brought about by the corrupting nature of power.

The final result of this corruption is also worth mentioning as well, as the character in question essentially acts out the climax of Akira by turning into a psychic flesh monster with all their previous powers and skills. Consider whether they retain their sanity, have any control over their actions, or are merely passengers in their own mind at that point. At the wrong time, they might end up being more dangerous than the boss encounter of an area. Also, does the hungry flesh ooze exist in your setting? Are they related at all to the horror that awaits the victims of this corruption, perhaps their minds going beyond mortal perception, leaving behind a basically-mindless body, or perhaps their consciousness is slowly consumed?

Recklessness and a desire for greater power are also central themes to this corruption as well, the addictive nature of this power may cause victims with little self-control to burn through their reserves and progress quickly through the corruption.

 Rivani, the iconic human psychic, is an interesting choice for the illustration of this corruption. Normally, her psychic power is guided by her studies into occult lore, making it seem very unlikely that she would succumb, but all the more tragic that she has, her body glowing from within with barely-contained power as her discipline erodes.

 That about does it for today, but tomorrow, we’ll look at how this corruption might be changed up and varied.

[stereksecretsanta]

Merry Christmas, negativenorth!

For @negativenorth <3 

Read On AO3

*****

This is Our Last (First) Christmas

The Hale Pack survived junior year. Miraculously. The troubles that surrounded them sophomore year brought on by their sacrifices to find their parents were increased by the cleansing ritual in the spring Stiles and Deaton did. It cleansed the Hale Territory-including Beacon Hills and the Preserve-The Pack, the air, the ground, even the humans of all the remaining darkness; reawakening the hibernating Ley Lines and brightening the light of Beacon Hills.

The summer was strangely terror-less. Deaton explained the cleansing happened like and earthquake, the energy radiating out and it would take some time until the epicenter was found but once things found it, everyone would tune into it. The Hale Territory was highly desired by many supernaturals for many reasons. Derek (under the advisement of Stiles) began a training regiment for the pack, humans included. Derek focused more on the wolves-Scott, Jackson, Danny, Isaac, Erica, Boyd, and Ethan and Aiden-who deflection helped defeat the Alpha pack and Derek welcomed in with open arms. The humans trained too, but with Melissa on first aid and field trauma medicine and Chris and John with hand to hand and gun and knife combat training. Stiles had added training with Deaton on magic. Eventually, The wolves joined the humans.

"Why do we need medical training?" Isaac asked, diligently paying attention to proper stitching technique.

"If something happens, yeah you may heal but that doesn't solve blood loss. Or if a human is out. Or you needed to be inconspicuous about lycanthropy. Technically you don't exist." Stiles said. "Or a broken bone that heals wrong."

"He's not wrong. I agree." Derek chimed in.

"You're only agreeing because-"Erica was cut off by a hard nudge to the ribs from Allison and a heated glare from Scott. Stiles was confused but let it go, only to silently agree with the Mate-Marks on their right arm-a vine of bright red thorny roses.

"Well, if Mom says and Dad agrees then I guess we have no choice." Jackson sneered. Stiles sighed and rolled his eyes.

"Excuse me for wanting you to stay alive, dipshit. These aren't bad skills to have in general even. My first aid saved your fucking ass more than once." Stiles practically snarled. This pack was made up of his friends but that didn't mean they were easy to get along with. Jackson opened his mouth to retort but was cut off by Lydia's hand on his arm. Stiles always smiled softly when he got a glimpse of their Mate-Mark behind their ears, the chemical formula C43H66N12O12S2 also known as oxytocin.

A week during the fall of junior year, Stiles felt a chill go down his spine. One of the wards he spent several long days putting up with Deaton's teaching had been triggered. He had put up a dozen or so of varying intent, getting stronger and closer together the closer to Derek's loft they got. Stiles had a list in his journal of placements to recharge them if needed but Deaton had told him with his Spark and use of Ley lines, they will stay charged and operational until removal. Stiles texted to Derek to warn him of the visitor and he with Boyd checked it out.

That was the first of almost weekly trespassers of the creatures-that-go-bump-in-the-night variety. The pack had their training, their strength, their determination to survive but they didn't have their teamwork, their trust, their knowledge to win. Stiles and Lydia and occasionally Allison worked to compile as much information as possible from Deaton and Chris and Derek and independent research as possible. The Pack grew smart but they still couldn't click, they used too much brawn not enough brain.

"You would think, with werewolves needing packs, they would innately understand teamwork." Stiles said. He was at the Argent's house looking at few of Chris's books. He had become more helpful since Allison and Scott finally told him the truth about their Mate-Marks. He didn't like it but he know helped as much as he could knowing that was the only way to get his daughter safe.

"You have to remember Stiles, they may be werewolves now but they are teenagers first. High schoolers. Derek isn't that much older than you all. You somehow see the bigger picture but they can't." Chris said.

"I have always had to see the big picture. No one else was looking at it at the beginning. I was trying to keep everyone alive, not just-"Stiles cut himself off. "You are so right. You always have the best ideas." Stiles sagged a little with relief. He was glad he'd been able to convince Chris to help them, join them. "I have to go." Stiles left the kitchen, uncharacteristically leaving the books scattered on the table. He hopped into his jeep and headed straight to Derek's loft.

"Derek, are you home?" Stiles opened the door to the loft with the only spare key Derek ever made.

"Hey, Stiles. Surprise seeing you here, everything okay?" Derek popped out from the kitchen. "I am making dinner, care to join me?"

"Oh, that would be nice. Everything is okay, I just have something to talk to you about." Stiles sat at the island rubbing a thumb against the glass Derek handed him and the other rubbed the spot behind his ear.

"Okay. If you are this serious then it probably has some merit." Derek said. Stiles felt proud of the growth Derek had gone through. He had become a better man and Alpha since the pack had grown and settled and he was able to grieve properly. Stiles, however was confused at his statement. Derek looked up to see Stiles looking back with his head tilted and eyes narrowed. "You have tells just like the rest of us. You may know all of ours but you don't know your own. You have gotten good at lying to us weres but you forget that some of us? We know you. Like me, you rub behind your ear when you are thinking about something and it may upset the balance of things." Derek explained. Stiles didn't know how to answer, wasn't sure what to say, Derek studied him? It made sense in Stiles' head, at the beginning Derek needed to know everyone's angle even his.

"I didn't know that." Stiles said. He decided to ignore the other parts Derek said until later. "I know as a pack we have strengths and weaknesses. We need to work on those weaknesses, our biggest one? Teamwork. This pack is holding the strongest territory in the Northwest right now, and it is made up of young werewolves and several humans and a Banshee who all happen to be teenagers in high school. We had a social hierarchy and it worked until you bit several of them. Now they have to relearn that, everything is discombobulated causing tensions, and second-guessing and we may have survived until now but eventually that won't be enough. We may be a pack but we won't be a family until that happens." Stiles paused realizing how that sounds. "Not that I want to replace yours. I just want-I don't mean to-I get it. I don't want you to be alone anymore." Stiles finally spit out.

"I know what you mean. I would never think that you of all people are trying to somehow push away my family. You have too much resect for others to even think that." Derek said. His face was relaxed and open, the skin around his eyes wasn't even tight. You probably love hearing this from me, even though I say it a lot. You are right. We don't know each other well enough to know what we'd risk for each other. So what is your idea?" Derek turned back to the stove.

"What makes you think I have an idea?" Stiles asked. Derek just threw a look over his shoulder at the young man.

"You wouldn't be here if you didn't have an idea." Derek said.

"I was thinking of having the pack rebuild your house. It would give them a safe common goal and outlet. It would reestablish your territory ad strength pack bonds and the bond with the land. it would give us a den. I know I just said I don't want to replace your family. And that is true. I don't want to because I know I can't. I can however make the pain less, the burden lighter and you happier. We can do this together Derek. Me and you. like always.

"I. I will think about it." Derek said very slowly. Stiles nodded. Derek said nothing else, instead finished up dinner and Stiles took it as a sign to get place settings ready and switch to lighter topics.

The winter of junior year was made up of blood, sweat, tears, anger, resentment, claws, teeth, bullets, arrows. The pack was surviving, but barely. Stiles could see the fault lines forming, the glares more frequent. He never pushed Derek, only waited and hoped. He knew that the Hale Pack had the potential to be amazing once again, but only if they worked for it.

The spring of junior year bloomed with hope, filled with finals college preparation and a wendigo or two. March came and went but April came in like a lion. Derek had made his decision, rebuilding the Hale Manor is needed and would do them some good. The pack had too many issues amongst themselves to work through, if they didn't settle as a whole and members of that whole, then more people would die and the pack would fall apart. Derek's decision came instinctively, The young betas had been arguing over who was to land the first hit, the baddy of the week threw Erica into a tree skewering her on a branch. Derek saw it happen in slow motion, anger thrumming in his veins. That second she impacted the tree Derek knew. He would make a pack out of these teenagers or die trying. They needed the pack as much as he did.

Derek stood over his pack watching them cuddle each other from a distance. They were on the floor of the loft spread out, but unable to ignore the need to touch. Lydia had a leg curled with Allison, tucked under Jackson arm. Isaac bridged the space between Erica and Boyd and Scott and Allison. Stiles was sitting at the island still working. Always working. Derek had actively tried to not look at Stiles, the few glances he allowed had the same results, heart pounding breath catching results. Stiles had showered and was wearing a pair of sweats he'd left here some day and a shirt of Derek's, who's scent of pine and leather mixed deliciously with Stiles' own scent of lemon and honeysuckle. Derek was glad the rest of the pack was sleeping, unable to witness him softening. Stiles was the only one to bring it out. He sat down next to Stiles, pulling his feet into his lap, rubbing lightly.

"I've been thinking...about what you said a while back." Derek couldn't look at Stiles. He instead focused on his feet. "About rebuilding."

"Oh? Did you come to a decision then?" Stiles kept his face turned to the books in front of him, side-eyeing Derek. He knew that staring would only cause Derek to shut down harder. Stiles could feel his heart pounding, knew Derek could hear it but tried to project calmness.

"Yeah. I did. I want to do it. I need to do it. The last step of grieving and the first step of acceptance. This pack needs a fresh start. You are right, like always. I only want to do this if you help me every step of the way. I can't do this by myself. I don't trust anyone else to help." Derek admitted. Stiles beamed. The absolute joy and pride on his face made Derek almost forget that he had just agreed to tear down the last standing reminder of his family.

As if Stiles could read his mind, "They'd want you to be happy. I would be honor to help you.

The decision to rebuild the house triggered something in Stiles. He began working with Deaton, honing his sputtering spark into a full-fledged flame. Deaton was impressed with his strength, commenting the flame was more like an inferno. Stiles did his school work on top of learning magic and keeping a pack of rag-tag teenagers alive. Deaton explained that Sparks were common but without proper training burned out, with proper training Sparks became witches or varied magic users, they often became emissaries to those in need or ran shops. The idea of being a pack emissary resonated with Stiles and that became his goal. He learned moon phases, herbs, spells, enchantments, crystals, sigils, runes, ancient languages. As he learned, he wasn't the only one to grow emotionally. The pack began to pull down the old Hale Manor. Piece by piece, they pulled it down. The beginning was hard-insult were thrown without care for where they landed, more than one fight broke out usually but they worked together and talked and learned about each other. The insults lost their thorns, the glares lost their heat and the smiles lost their fangs.

During the days between the too-hot spring days and the too-cold summer days, the last dumpster full of the remains of the Hale Manor vanished down the road. Derek watched feeling numb. Stiles stood by in quiet solidarity. All that was left was the scorched earth and a smattering of rubble, the grass was stained gray from ash and fire, the foundation crumbling into itself. There would be a specialist coming to demolish and redo the foundation, that was something Derek requested. The two men looked at the now empty clearing, Stiles pretended not to notice the trembling of Derek's fingers. Stiles simply took his hand in his and pulled him down to sit, letting Derek lean against him and grieve.

"No one likes it when strangers speak for those who you have lost. I know I hated it. I also know what it is like to an extent." Stiles paused. "They would be proud of you. You were in a down really low, and you brought yourself back. You did it." Stiles pressed himself into Derek's bulk.

Thanks. It has meaning coming from you. I know you understand. You know loss, not like Scott. You don't pretend to be unaffected like Jackson." Derek sat for a bit, letting the Stiles' strength soak into his bones. He wasn't alone anymore. He could do this. He wasn't 16 again pushing away Laura in a fit of survivor's guilt. He had Stiles. He had his pack. "Now what?" Derek turned to face Stiles, looking like as lost as a child after a nightmare.

"Now we build your house. Together." Stiles said. "And watch YouTube. Lots of it."

The summer between junior and senior year was the best Stiles had in a long time. He and his mother always had adventures and busy days. Then one year it was just him and Scott. It was only the two of them for years, neither popular enough for summer plans. The others in the pack in similar circumstances. Allison didn't stay around long enough to make plans and Lydia and Jackson's families made plans without consent. Stiles and Derek read and watched and googled for hours before getting the materials. The did it step by step from framing to electric to plumbing to hanging drywall to building stairs to putting in windows. Derek bought the supplies, secretly pleased that the insurance, investment, assess money was getting some use, not just growing interest, coming into several millions of dollars was daunting without a purpose especially when part of the blame fell on his shoulders. With every step of the way, Stiles and Derek worked together to make the idea into a house into a home. Stiles layered charms and spells and enchantments and runes and straight ingredients into everything. Protection from water, fire, illness, bad luck, ill-intent, accidents, death, and anything Stiles could think of was woven into every step, from the frame to the paint. The house was built by Stiles and Derek for the pack, for the future, for each other.

"Derek, we need a bigger kitchen. And I think a mudroom will be a good investment with a lever handle door. We have a nice entrance way, where people came come in and hang up their jackets and put away shoes but the back entrance doesn't have anything." Stiles was looking over the blueprints with Derek. He was making notes for when they finalized some decisions.

"Why?" Derek asked.

"You will be housing a pack of teenage/twentysomething werewolves. You need a big enough kitchen and matching pantry to feed a small country." Stiles said, still scribbling notes.

"No." Derek growled. He was running out of patience. He wanted to make this house with Stiles but everyone seemed to have an opinion on something. Which would be fine it he had asked, or if there was some logic but the majority was just annoying.

"You don't want a big kitchen? I mean it is your house." Stiles looked confused but his voice seemed blank, undermined by his pounding heart and cold brittle scent of sadness.

Derek wanted to growl but held back. Derek didn't want to push him away. Derek liked how close they had been getting, his wolf was pleased as well. His wolf had been unusually attached to the young man since the beginning and was originally satisfied but as time went on both Derek and his wolf wanted more and more, not sure what they were asking for. The concern for Stiles' wellbeing, high sensitivity to Stiles' emotion and heartbeat, The willingness to entertain Stiles' commentary and personality and enjoy it, his gaze lingering on Stile' fingers and throat, reveling in the challenges he offered all resonated with Derek as signs pointing to Stiles being his mate but if that was true they would have Mate-Marks.

"It is our house." Derek said. It was all he could give right now, a house where Stiles could be relaxed and happy, Derek would have to accept what he had for right now.

"So, yes big kitchen?" Stiles looked up, Derek just stared back waiting. "Oh! The lever handle is so you can open it with paws."

That is humiliating. And smart. Make it so."

"You did not just make a Star Trek: The Next Generation reference. Are you a closeted nerd?" Stiles poked Derek in the ribs, peering at him suspiciously. Derek stayed silent, glad Stiles couldn't hear his pounding heart. Stiles laughed, head tilted back, cheeks crinkled and mouth open. Derek could only stare and memorize the moment, proud he got Stiles to laugh that easily. Derek could hear the thoughts in his soul: mine, claim, mate. The possessiveness and softness was happening more and more but only around Stiles, further adding to the mate checklist. Derek just enjoyed the moment.

Come on. Let's finish this. I do eventually want to move in, ya know?" Derek tapped the paper with a single claw, trying to remind Stiles-ineffectually-he could rip his throat out with his teeth.

The weekend before senior year found the pack piled in the living room of the recently finished Hale Manor. The pack was well-protected and well-stablished now with Stiles' magic and the 'den' and the bonds that were solidified over the summer. Deaton said the terrors of the years past will not go away but would drastically slow down. The Hale Territory was claimed and the others would understand innately. The plan worked, the band of high school students thrown together by happenstance became a pack, a family. And it showed, in moment like this. They were tightly woven together on a bed of pillows and blankets with a Disney movie playing softly on TV. Stiles looked on and felt his chest warm and his heart flutter. He pulled out his phone and making sure the shutter and flash were off took a few pictures, trying to shove away the sadness and nostalgia. He had been slightly obsessed with taking photos lately, needing proof that the pack had come together, they now had a home not only physically but in one another too. He had done it, he had somehow kept them alive through all the bullshit. They only had one year left together and he didn't want to look back and regret not capturing the memories or being unable to remember the normal days. One day, a year from now he would look up and realize everyone had scattered like seeds on the wind, he wanted to remember. Stiles got up from the chair he was curled up in, he was feeling melancholy didn't want to ruin the mood. Even Derek was on the edge of the puppy pile. He decided to use his favorite goodbye tactic he borrowed from the Irish.

"I can hear you thinking too hard from over here. Come join us. Get comfy. And we can talk, I know something is on your mind." Derek ungracefully shoved the others to make room. It isn't pack night if one person leaves."

Fine." Stiles was a sucker for the pack card. He knew he was pack but not being a wolf meant he couldn't feel the bonds as strongly as the others so he needed reminded sometimes. Stiles slipped in between Derek and the pack, thoughts like: safe, pack, mate, mine. After a few seconds Derek pinched him lightly. "I just don't know hat I am to do next. I did what I was supposed to do. I kept Scott alive, I helped you, I healed the land, solidified the pack. My job is done. This time next year, the pack might be tossed across the country and then what? We come back for weekend and holidays? For how long? Then we just fall apart and I never have this again? I made this family just like each of them did. I can't lose another one." Stiles felt his stomach drop at the cold, bitter, sharp feeling his own words gave him.

"That isn't how this works. A pack this established only gets stronger. No one gets out. There may be distance but not much and not for long. We are too new of a pack for that. You certainly don't get to leave, you are my emissary. You are connected to me and the pack and the land. Don't force ties to break when you don't know the future. There is time, there are options. Enjoy now, before fretting about the future. Talk to them, You'd be surprised to hear you aren't as alone as you think." Derek pulled Stiles closer, tucking him tightly into his embrace. "That is why you get sad after taking photos. You think old memories are all you will have left."

"I would rather leave then be left. I have grow weary of being left." Stiles tried to shrug.

"Don't look too far ahead, you'll miss the now. Make memories to enjoy the moment not resign yourself to only having memories." Derek said. Stiles nodded and snuggled closer, Derek's body heat and voice rumbling in his chest soothing his anxiety. "Go to sleep, Stiles. I'll be right here."

Fall of senior year was calm, content. Stiles and Lydia and Danny were in a heated competition for valedictorian, a contest that was a secret to everyone in school but no one in the pack. Some filled out college applications like Danny, Jackson, Lydia. Some decided to go the technical route like Erica, Boyd. Isaac and Scott were looking at community college. Stiles adopted a forget about it and it doesn't exist attitude. He often pulled out pamphlets or packets only to sort them into piles and then put them away again. He changed the subject when asked about anything dealing with after senior year. The closest he got to talking about it was with Derek one day, by themselves hanging out on a Friday night. He told Derek, he liked magic and the supernatural and being a witch, he might open a shop, take over for Deaton who wanted to be a vet and only a vet. That was the last time he seriously spoke about it. The pack spent full moons together, running and eating dinner and then a sleepover. Slowly each pack member added their own things to the house, a blanket here, a favorite mug there, A sweatshirt draped over a chair, a forgotten pair of shoes left by the front door. Stiles took pictures and cleaned and tutored. He talked a lot without saying much. Derek knew something was on his mind.

"I want you to come over tonight. I told everyone to stay away. We have some things to talk about." Derek texted him one day in October.

Stiles went over, slouched over like the weight of the world rested on his shoulders. Derek felt sympathy for the kid.

"Stiles, I know you have been struggling a bit. Understandably so. A lot has happened these past few years. I want you to sit here with me, all night if we have to, and talk over your options. I want you to do what you want to do. I know your dad wants you to go to college and I know you want to open a shop. I think you can do both, and with the way the world works, I think you could make it work. I would gladly help, we can build you a small shop here or something." Derek said. Stiles sagged, eyes lit with relief.

"You don't think it is a dumb idea? Magic isn't well known, and I won't be successful." Stiles said.

"You are right, But people from all over will come if you are good. You will gain a following. I believe you would be a great successor to Alan, if you so choose. I will gladly help you get to that point." Derek said.

"What? I don't even know what I am doing." Stiles rubbed his face. "I can't let you...support me while I decide what I want to do."

"You are running out of time. You didn't hold me up in a pool for two hours for me for me to not learn what kind of person you are. You already made up your mind. You have helped me over and over and over again. Let me help you!" Derek demanded. Stiles threw up his hands, groaning loudly.

"What do you want me to say? That I want to learn all that I can to help you be the best alpha you can be? of the best pack we can be? And if I help other people with things around town or even farther, that would be perfection? That I have no idea what I want to do, but I can't see myself going to university and getting a typical 9-5 job and having 2.5 kids? That you coming in all dark and broody ruined me for all normalcy." Stiles ranted. He was gesturing wildly, pacing in short burst.

"Yeah. That is all I want. Feel better?" Derek, pulled Stiles close, rubbing his nose into his hair. Stiles leaned against him, this time borrowing strength.

"A little. I am glad I finally got to say it aloud. now I have to convince my dad." Stiles said. Derek squeezed him in a side hug.

"We have to convince your dad. You aren't alone, I'm not going anywhere, ever, We're a team." Stiles smiled softly and nodded, relaxing into Derek's grip.

The days and nights grew colder, the wolves handing full moon runs when the humans got the food, hot chocolate and movies ready for their return. Or rather Stiles did, the others just laid about, studying or figuring out how to move into Derek's house without their families noticing. November was quickly finishing and Stiles' favorite time of year was approaching. He had already pulled out the containers of decorations for his own house, trying to figure out how to bring it up to Derek. He wanted to have a pack Christmas, wanted to go out and pick out a tree together, and hang the garlands and argue over where the lights go on the tree, hang up ornaments and behind everyone's back rearrange them. He wanted to get presents for everyone, wrapping them with paper and ribbons and bows.

"Stiles, is something burning?" Scott said coming into the kitchen, kissing Allison on the temple. The other Mates sharing in similar displays of affection. Jackson and Lydia cuddling on a large chair, Erica and Boyd sharing a chaste kiss. Derek walked up to Stiles simultaneously pulling the pan of bacon off the stove and trailing a hand down his jaw to latch into his hair.

"Shit! The bacon. I was distracted. Sorry. It should be fine, I am mixing it to make perogies for you tomorrow. Its Sunday after all." Stiles said softly. He still looked a million miles away, Derek pulled him around ducking slightly to make eye contact.

"Stiles, is something the matter? Are you okay?" Derek asked. After they talked about Stiles' future Stiles had been coming to Derek more and more for support. Derek was more vocal with his thoughts, trying to verbalize emotions. The pack was close, a family but only because the two of them were a solid unit. They knew each other in and out.

Stiles looked nervous, like he didn't know how to ask. Derek just raised an eyebrow. "I want to decorate for Christmas. Here. I want to go and pick out directions and a tree and argue over lights and rearrange the ornaments when no one is looking. I want to agonize for days over the prefect presents. I want to do that, if you are okay with that." Stiles said, in a round of word vomit.

"Okay. I want that too, I was going to ask soon, you just beat me to the punch. How about we pick a day after Thanksgiving to pick out a tree and maybe you can come with me a few days to pick out Christmas decorations, without the children." Derek huffed a laugh into Stiles' temple. "This is your house too, You'll be here just as much as I will be. I want you to do what makes you happy."

"Okay. I'd like that. We can talk about it more later. Let's eat and then tomorrow we can look at some ideas, I want you to be the end all, end all on decisions." Stiles beamed at Derek. He went back to making dinner, leaving the slightly burnt bacon cool off to the side.

Thanksgiving was spent with their families, Derek did join the Stilinksi and McCalll's and Isaac for the big meal, finalizing plans with Stiles on decorations and tree-hunting. They decided on a red, green, gold scheme and more traditional type decorations, simple and minimalistic. Stiles used his internet skills to get some deals on older decorations on craigslist and facebook. They had a few pick-ups scheduled and the time for tree-hunting at a local christmas tree farm. Derek's only request was it had to be a big tree.

The pack three days later met up and began discussing trees. They were all in agreement, for a tall bushy tree but they couldn't pick a species until an employee showed them the examples and explained the difference. Three hours later and they finally agreed on the perfect tree and were on the way to the house. Stiles made them help him put it up right away so it warms up and the branches drop. The pack then scatters and Stiles and Derek head out and got decorations.

Derek watched Stiles spend the next few days putting the inside decorations in places. Derek helping with a comment here or there, but staying quiet, enjoying having someone to share the holiday with. "Thank you Stiles. I am glad, even though we've been through some shit together, that I have met you. I found myself because of you. I am glad that you are happy here with me." Derek told him.

"Me too. I feel safe here with you. Like I belong here, with you." Stiles said. "I know that wolves have mates obviously when they get introduced to each other, but sometimes when I am with you...you look at me and see me and I feel you..." Stiles shook his head.

"I do too. I am more attuned to you and your scent and heart than anyone in the pack. I can only chalk it up to you doing what would be my mate's job if I had one. I am not sure Stiles but I am not mad about it. Maybe after the holidays we can figure it out." Derek said.

"Yeah, that sounds like a plan." Stiles agreed.

The almost confessions triggered something, Derek became more tactile and protective than ever towards Stiles, Stiles made sure the betas were fed and the house was clean and tutored when needed and gave advice. They had been a unit before but now, Stiles and Derek were barely apart, only for school hours. Stiles' dad at one point asked if he was moving in and Stiles took that as permission and did just that (practically) moved in and also used the opportunity to tell John about his post-school plans. John was hesitant and needed some time to think it over before he could agree and support his son. Stiles did as promised and agonized for days what to get each of his friends. He meticulously wrapped each and every one of them. The one that took the longest to put together was the most important.

Stiles had learned many things over the last two and half years, about the world, himself, his hometown, his local vet. One of those things was his most important secret-he had been in love with Derek Hale for two of those years. It wasn't anything grand or extreme, one day Stiles saw him smile at a joke and decided he needed to do that all the time. Stiles knew that Derek needed somebody in his corner and chose to be that person. He didn't know spending all that time with his dry humor and caring nature and supportive personality would result with him falling in love with the older man but he wouldn't change anything that happened for anything in the world. 'except getting his real family back.'Stiles thought. 'That is it! A photo album. The Hales are a very old and well known family, there should be some photographs floating around.'

Stiles got to work. He went to the library and school paper archives, pulling out back issues of newspapers and yearbooks. He called into several nearby packs, opening the Hale pack up to negotiations in the future and even searched through Beacon Hills residents photos to find any and all of the Hale family memories. He also searched the star registry for a bright one towards the north and named it Talia Hale, so Derek would be able to find a guiding light for the rest of his life.

Stiles spent days putting the album together, finding near 75 photos and newspaper clippings for it. He also framed the star certificate and got a observatory to take very good photos of the star. and framed those as well. He was so focused Stiles forgot that his dad told him family was coming over. He obsessed over ever little detail for his present.

Derek did not fare much better. He had decided on a two part present for Stiles as well. One was a greenhouse/workshop Derek was having built for Stiles and a small business front to turn into a shop. Derek bought the shop and added Sties name to the deed so it was legally his. The greenhouse was going to be built in the spring so it could be used over the summer. Derek knew it might be too much for a friend but Stiles saved his life. Without Stiles, Derek would be alone and devastated and family-less. He fell in love with the whiskey eyes and contagious laughter and selflessness and love and compassion. They may not be Mates but Derek wanted no one else with him in the future, not only as a pack member or an emissary but even more than that. Derek kept his feelings a secret not wanting to push Stiles away.

The 23rd of December was the pack Christmas day. They had a wonderful breakfast and were in their PJ's getting settled and waiting for everyone. Everyone go a seat and the presents were sorted. They went in a circle.

"Derek, can you open my last? I...um..." Stiles said. Derek nodded not commenting on the obvious nerves.

"Only if you open mine last too." Derek said. Stiles nodded smiling gratefully. They went around and opened presents; clothes and make up and a few books for the girls, the boys got video games and comics and clothes. Honestly it was a good first Christmas as friends.

all that was left was Derek's present from Stiles and vice versa. The pack watched in silence. Neither moved.

"Please go first." Stiles pleaded. Derek looked between the presents left on his lap and Stiles. Derek picked up what Stiles knew to be the album. Derek gently pulled the paper off pausing in confusion. He looked up at Stiles again who waved at him to continue. He opened the book, the front page being a family picture of the Hales for the work Talia did to create the preserve.

"Stiles, is this..."Derek couldn't finish.

"Yeah It is. A Hale Pack photo album. Took me a while to make it. Think it was an idea even before I knew it." Stiles explained. Derek thought of the all the photos Stiles had taken recently and flipped to the back pages, glossy photos of his current family lined the pages. The last phot was a picture of him and Stiles cuddling on a pack night, the note below was in Allison hand, You both deserve love and happiness no matter who it comes from..

"Thank you Stiles. Thank you." Derek knew somehow in his soul, that was Stiles showing his love for him, without saying. Words took courage, and that wasn't easily found in front of others. "Open yours. The bottom one. Please."

Stiles did as he asked, opening the bottom one, a square shaped box. He opened it to see a copy of a building deed sitting in tissue paper. "Der-Derek. You didn't...Not the-" Stiles' voice broke. He scent blooming with tears and pleasure.

"That place on Pine you've been dreaming about for two months? Why, yes it is." Derek tried to play it off as funny.

"This isn't funny. I told you I didn't want you help." Stiles tried to sound stern. Derek only shook his head.

"I told you to let me help. I did. Also it is technically half mine. But you have a place now. You can actually do it." Derek said. The pack made noises of confusion.

"I am not going to university. I am doing online classes but I am opening a magic shop and taking over for Deaton and becoming Hale Pack Emissary. Derek just bought my dream location." Stiles announced to cheers from the pack. Stiles knew in that moment that is how it felt knowing someone loved you enough to give you want you needed not just what you wanted. He knew how it felt to know someone loved him enough to stand with him not out of obligation but actual love and desire to do so.

They opened the other presents with similar reactions.

"A greenhouse? Seriously? and a workshop?" Stiles was dumbfounded.

"You named a literal star after my mother. A. Star." Derek was flabbergasted.

The rest of the pack sensed it was time to leave, the two men had a lot to discuss-least of all their emotions. The pack began piling out trying not to overhear the conversation.

"Derek, I can't accept this. I really can't. It may be all I ever wanted but I can't let you give it to me. We talked about this, I am filling in. If I was meant to be this important, we'd be mates." Stiles said.

"You aren't a fill in. Do you think I would give you up for someone I don't know? I would never. No relationship will ever be more important than our to me. You say this is all you ever wanted? You can have it!" Derek said.

"This isn't something I can take, you may change your mind, or find someone better. This is something to dream and hope for. Let me dream and hope, so I don't get hurt." Stiles sounded sad and broken. Derek made a soft wounded noise.

"You are it for me. I built you a goddamn house Stiles. I tore down my last memory of my family for you. We have almost died for each other too many times to count for you to back out now." Derek said. Stile growled and shuffled trying to think of an argument. He was saved by his dad coming down the road in a hurry. The pack was spilled on the porch trying to look like they hadn't been listening.

"Scott, where is Stiles?" John called. Stiles and Derek came out at the sound of his voice. "Mieczyslaw Stilinski! You were supposed to by home an hour ago! We have family coming in today remember!" John yelled, standing against his open car door.

"I'll be right there!" Stiles blanched. "I can't believe I forgot." He turned to Derek. "We aren't done here, mister."

"Your first name is really Mieczyslaw?" Derek asked. He didn't want Stiles leaving while angry, it made it anxious.

"Yep! Mieczyslaw Stilinski. Please to meet you Derek Hale!" Stiles understood what Derek was going for without him saying like most times.

"Please to meet you too." Derek chuckled before a sharp pain brought him and Stiles to their knees.

Several painful minutes later, Stiles was laughing hard enough he had tears streaming down his face. He left hand was clamped over his shirt collar, knuckles white. Derek stared openmouthed. John and the rest of the pack stood confused and worried.

"Did what I think happen just actually happen?" Scott asked.

"We'd never been formally introduced. Definitely not with my first name. Mate-Marks only form when properly introduced." Stiles moved his hand to show the large wolf print marking his upper chest and collarbone.

Derek laughed. and laughed and laughed before swooping down and pressing a slightly desperate kiss onto Stiles' lips. "Guess we won't have to discuss the shopfront or greenhouse later, mate." Derek grinned goofily at Stiles who could help but smile back just as dopey.

"Guess not" Stiles said. "I guess not."

Both of them could feel the calmness and happiness in their souls for finding their mates. Derek's wolf stopped shifting anxiously as it had been for months, finally calming down for Derek to relax. Both of them filled to the brim: safe, mate, mine, forever.

[cicada-bones]

The Warrior and the Embers

Chapter 2: Hunting

Masterlist / Ao3 / Previous Chapter / Next Chapter

Rowan soared out, over the turrets and bridges, and towards that faint pulse of dark power he could still sense within the palace.

He shifted and landed lightly on the pads of his feet in a small interior courtyard with a central fountain, then turned quickly down the hall to his left and pushed open a plain stone door that sat halfway down the passage. Inside, he was greeted by a bare space that held only an immaculate bed, a cold fireplace, and a wooden desk at which sat a tall, dark, brooding figure facing away from him, studying a worn piece of paper.

“Whitethorn,” Lorcan said without turning to look at him. “What in rutting hell do you want.”

It had been nearly a year since Rowan had seen the male, and yet there was no greeting, no warmth from him. Not that Rowan expected anything else.

In earlier years, when he had first encountered Lorcan, Rowan had pitied the male. Had wondered what had happened, what had been taken from him as a child on the streets of Doranelle, for him to be this way.

Now…he no longer needed to.

Rowan and Lorcan were the same. Two sides of one coin, black granite and solid ice. Perfect killing tools. A match made in hell.

Exactly where Lorcan got his magic – straight from the fiery pits of hell. Blessed by Hellas, god of death, Lorcan’s power was that of will – of death and thought and destruction. Perhaps that was why he was so attracted to a queen who collected the wills of others as if they were her own.

When Rowan did not reply, Lorcan turned around, revealing features hewn from granite and piercing onyx eyes. “What.”

Rowan hesitated slightly, unsure how to ask the questions he harbored. Lorcan would not take well to questioning their queen. “I assume you know why I was called back from the east.”

“I didn’t even know you were in the east. But yes, I know why you were called to Doranelle. What of it.” The words were blank and empty, and Lorcan’s features barely moved from their cruel cast as they escaped his mouth.

Rowan’s voice was hardly any warmer. “Why.”

Lorcan finally seemed to actually see Rowan. “Gavriel is in the north, Vaughan off with another garrison on the other side of the world. Fenrys is already in Varese, and Connall is upstairs somewhere doing gods know what, and isn’t allowed to leave.” Lorcan’s voice was hard.

“I have been called to the fleet, heading south along the coast and then east through the southern inlets, to send aid to the Erriagti people. I’m set to leave in the next few days, but I should be back before the end of the season. I do not have time for other errands, and you are the next in line.”

Rowan pursed his lips slightly. “There’s still something different about this one. It feels almost as though Maeve is…hiding something.”

Lorcan’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “What are you insinuating.”

He sighed. “Nothing specifically. This just feels – off.”

“I assumed it was a roundabout method of punishing Fenrys. He’s been pulling at the leash even more than usual lately.”

That explanation didn’t sit well with Rowan, for some reason. “She didn’t reveal anything to you indicating why she wants the girl so badly?”

“I’m sure you remember tell of her power.”

Rowan’s silence was answer enough.

“Well then, there’s your answer.”

Rowan clenched his jaw. “She really seeks to recruit?”

“So it seems.”

“A fire gift for the Queen of the Rivers.” Rowan’s statement was wry, almost skeptical.

Lorcan narrowed his eyes again. “And why would you say that?”

“Maeve built this city of stone and water. She fears fire.” Rowan was almost surprised at his daring for voicing these thoughts aloud. “Why would she covet it so?”

Lorcan’s words were merciless. “Perhaps, all those millennia ago, if our queen had acquired Brannon, we would not watch over a kingdom but instead an empire.”

“So she seeks to conquer.”

“I do not know, Rowan. And frankly I don’t understand where this sudden desire to question our queen’s motives is coming from.”

Rowan didn’t know either.

So he moved on. “What do you know of the girl? I was in the north, fighting in that useless excuse for a war, but you were here when she came to light.”

Lorcan sighed. “She’s demi-Fae. As far as I remember she had shifting abilities – human and Fae forms. Rare, but not unheard of. We don’t know how well trained she is in her powers.”

“So they could be formidable.”

“They could be. Another reason for Maeve sending you.”

Rowan turned his head and narrowed his eyes slightly, considering. Magic had been absent from the western continent for nearly a decade, meaning that the princess wouldn’t have been able to train her powers in her homeland. But her master, Arobynn Hamel, could easily have sent her to a foreign nation to do so.

“And what about as the assassin.”

“Not much had been known about Celaena Sardothien, other than that she was a col-blooded killer. Ruthless and arrogant. Rumors were rampant, and if our queen could divine fact from fiction, she isn’t sharing.”

“But obviously proficient?” Rowan pushed.

“At least against mortals.”

“But she isn’t fully mortal.”

“No she is not. And we do not know if the assassin’s guild trained her in her Fae form.”

As Fae, the princess’ speed and strength would rival even theirs. But only if she had been trained to use it. Rowan’s blood thrilled. “This could be quite the fight.”

Lorcan’s answering smile was brutal. “I’ve never known you to shy from a challenge, Whitethorn. Don’t disappoint me now.”

Rowan’s grin was small and cold as he responded. “And what about you? What are you going to face in the southeast?”

“A royal has turned, and the people have revolted against him, burning wherever they go. Maeve sends aid to the foolish king, setting the price of winning his kingdom back for him that he must lay much of his authority at her feet.” Lorcan grimaced. “At least its more interesting than an errand run to Varese.”

“We’ll see.” Rowan goaded, even though he knew Lorcan was probably right. The princess would likely be as much a pain in his ass as Fenrys was. All royals were the same – spoiled, selfish, and entirely useless. Especially the powerful ones.

Lorcan just huffed a laugh. “Sure. We’ll see.”

“Who knows. Maybe the princess will be so completely useless that Maeve disposes of her the moment they meet at Mistward, and I’ll be able to join you in the southeast.”

Lorcan’s brow furrowed slightly. “Mistward? The western outpost?”

Rowan nodded.

“Maeve is leaving Doranelle?”

“Yes.”

Lorcan’s lips tightened as he turned his head to face the wall. Their queen did not leave her city lightly. Rowan hadn’t been wrong, something had shifted. This meeting was more than just a formality.

Lorcan turned back to face him, and they reached an understanding.

The male’s eyes were dark. “Regardless, your mission remains the same. Go, collect the princess, and leave the future to the oracles.”

Rowan just nodded, and left.

···

The dawn sun stretched its comforting hand out to brush Rowan’s feathers. He hadn’t bothered to transform back into his Fae form to sleep, choosing instead to perch on a convenient branch until morning.

The trip would normally take him three days. Now, with Fenrys waiting for him in Varese already, he’d hoped to half that. So he’d flown through the previous day, pushing his body to its limit. But he hadn’t had even a moment to rest while in Doranelle, meaning he couldn’t move as quickly as he wished. No matter how it irked him, he’d had to sleep last night.

Rowan opened his eyes quickly, jerked from sleep by the sudden warmth while his nightmares slowly faded, the familiar images leeching from behind his eyelids. He sat on the oaken bough, waiting for the screams to dissipate. Lyria.

Rowan sighed into Mala’s embrace. The sun goddess had always favored him, and now she seemed to smile lightly upon his skin, a promise of some kind. Tomorrow, he would reach Varese, and begin the hunt.

Rowan let out a screech of anticipation. He could be walking into the fight of his life, and his blood thrilled to the challenge.

Aelin Galathynius very well could be a considerable threat, one trained in both Fae combat and fire magic. Whose power at nine years of age had people across the world worried about their borders and their futures.

Even in Doranelle they had feared that the princess would one day take her magic beyond Terrasen's borders and across the sea to the city of water and stone. Where she might be powerful enough to pose a threat. But then the world had twisted, and Terrasen fell, like so many other kingdoms in the west this past decade, and Terrasen’s heir was no more. Or so he had thought.

Now the princess was nearing her second decade. She was still young, but a child no more. And her power will only have grown with the passing years. Then, somehow she had come into the service of Adarlan’s King, the man who had overthrown her country, who had murdered her family. And she was in Wendlyn to kill for him.

The princess of Terrasen had abandoned her nation and become a killer. Had become Adarlan’s assassin, Celaena Sardothien.

Even on the other side of the world, rumors of that girl had reached him. She would disappear for a time, and then violently resurface, carnage and destruction in her wake. Rowan had never paid much attention to the stories, rejecting them as fanciful tales. But now he wished he’d paid them more heed.

The girl was obviously proficient in combat. Just the fact that he had heard of her, had noted her existence, attested to that. Even if her strength as a mortal couldn’t hold a candle to any well-trained Fae. But would he be facing her as a mortal?

As it always did before a test, his blood spiked with adrenaline. But this time, the eagerness was tinged with something else. A thought he couldn’t contain. Particularly as the date, the dreaded anniversary, loomed over him like a guillotine blade.

Perhaps today he would see her again.

Rowan violently battered at the hope that yawned its tiny head with the unwelcome thought, a futile attempt to strike away the agony that followed surely after. Lyria.

He shook himself, shuttering the pain away behind walls of ice, and took off into the light of the rising sun.

As Rowan flew, he calculated.

His quarry was a princess of Terrasen, descendant of Brannon and gifted with his fire magic. Once Rowan was in close proximity to her, he would probably be able to sense her power just as he did with any magic wielder. But from a distance, he wasn’t familiar enough with her to sense a gods-damned thing.

Her scent could possibly mark her as Terrasen royalty, but she had spent so many years as another person, in foreign nation, that he couldn’t rely on it alone to track her down. Her scent might not have any traces of Terrasen left.

She would most likely have an Adarlanian accent, or perhaps a Terrasen one. But then again, she had been trained as a spy and assassin, she could be adept at disguising her accent, as well as her distinctive appearance.

But the spy’s information had been predicated upon the princess’s golden hair and turquoise-and-gold eyes; meaning Rowan could be assured that at least within the last week the princess had retained those features.

He couldn’t easily ask around after her either. With the name Aelin Galathynius, or Celaena Sardothien for that matter, she wouldn’t provide any names that would be recognizable at bars or inns. He had to rely on description alone.

There was also the chance that she had found sanctuary with her relatives, the Ashryvers, and he would have to spirit her away under the noses of royal guards.

This was proving to be even more of a challenge than he had originally supposed. From a distance, he would be forced to use that which she could not easily change about herself. Namely, her eyes, her age, and the feeling of her power.

···

The day waxed into night, the miles dissolving beneath his wings. Then the sun rose once more, bringing with it the promise of contest.

Where to look for a princess in the city of Varese? Rowan mused.

The city’s sprawl came into view beneath the clouds, a hilly expanse of red terracotta tiles and white stucco walls. The sun had fully risen now, and was baking the city streets and its many colors into a white-bright haze. In the evenings, the streets would glow golden, falling into lovely streaks of yellow and orange. But during the day, the capital scorched and blistered under Mala’s heavy gaze.

The vegetation that survived the sun’s glare was hardy and tough, but still a dark and vibrant green, contrasting well with warm tones of the capital. Outside the city walls, the evergreens gathered into a thick forest that spread towards the distant mountains and the city of rivers hidden among them.

The buildings were all piled on top of each other, climbing onto each other’s shoulders and resting on each other’s backs, a pile of limbs. It was haphazard and chaotic, a mess of noise and color and scent.

A perfect hiding place.

He swooped down low, heading past the centrally located palace and towards the northwest section of the city, making sure to avoid the gazes of keen-eyed castle guards. Varese was a city of magic, housing a substantial Fae population in addition to the many Fae nomads that regularly came through the city. The palace guards would know how to recognize a Fae in animal form, and he had no desire to be spotted and stopped.

The northwestern part of Varese was the oldest part of the city, and underneath all of the carelessly stacked additions you can still find the original ancient courtyard that the capital city was built around. It now housed a small market that teemed with magical trinkets, potions, fortune tellers, spells and tools, as well as gifted street performers and defected mercenaries that now traded their powers for a few coins.

This district held the highest concentration of Fae, and unsurprisingly, it was the area of the city Rowan was most familiar with.

He remained in hawk form, soaring high above the market stalls and avoiding any watchful eyes. In his Fae body, his presence would be noted wherever he went. He was too powerful, too recognizable, and far too memorable.

Rowan swooped down a familiar alley and towards a secluded doorway. Without hesitation, he soared through the open curtain and transformed, moving to sit on a plain wooden chair. The space was painfully small and almost entirely bare, the consequence of so much time traveling.

The apartment was one of many spread throughout Wendlyn, all inconspicuous, tiny, and sparse. Kept by Maeve’s blood-sworn warriors as outposts, ready to be used whenever needed.

Rowan could feel a familiar presence in the only room adjoining the main space.

Good, he was here.

Rowan let out a grunt of annoyance. There was no way that his presence hadn’t already been sensed. He was being ignored. But before he could break down the door and pull the male out by his teeth, it opened and Fenrys lurched out, a wild look in his eye and a short dagger in his hands.

Rowan snorted, his eyebrows raising. Or maybe not.

“Pleasant sleep?” Rowan asked, his voice laced with derision.

Fenrys only grunted, and sat in the only other available chair. The male was disheveled; there were heavy bags under his dark eyes, his golden curls were matted, and his bronze skin was ashen. Rowan had obviously just woken him after a late night.

Rowan’s jaw tightened. At least the male was where he was supposed to be – even if he hadn’t actually achieved anything other than debauchery in the days since his arrival.

But Fenrys just frowned back at his icy glare. “Took you long enough.” His words were muddled with sleep and leftover drink.

Rowan’s eyes narrowed still further. Barely anyone in the world would dare to speak to him like that. Unluckily for Rowan, Fenrys was one of those very few. “Have you done anything other than drink yourself to death since you got here?”

“No. And I promise, I did it just to annoy you.”

Rowan blinked, while his muscles tensed.

“Now now Rowan don’t get your knickers in a twist. I’m not that stupid.” Fenrys’ grin was wicked, his eyes bright enough to set the apartment on fire.

Rowan just sighed, leashing his anger and dredging up that well of patience hidden beneath it. It wasn’t particularly deep. This time of year, early spring, was always the hardest for Rowan. He wished he could just leave, could fly into the waiting winds and rage at the waning sun. Instead he was trapped here with this male and his infuriating mouth.

Fenrys spoke up. “I’ve been here nearly a week now. I wasn’t expecting you so soon – you must have hauled ass from Doranelle.”

Rowan just grunted.

“I’ve spent the past three days and nights almost entirely in the palace. Galan Ashryver, the crown prince, is honorable – he will be a benevolent ruler. He spends most of his days in council, or with his army. Adarlanian forces venture closer every day – threatening outright war. And he’s become a blockade runner.”

Fenrys grinned at that, his eyes warm with respect for the young prince. Rowan nodded, waiting for him to continue.

“The people love him for it. Maeve will probably have a hard time with him in the coming years – he’s intractable. Stubborn. And righteous to a fault. The king however is different story – you’re familiar with him, I’m sure.”

Rowan grimaced.

Fenrys cursed. “Bastard. Can’t shine his shoes without checking in with at least three advisors, and even then, he’d probably still avoid going through with it. Her majesty has wrapped him utterly around her finger. There is no way that he is knowingly hiding Aelin Galathynius under Maeve’s nose, absolutely none. And with the princess’s eyes and age…she’d probably be discovered within days if she tried to infiltrate the court.”

Rowan agreed with the assessment. “But?”

“But there’s a chance that Galan Ashryver is hiding her. A small one, but still a chance.”

Rowan nodded again.

“His patterns are very regular – and much of the time he is in company. He only rarely has time alone, and even more rarely is he out of the palace grounds. Their security is fairly tight – enough so that even Adarlan’s Assassin couldn’t easily slip through.”

“The princess was ordered to assassinate the Ashryvers – ”

“Yes,” Fenrys interrupted, causing Rowan’s frown to deepen, ���and that is why my focus these past few days has been on the palace, and not on tracking the girl down.”

“And?” Rowan spoke through his teeth.

“Nothing.”

“No threats, no attacks, no one scouting them out?”

“Absolutely nothing. I’ve mentioned the possibility of a threat to his guards, and they are planning on upping his security. Not that the assassin is likely to get a shot at him before we track her down.”

“Not that that is going to prove an easy task.”

Fenrys’ eyes glinted. “You doubt our ability to overpower a teenage princess?”

Rowan scowled. “I am cautious when that teenage princess has a power great enough to attract the attention of our queen, and of nations across the world.”

“Oh Rowan, what a worrier you are turning into in your old age.”

Rowan’s anger pulled on its leash. He sighed. “That wasn’t what I meant anyways. The girl has every reason to stay out of sight, and as an assassin, she must have been trained to disguise her appearance. She could prove very difficult to track down.”

Fenrys frowned, and nodded.

Rowan shifted in his seat. “What did Maeve tell you before you left?”

Fenrys cocked his head, his eyes dancing once again. “What? Are you thinking I may have received more information than you, oh-great-immortal-warrior?

“Just tell me.”

The male relented. “Only the princess’ description, her purpose in Varese, and her identity as both Celaena and Aelin.” Fenrys’ eyes darkened slightly. “Maeve also said that she was sending for you, and you were to collect the girl and ferry her back. I was ordered to stay away from her, which I’m sure was intended as a punishment. Instead I have to stay in Varese to ensure that the Ashryver prince doesn’t get any ideas about attacking Adarlan before Maeve decides it’s necessary.”

“From what you said, that might also prove a challenge.”

Fenrys nodded. “You know how these royals are – still upset about Maeve ignoring Terrasen’s call for aid all those years ago. Slow to trust. Just got back from a long night of ingratiating.”

“If that’s what you call it.” He eyed the undergarments strewn through the apartment.

Fenrys grinned wickedly. “Nothing wrong with enjoying a few nights of freedom.”

Rowan’s lips tightened slightly. No matter how infuriating the male was, Rowan still sympathized with Fenrys. He bore the brunt of Maeve’s attentions, shielding his twin from her. Fenrys was still young by Fae standards, but the twin wolves had still served Maeve for nearly a century. And all that time, Fenrys protected his brother from Maeve.

Fenrys hadn’t sworn to Maeve out of devotion, or desire for power, or even out of desperation as Rowan had. He had sworn out of his love for his brother, and his need to protect him.

Maybe as a result of that, out of all of them Fenrys chafed the most under Maeve’s rule. He never betrayed her, never undermined her, but he was the only one of Maeve's blood-sworn who perhaps truly regretted taking the blood oath.

But it didn’t matter – now that it was done, he would serve for the rest of his life or die in dishonor. There were no other options.

Rowan shook himself from those pointless thoughts. “How long will you be here?”

“Her majesty bade me stay till the end of the month.”

“Good.” Rowan paused. “Well you'd better not have any other plans for your day – we’re going hunting.”

Rowan waited for a rebuttal, but none came. Fenrys was just nodding his agreement, a wicked light gleaming in his eyes. “Getting worn-out, old man? Need some assistance on your little chase?”

Rowan growled as the words cut through him. He pushed the fury away through sheer force of will, snarling, “You know why I asked.”

Fenrys grinned wide. “What, the ancient, all-powerful warrior needs my help interrogating barmaids?”

“You’re less conspicuous than I am.”

“Friendlier, you mean.”

“A bigger pain in the ass.”

“Better at flirting with the barmaids though.” Fenrys laughed outright, ducking to avoid Rowan’s swipe at his left cheekbone. “Don’t worry Rowan, I’ll ask around for your missing princess.”

Rowan closed his eyes briefly, strangling the fury that threatened to break through his icy walls.

“Aww I’ve got you all hot and bothered now – care for cool drink little birdie?”

Rowan’s nostrils flared warningly. If he could manage to avoid slaughtering Fenrys, this male would put him in the ground one day.

Fenrys just laughed again, letting go for the time being. “I’ll start by checking the tabernas in the old parts of the city, see if anyone’s spotted someone that fits her description. Maybe she’s more comfortable around other Fae. Then I’ll check the slums. Easiest place to hide in a city of this size.”

Rowan nodded.

“You?”

“I’ll scout from above.”

“I knew you’d be useful someday.”

···

The day passed slowly, dully.

The rhythms of the capital had not changed since Rowan had last visited, and were unlikely to change for centuries to come. It was peaceful, and the city guards were calm, collected, and reliable. There were no threats to be uncovered, no spies lining the rooftops or assassins in the shadows. Nor was there any scent, any hint, of wildfire.

The fight he had anticipated, had almost longed for, did not materialize.

Still, Rowan catalogued every unusual figure that passed below, marking every person that could conceivably fit the princess’s description, and many others besides. Even so, there were not many.

When dark fell and the streets began to empty, Rowan returned to the apartment to meet with Fenrys.

He stewed in silence, forced to wait for the male to reappear. The walls of the apartment were close, confining. He was claustrophobic in the tiny space. Even so, the anxiety was less to do with the apartment and more to do with the thoughts trapped inside his head. He couldn’t get away from them, had no escape. The date loomed over him, a clock running out in his head, an anvil waiting to drop.

Even after all these centuries, his grief was still the weight of the world on his back.

The burden of his anguish and his guilt, his endless shame, had not lessened by one single drop. He could still feel the rough wood of the shovel between his fingers, still taste the copper of her blood on his lips. Could still sense the heat of the mountain home burning before his eyes.

And the images rent him through just as thoroughly as they had that first day.

He longed to move, to escape, to allow the wind and moonlight to coat his body in ice until he no longer had to breathe – no longer had to think. Until his very bones were made of ice. But he couldn’t, so he sat and waited. Not for his brother to walk through the door, bearing news of the princess they sought, but for the foe who would finally best him, and send him back to his love.

It was late into the night when Fenrys finally reappeared.

The moon was full, and a soft white light illuminated the space through the open window. Pale blue curtains ruffled as the front door clicked open and shut.

Fenrys moved through the room efficiently, grabbing a dirty bottle of some amber liquid and collapsing into the chair opposite Rowan. He took a long draught, then handed the bottle over to Rowan, who drank without hesitation.

“So I asked around.”

“Hmm.”

“And I’m not sure how reliable the information I managed to get is.”

Rowan grunted.

“It’s not that people were unwilling to talk – its more that the description we have to give is so sketchy. In Varese, Ashryver eyes are common enough, even when paired with golden hair and aristocratic features.”

“Bastards.”

“Yep. It seems that over the years the Ashryvers have managed to spread their line pretty far throughout the city.”

“So, nothing.”

“I didn’t say that.”

Rowan waited.

“I managed to find a few possibilities. All new to the city, all young women, traveling alone, matching the description. One is staying in a wayhouse in a southern section of the city, arrived three nights ago. I visited her earlier this evening.”

“And?”

“Beautiful. Great taste in furniture. But unless your princess is planning on marrying a merchant’s son and eloping to Fenharrow anytime soon, she’s not your girl.”

Rowan raised his eyebrows.

“I take it no dice.”

“Just keep talking.”

“Another was just passing through, heading for a ship to the southern continent. I managed to catch her before she left. Not her. Great flirt though.”

Rowan frowned at the cocky male.

“There were a few others, all shaky matches, not really worth checking up on unless we get desperate. And the last one was a bit of a mystery. Apparently, there’s been a young woman showing up each night in tabernas around the western edge of the city to gamble. Always keeps her face covered.”

“Hmm.”

“Yeah. I ended up talking to a few guards and barkeeps, and last night a city guard finally got a good look. She’s young – at the latest in her mid-twenties, with light hair and the right eyes. Stood out to him – she’s quite pretty apparently, but the man didn’t want to pursue any of his bosses’ cousins.”

Rowan frowned.

“She’s a shit gambler though, plays dice all night and ends up robbing back what she loses. Started a few big fights the past couple nights. The guards are looking for her, but she doesn’t seem to have an address in the city, and she isn’t renting a room anywhere. She’s a ghost.”

Rowan’s lips twitched.

"Doesn’t sound much like royalty – but since she’s successfully hidden from Adarlan’s soldiers on her own all these years, I wouldn’t put anything past her.”

“Any leads?”

“Nope. Whoever she is, she’s good at hiding her tracks. But I can give you the names and locations of the bars she’s been spotted at the past few nights.”

Rowan nodded as Fenrys relayed the information, then asked, “Would you purchase a couple of horses for me in the market tomorrow? Whether or not this girl is the princess, once I do find her I don’t want to let her out of my sight. I’m going to need a way out of the city, and I would prefer it not to be on my feet.”

Fenrys frowned, but agreed, and Rowan nodded his thanks.

Then the male’s eyes seemed to shift, and he hesitated for a moment, considering something. His lips pursed, brow furrowed. Worried. Rowan found himself automatically tensing in response.

Fenrys shook his head as he said, “Why this girl Rowan? I was in Doranelle, with nothing to do. The girl is powerful, yes, but she is young. And mortal. Any of us could probably take her. But Maeve still took you from another assignment and asked you to collect her.”

Rowan turned to look out the window.

“And now she’s going to leave Doranelle to meet with her. Leave Doranelle. I don’t think she’s done that this century. Why?”

“I don’t know.” Rowan’s voice was hard.

Fenrys frowned and nodded, parsing his real meaning from the non-answer.

Something had shifted.

Change was on the horizon. Aelin Galathynius had reappeared, the lost princess found. And their queen was intent on acquiring her. War was stirring in the west, coming ever closer to their shores. Adarlan was poised to attack, had even schemed to murder royalty, a risky and underhanded ploy. The chess pieces were moving.

The two males said a quiet farewell, Fenrys still lost in thought.

Rowan took off into the darkness, the wind tearing at his feathers.

···

Masterlist / Ao3 / Previous Chapter / Next Chapter

[deermi]

The Enchanted | Part 1

Summarry: As a fairy, you would never expect a prince in the Meadow. Yet here you are with Oh Sehun standing in front of you, begging to put a spell on his family. But fairies don’t do anything for free, do they?

Gnere: Nothing specific

Warnings: None

AU: Royal, fantasy

Pairing: Oh Sehun x Reader

Word count: 4,5k~

Author’s note: Say hello to prince Sehun in this fic.

The sound of wind gently blowing through the trees surrounding the small lake and tingle the colorful flowers on the ground filled my ear. I was sitting on one of the bigger branches, my feet barely hanging above the surface of the water as I let the breeze caress my skin. The fresh air filled my lungs as I took slow, deep breaths savouring the feeling of being alone with mother nature.

The Meadow was surely my favourite place in the whole world. The dazzling scenery was calm, yet vibrant and full of life - just like all of us living here. It was fairies’ shelter, a place every other creature was scared to enter, anxious due to the rumours about some unknown spells surrounding the area. Even if they were just rumors, fairies being themselves wouldn’t like to share their beloved home place with anybody else. 

The beautiful lake located just in the centre of The Meadow was what I loved about this place the most. I could spend hours just looking at the soft waves caressing the sand as the refreshing breeze tingled everything else around it. Right in front of me I could see a small group of fairies laughing and chatting at the shore. I wasn’t the only one who loved the lake - probably most of us did, but the spot I was sitting in was my secret, everyday hideout, nobody knew about. From this place I had the perfect view on surface of the water and everything that surrounded it.

That’s why I almost felt my heart stop when I heard some twigs cracking on the ground under somebody’s feet. Someone was making their way towards my spot in rather fast pace not minding the sounds they was making. Why would a fairy be in such a rush? We were free creatures, living our lives of casting spells, tricks on others and never ending resting.

But what I saw was not a fairy. Not even a different creature of the Woods. My eyes went wide as I scanned the human boy who had just entered my view. His tall frame made him look strong and intimidating even when his clothes were slightly dirty from walking through the forest surrounding the Meadow. He moved his dark hair out of his face while panting heavily, making me immediately think that he must’ve been running to get here. 

There was no way I could’ve mistaken him, despite the fact that humans were staying away from the Woods and their inhabitants. He was Oh Sehun - the firstborn of the humans’ royal family and their crown prince. 

His eyes darted to mine, almost immediately after he entered my hideout and noticed me sitting on the branch. For a moment we were just eyeing each other feeling rather uneasy because of the other’s presence. 

I had never seen a human in the Meadow before, but definitely wasn’t afraid of him. However I couldn’t help the thoughts inside my head. How did he get here? Was he brave enough to come to the Meadow despite all of those fake rumors about the spells? Or was he just desperate? But why would the humans’ prince be desperate? The only thing he didn’t have was magic so why would he come to the fairies’ home?

He took a deep breath, as if he had almost felt scared of talking to me.

“Can you help me?” his voice came out surprisingly confident without even a hint of insecurity 

I furrowed my eyebrows. What would a prince want from a fairy?

Still, I nodded slowly motioning him to continue. 

“I am Oh Sehun, the crown prince of humans, but probably you know that.” he said “And my coronation is supposed to occur in two weeks.”

The boy took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a brief second before speaking up again.

“But I don’t want that. So that’s why I’m asking...”

He paused one more time as I remained seated on the branch, still as confused as I had been before.

“Do me a favour.” he said while looking me directly in the eyes “Put a spell on them. Put a spell on my family.”

I giggled. So that’s what it was all about? He was afraid of the responsibility that came with the crown? I never would’ve expected that a human could be afraid of being in power. Without any spells, abnormal strength, or any other kind of other magical ability they seemed to always want it.

But who were I to say no? 

“Okay.” 

The Prince let out a sigh of relief.

“But fairies don’t do anything for free.” I added quickly making him furrow his eyebrows “We always need something in return.”

He should’ve known better than to simply ask me to do something. We didn’t know ‘favours’; for us only ‘deals’ existed. I couldn’t lie - fairies are selfish creatures. But so are humans.

I jumped of the branch right into the water, splashing some of it around me as I let the waves flow around my bare feet. Slowly, I walked out of the lake and came closer to the prince. His breath sped up - he definitely wasn’t used to compay of any of the creatures of the Woods.

“What do you want than?” there was no sound of fear in his voice, just like expected from the heir

I smirked knowing that he’ll do anything to get what he wants. I could read that on his face. He was Oh Sehun and I had him wrapped around my finger. 

We were somehow alike - Sehun and I. As a fairy I had everything I wanted in my long life. Eternal youth, the power of magic, a beautiful place to live, but there was one thing I lacked. Just like Sehun didn’t get to experience magic, I didn’t get to experience what his life looked like. So when he had asked my what I wanted in return I instantly knew what my answer would be.

“You’ll let me into the castle.” 

For a moment a confused look appeared on his face, but it was quickly gone. His eyes didn’t leave mine for second and, despite his shaky breath, all I could see in them was true determination.

Without hesitating he said “Deal.”

My lips curled up into a smirk as I eyed the heir. I started to wonder whether he knew how risky it actually was to let me inside the castle where every royal, including himself, lived. We, the creatures of the Woods, were what humans avoided and dreaded the most. One of their main rules was not to let us anywhere near them at all cost. And now Prince Oh Sehun was breaking it.

“Tell me.” he scanned my frame as if to look for any differences between our bodies “What would a fairy want from a castle?”

I let out a chuckle and crossed my arms over my chest.

“I want to try it out. Your type of life.” I explained “It’s the only thing I can’t have as a fairy because you, humans, are so afraid of us. However, I think that you might be an exception.”

“And why is that?” he asked me

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a human even dare to think about entering the Meadow.” I crooked my head to the side and continued with a mocking tone “Haven’t your parents told you about the spells surrounding this place?”

“They have.” he scoffed “But it turns out that it was just a bunch of lies somebody came up with and now people believe it.” 

I laughed and took a few steps closer to the Prince. He was hovering over me with his tall, strong frame. Some would say that he even looked intimidating, but not to me. Because I knew how simple the whole situation was. Oh Sehun was just a human asking a magical creature to do something for him.

“That doesn’t change the fact that you were brave enough to come here.” I smiled at him teasingly

Our bodies didn’t touch each other, but I was close enough to feel the Prince’s scent. He smelled like anise and freshly cut plants, most probably due to the fact that he had been getting through the forest a few moments before. 

“May I ask you what’s your name?” suddenly he spoke up one more time “Since you already know mine.”

I didn’t bother stretching out my hand to him and remained as close as I was before, testing both his mind, heart and all of the senses.

“Y/N.” I introduced myself briefly “And I’m a fairy. I don’t have any fancy titles like you do.”

“So, Y/N…” he trailed of “How do you want me to sneak you into the castle?”

My head flew back the moment I started to laugh one more time.

“Oh no.” I snorted “You need to figure this out yourself. You’re the one who wants the deal to happen, aren’t you?”

Before he could answer me I spoke again.

“If you’re really eager on your wish coming true than come back here tomorrow. Or just any other day, but with a real plan. Not just an idea of it”

The Prince studied my face carefully and ran his hand through his messed ebony hair in a swift motion. Without a word he turned around and dashed back into the forest leaving me alone with a grin on my face. For a moment I could still hear the sounds of cracking twigs and leaves shuffling as Prince Oh Sehun tried to get out of the Meadow.

When I heard the same familiar noises coming from the forest I immediately turned myself to the side, splashing the water I was standing in around me. 

“I actually thought you’d give up, Prince.” my eyebrows raised as I noticed Oh Sehun stepping out of the trees into my hideout “I didn’t know you were that desperate.”

The boy stood in front of me once again, in the same place as the day before. Both his hair and outfit were disheveled and his breath was heavy. He indeed was brave - visiting the Meadow two days in a row. For a moment I started to wonder what would've happened if somebody had found out that he was sneaking out of the castle to come here.

“I’m not desperate.” he answered rather harshly “I am just making sure I’ll get what I want.”

Today the Prince seemed definitely more confident - the previous insecurity mixed with a hint of fear disappeared almost completely.

“So I came here with a plan, just like you told me to.” he continued

I took a few steps in the water causing the surface to gently flow around my ankles.

“I’m all ears.”

The Prince took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a few second, as if he was wondering whether to tell me what he had planned or not.

“I am going to introduce you as a member of the nobility.” he announced “And as my fiancée.”

I turned my head around abruptly, sending him a scolding look. Within a moment I got out of the lake and stepped closer to him.

“Are you being serious right now?” my tone was firm “Why would I agree to this stupid idea of yours?”

“Yes I am serious, but I have everything planned out. So don’t worry about it - nothing that you don’t want will happen.” his confidence didn’t vanish, but he raised his hands trying to calm me down “It’s just a title that you will have for the time you spend at the castle. Also the status of prince’s fiancée will allow you to do whatever you desire there. I guarantee you that. You will have everything there - an enormous chamber, myriads of dresses, or service who will obey your orders without a word.”

His huge promises made my heart beat with excitement. What he told me was exactly what I had imagined the palace life to look like. 

“And have you thought about what is going to happen the moment I put the spell on your parents? You want me to make them change their minds about your coronation and becoming the new king. But your human kingdom will need a new ruler anyways.”

“I thought about it.” he answered quickly “And it should be my younger brother.”

I crossed my arms over my chest.

“Do you want it to be a part of the spell? Tricking them into thinking that your brother should become the next king?”

He nodded and asked me “What do you want in return for that?”

I smirked. Oh Sehun surely was a fast learner.

“You’ll let me stay in the castle for however long I want.” I demanded “If I hate it, I’ll leave. But if I enjoy it, I’ll keep you company for at least some time.”

He perfectly knew that in my case ‘some time’ could even mean eternity. For the Prince it could mean having to secretly keep a fairy inside the castle walls for his whole human life. Not only was it risky, but also dangerous for him, his family members and every single person that lived there. The other thing was that if somebody found out they would most probably banish him. 

The Prince’s eyes darted to the side, trying not to look at me as he started to think. I could almost feel all of the thoughts and concerns running through his mind.

“I agree.” he said finally 

“I knew you would.” I teased “I told you that you’re desperate. Even though you’re trying to convince me that it’s just pure determination.”

He breathed in through his nose loudly, his anger slowly starting to build up. Still, as a royal he was reserved and didn’t let emotions take over him that easily so just a few seconds later a calm look appeared on his face back again.

“How would you like to seal the deal?” he asked me with a gentle tone “Do you want us to sign a contract, or something?”

“Oh, no.” I shook my head “Only demons do that. We don’t need that kind of useless, formal stuff. Our deals are more like… They’re more like promises. And it’s up to you weather you break it or not.”

“Fairies never break promises?” he raised his eyebrow at my words

“Never. You humans only see as untrustworthy tricksters who use their magic to tease the others.” humans didn’t really think out of the box. They only had their one close minded point of view they were too stubborn, or perhaps too scared to deny. “I can’t lie - some of the things you have in your minds about us probably are true, but we definitely don’t break promises. And, like I had already told you, we’re not like demons. Deals with us are more clear and there are no hidden parts of it that could possibly harm you.”

“It seems like there are a lot of things about fairies that I don’t know.”

The Prince was smirking at me. I had a hunch that he was somehow different from other humans. Or maybe I felt like that because he was the first human I had encountered in ages. Still, there was something about him that made my attitude more welcoming. Maybe it was his confidence, or prince-like posture. I could even say that I sort of liked him.

With my eyes locked with his chocolate ones I whispered stretching out each word “You will be surprised how many.” 

I was calling Sehun brave and confident, yet I forgot that the only reason I was actually even talking to him was because he didn’t want to become the new king. It was that sort of weird paradox in which you are sure about something, but later another fact excludes that thing. The Prince was far away from a coward. However he was trying to run away from his responsibilities as an heir.

“Well, I didn't actually ask you about it yesterday.” I started, my curiosity taking over “But why are you doing this? Dealing with a fairy not to become the new king?”

He let out an annoyed sigh.

“I don’t want it. I don’t want the crown.” he wasn’t looking at me like he was ashamed of the words coming out of his mouth “It’s not like I’m scared though. I just want to live my life to the fullest without the feeling that I’m forever attached to the throne. Without a doubt people would expect me to be like my father. And I don’t think I would meet their demands because we’re so different. My brother is more like him and that’s another reason why I think he is more suitable for this role.”

There was something in his voice that caused me to believe him in some way. I didn’t know the humans’ royal family well, actually only what they looked like, but the Prince’s tone was serious enough to make me think that at least a part of what he had said was true.

‘In the castle I will have a lot of time to verify it.’ I thought

“Can you meet me tomorrow somewhere near the castle?” he asked me quickly like he didn’t want me to dig into the topic more “Or maybe I can come here tomorrow and we’ll go together? It’s up to you.”

When he had come here yesterday it had just been a conversation, a one full of weird tension, between a human and a creature from the Woods And now it was different. Maybe he had realized that fairies aren’t that scary or dangerous as he had thought before? Or maybe it was me who had changed their mind about the humans’ hier?

“Meet me outside the Meadow. Meeting close to the castle might be too dangerous.” I said 

“Alright.” he nodded without any hesitation and lessened the tension in his shoulders

Prince Oh Sehun unquestionably lit a spark of curiosity inside me.

[heli0s-writes]

I. Soulmate Series and Peculiar Pairs

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Reader x Bucky Barnes Summary:  An introduction to the mystery of soulmates and love. You’re just another person lost in the world, trying to find yours.. until you give up. You meet some Avengers on the way. A/N: Part 1 of Mystery of Love.

The world had a very singular definition of soulmates: Two people, entwined by fate, perfectly right for each other, destined to meet and exist as one. The cosmos willed this. God willed it. The universe willed it. Whatever anyone’s religious or personal beliefs may be- there was a reply.

Children were told stories of their parents’ meeting and The Words they said to each other that sealed their future. These prophesized utterances would form onto their skin and scratch itself onto a special place in a script unique to that person’s handwriting. The lore of The Words were in every fairy tale and film. No wonder it had always been your dream to meet yours.

Your own parents met in Kindergarten, when your mother moved from Jersey to Manhattan because her father had been transferred to a higher position. He was hesitant at first, to leave their small city and large family behind, but changed his mind in early spring. The first day she set foot in her classroom, as she’d tell you over and over again, she was seated next to a chubby, freckled boy who shook her hand. With a firm grip, he yelled “Hello, beautiful!” and before she could respond, she had doubled over to scream.

When the teacher rushed over and your mother finally stopped crying, she’d lifted her paisley cotton shirt to see the askew “hEllo BEaUtiFul” letters circling her belly button. She pointed a finger to your father, blubbering uncontrollably, and yelled, “It’s you! You’re my soulmate!” and then it became his turn to double over.

The teacher called both their mothers and their mothers had taken them out of school for the rest of the day. They spent it in each other’s company, learning each other’s names, playing, eating ice-cream, and then took a nap, pinkies touching. They were inseparable ever since.

At age 4, it was your favorite story, and you wanted to hear it every night before bed. Your parents were the essence of perfection: your mother’s hair was always impeccable, your father’s shirt was always pressed, and they always kissed at the door when he’d leave for work.

At age 6, you began to wonder about your own soulmate. “Does it hurt very bad, mama?” “Why haven’t I met him yet?” “What if he’s mean to me?” “What if he moves away, mama?”

Your mother always assured you that it was meant to be. You were designed to be loved. The universe would never, ever, leave anyone out. Soulmates were destiny, and destiny was final. You were pleased with the answers she provided, and happy to hear them every time she reminded you.

At age 8, you’d forgotten all about soulmates. Boys were meant to be chased away on the playground, wrestled with in the grass, beaten in a game of soccer. Girls were your confidants, your sisters, who’d braid your hair and dance with you through the living room. Soulmates were for adults, and more than that, you were afraid of the pain of someone’s Words carving into your skin. There were rumors of 5th graders who found their soulmate in the fall, but they were big kids and you put off thinking about it for many years and stopped asking questions.

At age 14, it was no longer something you could ignore. Many girls were going through changes, some had looked like they were already finished, while you had barely started. Boys changed too. Everyone began to notice each other. And you began to notice yourself in this extant space. High school was extremely daunting, and on your first day, you promised yourself that you’d find your soulmate in this large campus.

Some juniors who had soulmates were already married with their parents’ eager approval. There was a club dedicated to meeting as many students in the school as possible to find your soulmate. On Thursday mornings they held “speed-meeting” sessions where one side held a notecard that said, “You are mine” and the other side, “I am yours” there were many variations that were available such as, “You are the light of my life” or “I’ll love you forever”.

You tried many times, afraid that if your soulmate was a senior and they graduated this year, you’d have to wait forever to meet them. After December, it was taking a toll on your heart. All of those sessions of sitting down and staring into the eyes of new started out exciting, but slowly turned banal and drove you into melancholy. Being bound to one person was supposed to be magical, but the recurring meetings felt disingenuous. You didn’t want to meet your soulmate in a sterilized setting, reading a notecard of words that were not from your heart.

Around winter vacation, you were so despondent and anxious that it began to manifest in severe and constant stomach pains. Your parents began to discuss the possibility of counseling. You refused them, afraid that you’d be labelled as a lovelorn freak for the rest of your life. They did relent, and instead gave you a very nice digital camera for Christmas, hoping it could be a hobby to distract you from your worries. Your very first picture was of your parents under the Christmas tree. Your second picture was of their Words, side by side. It took five months for your spasms to ease.

In your later teens, you began to branch out in earnest to find that person. You had worked as a hostess during senior year to maximize your chance of meeting someone, and even landed a barista job at one of the busiest cafés in Manhattan your freshman year of college at a small conservative university. You joined a sorority and lost count of all the events you’d attend and all the fraternity boys you’d met during that year. It was too much, in the end, you were focused on your studies and couldn’t stand another year in that tiny white picket-fence house always reeking of hairspray and Victoria Secret body mist.

You continued taking photographs and enrolled in art classes the following year. You had won a small scholarship and the funds went into a new professional camera. Mid-sophomore year, you quit your job at the café and began to take pictures for the University’s paper, penning food and entertainment columns here and there, primarily about your local college town. You submitted in group exhibitions and struggled to balance classes, a job, and your own inquiries of love. Most of your friends had met their soulmates, and when your roommate came home breathless, freshly inked in beautiful cursive script, and screamed, “It’s a girl!!”, you broke down.

You had never thought of the possibility of being with a woman. But what if the universe decided that it was? Could you love a woman, like that? You spent the rest of the weekend curled up in bed, ill with stomachaches, questioning everything you knew about yourself and your capacity to love.

You called home to ask your mother, “What if my soulmate is a woman?” and the audible gasp on the other line confirmed the feeling in your gut. You weren’t done yet. “What if my soulmate is a hundred and ten on his deathbed? What if he’s a murderer? What if… god forbid, a child?” the tears wouldn’t stop. You were hysterical. You no longer searched for “the one”.

Junior year, you spent a brief fall session abroad in Italy. It was a small group of 5 with one of your favorite professors and you were free to explore your own body of work in your specialty. This was the perfect opportunity to build your portfolio with historic sites and modern culture. Italy was beautiful, romantic, and being there felt like a dream. One of your cohort members met her soulmate while asking him for permission to sketch his picture. He was a green-eyed man with dark, curly hair swept in a low ponytail. Her Words appeared on his arm, “Excuse me! Do you mind?”

And his Words, “Non parlo inglese” Meaning, “I do not speak English”

After their shock subsided, they shared a laugh and you took their picture together, matching tender forearms side-by-side.

As intended, you didn’t find your soulmate in Italy, either. But you did find a spark. The whole soulmate business was breeding so many questions that were turning into criticisms inside you. The picture of your friend in Italy started churning the gears of your body of work. You began to seek out silly or strange First Words to photograph, and at the end of your spring semester, you held a solo exhibition back home. It was a smash and featured in the local paper on page 5. Soon after, it became viral on the internet.

Reviews raved about the humor of your photographs (one set of First Words read, “You think I’m cute, huh” and “You’re a fucking nightmare-boy”. Another, “Bless you” and “That wasn’t a sneeze” your personal favorite, "Give me your wallet" and "Oh hell no").

People were alarmed at some of the less traditional pairs you found: differing intense religious beliefs (Roman Catholic, and Satanist), age-disparity (15 year gap between them), familial relations (they were first-cousins), those encumbered by illness (one had been in a coma for 5 years), and something that was so rare you’d only read about it happening twice, ever: multiple soulmates.

In that particular case, you had put an advertisement online and received an e-mail that night from someone who wanted to refer you to their uncle and his family. You went the next morning to Prospect Park and met John and his soulmates Francis and Marilynn. You spent three hours with them that day. The photos you took were beyond lovely.

In senior year, you had a portfolio that was known world-wide. You were receiving so many e-mails a day about photo opportunities that your business address bounced back at least twice a week for 24 hours. Most of them were very desperate calls for attention, struggles for their 15 seconds of fame, you rarely had the time (or patience) to give an e-mail a second look. You put that body of work on hold, but still opened an online store to sell prints and gave the occasional phone interview. Between that and the various photography jobs you received elsewhere, you were self-sufficient and hardly struggled. You lived in a one-bedroom apartment and looked forward to travelling in the U.S. after college.

It was winter of senior year when you received a message in your personal e-mail that caught you by surprise. It was from Pepper Potts. The Pepper Potts. You were holed up cozily during a blizzard and almost spilled your tea in your lap. It was an invitation for you to visit Stark Tower headquarters, take a few pictures, and go home. The way she worded it was extremely delicate, making sure to flatter your work but also very strictly state the terms of agreement. She made sure to mention that you would be paid generously, of course.

When the snow melted, you made your journey, camera bag across your chest.

At age 20, you met Iron Man, Tony Stark, self-proclaimed billionaire, philanthropist, playboy, genius. You also met Natasha Romanoff, also known as Black Widow.

Ms. Potts had met you at the door, opening it and extending her hand. She immediately thanked you for coming in the cold and praised your photographs. It surprised you when she admitted that as famous as your Soulmate Series was, she was more intrigued by the tenderness of the candid shots you routinely represented in your work, not your actual choice of subject. She had also done some research and found various college articles where you took pictures of local businesses and restaurants. “The intimacy that you captured of the most mundane of places… they were beautiful. I knew you were the person I wanted.” You laughed about your naiveite in those days, being only a newbie at photography, but Ms. Potts shushed you.

She led you to a conference room and slid a contract in front of you, asking for your patience and understanding at the long document. After the end of nearly an hour and a half of reviewing, questioning, and a sneaky interview process, you were ready to begin. A lanyard was placed in your hand with your picture and a keycode, giving you access to certain floors of the building.

The contract was complicated, but it boiled down to this: You were hired by Stark Industries to photograph their employees (and future employees) as well as any floor you had access to. It was your job to deliver simple and tasteful photos to represent the Stark image. You understood it to mean that your job was to create a cult of personality for Stark Industries somewhere in the realm of capable, trustworthy, and familiar- as if these people could be your close friends. The contract spanned a 30-day period where you were able to enter the tower at your leisure and convenience, wander as you wished, ask any questions you may have, and ultimately submit a binder of no less than 50 pictures with your detailed notes (including personal opinion on each photo).

Ms. Potts strongly suggested that if this assignment went well, she had high hopes for your future at Stark Industries. She kept her promise and continued to reach out to you about assignments.

At 21, almost immediately after your graduation, you met Thor, Hawkeye, and Dr. Banner- you prayed you would never meet his other half. That same year, you also met him.

Captain America. Every child in America knew about Steve Rogers. When news leaked that his body had been found frozen and that he was living in New York, it stunned you. He was a (newly) living (dead?!) legend; the idea of him was too much. When it dawned on you that you would be photographing him, you immediately threw up.

You would never forget that day. Your stomach hurt all night. It hadn’t done that since you were a child.

When you entered Stark Tower- you were too nervous to even notice that it had been transformed to the newly dubbed Avengers Tower. You rode the elevator up to the conference room where you scheduled to meet Ms. Potts, but Mr. Stark was there instead. Next to him, was the unmistakable physique of Captain Rogers. Your stomach twisted itself into a pretzel and you had to suck in a deep breath to continue walking upright.

You were so nervous that when Stark asked you for the umpteenth time to please call him Tony, you nearly twisted your ankle by mis-stepping. Sadly for him, you wouldn’t utter his first name for another few years. Captain Rogers had narrowed his eyes at you and the camera bag hanging limply on your hip. You could not stop trembling under his scrutiny. Even Tony offered you a drink to take the edge off.

Finally, he spoke.

“Good morning,” he said quietly, giving you a gentle nod.

You didn’t stop to look as you bolted out of the conference room and down the hall. As soon as you reached the toilet, you threw up.

The bile and acid that burned a path up your throat lingered all day and flared constantly in Captain Rogers’ presence. Your chest burned like a blaze. He in turn, gave you inspecting, worried glances and never tried to come any closer than 10 feet. You thanked him silently from across rooms and hallways. Mr. Stark joked that the best candid moments with Captain Rogers were in the showers, but if you kept getting sick like that, you’ll never get a chance. Your stomach did not appreciate the insinuation whatsoever.

Ms. Potts was infinitely more helpful. She sent you down to the infirmary but they could find nothing wrong with you. The nurse helping you, however, did notice that you had suddenly formed a bright pink rash right in the middle of your chest after watching you nervously rub your torso.

You thought nothing more of it, and by the time you got home, it had vanished.

The contract Ms. Potts emailed you that night detailed the next assignment, and upon completion, you would be paid 20 thousand dollars, more than double the amounts you’d previously received. Her postscript thanked you for your hard work with the Avengers, specifically, your patience with Tony and his constant quips, but that she wanted you to take some time to yourself and explore the world. Twenty-one, she said, was a tremendously important year for young women, and that she hoped to see more of your photography that was special to you, rather than necessary to her.

That night, you broke your apartment lease and made plans to travel at the end of the month. For the next 30 days, you took some of the best photos you had ever taken of the Avengers. However, you deeply regretted every photo you took of Captain Rogers. They were never as detailed or intimate as any of the rest. He was always either in a group setting, or far off, jogging, training, perhaps reading a book… across the kitchen, on the other side of a window.

You were afraid of him. Or rather, you were afraid of how your body reacted to him. From time to time, you’d see him look at you apologetically, which made it a million times worse.

After your assignment was finished and the rest of the payment was deposited in your account, you sold your furniture and packed two bags. For the two years, you spent time in Thailand, Russia, Italy, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, and even a few icy weeks visiting the Arctic.

Once again, you picked up your Soulmates Series. This time you solely focused on what you lovingly called peculiar pairs.

In Thailand, you found a pair of non-gender conforming soulmates who lived in a large community of entirely non gender conforming people. Most of the country itself was extremely accepting and kindhearted, something that pained you to think about in regard to your own home. You learned so much about sexuality and identity in your time with them, and at the end of your trip, you felt entirely changed about your perspective on what it was to be male and female- and whether or not it actually mattered!

In Russia, you met two people who identified as asexual- one being intersex. On the day you met, he identified as male and wore trousers and ordered the strongest coffee you had ever tasted. The next day, you hardly recognized him in a lavender gown, and were surprised and happily obliged when he asked you to use feminine pronouns. Upon your departure, he was back again in trousers and let you use masculine pronouns in your writing. It broke your heart to learn about their struggle in a country that shunned and viewed them with contempt.

Your travels brought you to many identities and many facets of love. There were couples who never engaged in romantic activity, but cherished each other more than you’d ever felt from another soul. There were others still who’s lives were kept secret from their families and their society, at large. There was a household in Italy with a husband and wife, not soulmates, living with another man, whose soulmate had been the husband. They met by chance on the train. The wife was 7 months along, and there was incredible tension under their roof. Most days, they made it fine, some days, she expressed to you, she couldn’t help but fall asleep crying.

Sometimes, you would meet soulmates that made you truly question the work. These pairs haunted you.

In New Zealand, a man was 65 when he met his soulmate; he had waited all his life. She was a young volunteer at the day care center where he worked. He thought she would reject him because of their age difference, but she loved him. They spent one blissful day together. The next day, she was involved in a fatal accident on her way to work. You sat in silence in his living room as he held onto a picture of her and sobbed.

At the end of your travels, departing from Saudi Arabia, your heart was full of grief about soulmates. The last pair you visited was in a dimly lit home, where the husband smoked profusely, and you could not see his wife until the very end. When she came into the light, her eyes were both blackened, and she could not speak due to the stitches in her mouth.

Returning to Manhattan, at age 23, you had given up on not only your own soulmate, but all soulmate indoctrination. Your heart was hardened by the knowledge that predestiny could usher in such suffering, and that love could be so terrible. You began to resist.

Next Chapter

[c-is-for-circinate]

“What the Fuck is Up with the Elves” (or, more worldbuilding for C’s D&D game)

So the thing is, I call myself an ecologist, and I am, really, or at least I’ve been working as one when I’m not working as a general all-math-and-science teacher for the past ten years.  But that’s not, quite, technically, what my degrees are in.  Technically, as per my master’s thesis, I’m an evolutionary biologist.

Which means that when I run a D&D game?  We start from a place of hominid evolution.

Gnomes and dwarves evolved on the continent of Nokomoris, where most of our game takes place.  Some 50,000 years ago, humans came up out of the neighboring continent (which has a dozen different names, but we can call it Kekiris, that’s as accurate as any) and joined them, and together the three races learned to master fire and metalwork and gods and demons and the four Great Schools and the two Minor Schools of arcane magic (for those were the days before the elves, before the discovery of abjuration, when it was thought that only the gods could conjure and transmutation was limited to minor tricks and divine crafts).

Elves, and their cousins the orcs (though no elf alive today would admit that they are cousins in truth, and the orcs themselves have all but forgotten it) evolved side by side on the continent of Priyl, a fifteenth the size of Nokomoris and isolated in the middle of the ocean, beset by storms and reefs on all sides.

Well.  The elves of the Ascendancy call it Priyl, and so does everybody else, these days, in respect to them.  The orcs and half-orcs remember that it was Getirka, and still is to those of their brethren still living there.  The people of Nokomoris have all but forgotten the days when they called it Thidoris, when it was nothing more than a myth.

(There are other continents, beyond those three, of course--but time enough for that later.  Nobody on Nokomoris remembers the continent of Calladia these days, and that might be for the best, for now.  But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.)

Six and a half thousand years ago, the continent of Priyl, called Getirka by the orcs and Thidoris by the gnomes and humans and dwarves, disappeared from the ocean.  Five hundred and twelve years it appeared again.  And that was enough to change the world.

.

Priyl, then, because we’re talking about elves.  Priyl is such a small continent, really, surrounded by such very storm-like oceans, full of so much desert and so many mountains and so very, very many things with sharp teeth and venom spines.  The spiders and snakes can kill a beast a thousand times their size.  The fish on the reef around the continent, who look like stone or coral or sand or squirming tentacle-beasts, have spines and teeth with venom that can kill ten times faster than that.

Half of Priyl is worn thin between planes, or at least it was so many hundreds of thousands of years ago, when lithe thin agile elf-ancestors took to the trees and the mountains to run from their fierce unstoppable orc cousins.  They were barely more than beasts themselves, either of them.  The elves were perhaps a little more clever, but perhaps they were only quicker, lighter, lither in the branches of trees.  The orcs were more determined.  They invented fire first.

Fire doesn’t mix well with trees, particularly not in the long dry drought of a Priylan summer, and the elves died, and died--and survived, some of them, always.  Through trickery and luck, some elves always survived.

And the fey noticed.

There are a thousand different ways planes can brush up against each other; a million years later, in the present day of 512 HA, the scholars of Nokomoris will have names and categories for half a dozen.  One of those is what they call a seep--a place as small as a few square yards, as huge as a dozen square miles, where two planes wear as thin as over-used linen cheesecloth next to each other, and ooze one into the other in bits and pieces and fragments of magic over years.

It’s not meant to be possible, for an entire continent to be a seep, but many things that are not meant to be possible are nonetheless true.  Priyl was thin before the elves and orcs even came to be there.  Fey roamed the lands, called them home, before they ever took forms with two legs and two arms and a face that could speak a language of people.  They noticed the thin little cousins-of-orcs fleeing through the trees, and they saw the invention of fire and the forests that burned, and a few of them decided--well.  There’s a game worth playing.

Half a million years ago, the fey taught the first True Elves about magic.  Nothing has ever been the same since.

.

Fifteen thousand years ago, when dwarves and humans and gnomes were only just learning to turn stone tools into plowshares and turn goats and sheep and aurochs into tame animals, the elves of Priyl had cities that stretched halfway to the sky.

They made war, of course, of course they did.  They waged it against each other, because nothing else was worthy of their conquest.  Ten generations of orcs could live and breed and die before an elf could even count themself arrived at adulthood.  The world beyond Priyl was strange and distant, far beyond notice or care.  The vast universe of the planes, and beyond--that drew the elven attention far more than anything on the world of Onde.

There were in those days two kinds of elves, or perhaps three, or perhaps a thousand.  In fact, perhaps the easiest way to divide the elves of that time is by how many sorts of elves they themselves believed existed.  In that case it was the three-sort elves who were correct, which makes their fate even more dark irony in the end.

They were the Day Elves, the Night Elves, and the True Million; High Elves and Bad Elves and those fuckers in the woods, I guess.  They were, according to a third of their number, the elves of Sun, Moon, and Twilight; and this is how the self-styled Moon Elves would explain the difference:

During the day, with the sun bright and desperate overhead, it is easy to believe that light and dark are opposites, the only two options.  It is easy to believe in sun and darkness and no other in-between.  It is easy to believe in Your Own and then also The Rest Of Them.  It is easy to believe in your own power.  And so the day elves, the sun elves, as silver and gold as though no other color existed in the universe, studied the foundations of their own powers and ignored all else.  They were wizards and full of magic, and they built the cities that towered to the sun, and they wrote the laws and warred each other, and they gave polite nods to the fey if they passed but they did not bow to them, for they accepted only the opposing ideas of Subservience and Mastery, and they refused to be servants.

At dawn and dusk, with all the shadows grown long and small lights flickering from every direction, it is easy to confuse lies and honesty everywhere, to lose sight of any firm reality.  It is easy to believe that nothing is quite real in the first place and anything is as good as anything else.  It is easy to believe in tricks and riddles, and to toss aside that belief a moment later, to cling to nothing but artifice and bargains and boundaries on trust.  The twilight elves, the wood elves, red and green and brown and gold and silver and white and black and gray, ran with the fey who’d once taught and married their ancient ancestors.  They were warlocks and full of trickery and half-truth, and they studied math and logic and ventured from city to city slipping in between the bounds set by the daylight elves as though they had not spotted them in the dark.  They wrote contracts and twisted reality around themselves, for they believed in everything and nothing, just like their masters, and could not see far enough to grasp the reality of anything.

At night, in clear moonlight, it is easy to see the truth: there is light, and there is dark, and there is everything in between.  There may be master and servant, and that may be firm and unchangeable, no matter how the shadows hide it--but for every servant on his knees in the dirt, there is always one more, lower still than them.  Every master lording over her servant has yet another master.

So it was that the moon elves discovered the gods.  Priyl was not a good land for gods, with the blurring of its boundaries, its fade between reality and not.  They did not often feel welcome there.  Still, in the middle of the night, with one or two or all three moons full and bright overhead, they could find their way down.  Even the fey had to be overmastered by someone.

There were three gods that the Elves of Night found, as they searched and studied and prayed, there in the moonlit dark on the continent of Priyl, where the smallest creatures were full of venom and might.  They found the queen of spiders, and the king of serpents, and the prince of fish and tentacles and uncharted depths.  The elves of the moon went to their knees and prayed.

.

In those days the elves had boats, of course.  They had not quite mastered the art of teleportation that would join their cities in the future, and they did not most of them quite care about the world beyond the boundaries of their reefs, but curiosity has always been an elven trait.  The moon-elven worshippers of the god of the sea, and the twilight adventurers whose fae patrons implored them to spread chaos and wonder, they learned to sail and venture forth.  They mapped the world of Onde while the humans and gnomes and dwarves of Nokomoris were still just learning to put stylus to clay and charcoal to tanned leather, while the humans of someday-Calladia were singing their sky-song and building empires of ritual and sound.

(Orcs invented boats first.  Orcs have been on Nokomoris for tens of thousands of years, coming few by few, interbreeding with humans until barely any sign of them was left to meet the next ship to arrive.  Few enough of them ever made it back over the reefs to return to Getirka, even before the High Elves Ascendant erected the Stormwall.  But we’re getting ahead of ourselves again.)

.

Here is the thing that every elf known on Nokomoris today will say, to anyone who asks them, about their history: 6,703 years ago, by the calendar reckoning of humans, gnomes, and dwarves, the Elven Ascendancy rose to shepherd all of the elves of Priyl, and closed the continent away from all the world to protect--

And that’s where the story will pause, because what protection could the elves ever have needed from the rest of the world?  The elves appeared in Nokomoris five hundred years, and shook the world on its foundations.  Every kingdom on Onde was tumbled before their power.

‘To protect you all from us,’ so many elves would say.  They would be correct, of course, and altogether wrong, all at once.

.

Spiders are not evil.  Neither are serpents, or stonefish, or krakens.  Neither are the gods of them.

They shed their skins, though, all at once or piece by piece.  And sometimes they demand the world do the same.  Sometimes they demanded apocalypse and rebirth.  It wasn’t such a very far stretch, really, after all.

The dark elves of black and white and gray believed in nuance as an article of faith.  They also believed in duty, and truth, and fortitude across an ever-changing night.  They believed in a lot of things.  That was, a little bit, the point.

It took a thousand years of war for the cities of Sun Elves to come together to agree, at the very last, that even should it take all their power they must see the Night Elves driven entire from the continent of Priyl.  They must see it done, and they would unite themselves to do it.  It took another century of war first, with all the united might of the Elven Cities bent against the god-worshippers, the moonlight elves with their huge pale eyes and their unglowing skin.  It could be their only salvation, before the gods of venom and rebirth called for the destruction of everything they loved and knew.

And so it was, 6,602 years ago, that all of the very most powerful wizards of the Elves of Day, the Sun Elves, high and ascendant and triumphant, joined their power as one to join nature and force and illusion all bound together in one great wall.  The Stormwall, sixteen thousand miles long, encircling all of Priyl in its arms.

(Did the Wild Elves, the twilight elves, the forest warlocks, did they help?  Oh yes, my friend.  Oh yes, of course they did, for the Sun Elves--they only ever saw two sides, don’t you remember?  Two sides, dark and light, and the twilight elves trapped on the in-between--well.  They always did know how to deal oh-so-very carefully with a master that little bit stronger than them.  So the wild elves helped, and the Stormwall--the Stormwall worked perfectly, to keep anyone outside of Priyl from venturing in.)

6,703 years ago, the Empyrean Ascendant became the very first sovereign on the seat of the Elven Ascendancy.  6,600 years ago, the elves of Priyl found peace.  More or less.

.

And what became of the moon elves, the night elves, the elves of the dark?  What became of them, and their spider-queen, serpent-king, fish-prince?

They went to Calladia, of course--though it was called Thiel then, once upon a time.  They went to Thiel-that-would-be-Callida, and Thiel found itself unmade.

There is a great deal to say of old mythical Thiel, and the lands it became and then unbecame again, and again, and again, cycling once and twice and more and more over the thousands of years between now and then.  There is a great deal to say, and some of it is about the elves that live there, and some of it is about the humans they found when they arrived, and some of it is about the changelings that sprung up between them, faceless shapeshifters learning to live just as everyone else.  Right now, in the year 512 HA, five centuries after the fall of the Storm Wall, the continent is nothing but a thousand-island archipelago.  It remembers, barely, that it was Callida nine centuries ago, and had merchant ships and commerce to the east and west, with Nokomoris and Kekiris and beyond.  It remembers being shattered to pieces in hopes of rebirth.  It does not remember that it ever was Thiel, not in the deepest dimmest history, save in the oldest of records.

There is a great deal to say, but what I will tell you now is this: the fish around the continent that once was Thiel do not sting with venom spines that kill in the space of a breath, and the tentacle-armed creatures that swim their bays are small and soft and cannot kill at all.  There is very little for the Prince of Depths to do here, little space for him to make himself known.

There are frogs here, instead.  They do not bite except ants and flies, but they glow bright, red and yellow and violet and blue.  They poison nobody except the unwary hunter who does not leave them as they sit.  (The unwary hunter, they will kill.  The wary hunter learns to use them, instead.)

They change, from fish-spawn to frog-grandmother, to eggs, to spawn again.  It’s easier to believe in the Frog Daughter (who is also the mother of all, wide-mouth frog devourer of all) than any unfamiliar lord of depths and venom.

The Frog Daughter is, perhaps, a kinder god than her predecessor-brother.  There’s some kindness in all three of the dark elves’ gods, if you know where to look.  They’re all three of them gods of transformation, and that can always be a kindness, for some.

.

And what of Priyl, then, in their absence?

The Ascendancy has held strong for six thousand years and nearly another thousand after that.  Eleven elves Ascendant, after the Empyrean, each of them chosen and sworn to the good of all before more than two centuries of life have passed them by, each of them sworn to rule for a thousand years if they can.  Each of them have made that oath, and under them the Ascendancy has flourished.

Throughout Priyl, throughout its mountains, there are the Cities of the Ascendancy, and each city is vast and towering, halfway up to the skies, and each city is within itself world and shining garden.  Each city is full of sparkling crystalline fountains and waterfalls, parks and fresh water to drink, home to a thousand sparkling silver fishes that are art and food and life all at once.  Vines climb up the dazzling towers from terrace to terrace and grow fruit and berries and grain.  Shimmering pigeons of red and purple iridescence bred for perfect accent color beauty soar between golden bridges and balustrades, and lay their eggs, and nobody in an elven city ever goes hungry.

(And what became of the twilight elves, then, when the sun elves rose up on high and claimed their world?  They retreated to shadow and stayed in the in-between, of course, just as they always have.  Their feytrap labyrinths deep in the mountains and deserts and woods of Priyl are sprawling and inescapable temples to artifice and knowledge and math, and their acolytes strike deals and take powers from their Lady Whispered and Lord Gloaming, and their children grow in the shining towers of the cities of the ascendancy and pay their dues to the elves on high.  The warlock elves, the fae-friends, the elves of the woods, they have always understood the needs of survival.  They remember the dark elves.  They remember the price of loss.  Even if the high elves themselves won’t.)

And so it was for six thousand years, until the Halcyon Ascendant rose to power, five hundred and twelve years ago.  And the Halcyon Ascendant, who was wizard and diviner, who was young and brave and as wise as she was clever, who looked into the world and saw the future--

the Halcyon Ascendant said, it is time to lower the Stormwall and venture forth to know the world.

.

Nobody knows, exactly, why the Halcyon Ascendant gave such an order.  Few elves know exactly what it cost to fulfill it.  Fewer still would ever admit it.

What is known, by everybody on Nokomoris, is this: the elves appeared on their great silver ships out of nowhere at all, five hundred years ago, and changed everything in the world.  Cities and nations rose and fell.  The elves knew magic nobody had ever heard of before.

The elves brought transmutation and conjuration and abjuration that could be studied and learned from books instead of summoned from gods and the incomprehensible overwhelming power of nature.  They brought potions and alchemy and science.  The elves brought to Nokomoris the very first teleportation circles (and Nokomoris as it is now, with the Nine Cities and their reign, could not exist without teleportation circles.)

Today, the elves live in every major city on the continent.  They live west of the mountains of the Western Wall, and in cities on the continent of Kekiris.  Always in sweeping, curving, tall shining towers, in their own elven enclaves, part of every city but not beholden to it.  Always full of wonders to sell, perhaps, if their leaders in the Ascendancy deem it proper; always rich with the wealth of their nation, which is free to all elves, and nobody else.

There are elven advisors and elven investors and elven ambassadors.  There are elven students in the universities, and professors there, as well.  There are no elven kings or governors or lords, of course there aren’t--no elf could truly be a citizen of Nokomoris, not honorably.  Every elf born is a subject of the Ascendancy. 

.

And finally, here is what the orcs know of elves.  The orcish story is their own, and long and varied and rich, the orcs of Getirka-called-Priyl and the orcs of New Gettik on Nokomoris, and it is also long, full of diaspora and resilience and art and culture and many, many thousands of generations of twins.  It is another post for another time.

But what the orcs know of elves, for they do come from the very same land, from its opposite sides, is: there are whole universes beyond what the elves consider worthy of their attention.  It’s true that no ship or desperate swimmer arrived on the continent of Getirka or Priyl for all the six thousand years that the Stormwall soared.  It is not true that no ship ever left.

The orcs say it, and the orcs know.  The orcs of New Gettik and Clure, here on Nokomoris, know it especially.  They were here before the elves arrived.  Even the rest of Nokomoris realizes that.

Every gnome, dwarf, and human on Nokomoris knows that all elves everywhere in the world belong to the Ascendancy.  Every orc knows that there are worlds below the elves’ notice, that they forget about conveniently, that they pretend not to see.  Some orcs may think to wonder whether they’ve forgotten about other elves, too.

[earth-ambassador-jim]

A Bad Reaction: Chapter 2

Summary:

“Changelings call it "Gravesand”. Derived from the pulverized bones of fallen Gumm-Gumms, gravesand aids us changelings in shedding our human form and embracing our more trollish nature…“

Strickler is a little off in his calculations and the gravesand draws out an unexpected response from Jim. Hopefully he can figure out what is wrong and how to fix it before it is too late.

AO3 - Fanfiction

~~~~

Barbara wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting when the pink rock monster had kidnapped her and brought her to an underground bunker but meeting her ex-boyfriend had not been it.

The moment she set eyes on him anger had eclipsed fear as the ever growing feeling of betrayal she’d been brooding on for the past few weeks reared its head in full force.

 “What. The. Hell.” Barbara said slowly -but with great feeling- as her hands clenched at her sides.

The sharp pain in her skull that had just started up was not helping. For some reason the painting she had been working on surfaced in her memory.

“Sorry to interrupt,” The pink monster said in what sounded like an amused tone. Barbara jumped. She’d forgotten about it for a second. “As much as I want to see you beat up Strickler, there are more important things to deal with right now.”

It was then that Barbara saw who was in the table in the middle of the room. A sharp gasp escaped her and she rushed to her son’s side.

Her fingers immediately went to his throat, feeling for his pulse, and then to his forehead before she turned around to stare at Walt. She had been angry before, but it was nothing compared to what she was feeling now.

“What have you done to my son?” Barbara practically growled.

Walt… Strickler swallowed audibly and held his hands out, open and palms facing her, in from of him.

“It was an accident…” He started to say slowly.

“An accident?!” She yelled. “Is that why you have him tucked away in this secret base? You lured me out here with his phone! And what’s that?!” She added pointing at the monster.

And why did she feel like she should know the answer? Barbara drew in a sharp breath as pain lanced through her skull again.

“Please let me explain. You may yell at me all you wish later,” Strickler said.

Barbara grit her teeth and drew in a breath to start yelling again.

She never got a word out.

At that moment Jim jerked upright on the table. Barbara turned toward him and felt her heart skip a beat. His eyes, now open, were glowing a sickly red and gold. He made a low guttural sound in his throat and his lips pulled back in a snarl. She stumbled back a step.

He drew in a shallow gasping breath. His still glowing eyes widened and he clawed as his chest for a moment before collapsing back on the table.

For a sickening moment Barbara couldn’t move, then the symptoms she had just seen registered and she lunged forward with a string of curses. She pressed two fingers to his neck and felt a calm fall over her as her years working in the ER asserted themselves.

“Is there an AED here?” She asked Strickler sharply as she pulled Jim’s shirt up.

Some part of her mind vaguely registered a series of branching scars that she hadn’t seen before but, as they were currently unimportant, she mentally filed them away for later. Strickler ripped something off the wall and hurried over to her. She received the machine, noting that it was an older model than the hospital’s, and then with quick efficient movements placed the pads on her son’s skin.

“Get clear,” She said sharply.

Jim’s body jerked as the electricity coursed through him. Barbara checked his pulse. It was weak but the rhythm was now regular again.

She let out a sigh of relief before turning back to Strickler. The underlying protective rage layered over with her professional calm made her feel like she was floating outside her body.

“Explain what is going on now,” She said coldly.

~~~~

And so her ex-boyfriend explained how humans weren’t really the only intelligent species on earth, that magic was real, and that her son had been drafted to fight giant rock creatures.

It turned out there was a bit more to those images and dreams that had been flickering through her mind since the accident than she thought.

“Let me get this straight,” Barbara said as she kneaded the skin of her forehead. “You decided that it was a good idea to give my son, a minor, some sort of troll heroin to ‘hone his feral instincts’… you didn’t see any way that could go wrong.”

She was also rather disappointed in Jim for going along with this. They’d had the drug talk. Just because it was magic did not make it any less of a drug.

“How do you still have your teaching degree?” She wondered out loud.

Off to the side the pink changeling snickered.

“That’s not important right now,” Walt… Strickler said. “Right now I need your help to keep Jim stable while I figure out what exactly is causing this.”

Barbara really wanted to argue that Jim should go to a hospital to receive proper treatment, but she doubted they would know what to do with gravesand poisoning, or whatever was going on. She was also not foolish enough to expect that they would just let her leave. Not without a fight that she couldn’t hope to win. She drew in a slow breath and counted to ten before blowing it out through her nose.

“So you haven’t found anything in your files about why this might be happening yet?”  She asked.

“No,” Strickler responded. “But I still have a few more to go through.”

“And these other trolls that Jim is helping can’t help?” Barbara would really like to have someone else here. Wal… Strickler had dropped completely off the bottom of her trust list. She wasn’t sure how she felt about the other changeling. “There isn’t any kind of troll-doctor?”

“Unfortunately Trollmarket’s healer was one of the first casualties according to Young… Jim. There might be other healers but it’s unlikely they will know how to take care of a human and even if they did they would not be familiar with gravesand.”

Barbara sighed.

“Okay, you keep searching your files.” She turned to the pink changeling. “I’ll need you to…”

She paused eying the changeling’s sharp claws with trepidation. It seemed to catch on and in a flash of pink transformed into the museum curator Ms. Nomura. Barbara jumped but otherwise didn’t react.

“Okay,” She said with a sharp, shaky breath. This was fine. She was fine. She could do this. “I’m going to need you to assist me. Follow my instructions exactly.”

Ms. Nomura moved to stand beside her and they got to work.

~~~~

“Any progress?” Barbara’s voice was something that could have loosely been described as professional.

Strickler looked up from the file he was currently reading.

“Nothing yet I’m afraid,” He said shoving down a pang of longing.

Barbara made a quiet frustrated sound and turned away. She and Nomura started talking in low voices. Strickler rubbed his eyes and glanced around the room. How long had they been here now?

Jim was now hooked up to a heart monitor and oxygen. He looked bad. Rashes had appeared on his skin and he was sweating profusely. Something in Strickler’s chest twisted involuntarily.

He had done this. He should have known better. Humans reacted differently to even regular medications. Why did he think having a child inhale magic sand was going to be okay?

What if they couldn’t save him? What then?

The more analytical side of his mind was already trying to come up with contingencies for dealing with a new Trollhunter this late in the game. The more pessimistic side suggested that between Barbara and Nomura he wouldn’t live long enough to have to worry about that. He’d deserve it too, he supposed.

He grimaced and pulled out his pen to fiddle with.

Focus.

He needed to save Jim. Failure was not an option.

He opened the next set of files, a series of experiments that had been ran by a changeling scientist back during the Cold War.

He started reading and froze for a moment before reading faster.

It wasn’t possible…

~~~~

“A question Barbara,” Strickler said. There was something stiff and deliberately level about his tone that made Barbara wary.

“Yes?” She asked without turning around.

“Do you have any pictures of your… of Jim’s father?”

That did make her turn around.

“Why would you need that?” She asked suspiciously.

“I will explain if my hunch proves correct.”

Oh she didn’t like that at all…

She studied his face. The lines around his mouth and eyes were tense.

“Please… it’s important.”

She made an irritated noise and glanced at his computer.

“Can that connect to the internet?”

“Yes…”

She wasn’t really in the habit of carrying pictures of James around. In fact, she’d gotten rid of most of the ones in the house as well. Both she and Jim generally preferred to pretend he didn’t exist when they could.

She brushed past Strickler and started tapping away. In a few minutes she’d pulled up an old finished projects page from a company website.

“That’s him,” She said pointing at one of the men in the picture. She pushed down the old ache in her chest as well as the strange feeling that rose when she realized how much Jim as starting to resemble him.

Barbara moved out of the way and Strickler settled down into the chair. In a few quick moves he’d downloaded the image and cropped it down to just James Senor’s face. Then he opened the image in another program. Immediately the computer pinged. The word “match” appeared on the screen.

A few more clicks and a new window was opened up on the screen.

“Barbara? Is this him?”

Barbara leaned over his shoulder. He twisted slightly in his seat to watch her expression. Her eyes tracked across the page and her lips moved slightly as she read through the words before she froze.

“Why…”

“It would appear that your ex is a changeling,”

“What?!”

Strickler moved back as she pushed forward to read the file more thoroughly.

“This explains Jim’s unusual reaction to the gravesand,” He continued. She could just barely hear him through the roaring in her ears. “Normally, in humans gravesand would only serves to draw out their feral instincts. It makes them angrier and their eyes glow. Long term use may have other side effects, but one use should not result in something like this.”

“So why is it causing this?”

“Because the gravesand is trying to activate Jim’s dormant changeling traits.”

“His changeling traits?” She echoed.

Strickler nodded and pushed a hand through his hair.

“Yes, but since Jim was… I assume he was conceived while James was in human form?” Barbara didn’t appreciate the question there but nodded anyway. “The only genes he has from his father are the ones that would allow him to shift not the biological template he needs to have a trollish form to shift into.”

“Which means..?”

Strickler grimaced.

“To put it simply the gravesand’s magic is causing Jim’s latent shifter magic activate, but as there is nothing to shift into his cells are basically tearing themselves apart.”

That wasn’t good. Understanding, mixed with new fear, settled in Barbara’s chest.

She turned away from him back toward her son frowning as she took off her glasses and polished them on her scrubs. This seemed to be one of the situations were knowing what was happening was not going to make thing easier…

She wasn’t even sure if she could use conventional medicines on Jim with the gravesand in his system.

Strickler was frowning as he continued to leaf through the file.

“It looks like all recorded cases have been fatal…”

Barbara whipped around, her heart lurching sickeningly in her chest. Across the room Nomura stiffened.

“But!” Strickler said before either of them could say or do anything. “The scientist in charge of the trails theorized that if a sample of changeling blood and stone was enchanted and then injected into the hybrid it would give the sifting magic something to latch onto and pattern a trollish form off of.”

“Did they test this?”

“No,” Strickler said. “It seems that the changeling in charge of the tests met an untimely death before he could find anymore test subjects.” There was an odd tone to his voice that Barbara could not quite pin down. It vanished quickly as he moved on. “I do however have the groundwork and necessary ingredients listed for the spell here.”

“What are the chances of success?”

Strickler sighed.

“I can’t really say. I doubt they are high… but what choice do we have?”

“You said that none of the… half-changelings… survived the gravesand?”

“None recorded.”

“Did they try removing the sand from the lungs? Or any similar measures to stop the reaction?”

“Yes and they all failed.”

Barbara stood quiet for a moment, acutely aware of the two changelings waiting for her response. She hated everything about this situation. She had a short moment of time to make a decision for her son that would at best be life altering and at worst fatal and the only information she had was from shady people that she didn’t trust.

But if she didn’t do anything…

Barbara glanced at Jim. She clenched her jaw and sucked in a breath through her teeth.

“Then I think we should take the route that still has a chance even if it is slim,” She said finally. “What do we need to do?”

Strickler took in her straightened posture and determined expression with a wistful expression. A jolt of bitterness passed through her.

“I am going to start running over the runes and layout for the spell to make sure there are no errors. Nomura…” The magenta changeling straightened up. “I will need you to retrieve some things from my office.” He pulled his pen out of his pocket and hesitated a moment before tossing it to her. “The lock is behind Landmark Thucydides.”

He paused for a moment and then pulled out his notepad and quickly scribbled out a list of what he would need and where she could find it.

“I’m also going to take a quick run to my apartment and retrieve the rest of my magic supplies.” He turned to Barbara. “I should be about a half hour. Can you handle that?”

She nodded.

“Good. Let us go.”

Barbara watched as they left.

Gradually their footsteps faded from hearing.

It was just her and Jim now.

She walked over to him and gently smoothed his fair out of his sweaty face. Even without touching his skin, she could feel the heat radiating off of him.

His eyes remained closed.

Barbara blinked furiously as a lump began to form in her throat.

How had it come to this? She’d known something was wrong.

Her vision blurred and she sucked in a harsh breath.

Why didn’t he tell her? Why hadn’t she…

Barbara’s hands clenched around the edges of the metal table as the first sob broke free.

~~~~

~~~~

Author Notes:

I am going to go into a little more into the specifics about what is going on with Jim's reaction to the Gravesand in the notes next chapter, so be sure to read those!

We’ll get a little more on Barbara’s thoughts on the situation next chapter, but right now she really just needs a good cry.

I was a little rushed on editing this chapter (Just started a new job this week!) so let me know if anything needs clarification.

[icecoldtwin]

Intro 3 (Feat. PAFK)

Link to all Intros:

1

2 

3  (you are here!)

4

After his shift, when the restaurant was closed, the register was counted, and the doors were locked, Arthur waited for Lucifer outside. When he saw him, he waved him over to his van, unlocking the doors for them both and sitting inside on the driver's side. "Thanks for waiting."

~

Lucifer had done the bare minimum for the rest of the shift, but he’d had given a half-hearted apology to the Peppers before he left, faster than they could question it. Frowning at Arthur, he climbs into the passenger side. "Not like you really gave a choice."

~

"I did. You chose to believe me. Or give me the chance to prove it." Arthur made sure they both buckled, before taking off. "If you didn't, you wouldn't be here."

~

Lucifer scowls but doesn't disagree. He was right after all. He could have just headed to the gas station himself. "Whatever. How do you know it's a ley-line?"

~

"I've mapped the area and studied books." Arthur answered, eyes on the road. "Trying to figure out what was up with that place. That's about as much as I've managed. It leads... it's like a door. And you can go other places if you learn how to go through it right."

~

Lucifer eyes him as he listens, frowning slightly before crossing his arms and staring at the road- but watches him from the corner of his eyes. "....and you think this has something to do with their disappearance?"

~

"....." Arthur swallowed. "I.... yeah. I know it does. I've been through the door. But I know how to get home. They... they don't. But you must've gotten through."

~

Lucifer stays quiet before sighing and scrubbing at his face with a hand. "Alright. Maybe I did. Wouldn't be the strangest thing. What're you gonna do about it?" He didn't want to believe it. Believing meant he had to believe there really was a L...was a him still around somewhere.

~

"Nothing. But you didn't believe that was Lewis. So I'm proving it. It just... might not be the one you were thinking of." His voice grew a little softer. "I'm... sorry. For whatever happened. To put him where you said he was."

~

Lucifer snarls at him with a glare. "I don't need your fucking pity."

~

"Its not pity." Arthur shook his head. "I know what it's like to lose people. And I wouldn't wish it on anyone."

~

Lucifer scowls at him before turning away. ".....yeah well....i dont want your apology. It's not like it'll do anything to help."

~

"Then I formerly rescind my sympathy." Arthur sighed. He took a corner onto an incline.

~

Lucifer shoots him a look and stares before snorting softly, almost a laugh. "....If you know how to go through this doorway, and how to get back....why haven't you gone and gotten them?"

~

"I've been trying to. But the door is like--- the center of a spiderweb. But on steroids. There’s hundreds of paths they could've taken that branch out. And then they could've gone even further. And... I just don't know which route they took. I don't know if they kept going. So... if I found them, I could bring them home. But it's-- a needle in a stack of needles. And some of the needles look just like the ones you’re looking for, but aren’t.”

~

"....And you don't know anyone who could make a like....tracker spell or something? Considering you already seem to know about this sorta stuff."

~

"Nothing that is cross dimensional like that." Arthur shook his head. "By the time I learned enough of this stuff, I'm sure it'd been too late to like-- track them from this starting point anyways." He glanced at Lucifer quickly and then back to the road. "Does this mean you believe me?"

~

"Then figure out how to get it to be cross dimensional sooner. Asks someone." Lucifer says as if it was no brainer before frowning slightly. "....It means it sounds more likely. Don't know if I believe about it being L-....a Lewis."

~

"Yeah. Why didn't I think of that?" Arthur rolled his eyes. He was nearing the station now, and the lights inside looked to be out. There was no one in the parking lot.

Arthur's fingers shifted on the steering wheel. His hair was already starting to stand up this close. "You can believe what you want to. But your loss still does matter, even though my Lewis exists. It still hurts. And sometimes it's hard when you know it's not the person you've known your whole life. Even if they look the same."

~

"You're just too close to the situation. Obviously I'm a new perspective, so of course I have new ideas." Lucifer says as if he was completely serious, smirking lightly.

But he frowns as they get near the station. It was supposed to be 24 hours....why was it closed?

".....that's why you kept giving me looks isn't it? When I showed up at the garage. Why you asked if we had met."

~

Arthur snorted, but his expression didn't stay jovial. He pulled up to the station, into the parking lot and sat, slipping the gearshift so the van was in idle. "Kind of.... I just... Thought you might be another him. Sometimes the others look… different."

~

"....so you've....met a few?" Lucifer says but he doesn't look away from the station in front of them, his eyebrows furrowed.

".......Lewis was....important to me. He....he was basically my other half it felt like at times...I'm not Lewis, not now. He died when we were 11. I wasn't able to save him.....suppose I might as well try and redeem myself by trying to help you save yours." Lucifer says softly before getting out of the van and closing the door just slightly to hard as he moves over to the station.

~

Arthur gets out when he does, frowning, almost scowling at him. "I didn't ask for your help. You don't have to do shit now. I just wanted to make it clear this isn't a fucking trick. What happened to your Lewis is awful. But I'm not asking you to fuckin-- do shit for me. Just-- this is where you can leave if you want to go somewhere else. If you go inside the store part."

~

"Can't exactly leave without my shit from your garage, can I?" Nor could he leave knowing there was A Lewis - yes, not his Lewis but still A Lewis - out there that has a happy and safe life....but was stuck not being able to have that life.

No, he couldn't just leave knowing that. "And who ever said I was fucking doing it for you?" But now that he was here and he was paying attention, knowing what he was looking for...he could definitely feel the ley-line. Feel the utter magic and power condensed into one spot even as it flowed through seeming everywhere and nowhere at once.

~

"Well that'll be done in a few days." Arthur argued, a little heat in his voice. "And I didn't fucking say you were doing it for me-- no no, you're right, I did. But I didn't mean it that way. I just mean. You don't have to fix this for me. It's my fault and I'm gonna make it right. I don't need help from anyone. So just-- here's your door." Arthur shuddered as he got closer to the gas station. "If you want to leave and find some place else, this is how. But now you get it. That Lewis is Lewis. He's just... not the one you remember."

~

Lucifer stares at the gas station silently for a few moments before turning his gaze to watch Arthur, frowning lightly. ".....It doesn't matter if it is your fault or not. I don't care about that shit. But....I get it now. He is....that guy is Lewis. Just....not my Lewis....so I'm going to help try and get him home. Not for you, not for him but...." He trails off as his eyes get pained, staring off at nothing. He may not have said it...but the intent that he wanted to help for his own forever gone Lewis was clear.

~

"....For you?" Arthur asked, voice growing soft as he did. His arms stayed crossed, but he kept his eyes on Lucifer, studying his reaction and a gentler expression. "For... your Lewis?"

~

Lucifer didn't look at him, still seeming to be staring off at nothing - standing tall and proud...but not able to completely hide the pain in his eyes. ".....He didn't get a chance to have what this Lewis has. If I have the chance to make sure L....another Lewis doesn't miss out, I'll take it."

~

"....I guess I can't stop you." Arthur sighed after a moment, looking at his face. "I think wherever he is, Lewis is happy. Since he's with Vivi. But... I think he'd be happier at home. Where he can see his family." Arthur rubbed at his neck. “I’ll take help getting that to happen.”

~

"At least he's not alone..." Lucifer whispers, almost wistfully as he frowns before scowling and shaking his head slightly to knock himself out of it. "With a family like the Peppers, anyone would be happier at home."

~

"Yeah....they're pretty great." Arthur nodded. "Only family I think could compete is Vivi's. But.... yeah." Arthur rubbed at his face. "Come on. I'll take you back to the motel."

~

"Which Vivi is the girlfriend?" Lucifer asks as he sighs before nodding and heading back to the van. "....You said this was your fault. What did you mean?"

~

Arthur nodded at his first question, and swallowed at the second. "I thought you said it didn't matter. Or you didn't care." He slid into the seat and when Lucifer was in and the door was closed, he started to drive them back to Tempo.

~

"Well maybe I changed my mind. Or maybe I'm human and am fucking curious." Lucifer huffs softly, shaking his head. "Excuse me for wanting to understand more now that I know this isn't bullshit."

~

Arthur frowned. "Just-- it was my fault okay? I made choices that lead up to them-- and that's really all there is to it."

~

"....Ok yeah that's bullshit. Dude, you may as well say, maybe there's an answer somewhere in how you did this in how to get them back."

~

"There isn't." Arthur shook his head harder, fingers gripping the wheel in vices. "Look. I was stupid and let them leave me behind and they went missing. And I should've known better. That's it. Nothing about knowing that is gonna bring them back."

~

Lucifer eyes him from the side, humming softy as he stares. He let them leave him? ".....They must be pretty shit friends if they would leave you behind so easily."

~

"They weren't." Arthur said it in a voice that was edged. "They were the best friends you could ever ask for.”

~

".....were?" Lucifer asks with a small hum. He knew he was pushing something and either it would lead to Arthur shutting him out completely or a blow up and well....Lucifer couldn't deny he wanted to make Arthur blow up. He figured he would get a lot more answers that way then this pulling teeth method.

~

"Were- Are. Look-- why do you even care? You said you didn't before, and it's not important to getting them back. I just have to find them that's the big thing." Arthur clenched his jaw and took a turn a little sharp, before sucking in a breath to try and calm himself.

~

Lucifer laughs shortly, rolling his eyes. "I didn't care before because I didn't believe you before. And now I'm curious. Because there's something going on here and it's interesting. Especially considering they 'are' apparently your best friends but they left you behind but they only 'were' your best friends a second ago. Makes it seem like a big ok' clusterfuck has happened with your relationship and I happen to like puzzles. And you, Arthur Kingsmen, are an interesting puzzle."

~

Arthur frowned and looked at him. "I'm not a puzzle. I'm just a person. And it is a big fucking clusterfuck. Real life is complicated and messy and one wrong move can ruin everything. And it's years of bullshit, of knowing each other so it's not just- some easy answer. They are my best friends. They are. But-- it's complicated, too. Too complicated."

~

"Every person is a puzzle. Some are just more interesting than others." Lucifer says with a shrug before humming softly, frowning slightly as he looks out the window. "Really now...years....must be interesting having someone around for all that..." He mumbles, not seeming to realize he actually spoke out loud before shrugging. "Alright, sorry for pushin’ I guess."

~

Arthur softened a little, eyeing him for a beat before returning his gaze to the road. "I know you said you didn't want my sympathy. But it's still there." He was lucky enough to have Lewis for years before the cave. And he had him even some time after that. "And--I'm sorry for snapping. It's just-- not something I want to talk about." He paused for a long moment. "I... I know he's not your Lewis you know. But I could tell you about him. If you want."

~

Lucifer glares at him and growls lightly before crossing his arms and looking away. "....fine. Whatever you want. Not like we have anything better to talk about anyways."

~

"You know you're not obligated." Arthur sighed. "Nevermind. It was probably stupid to ask that." It probably would hurt more to hear what he'd missed out on.

~

"No. No I....tell me. About them both. Just in case I run into them now that I know I'll have to travel to other dimensions to get home."

~

Arthur rubbed at his neck. "...Alright. Well. You already know Lewis was adopted by the Peppers. Since we talked about that. He just-- showed up at their door one night and that was it. Well... they're chefs so Lewis was around food a lot. He really loves spicy things."

Arthur continued speaking, a soft smile on that was nostalgic. "He's also got a huge sweet tooth. Loves him some cake. And milkshakes. Mix sweet and spicy though and he goes wild. He loves these peppers coated in chocolate. Bhut Jolokia. No idea how he manages the stuff." He paused to take a turn.

"I think he wanted to be a chef. But he also thought the supernatural stuff was pretty neat. And Vivi? She's gung ho for the stuff. She's like-- really bright and bubbly and she loves books. She worked at Tome Tomb, but her real passion was a team she made. The Mystery Skulls. She loved finding places that were haunted or might have something supernatural and going there to investigate. She didn't want to hurt anything though. She did when she had to, and she's pretty good at magic stuff and with a bat, but she always went in with the passion for learning instead."

Arthur chuckled. "She's a bit fiery and intense. She was spice. And Lewis loves spicy things. He fell for her super fast when they met. And he's very romantic and passionate. He went so ridiculously overboard for asking her out. Had to clean petals everywhere for weeks after. Still think there's some glitter embedded in some of my shirts from it."

~

Lucifer listens closely but tries to show disinterest, staring out the window with a small frown. It....hurt. To hear how happy this Lewis had it. But it was also nice, in a way. To know that somewhere a Lewis had it better. That he was able to not only survive but live and be happy. "....Sounds like they were a pretty good match. Are a good match, excuse me. At least they aren't alone wherever they are.....so where did you fit into this?"

~

"Oh. Uh." Arthur went straight from a smile to something a little deflated. "Well... I. Kind of do. I helped them meet when Lewis was in high-school. I was friends with both of them. Encouraged them to date when I saw how head over heels they were and got Lewis to do the thing."

~

Lucifer glances at him and hums softly. "....So, the wingman. Gotta admit, everything you say just makes me more and more curious how they left you behind, when it seems like you guys were pretty good friends. Were they just stuck in honeymoon phase?"

~

Arthur swallowed. "Uh.. something like that. Or. That was for a bit. It-- it's complicated. But it's on me. I kind of. Decided to leave them be. To be happy on their own. So it wasn't them doing anything. It was-- yknow. Me. They didn't leave me behind. They just kept walking. And I stopped."

~

"....and they didn't notice? Well...you're gonna get pissy at me again, but sounds like kinda shitty friends." Lucifer says with a small huff, shaking his head. Then again, did he really have any room to talk when he didn't even have friends?

~

Arthur clenched his jaw. "No-- it-- it's complicated. But it's not their fault. They were-- there's a lot of circumstances. It's hard to talk about, okay? But just-- they did everything the best they could. And made a lot of sacrifices for me. I couldn't have asked for better friends."

~

"Not saying that you couldn't have. Or that there isn't lot that I don't understand or anything stupid like that. Just saying, they left you behind and didn't even notice is kind of shitty, even if they themselves aren't. Sorta glad that this Lewis isn't my Lewis now." He knows he doesn't have the full story. That there was so much more to this...but if his Lewis had just left someone behind? Lucifer would be so...disappointed after what they had been through.

~

Arthur's shoulders drew up tight. "Lewis fucking-- he... look- he was hurt bad and it was my fault. He came back but he was-- so he had-- had every right to be upset. And he fucking-- he still forgave me anyways. He's a good person. And what happened after wasn't his fault. It wasn't their fault. I made my choices. I let them move on. They couldn't do anything about it. He is not-- you shouldn't be glad."

~

"So then they didn't leave you behind, you left them." Lucifer says as he stares at Arthur. "You made a choice for them instead of letting them make the choice for themselves."

~

Arthur nodded, keeping his eyes on the road and holding the wheel so hard his knuckles turned white. "Yes. I was that asshole. So... it's not their fault."

~

"Never said it made you an asshole, your words not mine." Lucifer rolls his eyes and puts his hands up in surrender before looking out the window again. "...so now you're so hellbent on finding them because you think it's your fault they're missing."

~

Arthur drooped back down. He sighed and nodded. "....Yeah. It was my fault. So I just..... won't feel right. Not until they're back home." He rubbed at his cheek tiredly, pulling into the motel lot.

~

"…Did you tell them to go there? Did you know it was a doorway to get lost through and tell them to check it out? To you specifically choose this one time to not join them, knowing they were going there? If not..." Lucifer gets out of the van and turns to face him with a look. "Then it's not your fault." And he closes the door.

~

Arthur looked ready to argue, but the door closed when his mouth opened, he stared at Lucifer through the glass of the passenger window, frowning harder at him and then just shaking his head.

~

Lucifer grins when he sees he cut off Arthur from speaking and nods before pulling a face at him - sticking out his tongue and pulling down an eyelid childishly - before heading for the motel.

~

Arthur was still a little annoyed, but he almost laughed, seeing it. The reaction felt so-- he didn't know. Normal? Silly? It got to him. He shook his head and pulled out to head home.

~

Lucifer wait until Arthur's van was out of sight, watching it leave before humming lightly and curving to walk around the outside of the motel and heading for the woods. He didn't even want to bother pretending to walk to a room he didn't rent, not with his mind buzzing of everything he learned today.

[directionoftime]

Snippet and a question

Wow, the writeblr community is grand! Thank you all so much for your kind responses and welcomes to my intro post! <3 

I thought I’d post up here part of the opening to Sauvarin, since a handful of people seemed to like the idea of it, it will be below the cut as it’s 700ish words. It was originally a prologue but I keep hearing whispers about how prologues should be burnt at the stake (?) Eh. For those interested, feel free for a read ^_ ^ 

The question is of a particular portion of text and its aimed at those who are trans / part of the community (if you’re happy to answer, of course, no pressure!)

I have a FTM character in Sauvarin, and I’m cautious of getting some wording right.

Context: Max Arisan is the Patron of Sauvarin, is FTM but still has breasts. This is mentioned only once in text as a “this is who this guy is but it isn’t relevant to his character arc, just want y’all to be sure you know” kinda thing. My question is really about just the wording of the part in bold is it... accurate? Reflective? Not offensive?* I know “preferred” isn’t right, but is “correct”? Is there a better word to use?

If it is completely wrong please let me know so I can fix it! I have been doing what research I can but I am coming at it from a somewhat... abstract angle, and I want it to sound natural in the text, rather than like some clinical case-study.

--

[...] He began, leaning back on the edge of his desk and it was only now Isaura registered what she had been seeing: Max had breasts.

‘Yes, it was quite uneventful, surprisingly. Just me, Bartrum, and miles and miles of forest.’ Isaura kept her eyes trained on his face at such an unusual turn of events; surgeries and hormone replacements were so efficient and effective the average person could be living fully as their correct gender inside very few months. Something major must have happened to disrupt the process so significantly. Or perhaps he was just more comfortable this way; it was hardly her place to question it.

--

Thank you so much for taking the time to read! 

@writeblrfantasy @magic-is-something-we-create @linariouswrites @furryarbiterangel @wildswrites @inky-duchess 

* I am aware of the whole “stay in your lane” discourse thing about people/characters but the only convincing reason I could think of for him to not be trans is that I’m not trans myself. BUT since his character isn’t about him “being trans” he’s just a character who is trans and also x, y, z, I didn’t see it as a good enough reason not to include ??

Second half of the intro, (1300 words total lol and it seemed too much to post here). So, the only context you’re missing is: Bartrum is a horse; they’re very close to the town but haven’t go there yet, and the opening to the opening is just Isaura [protag] listening to an old guy talk about space [less boring than it sounds but not really anything happens happens, so...] Oh! And they’re deep in the taiga, far east of what was known as Siberia.

Hope you like it! Anyone interested in a character run down, btw? 

--

The approaching rumble of cars had Isaura hop off and hurry to pull him up the short, steep bank out of the way. Bartrum, clearly unimpressed with their stop-start travel, remained stubbornly still until the screech of tyres on gravel spooked him. He squealed his fear, kicking hooves had her recoil and his thundering body knocked her into a nearby bush as he bolted into the woods. Isaura scrambled to her feet, anger drowning out pain as she barked at the nearest car, ‘Oi! Watch it!’

It hesitated for the briefest of moments; the driver’s face ducked low to stare at Isaura out from the passenger window. His look was pointed, cold and selfish as they locked upon her; inspecting, demanding, reducing, memorising. As if assigned her to some imaginary end of his own devising. The kind of look that can raise hairs from a hundred paces. They stared at each other for a few long seconds, Isaura’s guard instantly high as she steeled herself against the encroachment. The driver cocked his head slightly, listening to some instruction or other from a passenger, fixed his eyes on the road and accelerated away. The following car kept up with the first, no one so much as casting a glance her way. Isaura swept her dripping hair from her face and turned to chase after the horse, finally realising what was wrong with the convoy: the cars had drivers. Hadn’t she been told that travel to Sauvarin by way of a car wasn’t an option?

‘Bartrum!’ She called out, following the trail of destruction through the underbrush, ‘Bar-Bar! Where’ve you gone?’ The rain fell thickly and only the Bartrum-sized hole left her any clue to his direction. At least she saw no sign her baggage had fallen. ‘Bar-Bar! C’mon, you stupid horse, where the hell are you—’ She found herself upon a sudden clearing, barely a few feet in diameter, not one branch dared encroach.  

 The skull was a stark white against the intense green grass which grew with a flourish around it and through it, as though it had been sat in a fallowed field through an even-tempered summer; blades had woven their way through the few remaining teeth. Enormous helical, branching horns sat firm against the skull. From each pitch-dark eye socket grew the trunks of a pine, the two stems twisted and curved around the top of the skull before finding their way back to each other only to separate yet again into two branching bronchioles of needle clusters, each just a little shy of the other. They seemed to weave through and around the existing horns, as if aware of them; the tree itself looked ancient and weathered, barely a meter or so in height. From its nostrils poked tiny, delicate flowers of pink and yellow and blue. 

Isaura stared, transfixed by the scene, for a silent eternity before something pulled her from her revere and she backtracked, giving the small clearing a wide berth. No animal Isaura had ever heard of grew horns like those. She felt its presence loom at her back but focused on following Bartrum’s trail, which ended abruptly on an overgrown road. It had once been paved, but was criss-crossed with cracks and fractures, now home only to weeds, moss, and grass. Bartrum, only a few paces away, stood stock still staring up the abandoned track, his ears pricked and his body tense.

‘Bar-Bar, there you are!’ She approached him slowly, careful not to spook him further; the sign up ahead drew her attention: Sauvarin Mine. It had clearly once stood proud above the road, but its background had faded and the formerly sharp lines of contrast were blurred almost beyond recognition. It was barely held aloft leaning as it did on a tree branch, its left post long destroyed. A guilty testament for the human proclivity to create and then abandon. ‘Well, I guess this means we’re in the right place, eh, Bartrum?’ She spoke to the horse, gently stroking his neck — he still hadn’t moved, not even a blink. ‘And here I’d been hoping it was because of the mine that I’d been offered this place, but what good is a blacksmith without metal?’ Bartrum’s ear finally twitched, she took hold of his reigns, clicked her tongue a few times, he at last turned around to let her lead him down the broken track to the main road. The rain slowed to a drizzle as Isaura glanced over her shoulder back up at the neglected sign, where it slouched in the small break of trees, like a lonely stranger who’d offer their secrets only to those with the confidence to ask.

--

[spiltscribbles]

Notes: One Reblog is worth a thousand stars <3.-

The grandiose brownstone on the upper west side is filled to the brim with guests that Ronan barely recognizes, platters of foods he doesn’t remember ordering, and rounds of drinks he thanks God, Jesus and the Holy Ghost above  that never seem to run out. 

“Lynch, old boy,” a faintly familiar, boyishly attractive brunette calls from where he’s standing with three other nondescript fucks  that Ronan eventually realizes are all from his old preparatory days at Aglionby. 

“Wentworth,” Ronan greets with as much welcome as he can muster— a negative four point two on the Gansey scale of charm, but hey, what’s a guy to do.  “I presume you’re enjoying yourself?” 

“Thoroughly,” he assures with a coquettish little wink that Ronan completely ignores. 

“Let me know if that ever changes,” he directs the question to the group as a whole so that Wentworth doesn’t get any bright ideas. 

“How’s Declan?” The shortest one asks, all plastered smiles and heaps of blonde hair.

“He’s enjoying DC, says that Matthew is getting on with all his courses.”

“Smart of him to get out of Henrietta,” another of the foursome interjects with a swig of his iced white. “With Greywaren here and all the trouble he’s stirring up.”

“Come now,” Wentworth chides with a dismissing wave of the hand. “Greywaren is who’s keeping us safe from the trouble and all these awful villains. “Wouldn’t you agree Lynch?” 

Ronan feels the slightest uptick to his pulse, but doesn’t let anything show, just gives a placid smile and  blasé shrug to his shoulder.

“I make it a point not to mingle with politics.”

“Smart chap,” the third one smirks. “Couldn’t tell you how many times the boys on the board told me to keep my trap shut on it.”

Queue round of polite chuckles that Ronan doesn’t partake in.

“You know what isn’t controversial? A donation to the arts.” Ronan tells him.

“A wily one too,” Wentworth laughs. “Well you’ve convinced us Lynch, we’d be happy to help whatever inner city project or museum renovation you’ve got going on.”

“I’ll send Blue over to take the checks,” he tips his glass to them before continuing  on strolling through the throng of blank faces, exchanging pleasantries and volleying nods of recognition as if it’s an olympic sport. 

Ronan hates every fucking minute of it.

“Poor sour patch,” Blue, five foot nothing and unappreciative of any sort of bullshit, mock croons at him once he finally reaches the foursome, clucking her tongue all the while.

Ronan bares his teeth at her, swats away the hand she’s using to pinch his cheek  with a hiss of, “Hop off.”

Blue only laughs ebulliently.

“I fucking hate you.”

“No way to speak to your guests,” Henry toots on Blue’s behalf. “After all, you were just elected Henrietta’s most eligible bachelor, wouldn’t wanna ruin that image with your surly attitude.”

“What would you know Cheng? I sure as fuck don’t remember your name on the list.”

With a role of the eyes, Henry just shoos him away. “Never any bite, I swear.”

“He strolls off to take a call on his pretentious bluetooth, while Noah passes Ronan a fresh flute of the Prosecco.

“You don’t have to keep up the charade you know,” Gansey tells him, popping an appetizer with to many vowels and too little alcohol for Ronan to ever really bother remembering the name of into his mouth. “It’s not as if, ahem. People would ever be made privy to your particular gifts.”

He means the gifts Ronan had inherited from Niall, the ability to dream things and even people and occasionally places into existence. He means the fact that despite the way Ronan dawns a costume with a raven on the chest, he’s in all actuality a dreamer. He dreams his weapons, his vehicles, his everything to use against the bad guys and vigilantes that roam the streets of Henrietta, their city, their home. And some of the things he dreams Declan takes it upon himself to study, to replicate, to cell for the endless fortunes the Lynch name has always been known for. The millions upon millions that Ronan grew up unaware to how his father, a scoundrel and drunk most days, and absent the rest of them, had ever been able to earn. 

No, but Ronan still loves him, adores the memory and the man. Niall gave everything to Ronan and he’s going to respect everything Niall planned out, everything he wrote in his will.

“It’s what my father would’ve wanted, complete secrecy,” says Ronan, doubtless.

“Even with the solitude,” asks Gansey, cutting to the heart of his worries with none of his usual attentiveness. Finally tired of beating around the bush like the Gansey way dictates. 

Ronan’s about to snarl something back that he’s not proud of, something nasty and vicious and unnecessarily cruel. Maybe about Gansey’s pretentious upbringing, probably something about his tireless efforts to find out what’s caused this explosion of superheroes and super villains in the last half century, definitely  also about his piece of shit haircut that makes him look like a douchebag congressman. But Blue must sense it because she interrupts him before Ronan could even part his lips.

“All we’re saying is that we know you’ve got your priorities, but you deserve someone to come home too.”

“It’s so cute that you care,” Ronan snorts, doesn’t mention how this place isn’t home, that it can never stack up to The Barns.

Ronan doesn’t want to build a life here.

“I only care because  every group needs the weirdly brooding, emo friend,” Blue says causticly.

Ronan cuffs her on the back of the head and she kicks him in turn.

“Hey tall, dark, and handsome,” Henry calls, abruptly returning with a slight franticness to his gaze. “No time for the juvenile squabbling, there’s a robbery on Appleton and they’re in dyer need of a certain masked hero.”

.-

Ronan remembers the sun kissed skies and tumbling grasslands that painted the landscape of The Barns, his childhood manner, his oasis away from the bustling folks and raucous traffic of the city that the Lynch’s spent a majority of their year trapped within. He remembers the iridescent rosebuds that scattered the front yard  and the strawberry fields he’d run through, frolicking with a giggling Matthew and occasionally a surly Declan if Ronan had nudged him outdoors by stealing one of his books or hats or whatever proper, grown up thing he was insistent on mastering for that week.

Most of all, he remembers the way Niall would card an indulgent hand through Ronan’s dark mop of locks while they tread around the trails as he divulged to his middle son all the magical wonders and whimsical secrets of this world,  a doting smile on his face while regaling to Ronan stories about brave Irish warriors and lands unexplored, and things unimagined. A dreamer father showing his dreamer child— his favorite child— all the possibilities in his grasp.

“There’s nothing outside your reach Ronan my boy,” Niall, dark haired and sharp jawed and everything Ronan idealized, had boomed in his deep baritone. “You could do anything as long as you can imagine it, dream it. Omnium rum principia parva sunt.”

“The beginnings of all things are small,” Ronan, pint sized and open faced and infallibly kind hearted, had beamed up to his father, pleased that the Latin courses Niall had insisted upon were sticking. 

“Oy, attaboy,” Niall had crowed, swinging on his shoulder a laughing Ronan, a Ronan who believed in the untarnished truth of his father’s words.

But then Ronan hit sixteen, and Niall was murdered  and  the Barns were sanctioned from anyone visiting and everything had fallen apart in a matter of days.

.-

The BMW hums beneath his grasp as Ronan sores through the streets of Henrietta, blanketed in darkness and buzzing with danger.

“It’s at the Sheffield’s lake house,” Gansey patches in through the minuscule communication device Henry had created for them to use. “They’re big supporters of mothers campaign.”

“Oh how darling,” Ronan says in a deadpan. “We should invite them over for high tea, less we look gauche.”

“I’ll ignore the sarcasm due to this being a stressful situation and all,” Gansey harrumphs from the other end. “Noah will be there taking pictures for the paper and Henry’s sending over the address right now. Stay safe.”

“always am.”

“Now we both know that isn’t true.”

.-

Ronan screeches to a stop in front of one of the more posh houses the city has to offer— all high gates and wide partitions and a fountain of a baby angel spitting out water while balancing on one foot— greeted by a middle aged woman in pink chiffon raving to a fearful looking officer about hooligans and dirty thugs and irreplaceable diamonds handed down to her through generations. Though Ronan   doesn’t bother to stop and listen to her sulking once he catches the barest trace of a yellow cape slinking into the shadows out of sight.

He pounces.  

“Fifteen minutes and twenty-three seconds,” the dude in a yellow cape tsks (all the while sporting the world’s most infuriating half grin that Ronan can’t help but appreciate if only for the esthetic) once Ronan finally catches up to him on the edge of the woods skirting against the water. He’s smaller than Ronan, but not by much, and agile as all get out if those amateur parkour stunts weren’t just an illusion. “getting rusty are we? It’s been a while since Henrietta’s seen anything more than a chump vigilante I suppose?”

His voice is low but has got this almost musical cadence to it. Ronan would’ve sworn he was a local if the subtle drawl was anything to go by.

“And who, pray tell, the fuck are you,” Ronan snarls out, stepping closer with his most menacing glower. 

The guy in yellow and red just snorts, unimpressed, while he leaps backwards onto a tree branch… But no, it’s like the tree branch was waiting for him. No not even that, like it reached out for him to hop on, like he was the sun and the tree was responding to his very presence. 

“Unimportant, but I know who you are Greywaren.”

“NO fuck, everyone knows me,” Ronan spits.

“Not the real you,” he counters. “But that’s why I’m here.”

Ronan is over the small talk, even if the guy’s got an admittedly attractive voice, he taps on the heels of the shoes he had dreamt and begins to shoot upwards, but the  messed up thing is that the guy seems to have been expecting it, and with just a flick of the wrist another branch swings out and smacks Ronan down like a pesky fly.

“What. The. Fuck.” Ronan manages out with labored breaths as he stands back up.

“Anyone ever tell you that you’re a real let down Mr Greywaren, because you sure are,” Yellow Cape says with a faux yawn, stretching out to his full six feet while still standing on the branch. He looks like the fucking Fairy Folk in the storybooks Matthew had once insisted Ronan read to him before bed. “Well I’d love to stay and chat but I better get out of your hair and get some bank for my buck.”

“I’ll show you where to shove your buck.”

“Scandalous,” yellow cape sniffs, bored sounding. “ oh and before I forget, Greenmantle sends their hellos.”

In an instance everything freezes.

That word.

Greenmantle.

Flashes of blood and darkness and Niall’s too pale face accented by a wretched slash to his forehead.

The name carved in blood.

Greenmantle.

Ronan’s veins turn to ice and his chest contracts, and by the time he comes to yellow cape is already gone and Ronan is awash with the sorts of memories he ordinarily  keeps securely locked away.

.-

“Greenmantle, are you sure he said that precise name?” Henry asks for the umpteenth time since Ronan came back empty handed and with a major life revelation  the night of the Sheffield robbery. 

“Yes Cheng,” Ronan seethes, tugs on the tie that feels like it’s choking him.

“You look insane,” Blue toots, goes on her tiptoes to adjust it once more. “Now let’s  just take deep breaths, being in public and all.”

Ronan still isn’t sure just how Gansey had convinced them all to attend the Tribune’s annual fundraiser, only remembering  a lot of “getting on the insides” and “copious amounts of alcohol,s” thrown around, and a couple, “you get to tease uppity know it alls who trash the Greywaren for a living,” sprinkled on top just for good measure.

But still, Ronan hates it.

“So he’s back then, finishing off what he started.” Noah surmises.

“Did we ever truly know what exactly he wanted? Erm, aside from the Lynch family’s demise.”

Ronan glares and Henry just winces, apologetic.

“Noah you think you can get anymore intel on Greenmantle possibly leaving Boston? That was last where we tracked him, right?” Blue asks, head cocked. 

“I’m on it,” Noah says while literally pulling out his phone and wandering off to a discrete corner to do whatever it is that he does that gets invasively detailed reports on literally anyone with a social security number.

“Let’s cut the conversation there, Gansey’s coming with that delicious looking friend of his,” Henry warns, causing Blue and Ronan to turn around at the same time to catch on a beaming Gansey promenading towards them with decidedly less sunny company. Company with sea glass eyes and effortlessly ruffled hair that falls unevenly on the left side of his forehead and cheekbones that can literally cut timber.

“Ronan, you’re gonna catch flies,” blue goads, shit eating grin on her face and something like amusement etched into Gansey’s own all the way across the aisle, as if he knows exactly what she had said. Leave it to those freaks to create the world’s first telepathic connection out of the power of their gross as love. 

“You’re fired from both my friendship and your job,” Is all Ronan tells her, tries to look distracted by anyone that isn’t the literal incarnation of Prince Philip walking ever nearer… Erm shut the fuck up, Ronan only knows that certain prince because of Matthew when he went through his Disney phase… And well, Arora really liked those sorts of cartoons when she was bringing up her boys.

Gansey dives down to kiss Blue just as soon as they came close enough, and Henry bugged off to go flirt up some poor soul on the catering staff, which leaves it so he and Adam have got some semblance of privacy… Which Ronan doesn’t care about at all.

“Lynch,” Adam says, mouth curled ever so slightly,  giving him a thin lipped smile. “How’s it going.”

“My life is a fucking summer day,” Ronan replies with probably too much glaring.

“So that nasty looking bruise on your jaw?”

“For the esthetic.”

“Think you missed bad ass and landed on kid who gets too many nose bleeds during gym class.”

“Know that look from experience Parrish?”

He shrugs, unaffected. 

“I was always captain, so can’t say so.”

“Cocky little fuck,” Ronan hisses, making it so Adam’s face finally brightens ten fold and he lets out a breathy— blink and you’ll miss it— laugh. He’s got these insane dimples that never fail to make Ronan’s stomach tie itself into knots, and makes it so  his heart stutter with pleasure and always, always fuels him to try and make them pop out just one more time…. But erm, that means nothing. Whatever Blue or Gansey, or Noah— Especially Henry— Whatever they say whatever stupid little ticks his body goes through, it means nothing towards what he feels for Adam. Which for the record, at best,  is irritated exasperation veiled with a thin layer of indifferent acquaintanceship, considering Gansey has regarded the bloke as a brother since their first night as roommates back in college.

“You wanna grab a drink or will it hurt too much with the injury and all?” 

“Shut the fuck up or I’ll make it so your shitting teeth for the next month.”

“Kinky.”

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Ronan’s doomed.

.-

“So far the pattern seems to be wealthy, careless and dumb,” Blue says from where she’s hanging upside-down on the couch in Ronan’s den that’s been commandeered for any Greywaren business.

“You just read that off of Parrish’s article in the Tribune this week,” Henry toots, flipping through the aforementioned news report  about who’s been labeled as The Magician. 

“He’s a smart cookie,” Blue relents, having always been partial to Parrish since first meeting him years ago at one of the ridiculous “family dinners,” Gansey holds every Friday evening,  instead of doing something more par for the course for adults their age, namely getting blackout drunk and dancing at sleazy clubs. (

Gansey had just stepped into Monmouth , blasé as all get out with Adam only a few feet behind him, and had gestured his way with the introduction. “This’s Adam, he’s a genius reporter and a great man. Even’s got a photo of him and Lois Lane pinned to his desk at the Tribune.” 

Adam in turn smiled self deprecatingly, his cheeks flushed prettily. “She spoke at a rally our freshman year, just got lucky I suppose.” 

“Oh my God! I love her!” Blue had squawked, eyes bright.  “She’s right between Wonder Woman and Angela Davis on my wall of inspirational women.” 

“Some wall,” Adam said wryly.

“I thought that was a wall of ladies you wouldn’t mind pegging,” Ronan had interrupted just to be a shit.

 “Lynch, I’m not afraid to kill in cold blood.”

If that interaction hadn’t scared Adam off, Ronan supposes he shouldn’t be surprised that nothing had, that now he’s as internal to this little ragtag crew of Henriettas saving graces as any of them, even if he doesn’t have the slightest clue of their night gigs.

“We could ask him about the Magician,” Gansey offers, lips pursed and hopeful glint to his big, caff like  eyes. Ronan knows that he— that all of them— hate lying to Adam, to evade his questions and avoid his calls whenever things are particularly insane, but it’s better this way. If it was up to Ronan none of them would be stuck in this dangerous business. Gansey is here because he had been brought up with Ronan, quite literally brothers in everything but blood. He knew what Niall was, what Ronan is. He knows the importance of the Barns and the danger of Greenmantle, Ronan couldn’t have lied to him about this if he tried. Noah was already privy to the forces of good and evil warring it out in this seemingly inconsequential city right out of DC, had been the one to approach Ronan as Greywaren first, to cultivate a bond that soon transformed into a partnership and now friendship. Henry’s family worked to provide the pieces for the technology that the  original dreamer wanted replicated, for Niall, and it only made sense that when Niall had ever so unceremoniously past the mantel off to Ronan, that Seondeok did the same for Henry. 

To this day Ronan isn’t quite sure how Blue squirmed her way into everything, only that she’s the daughter of a well renowned psychic that they consulted with once on a case, and she had right then, chin tipped high and a deeply embedded resilience in her gaze, had informed them all that she’d be joining their efforts. A few years later, falling in love with Gansey and officially hired to  lead all  knew projects for Lynch Charity, in between, Ronan can’t imagine doing all this without her scrappy self.

But that’s all besides the point. Ronan never wants to be the cause of them hurting, them in danger. He’s seen what could happen to someone if they take one wrong move, saw it splayed out with Niall’s blood and matted hair and sickly pillar that still haunts Ronan’s nightmares most nights.

Ronan’s gonna prevent that from ever happening again to anyone he loves, even if that means he has to prevent any of the aforementioned teammates  from joining his chases, or if it means he has to lie to Adam’s face. To pretend as if he doesn’t see the way Adam’s begun barricading himself from them bit by bit, well aware that there’s something dividing them all from him.

Ronan would rather see Adam furious at him, than never getting to see the particular shade of forget me not blue that colors his irises, ever again.

The choice is simple.

“No.” He tells Gansey, not leaving an ounce of  room for rebuttal.

“He’s a Pulitzer Prize nominated Journalist Ronan, in layman’s terms that means he’s great at figuring things out,” Gansey says with the worn patience of someone who’s hashed out this argument a thousand times before. “It’s improbable that he hasn’t already begun suspecting the truth already.”

“It’s dangerous.”

“I’m sure he could handle himself.”

“No,” Ronan repeats, voice resounding.

“Okay, no time,” Noah cuts in shortly, fingers tapping an agitated staccato against the keyboard of his desktop. “There’s a robbery on Madison Avenue and people are saying it’s our little, yellow caped friend.”

“Stay safe,” Gansey says— like he always does— and Ronan says that he will, like he always does— and the tension between them breaks, for now at the very least, like it always does.

.-

Ronan’s day job, as Declan had once oh so kindly put it, is to stay pretty and give a good face to the brand. “You’re a shit and I know that, but maybe if no one has to talk to you and just sees that you’ve got the same smile as Dad did, they won’t find out for themselves.” Declan had earned a swift right hook for that one, but was probably expecting it considering the dodge and the lecture on anger management he had suffered Ronan through for the next hour.

All this to say, Ronan doesn’t really have a day job. He occasionally visits The Barns— never crossing the threshold but just looking from afar at all he’s fighting to get back— Other times, if he’s not nursing a hangover or injury from the night before, Ronan would drive out to Dc and pull Matthew from classes to get lunch and maybe catch a movie. Though more often than not, Ronan ends up at one of the numerous Lynch owned real-estates, specifically the one where the entire top floor is rented out by the second largest paper in the fucking tri-state area. The fact that a majority of his friends happen to work there is pure coincidence and it would be slanderous to allude otherwise. 

“You enjoy our company,” Noah taunts, camera dangling from his neck and face split with a bright smile.

“Fuck you.”

“You do though,” he beams, impervious.

“Noah I swear to fucking God.”

.-

“Ah, so the prodigal son has returned,” Adam, looking like a fucking professional in his button down and tie, greets one particular Thursday afternoon when Ronan shows up for the first time that week. It’s been a difficult one for him, with the news that Greenmantle is most certainly not in Boston anymore, but also undetectable anywhere else on the continental United States, coupled with the series of robberies from more and more of the city’s wealthiest, surely by no other than that fucking yellow cape— The Magician— It’s just been really fucking exhausting.

Ronan will go to his grave before admitting that just catching sight of Adam here, now… It kind of makes him breathe a little easier, even if there’s a cut right under Adam’s chin and his stance is woven with a certain fatigue one can only recognize with experience. 

He suddenly remembers talking to one of Adam’s old school friends, a petite blonde who looked at an oblivious Adam with hearts in her eyes. He members her telling him just how Adam had lost the hearing in his left ear, how it was merely a tipping point from a long building cycle of abuse. Ronan thinks of how gutted he feels looking at how haggard Adam looks right now, and can’t imagine knowing him back when fucking Robert Parrish was still apart of his life.

But he shakes that all off, offers Adam a snide half grin like he’’s probably expecting.

“Missed me sugar dumpling,” Ronan jeers in an overdone accent to mock Adam’s subtle one, vowels rounded and snatching away the g.

“It was quieter,” is all Adam says, and if Ronan doesn’t know better he would’ve taken that as a compliment teetering on flirtatious instead of one of Adam’s deadpan observations. 

And oh, that’s interesting. 

“I’ve always been known for my stimulating conversational skills,” Ronan nods sagely, leaning against Adam’s desk with his arms wrapped across his chest, enjoying it probably a little too much how Adam’s peering up at him with his bright eyes through his spider leg lashes. 

Sometimes, just sometimes— just when Adam looks at him like Ronan could be the brightest part of his day— Ronan feels like he’s standing on the precipice of something with him, something that makes his chest stutter and stomach tumble itself into knots. Like Adam’s air and Ronan’s finally breathing. But also that’s a ridiculous notion because in all the years they’ve known each other Adam’s never made a move, not one that Ronan could discern at least, and he just needs to not fall into some ridiculous folly. 

“Oh I’m sure,” he snorts.

 “You wanna grab lunch? Leo’s having a half off if you buy two sale.”

“I don’t eat gluten.”

“I saw you scarf down a bowl of pasta at the mayor’s shitty dinner literally last weekend,” Ronan accuses, incredulous and only slightly affronted.

“Fine,” Adam breathes out. “Then I don’t eat gluten that’s meant to distract me from my work.”

“Fuck off.”

“Can’t do that either.”

Ronan seriously thinks he might hate Adam, if it wasn’t for the fact that he most certainly does not.

“You don’t have to like work yourself ragged just to prove a point you know, just because you’re the newest print journalist doesn’t mean you’re the least talented.” Ronan tells him, gruff sounding and avoiding his gaze at all costs. “That’s obviously Tad.”

Adam stays quiet for too long, so Ronan braces himself and turns around, not expecting Adam to be pinning Ronan with a one eyed squint, like he’s sizing him up. Like Ronan’s some sort of jigsaw puzzle he can never quite figure out. 

“Kay, let’s go,” he says, slow and cautious as he shuts his laptop and slinks on his jacket.  Ronan is only partially surprised that he actually listened, usually it takes a whole lot more cross looks and prodding at and about ten times more profanities for Adam to even consider stop working on some new story or the other that he’s particularly passionate about. 

“Good,” Ronan huffs in as flat of a tone he can muster. “But I fucking hate subs so we’re not going to Leo’s.”

Adam sighs, long suffering. “You were born to be contrary Lynch.”

“’S what Declan says, but he doesn’t know shit.”

“As opposed to you? Oh great arbiter of all knowledge.” Adam retorts, making it so Ronan’s mouth dips into a small, reluctant smile. 

“Precisely.”

Their eyes connect at that moment, ice blues boring into a twilight night sky sparkling with kisses of starlight. Ronan can hear his heart beat in his ears and his throat lodge with emotions he can’t place quite yet.

It’s Adam who breaks it, averting his gaze and clearing his throat, adjusting his papers on the desk just to make it as seemingly natural as possible.

“Mexican, Mexican’s never bad. And hey I get a chance to hear you fail at rolling your Rs.”

Ronan glowers.

“Piss off.”

So they go, Ronan orders a meat stuffed burrito and Adam orders the special and Ronan doesn’t talk about all the gluten Adam’s eating and  they most definitely do not talk about what may or may not have past between them.

It’s fine. It’s normal. He’s good.

Ronan’s got a lot of other shit to be worrying about without this maybe something he’s been harboring for Adam since before they even really knew each other, and it shouldn’t change just because Adam seems to be finally joining him in this strange little dance, stumbling together  around  this tiny flame that may or may not have sparked to life.

It’s fine. it’s normal. He’s good.

“I’m figuring out who Greywaren is,” Adam answers Ronan’s inquiry on what story’s got him so on edge and everything freezes over.

It’s not fine. It’s not normal. And Ronan is sure as fuck not good.

.-

“He’s swung onto Hamilton Boulevard,” Blue tells Ronan, almost frantic, through the headphone set. 

Ronan finally gets the fucking Magician in eye sight, watching as he slips into the maze of downtown apartments.

“Good, no fucking trees,” Ronan hisses while swerving off the road and chasing after him by foot, eventually landing on a rooftop. It’s the sixth encounter they’ve had in as many weeks so Ronan thinks he’s finally starting to ware him down, or at least beginning to figure out his arsenal of techniques. He knows that the moment he lands on that roof The Magician will just leap to the next one and the one after that until he finally loses Ronan in the dust.

But this time the Magician doesn’t know about the little pouch of a Ronan Lynch original that’s clacking  around on his belt. 

“Isn’t there more important shit you should be chasing after?” The Magician growls out, leaping to the next roof in the row and rolling his landing— smooth fuck.

“Isn’t there better ways you can be earning money besides stealing it?” Ronan counters, right on his tale.

“Like those old farts would miss’m,” The Magician scoffs, thin lips pinched into an infuriatingly attractive pout. “There are kids starving in this city, you know that Greywaren?”

“So what? You some fucking reincarnation of Robin Hood?” Ronan spits out.

“He was a fictional character, so that’d be impossible,” The Magician pivots around so quickly that Ronan is caught off guard, especially when he pulls out a bow and arrow and shoots it with deadly precision, tearing Ronan’s cape right off and sticking it to the wall behind them.

“But the bow is a favorite of mine.”

Ronan clenches his teeth in frustration. 

“Look I don’t give a fuck about you getting your jollies from stealing from old, rich fucks. Not really.”

“Then why the hell do you keep pursuing me?” The Magician charges, never flinching from his stance or losing his aim directed right at Ronan’s chest.

“Greenmantle,” he grits out, like broken glass ripping his throat to shreds and piercing his tongue and lips as it escapes in a fury of blood and guts and abandonment. “You said that name when we first met.”

“Yeah, and so what?”

“What do you mean so what!” Ronan bellows, hates how this vigilante fuck is so blasé about the one person that makes it feel like Ronan’s insides are burning up and dying right alongside everything else when Niall had past. With his mother and the Barns and the memories and the ease of just existing to exist instead of searching for some existential meaning behind it all. “How do you even know Greenmantle?”

The Magician just shrugs, for the first time in all the weeks he’s been clashing against Ronan his face betrays his typical impassivity and actually looks cautious, curious— unsure.

“Greenmantle’s the one who asked me to figure out who you are, paid me like a ridiculous sum of money for it.”

“And why do you think Greenmantle wants me so badly!”

“Fuck if I know, some blood feud between the wealthy and powerful. I don’t care, it’s not my business.”

“Fuck off,” Ronan steps closer, but the Magician remains stock-still, weapon poised to be wielded. “I know it was you who stopped that armed robbery last weekend at the bank, and you saved that bus collision with your creepy voodoo one with the trees, powers.”

This time the Magician’s lips curl into acute disapproval, he’s irritated by Ronan calling him out. Ronan thinks that it should be disconcerting that he could get so much from a simple reading of his mouth, but also it’s the only feature he can see on his face, so it isn’t that creepily invested.

“I don’t put people in danger, just steal from the oblivious and wealthy.”

“You’re not a bad guy,” Ronan surmises, has known that for a while now. “Don’t get mixed up in Greenmantle’s shit. They’re bad people, really bad.”

The magician sinks his teeth into his bottom lip, flickers his focus to something right above Ronan’s shoulder, like he was considering his words in a meaningful kind of way.

“How do I know that you’re not just lying to me. That Greenmantle isn’t justified for whatever slight you’ve done to them.”

“There’s a reason why you haven’t really tried figuring me out, you don’t want to help them.” Ronan needles.

“Don’t try to psychoanalyze me.”

“It’s true, you feel it. you know they aren’t safe.”

“Tell me why I should trust you,” is all the Magician says, waspish.

Ronan wants to shout, to pull out his hair and just scream. He wants to tell the Magician that he didn’t commit some sort of  fucking obscene offense to’m, that Greenmantle just knows what he can do and wants to control it, control him. But Ronan’s suddenly too tired and too frustrated and too so many things that he can’t even fathom parsing out the right words to convince him. Instead, Ronan just  picks out one of the seeds in his pouch and throws it into the Magician’s sandy hair, ducking when the first arrow is released.

“What the fuck was that?”

“Why can’t you fucking just listen to me!” Ronan says instead of answering. “Greenmantle is fucking evil.”

“You missed anyways douche,” the Magician snarls out, pulling another arrow from his sheath.

Ronan lets out a little, dark laugh at that, standing up to his full height. “Haven’t you ever heard that the beginnings of all things are small?”

The Magician’s face goes very flat, completely unimpressed.

“Now who’s speaking in shitty voodoo riddles?”

Fuck, Ronan hates how much he enjoys waging words with him.

“It’s not voodoo,” Ronan says in an admittedly cryptic voice.

“What the fuck!” The magician suddenly balks. Ronan reckons it’s because of the ropes knitting themselves around him over frustration about  his comment. 

“You won’t listen, so I’m turning you in.”

“Screw you!” he yells, face bright with feeling. 

“Jail’s better than if you accidentally get on Greenmantle’s bad side,” Ronan informs him magnanimously, dark head tilted in an admittedly Declan way.

“You are such a piece of shit.”

“Could say the same to you sweetheart,” Ronan sniffs, is taken aback at the unexpected prickling to his side.

“What—“

He looks up to find the Magician tearing through the ropes that look like they’ve been completely unwound. He looks a bit closer to find the hundreds of small spikes prickling its circumference.

“Is that—“

“A pine,” Magician scoffs, lets out a new round to pierce into Ronan’s side with a mere snap of his finger.

“How the fuck can you even do that!”

The Magician doesn’t answer, just bolts over to Ronan with a swift kick to the opposite side from the needles, rendering him defenseless, and runs off just as soon as the sirens come within hearing distance. All Ronan could do is watch the night swallow him whole.

.-

Ronan is bothered and disgruntled and pissed off— even more than usual. It’s why he’s sulking in a dark corner, peevish as all get out, while there’s like a hundred guests invading his family home in the city, here to celebrate Declan’s thirtieth and also probably just to make Ronan hate life that bit more.

He can’t believe he let the Magician go that easily, and now that he is actually mad at Ronan who knows what he’ll do now to actually figure him out, bring’m to Greenmantle just so they could finish the job and kill off all the Lynch dreamers. 

“Fuck.”

“Language,” a far too familiar voice reproofs with no heat, making Ronan jolt back to watch as Adam strolls towards him.

“You’re here?” Ronan says, floundered as he stares at the way his shoulders move just right in that blazer. God he’s beautiful.

“You should really consider asking Gansey for a job, your observational skills are truly top notch,” Adam says in a decidedly sardonic tone.

“Asshole,” Ronan huffs, excepting the drink Adam offers him.

“You seemed in a funk all week, thought you’d need the moral support for a party literally  meant to celebrate your brother.”

Ronan looks away, tries not to look so gleeful that Adam came here specifically— solely— to cheer up Ronan.

“You thought I’d want your company over any of these pricks,” Ronan says just to keep up pretenses— Admittedly a bit to afraid of the outcome if he starts to let them slide and just begins to babble out  loud all the stupid thoughts clamoring in his mouth and chest and mind whenever around Adam. The way his chest blooms with something splendid and the blossoms taking shelter in his ribcage. Though Adam seems to be having completely contradictory thoughts, because all he does is shrug— almost defiant.

“I thought you’d like my company yes,” he says blithely, as if he were reading a weather forecast or some shit.

“Whatever,” Ronan says instead of telling him he’s right. But Adam takes it as is with a diffident little smile and stepping that much nearer, good ear tipped towards Ronan.

“You wanna get out of the crowd? Show me around this place?”

Ronan does not swallow down, not for any particular reason at least, like how maybe to the untrained ear that could’ve past as a come on.

That is not a thing that happens! He’s not some Bella Swan type swooning over a cute boy he’s pretty sure is the one. That’s not happening! Ronan is not doing that!

“Yeah, sure. Whatever.”

Adam’s answering smile is radiant. And Ronan fucking hates himself for even knowing that word.

.-

“It’s huge…. Ah erm, your house I mean,” Adam coughs a little and Ronan’s absolutely ecstatic for the turning tables. 

“Dad use to say that if we weren’t at our palace we still should live like kings, and my mom just indulged all his stupid whims,” Ronan explains, wistful.

“The Barns,” Adam says, slow and cautious, probably knowing that it’s a touchy subject but still curious. “That’s your palace, right?”

“Mmhmm,” Ronan nods, stops in front of a mantel underscoring a risibly large portrait of Niall and Arora, the pair of them juxtaposing completely but still  both so etherial that it would be preposterous to ever imagine one without the other.

 Beautiful and rugged. golden and dark. careless and careful. 

Ronan feels a sudden, acute pang to his chest. Jesus Christ does he miss them.

“They’re beautiful,” Adam marvels, pinky touching the side of Ronan’s hand ever so tenderly from besides him. “You look exactly like your father.”

“Yeah… I’ve been told that.”

They stand there, in the silence, for a little longer— Ronan isn’t quite sure how much time past, a minute or hour, but it feels quiet. For the first time Ronan feels quiet and at peace when he looks at this portrait, and he isn’t sure if it’s a good sign that he’s finally starting to mend, or a bad one that says Greenmantle will soon cause him to join them on the other side.

Eventually, Ronan turns over— apologetic— To Adam, is surprised when he finds him staring with intense interest on the words carved into the frame.

“Omnium rum principia parva sunt,” Ronan reads out loud. “It means—“

“The beginnings of all things are small,” Adam says, mechanically, disbelievingly, confusedly. 

“You know the quote then,” Ronan asks, is struck dumb when Adam’s ordinarily bright and methodical eyes flicker to him as if in a trance. 

“No, not really. Just heard of it recently.”

Ronan nods, it being answer enough. “You wanna meet Chainsaw?”

“Chainsaw?” Adam repeats, finally appearing to come to his own again. 

Ronan cocks his head, silently telling Adam to follow suit, and he does.

.-

“It’s a bird…”

“She’s a raven,” Ronan huffs. “Now who’s got wicked observational skills?”

Adam’s face goes a bit pale, looking excruciatingly uncomfortable as he just nods along to Ronan, not even bothering to snipe back. 

“Yeah sure, of course she is.”

He finishes feeding Chainsaw and leads Adam back to his nearby room, pretending his skin isn’t squirming with anticipation. 

“Is this how you court all your dates?” Adam asks, teasing unassuming all at once, a masterpiece of contradictions Ronan could spend an eon trying to parse out and wouldn’t grow tired.

“Is that what this is?” Ronan asks, tentative while sitting down besides him on the bed.

“Dunno,” Adam shrugs. “’S what I wanted it to be, reckoned you weren’t gonna make a move for another five years.” 

Ronan’s face goes blotchy, and Adam’s laugh is something musical.

“You’re enjoying this.” Ronan huffs.

“You’re precious,” Adam preens, cupping Ronan’s cheek in earnest and slanting his lips against Ronan’s own, and suddenly all the muted grays of this poor substitute of The barns transform to vivid, screaming color. It’s slow and cautious at first but melts into something more, something so much more. It feels like nights racing in the BMW, and days running around the Barns as a kid, wild and free. It feels like sun kissed skies and when his cold fingers begin to thaw at the fire place. It feels like remembering and discovering and just knowing. 

“I’ve been wanting to do that for like a year,” Adam admits, bashful, once they finally part, hot tendrils of  breath skirting against Ronan’s lips and soft hands caressing his cheeks.

“Try. Like. three of them.” Ronan counters, punctuating his words with a kiss to Adam’s collar bone, the hinge of his jaw, the tops of his cheekbones.

He can do this, Adam wants him to do this. This is a thing that they’re doing.

“Jesus Ronan,” Adam says in an almost wine, snaking his hands beneath Ronan’’s shirt and splaying out his fingers greedily. “That’s like since we met?”

“I know.”

Adam swoops down so that their lips are moving against each other once more, and everything feels golden.

But it all goes to an abrupt halt when he feels Adam’s long fingers skimming his still bruised side and he sucks in a breath.

“Still tender,” he winces.

Adam pulls back, as if he’s been scorched.

“I’m so sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Ronan assures, only a bit pissy that the kissing has stopped— he liked the kissing. “Just a little sore spot.” His shirt rises up enough to give Adam a clear view of the still healing spot, is confused when his face goes a sickly green and he pulls away even further.

“What’s up Parrish?” Ronan asks, sitting up right alongside him.

“That… That looks like a kick. A hard one.”

Ronan kinks up his brows, teasing. 

“So I swung back to bad ass or still a nerd with nose bleeds?”

“That’s a kick,” is all Adam repeats, like he’s gone mad.

“Yeah Parrish, I got in a fight. Don’t sweat, it comes with the territory of buzz cuts and leather jackets. Wouldn’t expect you to know Mr All America.”

“A fight,” Adam says, slow and confounded. His lips moving around the words and his face still blanched, a decidedly unhealthy hue spreading across his soft features. 

“Parrish you okay?”

“I gotta— I gotta go.” He says, scrambling off the bed and straightening his clothes. Ronan feels distinctly like being left high and dry.

“Now? You have to leave now?”

“Yes, now. Immediately.”

“Okay… Gimme a minute to find my keys, I’ll drive you back to yours.”

“I want to walk,” Adam declines, already racing out the door.

“Woah, did I do something wrong?”

“No, nothing,” Adam says, face being tugged into a whole array of emotions before landing on a dangerously blank expression that Ronan’s never been able to read for shit.

Adam goes and Ronan’s confused and the house is still filled with fucking annoying ass guests.

.-

“You’re upset,” Blue says, blunt as ever.

“You’re annoying,” Ronan counters, snappish.

“It’s gotta due with Adam doesn’t it,” She charges, hands flying to her hips and looking more like Maura than Ronan could’ve ever expected.”’S why he’s called in sick to work for the past week and you’ve been more crass than usual.”

“Fuck off,” Ronan hisses, doesn’t look away from where they’re perched atop one of the higher buildings of Henrietta, perfect view to both its polished corners and seedy underbelly.

“I’m right, aren’t I,” Blue presses, but Ronan doesn’t bother to engage.  “Just admit it!”

“So what if you are?”

“God, you both are such idiots.”

Ronan flips her the bird only just catching a flash of yellow ducking into an alleyway.

“Not the fuck today,” he hisses out morosely. “Call me on the bee,”  he tells Blue before pouncing down and chasing after him.

He doesn’t hear her respond, doesn’t really hear anything. He only comes back to focus when the alleyway ends and he’s looking at The Magician standing rigid in front of St Agnes.

“You’re a dreamer,” He says with no fanfare, not accusing but not happy about it either.

“Wh—“

“”s why Greenmantle wants you.”

“Not exactly Nancy Drew,” Ronan mutters out, circling him cautiously.

“He killed your father, he’s the one who sent the hit on Niall.”

In an instance everything goes red, Ronan’s ears roaring with unadulterated fury. 

Like a bullet, Ronan tackles into The Magician, hand wrapped around his neck and noses brushing against each other.

“how the fuck do you know that name,” he asks with heavy breaths. 

“Greenmantle killed your father and he wants to kill you next because of some sort of vendetta against the Lynches.” Yellow cape manages out, barely breathing with Ronan’s hand still clasped tightly around his neck.

“Tell me how you know the name Niall?” He barks out, squeezing even harder. Though Ronan is confused when the magician doesn’t even try fighting back. 

“I know you Ronan, it’s me.”

Everything stutters to a stop, and Ronan’s grasp begins to subside.

“You know my name? How do you know my name?”

“Because it’s me, It’s Adam.”

The world’s gone inside out, and flipped upside down and Ronan’s let go of the Magician— of Adam— and is across the yard once more, stunned silent as he watches as the Magician sheds off  the yellow mask to reveal a familiar mop of sandy hair and night blue eyes and a tiny little dent over his top lip that Ronan’s never asked about but has always wondered if it had to do with the way he holds himself with caution strung into his stance. And absolutely nothing makes sense at all.

“Ad—Adam,” he balks. 

“It’s a long story,” is all he says, completely glum.

“When did you— How did you—“

“Only the other night when we were in your room,” his cheeks go a fetching red at the memory and Ronan yearns to go back to that moment of tranquility before all of this. “I couldn’t believe it, but when I finally figured it out, it all made sense.”

“How— How did you.”

“Look Ronan— Or, erm … Greywaren, there’s no time to explain any of this right now.”

“Why the hell not,” Ronan snarls, tries to feel an appropriate amount of fear, but hates how he’ll probably always feel safe and secure when around fucking Adam Parrish, no matter who he’s dressed as.

“The Greenmantle you know, Colin, he’s dead.” Ronan balks, but Adam just steamrolls over it, continues on speaking with clipped words and a franticness Ronan doesn’t understand quite yet.”it’s his wife you need to worry about, Piper. She’s the one who hired me and has been looking for you, she wants to avenge him like some sort of Harley Quin esthetic.”

“I have no fucking idea what you’re saying.” Ronan informs him grimly. 

“You don’t need to understand, just dream.” Adam tells him, thrusts out a manilla envelope to him and waits for Ronan to open it up and read its contents. 

“Excuse me?”

“Read it.  memorize it, Dream it.” Adam tells him.

“You want me to frame Greenmantle for some pretty heinous shit.”

“You want her taken out, don’t you,” Adam charges.

“How do you know I can even create this shit in my head?” Ronan asks, brows furrowed.

“I have faith,” Adam says with a seriousness etched into his features Ronan’s never seen. “And you’ve got fuel.”

“fuel?”

“Shit won’t be safe until she’s gone, if you ask me, I reckon that’s all your dad intended, for you and your brothers to be safe. I reckon that’s why he barred you guys from the Barns in the first place. Piper’s been there like a thousand times, the dream energy at The Barns is heavy, like a ley line all it’s own. But when the dangers gone, you can make it your palace again.”

“That’s detailed,” Ronan says slowly, still so totally confused.

“I’ve had a week to figure it all out, and this’s the only full proof plan I’ve got.” Adam tells him. 

Ronan bores his eyes into Adam’s own, finds something he recognizes as quintessentially  Adam Parrish in them, and feels that quiet again he did a week ago at Declan’s birthday party. 

He feels sure.

“Okay, I’ll play along.”

“Good,” the ends of Adam’s lips curve up into a smile and Ronan feels like he’s finally gotten the answer right.

.-

They’re back sitting side by side on Adam’s desk, a newspaper in Ronan’s grasp announcing the arrest of Piper Greenmantle.

“You’re preening,” Adam mildly notes.

“I feel…. Free,” Ronan says, far too vulnerable for such a open place.

“I’m glad,” Adam says, voice shimmering with sincerity as he stands up. “Promise me you’ll take care of yourself, that you’ll always feel that.”

Ronan eyes him, confused. 

“Sounds like a goodbye to me,” Ronan accuses, and Adam just shrugs. 

“I’ve made a mess of everything, you almost got hurt, seriously hurt.”

“You didn’t know,” Ronan contends.

“I was flippant,” Adam corrects. “But she’s gone now, and you’re going to be safe, so it feels like the right point for me to maybe start fresh too.”

“No,” Ronan says.

“Excuse me?”

“You’re a good guy Adam, and that’s more than most people. People either suck or are awful… You’re not, you’re good.”

Adam frowns. 

“You’re wrong.”

“I’m not,” Ronan stands up, wraps a hand around one of Adam’s slender wrists. “You’re good and you’re bold and you’re a genius and if it weren’t for you I’d probably still be running around terrified that Greenmantle would come back to finish me off. Thank you for giving me the chance not to be afraid of that anymore… Thank you for that.”

“Of course Lynch,”

Ronan swallows down, trying his hardest not to avert his gaze.

“So stay Parrish. Stay and let’s start shit over together.”

Adam doesn’t answer in so many words, instead just inclines his head forwards and kisses Ronan within an inch of his life. 

Ronan likes that answer a whole hell of a lot more. 

[365daysofsasuhina]

[ 365 Days of SasuHina || Day Three Hundred Forty-Two: Taking Chances ] [ Uchiha Sasuke, Hyūga Hinata ] [ SasuHina, gun ] [ Verse: Of Monsters and Men ] [ AO3 Link ]

She was never really the type to take chances, but then, well...Uchiha Sasuke came into her life, and nothing has been the same.

Hinata had been trying all her life to just be a normal girl. She went to school, never skipped, got good grades. Maybe not enough to be top of the class, but close. Bookish, introverted, and shy, she coasted through most of her educational years alone. Her grades did well, but...her social life, not so much. It wasn’t until college where she really began to branch out a bit. She met a few other girls her age taking what was meant to be her core classes that they were taking as electives: those relating to horticulture. Sakura took it slightly as a vanity project, given her name. And Ino’s family owned a flower shop in her hometown. The former wanted to become a doctor, and the latter wanted to study cosmetology. While Hinata didn’t consider either of them close friends...they were the closest she’d gotten to the notion in quite some time.

The changes college brought about meant changes in her, too. Ever so slightly, she felt herself growing bolder. She’d skip study hours to go with them to movies. Listen in to gossip as the pair would mull over boys in their classes or spotted on campus. None of it was really her typical style, but...she told herself she liked it. Told herself it was normal to befriend people her age, especially girls, and actually do things besides study and lurk online.

And then life had to go and make her wish she’d never stepped outside her comfort zone.

It was stupid. She knew it was stupid. But she also told herself it wasn’t that big of a deal. The odds of something going wrong were surely not that high. Her university city is big, sure...but the crime rate isn’t too high. Surely a quick jaunt on her own wasn’t going to land her in any trouble, right?

...wrong.

Walking quickly and eyes flickering, she’d found herself suddenly grabbed by an arm and dragged into an alleyway. Heartbeats soared with panic, mind screaming, “I told you so!” as a man leered down at her, gripping her neck and pinning her up against the building behind her.

But it wasn’t just any man. This man wasn’t human...he just looked the part, sans the bright red eyes and sharp teeth in his grin.

Hinata knew what he was. She’d seen beings like him since she was small. A talent - or in her mind, a curse - she’d had for as long as she could remember...one her father had insisted she stamp out, ignore, somehow cure herself of.

But for all her playing ignorant, for all her pretending not to see...Hinata could never fully escape her sight.

And even then...it wouldn’t have saved her.

No...her saving grace came in the form of another man. Another vampire. This one wielding a gun and demanding the attacker let her go. Claimed to be an Enforcer...whatever that meant.

The word had stiffened her assailant, bolting only to be struck down. Hinata was alive...and in shock. Though, admittedly, not as much as a typical human would be.

The officer attempted to drug her, to help her forget...but there would be no forgetting. She’d been privy for their world long before then.

The world of monsters...of Nightwalkers.

Awakening something long buried within herself, she’d managed to break free with what felt like a kind of...magic.

And then she fled.

She had fully expected that to be the last incident. No more taking chances - she’d just...hole herself up in her dorm when not in classes, and get through the rest of her schooling without anything else going wrong.

But Ino and Sakura were relentless, and a few weeks later insisted she join them for another movie. No matter her insistence otherwise, they wouldn’t let up...and finally she caved. The movie itself was fine, the gaggle of them heading back to the station to take the train back across the city. But little Hinata, short of stature in the crowds, was lost and left behind.

And that’s when he found her again.

Part of her had panicked, wondering if he was here to arrest her, or try to take her away. But all he’d offered was a ride back, given she’d missed her train.

Wary...she’d agreed, part of her admittedly curious about him, and his world. He’d introduced himself as Uchiha Sasuke: a vampire, and a kind of officer tasked with protecting their world from detection.

He also told her she wasn’t human. Not...completely. Hinata, as it turned out, was an odd in-between. The term varied by culture, but in Japan they were often called mikos...or in less friendly terms, witches.

It had been...only partially shocking. Hinata had always known she was different, but wasn’t aware of how rare, or that she wasn’t just crazy, but...simply something different than anyone else she’d ever known.

To her detriment, however...the rather handsome vampire was spotted taking her home, spurring rumors and begetting interrogations from her friends. Barely holding them off with his tale of being a cop (which...was true, just not the way they thought), she’d found herself at a crossroads. No longer could she keep trying to be blind to the other world, but...doing so would make existing in the human half difficult.

Sasuke kept contacting her. Kept trying to learn more about her. About her lineage. The pair grew closer. She even dared to call him a friend. And that friendship was tested when Sasuke found himself wounded nearby her campus, stopping in and asking for her help...only to end up drinking her proffered blood to help overcome the silver-inflicted injury.

...but that’s when the trouble truly started.

There was something...else between them now. The act had felt...strangely intimate. Hinata wasn’t sure what to call it. But it wasn’t long after that she found herself dragged into a political disaster.

Sasuke’s boss - the leader of his coven, and one of the most powerful Nightwalkers in the world, Uchiha Madara - had finally taken interest in Sasuke’s little project of studying witches. He had her kidnapped, dragged to one of his many hideaways...and wanted to study her for himself.

It was then Sasuke showed his true colors at last. Nearly going feral with anger, he’d been stopped only by his brother in an attempt to attack the Japanese vampiric Senator of the Nightwalker Senate. Madara, explaining more of their history, also put the pieces together and declared that Sasuke had fallen quite deeply in love with the little witch, if his reaction to her being stolen away told them anything.

...Hinata wasn’t sure what to think.

But that wasn’t all Madara wanted. Backing her into a corner, he forced (under a guise of choice) Hinata to agree to work for him: to ally her budding powers to him and his own. She was given a week to think it over, during which she consulted Sasuke...but there wasn’t much to discuss.

To refuse was to be killed.

...she’s taken a few days to - rather than mull the ‘offer’ over - simply...come to terms with it. Part of her still isn’t sure about...well, anything. But though meeting Sasuke has led to this entire chain of events...she can’t bring herself to regret it. Any of it.

She knew that, eventually, there’d be no more running. Either she’d accept her oddity, or she’d succumb to it. And if nothing else...well, at least she’s finally made a true friend. Conquered her fear. And become a person she never really thought she could be.

“...ready?”

Staring up at the doors before them, Hinata turns to Sasuke. As he’s been since Madara’s revelation, he holds a carefully blank expression. She has yet to address the accusation of his being in love with her. Partly because there’s just...too much else to think about. But mostly because she really isn’t sure how she feels, given the chaos that has ensued since learning the truth. There’s been no time to sit and think about it. Consider their history, their bond, their experiences...and the feelings they all bring.

But at the very least...she knows he’s the most genuine friend she has. No one else has ever cared about her like he does...even if the birth of their bond was an odd one.

So, with a small glance to his hand, she gently reaches and takes it. Unlike all of those silly vampire stories, it isn’t cold or hard...but warm. Calloused. Maybe just a little sweaty.

It feels so...human. Even if she knows he isn’t.

But mostly it feels...familiar. Comforting. Reassuring.

It makes her feel that she can do this...so long as she doesn’t have to do it alone.

A hint of a smile curls her lips before looking up to his face. “...yeah. I think I am. Are you…?”

“...if you can do this, so can I.”

That earns a brief laugh. “And here I was t-thinking the exact opposite.”

“Some people tell me that what I do makes me brave, but...in a lot of ways, it’s what those like me have always done. But you...you’re being far braver than I’ve ever been, Hinata. You’re taking one hell of a chance with this. For someone like you to do what you’re doing...that takes far more guts. I hope you realize that.”

Her smile just softens. “...I guess so. It just feels like...w-what I’m supposed to do. And...thank you for being with me.”

“I can’t abandon you now - you wouldn’t be in this mess if not for me.”

“...no, I wouldn’t be.” Slowly, her expression warms. “...but I think...I-I think that, as much as it’s cost...it’s been worth it...ne?” Her grip on his hand tightens.

Something flashes through his eyes for the briefest of moments. “...if you say so, then...guess it’s true.”

“...come on. Let’s...get this over with.”

                                                                .oOo.

     (This is a sequel to days 35, 44, 52, 80, 82, 105, 115, 133, 159, 162, 188, 193, 289, 298, 307, 310, and 317!)       I am...so behind OTL And this is really late. Like...almost 20 days late. I'm just so stinkin' burnt out and busy and blegh. So lemme just apologize for like the fiftieth time about how badly this is crumbling here toward the end. Life is just really making it difficult these last few weeks. I'm sorry.      BUT, either way, I'll finish! Just...very late, ahaha~      Anyway, on to the story. A bit more of the Nightwalkers crossover. Sort of a recap kinda thing given just how LONG this one's gone on, and partly as a refresher for myself. I LOVE this accidental mini series, and have every intention of making it into a proper fic down the road, and even have the ending plotted, which is exciting! So I don't want to go TOO much further with it during the challenge. But this prompt just...insisted on being in this verse, lol      I'd...say more but I'm very tired. It's 3am and I'm a doof for being so late, but...guh. Writing is a real struggle nowadays, so hopefully y'all don't mind being patient with me ;w; Either way, that's all for now...thanks for reading!

[mazurah]

do you have any headcanons about alteration magic? i feel like due to game balancing limitations, it wasn't as powerful as it actually could have been in-universe. thoughts?

I’ve been sitting on this ask for more than a week trying to figure out how to answer. Yes I have Alteration magic headcanons, but a lot of them aren’t technically mine. 

First off, you’re absolutely right. Alteration is much more powerful in the lore than it is ingame. The Ayleids, who invented Alteration magic, could shapeshift.

There does, however, appear to be evidence that, just as the Psijics on the Isle of Artaeum developed Mysticism long before there was a name for it, the even more obscure Ayleids of southern Cyrodiil had developed what was to be known as the school of Alteration. It is not, after all, much of a stretch when one considers that other Ayleids at the time of Bravil’s conquering and even later were shapeshifters. The community of pre-Bravil could not turn into beasts and monsters, but they could alter their bodies to hide themselves away. 

⁠— Daughter of the Niben

The closest things we’ve ever seen to that kind of magic (not counting things which aren’t actually school-of-magic spells, such as the Wild Hunt, vampire transformations, and werewolves) are spells like oakflesh, which isn’t exactly what I would call shapeshifting. Shapeshifting implies that you’re actually changing your shape, not just changing the consistency of your skin, so I think it’s more likely that the Ayleids did things like make their limbs look like branches to blend in with forests. 

And then there’s that one NPC in Skyrim, the Face Sculptor, that will straight up let you open the character creation menu and change anything about your appearance except your race or sex. (What, no sex change option? Transphobic!) You can’t tell me there’s not Alteration magic involved in that somehow (although I would certainly listen to a case for Restoration.)

There’s also a spell (actually a greater power) that got cut from Skyrim called Polymorph Skeever which lets you turn yourself into a skeever. It was never implemented in the game, but it exists in the code, so I think it’s safe to say that it’s a valid piece of lore. Polymorph spells do exist! There’s even more of them in ESO.

So do I believe that a master Alterationist could potentially turn somebody into a chicken? It’s quite possible. Are we ever gonna be able to turn NPCs into chickens? Not without the Wabbajack. They gotta balance the game somehow.

To be honest, this is a limitation to magic in general, not just Alteration. If I was really a master healer, what’s to prevent me from healing somebody’s mouth closed? Or casting a spell that causes my enemy to have a heart attack? There’s all kinds of things I would love to be able to do with magic that I can’t because of game limitations, like casting a spell to send me to Oblivion so I can go exploring, or conjuring a Dremora or Winged Twilight to ask them about themselves (both of which exist in the lore.) Or using levitation in Skyrim. *sigh*

Back to Alteration though. If you want to know about Alteration in general, the lore book you should be reading is Reality and Other Falsehoods:

It is easy to confuse Illusion and Alteration. Both schools of magic attempt to create what is not there. The difference is in the rules of nature. Illusion is not bound by them, while Alteration is. This may seem to indicate that Alteration is the weaker of the two, but this is not true. Alteration creates a reality that is recognized by everyone. Illusion’s reality is only in the mind of the caster and the target.

To master Alteration, first accept that reality is a falsehood. There is no such thing. Our reality is a perception of greater forces impressed upon us for their amusement. Some say that these forces are the gods, other that they are something beyond the gods. For the wizard, it doesn’t really matter. What matters is the appeal couched in a manner that cannot be denied. It must be insistent without being insulting.

To cast Alteration spells is to convince a greater power that it will be easier to change reality as requested than to leave it alone. Do not assume that these forces are sentient. Our best guess is that they are like wind and water. Persistent but not thoughtful. Just like directing the wind or water, diversions are easier than outright resistance. Express the spell as a subtle change and it is more likely to be successful.

⁠— Reality and Other Falsehoods

This is a great start, but it doesn’t help us understand what it would be like to use Alteration on a daily basis, and that’s where headcanon comes in. I headcanon that people have different ways of conceptualizing spells, and this can result in different teaching styles. Sometimes the differences are cultural. But ultimately, it comes down to how good you are at envisioning the changes you want, how much you believe the changes can/should/will happen, and how good you are at willing those changes into existence. How to Disappear Completely by @chameleonspell contains an excellent illustration of what it’s like to try to learn Alteration and navigate the cultural differences between teaching styles as a novice: 

Iriel had studied Alteration. Had, at one point, thought he might specialise in it. It had sounded so impressive, when he first attended lectures at the Crystal Tower: change the world! Bend the physical realm to your will - sorry - your Will! Then he had attended classes, and spent months learning about counter-aetheric force (the academic term for what ordinary people, who didn’t understand these things, called gravity) and formulas to calculate water pressure and wind resistance. Altmeri magical tradition demanded that students first master the theory. You had to learn the rules before you could break them. He might be allowed to actually alter things in a few years, if he studied hard and passed the exams.

Things were different when he transferred to Cyrodiil. There, the Professor of Alteration was a steely-eyed Imperial known to students as The Cliff, due to her threats to throw students off one, if their problems with levitation persisted. Necessity focused the mind, she said. Alteration was all about willpower and belief. She didn’t hold with teaching the physics of it. You are a mage, she would roar. You make your own physics! Your mind will do battle with the Aurbis, and if you are worthy, the Aurbis will bow before you!

She was rumoured to be working on a transmutation spell that would change lesser substances into gold. They said she spent her nights concentrating on a rock on her desk, glaring the resistance out of it, molecule by molecule. When she looked at him, Iriel could believe it. But, struggling to levitate a feather on his own desk, he hadn’t felt that engaging the universe in mental combat was ever going to be his forte. It was so much bigger, and more experienced than he was, so much more self-assured. There were thousands of years of inertia behind its processes, grinding like endless Dwemer machinery. His will, even capitalised, was too weak a spanner to jam into those works. A minor blip in the rhythm, at most, and it’d be crushed as the gears churned on.

He’d found himself returning to the equations he’d been forced to memorise at the Tower. He’d discovered, to his chagrin, that the Sapiarchs had been on to something, at least to his Altmeri-educated mind. If you wanted to change something, it helped to understand the thing you were trying to change. Staring at the feather, he had realised he didn’t need to do battle with the entire Aurbis, he only needed to fight the air immediately around the object he wanted to move, convince it that local relative masses were very slightly different. The Cliff had been right about one thing: it was about belief. And Iriel found it considerably easier to believe things if he could construct a veneer of logical process, however flimsy.

He’d balanced the feather on his finger. It barely weighed anything. Using the standard formula, it couldn’t be constrained by more than a quell of counter-aetheric force. He had repeated the incantation, but instead of trying to command physics as a whole, he’d merely suggested a minor adjustment to the relative densities of feathers and air, just within these few square inches.

The feather had shot upwards and lodged an inch into the plaster of the ceiling. He’d blinked, brushed the dust from his hair, and began recalculating the ratio. An hour later, he’d floated up to retrieve it himself.

⁠— How to Disappear Completely, Chapter 93: force by @chameleonspell ​

(That entire work is amazing and contains so many headcanons and extrapolations of lore I couldn’t possibly begin to summarize them if I tried. You should read it.)

The thing about Alteration, and to a lesser extent, all magic in general, is that to perform it, you must wrestle with the very nature of the universe. Alteration, at its essence, contains what could potentially be understood as the fundamental principle of magic: to perform it, you must impose your Will on the world around you. When you perform it, you change the world. 

This is not without consequences. I headcanon that the greater skill a mage has with Alteration, the more trouble they have with distinguishing what is real and what is not, and with maintaining control over the reality of their personal environment. This is a headcanon I garnered from reading the works of @troloputo2012, and to some extent, @chameleonspell.

The advanced alterationist starts with sensory issues, since they start being able to listen and see the mechanisms of this world (also the plane where spirits and magic roam, that occupies the same place as this Mundus, and being this over saturated with information can be overwhelming), and slowly, they start having trouble attaching to reality and they can’t go back to their normal life as before; many have grounding sensory “mechanisms” to wake up, but many don’t because sometimes nothing works … .

Many experts get tired of constantly wrestling with existing or fail because their will is not strong enough, just give up and vanish, or they get consumed into their own reality and are unable to follow the currents of the world and time … .

To be able to live correctly and master alteration, one must have considerable willpower, or it’ll consume you. You learned to use alteration to weaken reality for you, now you must use it to also reinforce reality (for you start to unconsciously exist in weakened reality you created for yourself) to live.

— Alteration is not as harmless as it seems. by @troloputo2012

So a master of Alteration who fails to have enough Willpower to maintain their own existence might even disappear completely (a concept very similar to the tenuously canonical concept of Zero Sum, wherein a person truly perceives the nature of the universe, sees that they are a figment of the Divine Dream, confronts the concept head on, and fails to assert that they still exist, thus ceasing to exist.) Sure, a master of Alteration can change reality to an amazing degree, but there is a danger; there is a price.

Finally, I have a headcanon (which I’m pretty sure isn’t actually my idea, but I’m not sure where I picked it up) that schools of magic are more like philosophical models for creating spells rather than rigid expressions of natural law. Ultimately, almost any spell could potentially be created using almost any school of magic, but depending on what the spell does, it may not be a very good spell. It might use too much magicka, or it might be insanely hard to cast, or it might take a really long time to conceptualize the spell in that school of magic so nobody bothered trying to make the spell in the first place.

This is an easier idea to apply to Alteration than it is to some other schools like Conjuration (like, what am I gonna do, conjure healthy body parts for a dying person?) but it can go a long way to explaining why some spells change schools between games. For example, there are a few Alteration spells (mostly resistance spells) that get moved to the Restoration school of magic between Morrowind and Oblivion. If you’re looking for an in-universe explanation for this, perhaps spell researchers developed more efficient spells using the philosophy of Restoration, and the magical community had come to accept them as the norm by the time Oblivion began.

So yeah, there’s a lot of overlap between schools. In fact, there are documented arguments between mages about the similarities and differences between schools:

The School of Alteration is a distinct and separate entity from the School of Destruction, and Bero’s argument that they should be merged into one is patently ludicrous. He insists — again, a man who knows nothing about the Schools of Alteration and Destruction, is the one insisting this — that “damage” is part of the changing of reality dealt with by the spells of Alteration. The implication is that Levitation, to list a spell of Alteration, is a close cousin of Shock Bolt, a spell of Destruction. It would make as much sense to say that the School of Alteration, being all about the actuality of change, should absorb the School of Illusion, being all about the appearance of change.

⁠— Response to Bero’s Speech

While I believe that Alteration is an insanely powerful school of magic in the right hands, it’s probably still easier to heal someone using the principles of Restoration than it is to do it using the principles of Alteration.

Feel free to add your own headcanons, I love having discussions like this!

[raywritesthings]

The Ground

My Writing Fandom: Harry Potter Characters: Mrs (Carys) Diggory, Amos Diggory, Cedric Diggory, Cho Chang, Barnabus Cuffe, Molly Weasley Summary: "Mrs Diggory's grief seemed to be beyond tears." ("The Beginning", Goblet of Fire pg 716) Notes: Mrs Diggory’s occupation, Welsh background and first name are all liberties taken by myself in the absence of canon information. *Can be read on my AO3 and FFN, links are in bio*

She’d never thought it would be this way. A mother burying her son. Not once the war had ended. How could Cedric be dead in a time of peace? How could she be expected to watch him go into the ground?

Carys remained in a quiet daze several days after the tournament, only emerging in moments of acute grief. She knew young Harry Potter was attempting to be kind when he offered the money, could see the crushing weight of guilt on his shoulders, but everything in her had revolted at the idea of putting a price on Cedric’s loss.

The other two champions had visited with them as well, each expressing their sincerest apologies for what had happened. The French girl, Fleur she thought, had even spoken of her plans to remain in England to improve her mastery of the language.

“I weesh I could ‘ave practiced eet with your son. We did not ‘ave nearly enough time to get to know each ozzer.”

The Durmstrang boy had said the same thing. That Cedric had mentioned he played on the school team once, and that he wished he had asked him to fly together sometime. “Potter could have joined us. Made it a Seeker’s tournament.”

Amos had tried to explain what an honor that was, that a professional like Viktor Krum would have liked to play with their boy. All Carys kept hearing was the wasted time, wasted opportunities. She listened to the Headmaster’s speech about friendships forged and thought it couldn’t be further from the truth.

They went home to an empty nest, though not in the way they had thought it might be. Every little thing in the house reminded her of her son. The photos and old drawings on the wall, the Hufflepuff banners, the summer clothes still sitting in his dresser. She couldn’t take two steps without feeling as though she wanted to curl up and vanish.

Amos took some days off to arrange the funeral. She knew she could have done it, should have been helping him, yet she couldn’t think about it without thinking of his body which had been turned over to them only that morning, stiff and cold and eyes wide with shock. He looked the opposite of at peace.

Carys maintained the wake all the same that night, her nostrils filled with the scent of sweet herbs and her tongue coated with sweet wine. Her cousins from Bangor sat with her. Amos came and went; this wasn’t his tradition, and she knew he wasn’t quite sure where he fit. But he let them get on with it.

The girl Cedric had been writing to her about all school year, Cho Chang, came to the funeral. “I hope you don’t mind. Cedric always said he wanted me to meet you. I just… I need to say goodbye.”

“That’s alright, dear,” Carys told her, voice shaking.

“I’m not ready to,” the girl admitted, her eyes screwed up in an effort not to cry which she was soon to lose.

“That’s alright, too. Neither am I,” she confessed. She never would be.

Carys stood by Amos’ side as words were spoken, words she hardly heard. She leant into him so that it looked as though he was supporting her, so that no one would know the shaking of his shoulders was all his own. Amos was proud even through his tears, and he would not want anyone thinking lesser of him, not even in the midst of their great tragedy.

Cedric was laid to rest and soon would be covered over. Separated from them forever. She placed a silver Sickel on the gravedigger’s shovel and tucked her black-gloved hands back into her pockets, trudging down the hill before he was completely swallowed up into the Earth.

The Weasley family’s old owl arrived with gingerbread after. Carys didn’t know where Molly could have learned the custom, but it brought a lump to her throat all the same. Her neighbor of sorts had included a short note offering her deepest condolences and asking to be informed if there was anything to be done. 

She asked that an owl be sent rather than a Floo call, which felt odd. Perhaps their funds were low for Floo powder again. Carys wished she could bring herself to care more than just the vague thought she gave it.

She hardly cared for anything. The nature of her research work – magical plants, though in recent years she had branched into cross-breeding with Muggle ones. Only Cedric and Arthur Weasley had ever known, and now only two would keep the secret – had made her already something of a recluse, and now with the time off she retreated further into her shell. Amos returned to work, and they hardly spoke at all when he was home. She didn’t know why. They were husband and wife; they ought to be able to get through this together.

The Weasleys were oddly quiet that summer. Usually she could hear the far-off shouts of the boys through her open kitchen window in the summers. They were always careful not to fly over the trees — she had been sure Molly and Arthur had drilled it into them how important it was not to be seen. She wondered now if they had told the children not to be heard, either. Carys wasn’t sure if she should be offended or grateful; she didn’t know how hearing a bunch of boys having fun at Quidditch might affect her.

When Cedric had gotten old enough to fly on his own, Carys had encouraged him to head over to the Weasleys’ pitch to play with the other children, but Amos had said it just wouldn’t do. Cedric was going to be a Hufflepuff like the two of them, after all, and that Charlie Weasley didn’t need to know his tactics before they ever faced off at school.

It all seemed so silly now. They could’ve all been such friends. What was the point of these competitions in the end? What good had it done?

Perhaps Amos was thinking of the empty pitch, too, for one morning he quietly murmured into the tea she had placed in front of him, “I never should have done it.”

Carys stilled. “Done what?”

“Told him to do it. Encouraged him. He wrote me about the Tournament, you know.” Amos raised his sad eyes to her at last, and there were gray whiskers in his beard she couldn’t remember having been there before. “I told him he’d make a brilliant champion. I should have told him to be safe.”

His voice broke on the last word, and she rushed forward, her own tea forgotten. “You couldn’t have known—”

“Couldn’t I? The stories all said people died in the damned thing. I was just too proud.”

“Of course you were proud. He was- he—” Neither of them were capable of saying his name aloud, she realized with a chill. Another unspeakable name within their walls. “He was the most wonderful boy. Of course you were proud of him. Any father should be proud of his son.”

“I just wish they’d tell us what happened,” he moaned, his head resting in his hands. “There was Dumbledore saying, and then Fudge is telling everyone at work he’s wrong and all those stories about Harry Potter now.” He gestured down at the paper he had spread onto the table. “What if- what if—”

“I don’t think he had anything to do with it,” Carys said, and her husband’s mouth snapped shut. “He brought our son home to us.”

“Yes, but, Carys—”

“Why would he bring back proof of his own crime? And you remember how he looked when he came to see us.”

“Guilty,” Amos pointed out.

“Because he saw it happen.” Again, she thought to herself. Though it wasn’t a guarantee a boy could remember something like that from such a young age. “Because they were becoming friends.”

Cedric had written to her about the younger boy, how he had given up the advantage in the First Task by letting Cedric know about the dragons ahead of time, how Cedric had wanted to repay him, how she shouldn’t mention this to Amos because Amos wouldn’t be able to resist bringing up that old Quidditch match, bless him.

She wished he were here to smile with discomfort as Amos carried proudly on. He would look at her, and she would shake her head just slightly to indicate they ought to just let it be, and they would share a private grin. She could see it so clearly in her mind’s eye, but it would only ever exist in her head now.

“I don’t want to see what they’re saying about that boy,” Carys decided, turning and sweeping from the room.

Amos obliged her, and there were no copies of the Prophet to be found for the next few weeks.

She did her best to keep herself busy the morning of September 1st. Carys felt the emptiness in their lives even more now that they had no reason to go to King’s Cross station. It was meant to be his final year; he should have made Head Boy, should’ve been captaining his team, should’ve been studying for his N.E.W.T.s

She made the trek up to the hill on which they’d buried him. “Oh, Ced,” she whispered to the unmoving stone and the dirt below it. It barely looked fresh anymore. “Everything’s so… so wrong in the world. I don’t think it’ll ever be right again.”

A part of her knew he wouldn’t wish for her to live this way. But she’d never meant to live past her own son. No mother ever did.

The weeks dragged on. She received an invitation from the Bangor cousins to come back home for a while. She said nothing of it to Amos, both wanting him to beg her to stay and tell her to go. It was terrible being in the house, and yet going back to Wales would only mean she was running away. It would poison the good memories of her childhood and the trips she had taken out there bringing Cedric with her as a boy.

He’d still been a boy, of age or not.

It was a late, grey morning when Amos forgot his lunch. Carys noticed with a start that the calendar had already been flipped to October. She hadn’t noticed the days growing shorter. That was a sign, probably, that she’d been tucked away in the house for too long. So she grabbed up the wrapped sandwiches and the apple from the orchard that spanned the hills between their home and the Weasley Burrow and sent herself spinning through the Floo.

It wasn’t strictly regulation for her to go through the Floo, not being an employee herself. But she would be in and out.

Carys rode the lift to Level 4 and got off, making her way through the office with its rows of cubicles. Amos’ was near the end, but two voices caught her attention and she paused.

“...talking about Diggory’s boy like that. He really must be deranged.”

“And Umbridge set him straight?”

“From what I hear. As if Amos needs people speculating about the way his son died. Accidents happen.”

Carys remained rooted to the spot. Accidents? What on Earth was accidental about her son’s murder?

“Carys?”

Amos must have stepped out for some business, for she turned and saw him standing down the aisle, staring at her. Two heads poked out of the cubicle she had stopped near, faces going slack with surprise.

“What are you doing here, love?”

“Lunch.” She held the bag aloft with the mechanical lift of an arm. Her mind was still racing.

Amos hurried to her and took it with a kiss to her cheek. “Thank you. Look, why don’t you head home. We’ll go out somewhere for dinner. Somewhere nice.”

She nodded, not really paying attention, and left the office in a daze. What had she just heard?

Carys had the presence of mind to grab a copy of the Prophet off the stand as she walked back through the Atrium, and the headline made her stomach clench.

High Inquisitor Silences Potter’s Lies

The article went on to detail a verbal altercation between Dolores Umbridge, who appeared to be a teacher as well as whatever a High Inquisitor was, and Harry Potter in which she claimed his account of Cedric’s death was incorrect. Cedric had died in an accident, not been murdered to her view. The Prophet touted her words as fact.

Carys’ calm snapped.

Rather than home, she took another trip in the Floo to the Daily Prophet’s offices, striding into the lobby with her head held high.

“Good day, ma’am, how can I assist you?” The desk witch asked, quailing when Carys slapped the paper down between them.

“You can help me by pointing me towards whoever wrote this tripe. A ‘tragic accident’?”

“I’m sorry, ma’am, I’m not sure I can help you with that request.”

“Then get me Barnabus Cuffe. He’s in charge, isn’t he? Tell him Mrs. Diggory would like to have some words with him about her son.”

The desk witch’s face paled, and she waved a wand at a little box before speaking into it. “Mr. Cuffe, there is a Mrs. Diggory here to see you.”

By the time Cuffe shuffled out into the lobby, a number of reporters had stuck their heads in and remained there, gawking at her. Carys didn’t care. In fact, she hoped they listened if only to teach them a lesson on printing the truth.

“Mrs. Diggory, what an unexpected surprise. We can head back into my office and—”

“I don’t think we will. This concerns every last person at this paper.” She squared her hips, doing her best to channel Molly the few times she had seen her hard at work disciplining the twins that had been in Cedric’s year. They still were. “I don’t care what you may have heard, I don’t care what you may have been told. If it came from the new teacher or the Minister for Magic himself!”

They all jumped.

She drew in a breath, willing her voice not to shake. “My son was not taken from me by some accident. I did not sit up the whole night before the burial staring at his beautiful face marred by the Killing Curse, for you to print in your rag of a paper that he passed away by some silly mistake! He was murdered. And I’m inclined to believe the witness to that murder.”

Some of the reporters were still gaping at her while others fidgeted or looked away, shamefaced. Cuffe looked at a total loss for words.

“Now maybe that’s too much for you to believe. But if I see my son’s name in print again without my permission, you’ll think of today as a friendly little chat compared to what I will do to protect his legacy. Cedric is not some political plaything. He was a boy. He was my boy, and if no one will help find his killer—” her breath caught and her throat closed up. Her voice sounded strangled and unnatural to her ears. “—then just leave my son alone!”

She left the office in a thunderous silence. It was just as silent at home. In the stillness, she was shocked at a wetness that rolled down her cheek.

A tear. The first she had cried since the night he had died.

Carys let it fall, then another, then a sob was ripped out of her lungs and her throat, unsticking the block that had been in her head and her heart. She sank to her knees, feeling weak and feeling light all at the same time as the weight of it all finally spilled out of her. It was out there, wasn’t just hers to carry anymore.

The sun had set by the time she stood on shaky legs like a newborn foal. Carys staggered to the bedroom throwing things haphazardly into a travel bag. Clothes, toiletries, one of Cedric’s scarves, a bit of dirt summoned from the hill into a pouch — all of it went into one big pile.

“Carys!” Amos’ shout sounded more like a bellow in the midst of her blessedly clear head. 

She stepped out into the sitting room. “Yes, Amos?”

“What’s this about you storming the Prophet? I had Fudge in my office this afternoon. Fudge! Seemed to think I couldn’t keep a handle on my hysterical wife— now what’s that?”

She looked down at the bag slung over her shoulder. “I’m leaving.”

“Now?”

“Yes.” She hadn’t known it would be right now, but she supposed that was for the best. “You and the Minister won’t need to worry about your hysterical wife anymore.”

He grimaced. “Carys, you know I didn’t mean—”

“I don’t know what you mean. And you don’t know what I mean. I think we haven’t for a very long time, but without- without Cedric, it’s become all the more apparent.”

He had flinched the way others did when You-Know-Who’s name was spoken. Her son’s killer. Both were forbidden now in this house.

He stared at her, shoulders slowly dragging down. “You really are going?”

“Can you honestly say it would change anything if I didn’t?”

His silence was the answer. Carys walked forward until she drew level with him. She leaned up on her toes and kissed his cheek. “Try to be well.”

Two tears slid down his nose as he nodded, and she went past him out the door.

She looked out over the darkened hills of Devon, seeing in her mind’s eye the homes of their neighbors. She thought of Molly and the brothers she had lost to a war they had fought to end, Xeno and the wife who had been taken from him in an accident. Cedric, who had fallen to a spell used in war, but who had not been a fighter. Was there to be more loss in this place?

Carys gripped her wand and turned on the spot, disappearing with a crack! She was squeezed from all sides, there was no room to breathe, and then suddenly there was.

She took a great gulp of the air, felt it settle in her lungs like an old friend. She was home.

It didn’t change any of the facts. She was childless, her marriage had crumbled and the Ministry saw fit to ignore all that pain. But it was time to keep living the way Cedric would have wanted, and she could think of nowhere and no way else to do it. On her own ground.

[suicidalalarmclock]

🦢👑

Enchanted Chapter 2

 

Emma was in shock. Utterly flabbergasted as her mother would put it. Daniel had managed to completely blindside her with this royal fugitive girlfriend crap, but it wasn’t that alone.  Emma was finding the princess supremely intelligent, captivatingly brave, and astonishingly beautiful. To a feminist, such as Emma, these attributes were all her favorites intermingling with the other. The product of which she could never have imagine existed in such regal packaging.

 Regina’s skin was as fair as the finest of princesses, yet it held more depth, glowing olive against the moonlight and the strikingly deep raven color of her hair. Her brown eyes told a story of class and composure, unreadable and set evenly below perfectly manicured eyebrows. Emma couldn’t help but notice the blazing fire behind them. It made her appear . . . dangerous.

 

Almost 20 minutes into the ride and Emma is pretty sure she’s gotten the mystery of Daniel and Regina meeting all figured out. 

 

Daniel had been assigned to tend to the horses of Sir Fieldwin and Sir Dreof of the White Knights. And Sir Fieldwin and Sir Dreof were the exact duo who received the former king and princess at the entry portal to this world nearly two month’s ago. How her friend had caught the eye of a supposed tyrant princess she still had no clue.

 

Regina’s arms draped loosely across Emma’s waist and her body pressed firmly against her back. Emma could tell that she was a tad stiff, probably not the most comfortable with the current ridding situation, and that annoyed Emma for some reason. On the ride to pick up Regina she kept hearing Daniel speak about love and the timing seemed all wrong. How did this princess have time to fall in love hot off the tails of being banished by her own mother from their kingdom? Cut off from her people and the only land she’d ever known and still she’d somehow found time to fall in love with Daniel? The freaking stable boy?

Emma knew she wasn’t giving her friend enough credit and tried to cancel out this irrational (and elitist ) train of thought. Still something didn’t add up. Daniel was handsome, smart, and caring. He made for an excellent best friend and Emma could see herself liking him that way if she fancied men romantically, but no royal person would advise it. As tolerant as her own parents were, she would even have a hard time explaining that one. They’d rather deal with the current predicament of Emma’s female inclination than entertain the idea of class mixing unions. 

 

Regina hiccuped and Emma shuttered at the warm tickle the woman’s breath made against her neck. This acute awareness of all Regina’s movements was odd for Emma. She rarely allowed time to indulge in romantic follies. Her parents would love nothing more than for her to put effort into finding her “true love.” Though she blamed their relentless optimism for her pessimism. 

 

It was torture growing up the product of true love. Normal people didn’t get that. It was constantly thrown in her face. How rare it had become. How lucky it was that her parents were able to find each other in their lifetimes. All that really meant to Emma was the odds of finding her true love were close to shit. It seemed to never happen. It was an anomaly. And instead of wallowing in disappointment she’d spent a lifetime convincing herself that she didn’t care about finding love at all.

 

In the end this train of thought was getting quite ridiculous. She always wanted what she couldn’t have. Regina was off limits completely. She was her best friend’s girlfriend. She had no right so of course she was tempted. She had a penchant for obsessing and flustering over this woman was a prime example.

 

“There to the left.” Daniel directed with his finger toward an intricate structure of interwoven trees.

“Why is it so dark tonight?” Emma’s brow furrowed in suspicion. The branches were normally adorned with sparkles of glittering magic, Luminescence they called it, but currently not even the faintest ray of light reflected before them. Intuition washed over Emma’s body with a chilling awareness of foreboding.

 

“For the record I did not sign up for this.” Emma stated plainly as she studied the sky. They were way behind schedule having only been able to walk the horse lest leave Daniel behind completely. She took a breath to antagonize Daniel over this predicament again, but she turned around to Regina’s face set in a scowl. Her nose turned up in a showing of affected and pompous dignity, as if Emma had somehow offended her.

 

“You are the entire reason we are here.” Regina spat relaxing at her shoulders as if it had pained her to hold her opinion back any longer. She removed her hands from their position upon the blonde’s waist while Emma tugged the horse to a stop.

 

“I’m the reason?” Emma questioned in disbelief. She strained to turn her torso more to make sure she was reading Regina properly. “Look, we are here so Daniel can win you over by helping you get your magic back.”

 

Emma wasn’t stupid. Daniel needed her more than she needed magic.

“You’re afraid.” Regina stated as if she already knew her well enough to read her tells. The presumption stumped Emma only because it was the truth. She was afraid, but of exactly what she couldn’t put into words, but she did know it was loads more complex than Regina was assuming. Emma tighten up and remained silent, thankfully Daniel started speaking before she had to.

 

“Emma, everything will obe fine.”

 

“You’re calling me Emma this must be a terrible idea.” 

 

“It’ll be easy. You’ll go up there and say you want to speak to Blue. No one will even suspect a thing.”

 

“You know I hate lying.”

 

“I know you will lie when it’s for the greater good. And how would you be lying? You do need to speak with her.”

 

This gave Emma pause again as she took a moment to properly dismount Twilight before offering her arm to Regina in return. Of course Daniel had beaten her to it. Already slipping his arm across her waist. For a moment Regina looked content to snuggle against the chest of his embrace, but Regina pressed herself free after a brief moment and it was alarming how much satisfaction it gave Emma to witness the dismissal before Daniel continued.

 

“What good is being a Royal if you never use your fairy?” Now that was a damned fine question. He well knew why she didn’t and she had no intention on opening up the discussion for that unstable topic in the current mixed company.

 

“She isn’t a thing to be used Daniel. I would be stealing from the good guys here. And for what?”

 

The truth was more, and for whom? For Regina to get her magic back? She barely knew the woman.

 

“You don’t understand your realm at all do you?” Regina began incredulously. She’d fallen quite beside Daniel, but this time she was obviously offended by Emma’s ignorance. She approached closer with each word and Emma found herself stepping slowly away, intimidated by her aggression and elegance.

“Your God mother ripped away my elemental powers. Do you have any idea how painful it is to be stripped down to the premature essence of your being?” 

 

The sincerity in her tone made Emma reconsider and she deflated some and her guard slipping a little. “I didn’t know there was pain involved in taking magic away . . . ” 

 Regina was in her face now. So close that Emma could make out the impression of a faint scar above her quivering lip.

“How idealistic of you. You are the daughter of King Charming. I’m sure your parents keep you in the dark about even the most mundane things, but think about it, Fairies aren’t the only inherently magical species! It’s not natural. Humans can have a natural affinity to magic too. Can be born with magic too.”

 

The concept was a lot to process and even though Emma found herself believing Regina in the moment she knew there was also more on the other side of the story. So instead of yielding she became defensive.

 

“Excuse me if I have a hard time taking advice from a woman who was forced to seek asylum in my “ignorant” parent’s kingdom because of magic.”

 

Regina’s cheeks colored though it was a lot more pronounced than a blush. Emma noticed the return of the fire. She was seething and her mouth barely moved as she responded.

 

“You have no idea what you are talking about.”

The contempt in her tone make Emma recoil. She was totally out of line, but it still didn’t change the facts. There was something she wasn’t getting.

“Well then enlighten me!”

 

“Guys we should really keep our voices down.” Daniel assessed in vain though Emma wasn’t budging. He could have sworn he saw the reflection of metal behind the brush.

 

“You said you didn’t want to steal from the good guys. I’m telling you they are hypocritical soul snatching bigots!”

 

“Who have done everything in their power to protect my family and the balance of the realm. What evidence do you have?”

 

“Hey Guys.” Daniel attempted again as their voices had risen considerably. He aimed to put himself in the middle of the two but Regina too wasn't budging.  

 

“Me! I’m the evidence! You could have saved us a lot of time if you would have told us you had no desire to help me in the first place!” 

 

“This all started because you claimed this was about me! And I’m not saying I don’t want to help you. I’m not sure we should go about it this way.”

 

“This is about you! Daniel doesn’t care if I get my magic back. He only wants me to help you to end whatever riff you have with your fairy god mother.”

 

Emma’s arms were held high above her head in exasperation. Where did Daniel get off telling Regina about her personal life? Pushing her hands back through her hair she turned about face on her heel only to be startled out of her mind. 

 

“Dad?!” She exclaimed at having come face to face with her father dressed in his battle armor.

 

“Emma Elizabeth Charming! What in the world?”

 

“Why are you here?” Emma demanded, as if she had the right to be out at this hour and her father, being all about transparency, answered her out of habit. 

 

“I received a bird of high distress, the fairies will be happy to know there were no real intruders, but what have you done with Tinkerbell?” 

 

Emma was confused. She doubted the Fairies had time to call upon the Knights since her motley crew had arrived and she hadn’t spoken with Tinkerbelle since the incident she keeps trying not to talk about. As if to confirm that thought there was a sudden bustle of movement to the right.  The entire clearing became encased in a bright green flash of light. Emma found herself entranced for a moment before she suddenly became very heavy and collapsed in a heap atop the ground. 

 

XXX