#it’s about the drive for duty the working themselves to the bone

[consulaaris]

i am having….. so many zori/thancred thoughts rn

[tinydefector]

Tfp knockout x gn reader who has sensitive hands. as in, tracing/kissing/rubbing their palm/inner wrist drives them crazy. not only that, but a small massage to them is beneficial, maybe due to reader sometimes having pain there. can be fic or headcanon based

Tender Hands

Knockout x human Reader

This one is a much smaller one but I hope you enjoy.

Word count: 500

Warnings: none

Knockout masterlist

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The Medbay had been rather quiet and knockout had taken it as an opportunity to do small maintenance, and his little assistant had been helping until they dropped tools multiple times, Hands twitching.

Knockout's optics flickered with concern as he noticed the small hiss of pain escaping from the human assistant's lips. He immediately set aside the maintenance task he was working on and approached them, his voice filled with genuine worry.

"Are you alright, my dear?" Knockout asked, his tone softened with genuine concern. He reached out a servo to inspect for any injuries.

The human winced slightly, their hands twitching in discomfort. "I'm okay, Knockout, just a little clumsy today," they replied, their voice tinted with a mix of frustration and embarrassment. Knockout's optics narrowed as he studied their hands, searching for any signs of injury. "Let me take a look," he insisted gently, his voice soothing. He delicately took hold of their hand, examining it carefully.

To his relief, there were no visible injuries or damage. It seemed to be a case of momentary discomfort rather than anything serious. "Well, I'm relieved to see that there's no damage," Knockout remarked, his tone filled with genuine relief. "But please, be more careful. We wouldn't want any unnecessary accidents."

Their hands twitch lightly as he looks them over he can see them biting their lip in what he can only assume is pain. They sigh lightly as he presses gently into the pressure points. "Let's have a look," Knockout suggested, his voice gentle yet authoritative. "I can see that you're in pain. Allow me to provide some relief."

He carefully took hold of their much smaller hands into his servos. worked slowly, massaging the skin gently, his optics filled with genuine care. "Take deep breaths and try to relax," he advised, his voice soothing. "I'll do my best to alleviate the pain."

taking deep breaths as they allowed themselves to relax under Knockout's touch. Gradually, they could feel the tension easing, the pain subsiding with each carefully applied pressure point. “Sorry about dropping things, hands play up badly think I might have arthritis In them but haven't been able to find out yet” they state softly.

He hums in acknowledgement, “human bones are rather fickle things aren't they” he teases. Knockout continued his ministrations, his attention fully focused on them. After a few moments, he released their hands, stepping back to observe their reaction. "How are you feeling now?" he inquired.

The human assistant blinked, their expression shifting from discomfort to relief. They flexed their hands, a grateful smile forming on their lips. "Much better, Knockout. Thank you," they replied, their voice filled with gratitude.

Knockout nodded, pleased with the positive outcome. "You're welcome, my dear. It's all part of my duty as a doctor," he responded. He slowly lifts them up. “I think that's enough work for you today darling, let me know if your hands start playing up more, I'll have a look into it to see if I can find something to help with the pains and sensitivity,” he hums while slowly placing them down near the couch set up on the desk.

Knockout slowly raises their hands up to his lips, pressing gentle kisses across their knuckles. "Now I have more work to do my deer, they not to chase too much trouble," he teases, slowly letting go of their hands.

[inkognito97]

If today was your last day

Part 1: Jakarta

„So… could you please tell me again, why exactly we are here?“ Alexander Gideon Lightwood was usually not somebody, who quickly felt uneasy. But right now… he was.

He was barely able to follow his husband, who appeared to be frantically searching for something.  Alec wasn’t sure what this was about. In fact, he had believed that his partner and he could finally – after days of work, cleaning up the chaos in New York and duties as head of the institute or in Magnus case, being the High Warlock of Brooklyn – spend some quality time together. He had imagined them cooking something together, eating on the balcony of Magnus’ loft and afterwards some cuddling on the couch while watching one of the many movies that Magnus just seemed to adore. And of course, he had imagined them kissing. A lot.

But sadly, his imagination was just that, imagined. The reality was quite different.

As soon as the raven-haired Shadowhunter hat entered the apartment, his husband had been all over him, sadly not in the preferred way. Alec could feel his cheeks redden after this particular thought.

No, the warlock had spoken about something he needed a lot of help with, magical help, he had added and clarified, as Alec had offered him his. So no big deal, Magnus just needed the aid of another warlock, or so Alec thought. But yet again, he was corrected by fate or perhaps the angels themselves.

Apparently it wasn’t enough to ask any particular warlock for his assistance and apparently neither Lorenzo’s nor Cat’s magic was enough for the high warlock. He was searching for something else, or rather, someone else, which was probably the reason, why they were now here, at the other side of the globe. Not that the raven-haired man minded travelling with his beloved warlock, but he most certainly preferred, other places, which were less... dirty. Not to mention all the stacks and piles of junk and trash that were literally scattered everywhere. There was barely enough ground uncovered to set foot onto.

“We are here,” Magnus began slowly, his eyes scanning their surroundings, while his reddish magic warped around his fingers, most likely guiding him and showing him the way, “because I am looking for someone important.”

Alec grimaced. This was not a nice place to be. They where... well, he wasn’t quite sure, where exactly they were. What he knew was, that the people who lived here, were very, very poor. A lot of them obviously lived on the streets. Those people, who were more fortunate, lived in barracks, if they could even be called that. Some of the dwellings were barely standing up. There was also no space between them. One dwelling was built next to the other and more often than not, the single room was cramped with people. Not to mention that the people had a railroad right in front of their doors or entrances. A train could drive by every minute and the Shadowhunter was sure, if the people didn’t move their belongings fast enough, a lot of things would be lost and squished. It was terrible.

“And who might that be?” he asked for clarification, even though it was mostly to get his mind off of the misery that surrounded them. He felt for the people, he truly did and he wished that they could do something... but helping was beyond his abilities.

Alec had always thought that the slums and ghettos in New York were bad, but they paled in contrast to what the people had to go through here. All the dirt, the sick and hungry looking humans, who were barely more than skin and bones... It broke his heart, especially since he knew that glamour and richness would not be far away from this part of the town.

“Everything in good time, Alexander,” Magnus was as cryptic as ever. It was one of the only things that made the Shadowhunter crazy, but not in a good way.

“Well, then could you at least be a little bit more specific about our whereabouts?”

Magnus sighed and his shoulders slumped. He let his hands sink a little bit, before he finally turned around to his companion. “We are in the northern parts of Jakarta, in one of the poorer and dirtier places, if you need to know. I grew up somewhere around here.”

“Oh”, was all that came to the man’s mind. He knew that Magnus’ origin had been Indonesia, but to actually see the town, or rather, the province where he was born... that was something entirely different. Even though it was most likely, that things had looked and been quite different all those centuries ago.

A slightly pained expression appeared on the warlock’s features. Alec instantly wanted to reach out and caress the handsome face he so adored. He hated seeing his husband in so much pain. All he wanted was, to soothe it away and make it better.

“Magnus”, the raven-haired Shadowhunter finally did reach out and placed his palm against the warm skin of his beloved. It was almost unnoticeable, but considering the amount of time they now lived together... Alec noticed it, the slight quiver of thin lips and the fleeting expression of dread in dark eyes he learned to love. “I am here.”

“I know,” there was the slightest sign of a smile on the warlock’s lips. “Without you... I wouldn’t be here now.”

“Magnus,” he always wondered how easy it was for his lover, to render him speechless.

“Let’s keep going, okay?” Magnus moved his head just enough to press a soft and loving kiss on the calloused hand against his skin. Alec war truly a steady and strong presence on which he could rely. It helped with the nervousness, as well as the uneasiness he was feeling. This trip... could end in a very, very bad way. But it was a risk, he simply had to take. His, but more importantly, Alec’s life was in danger. This was something that he simply couldn’t ignore.

“Okay. Let’s do that,” Alec nodded in agreement. He watched how his husband took a slightly deeper breath than what was considered normal. Then the warlock seemed to relax, just the tiniest bit. Magnus took a step back and while doing so, he caught the hand that wasn’t resting on his face any longer. With a shy and yet encouraging smile, the Shadowhunter intertwined their fingers. Another deeper breath escaped the warlock, while he squeezed the hand in his lovingly. This might not be the perfect place for exchanging affection, especially not for a couple of the same sex, but he wouldn’t let that bother him for now. They had much more important things to do.

[babylyctor]

can John actually control time or am i making things up? trying to reach a conclusion via tumblr posting

so as a theory this is 75% vibes. however there’s some things in the books that give me pause, and i wanted to put together all those bits and see if there’s something there. i’m not totally on board with this idea because it seems too complex to leave entirely to the last book, and i don’t know how it could fit with the rest of the narrative (or do i?) but in any case i keep thinking about it so here’s this way too long post. spoliers for everything

first, this fucking suspicious sentence that’s one of the first things John tells Harrow (Chapter 2, HtN)

"I would let you come back, bit by bit, until you felt entirely ready to wake up. I can’t. I mastered Death, Harrowhark; I wish I’d done the smarter thing and mastered Time. I have to ask you to get ready soon, and so I am going to show you something I hope might … trigger your readiness.”

so this sounds like a really dull complaint on this immortal god’s part but also i don’t trust a single thing out of this man’s mouth, and this would be the exact kind of private joke he would make if he had actually mastered Time (capitalized) too. Also the context in which it’s said, talking about Harrow coming back from her coma, regaigning consciousness, awakening... you get it, oddly relevant theme wise.

then there’s the whole Soup Moment (Chapter 25, HtN), in which John seems to actually stop time maybe? i have doubts about this so lets see what our narrator tells us;

And God said, “Stop.”

The world slowed down. Augustine and Mercymorn stopped, arrested in the act of half-rising from their seats. Ianthe stopped, left arm paused, outflung, to shield her face. You stopped, sitting upright in your chair: your bones somehow rigid and still, and your flesh chilly and rigid around those bones. The shrapnel spray from the Saint of Duty did not stop, [...] But what remained of him stopped too, half man, half rupture—his prurient details hot and white, naked insides clothed with the sinus-drying burst of the power of God.

so here John freezes all the lyctors in place, they’re still conscious, or at least Harrow is, but they have their range of movement almost totally restricted. this is not like Mercy pinching Harrow’s dorsal nerve to paralyze her, this is a completely different feeling, maybe John’s thalergetic powers? it would make sense, all the lyctors are living bodies, they have thalergy and Johs is able to manipulate that, presumably. the bits of Gideon OG cascading down the table don’t stop but that might be John selectively using his powers, or it might be that that’s no longer living flesh.

so we’re saying this could just be John’s super special thalergy magic and nothing else. the first problem though is that technically he shouldn’t be able to use it against his lyctors without touching them, thanks to lyctoral invisibility. in fact when he explodes Mercy’s chest (rip in peace queen) he expressely reaches out and touches her to do so, because presumably he needs to make contact with a body in order to use magic against it, same as Mercy. so that’s a caveat, then there are these descriptions from the same Soup Moment;

You stared down the table at him: at the blank, remote faces of your two nominal teachers—at the frozen ivory stillness of Ianthe, her hair now whitish pink—at space outside the window, where the asteroids themselves seemed to hang in tranquilized arrest.

The Emperor of the Nine Houses stood. The spell, whatever it had been, dropped like a white sun setting.

These seem to imply certain ambiguity. John’s God and all that but i don’t think thalergetic magic should be able to affect asteroids, lifeless space rocks. of course it says they “seem” to hang in tranquilized arrest, not that they are really unmoving, but i think it’s a suggestive sentence all the same, and i’m suspicious of every word Muir writes. The second quote, specifically the highlighted part, is also a bit frustrating. It seems to imply that John isn’t exactly doing magic as we know it, but something else. If it was Harrow narrating we could go further with it, but since it’s Gideon we could simply attribute it to her lack of knowledge and familiarity with magic. However, two sentences after that we don’t have that problem;

The construct gamely clamberign our of the Saint of Duty dwindled to a powder of pink dust. The shard you had been driving up the cervical vertebrae to the base of the spine [...] simply disappeared: destroyed or removed, you could not tell.

This is still Gideon narrating but in this case she’s specifically telling us that Harrow doesn’t understand what John just did, it’s not magic Harrow is familiar with. There’s also the contrast between what we know is a normal process of destroying a construct - reducing it to dust -  vs this mysterious disappearance, that doesn’t really fit into what we know so far about the way thanergy/thalergy work.

so far, nothing conclusive, we know John is really powerful, but we don’t know exactly how, where his power comes from or what it can do. Then there’s the moment he unexplodes himself (Chapter 52, HtN);

White light.

It bleached the insides of your nose and the back of your throat. It hurt coming out your ears. It bled out your eyeballs. It wasn’t a flash of light, more … a suddenness; when it was gone—as though it hadn’t even existed, but had been a luminous hallucination—time stopped.

That light took colour from the room—everyone was a slow-motion cavalcade of greys, of eyes caught widening, of mouths parting in stone-shaded articulations of shock.

It happened in an instant. It happened over a myriad. A wet red construct knitted itself back together, [...]

again that white light that has been associated with thalergy magic and again all these references to time slowing down, stopping or just behaving in strange ways in general. again lots of ambiguity, this could be a thalergy based power - the ability to hold living bodies in stasis, and therefore make everyone feel like time has slowed down - or it could be that John is actually affecting time, maybe even reversing it (?) since he literally un-exploded himself, after Mercy put all her millenia of expertise into atomizing him and reducing him to almost nothing.

is that even explicable with regular thanergy/thalergy based magic? i’m not sure, a regular necro could never do that, a lyctor couldn’t do that. So if John isn’t just an overpowered lyctor what’s the difference exactly? i mean, how do his powers manifest differently from those of every other necromancer we know?

the other person we’ve seen using powerful thalergy magic is Silas. Whenever he siphoned, Gideon describes a similar vacuum sensation to the one that John’s magic also provokes, as well as white light;

As he faded, the pale Silas incandesced. He glowed with an irradiated shimmer, iridescent white, and the air began to taste of thunder. (Chapter 17, GtN)

Gideon felt an internal tug, like a blanket being pulled off in the cold. (Chapter 17, GtN)

Silas clambered to his knees, clasped his fingers together, and the feeling of suction popped the pressure in both of Gideon’s ears. (Chapter 34, GtN)

Silas is nowhere near as powerful as John but siphoning - thalergy based magic, condemned by God - still causes that suction effect and is marked by white light and lightning, just like John’s magic. However, there’s no mention of a time altering effect, no slowing down, no freezing in place, and seeing how both kinds of magic are similarly coded otherwise i find this difference suspicious.

To end this somewhere, two quotes, first, this thing Harrow tells Ortus when they both discuss what it must be like to be a lyctor (Chapter 5, HtN);

“Nigenad, what would be the tragedy in living for a myriad? Ten thousand years to learn everything there is to know [...] What is the tragedy of time?”

honestly to me that sounds like Muir making Harrow say things she will regret later. of course it could be about any of the numerous tragedies in Harrow life but still, gave me pause, specially because it kinda echoes John’s earlier sentiment, wishing he had mastered Time.

finally, a quote that might be totally meaningless and completely off base in this theory or it could round it up perfectly, i haven’t decided yet;

[...] ; yet you prayed all the while knowing Ianthe’s facility for tergiversation would have given the whole universe pause. (Chapter 36, HtN)

we know Ianthe is a girlboss and gaslighting is her thing. However, isn’t this sentence a bit too dramatic to describe Ianthe? doesn’t it sound kinda ominous to you? it definitely does to me, and although it might totally be my Ianthe bias wanting her to play an important part, who is Ianthe hanging out with lately? exactly John God “Jod” the Emperor.

in conclusion, i haven’t reached any conclusion. but i still think there’s something off with John’s powers beyond what we’ve been told, which isn’t much really, and i think there’s something going on with Time within the narrative (that’s another whole post though), and i think these two things are most probably related. but i can’t say i’m 100% sure of any of it. this was fun though. if you made it here thank you so much you’re the best <3

[hes-my-sweet-cheese]

I love in Encanto how Mirabel is initially more insecure and jealous of her family’s gifts than she lets on. It isn’t until she sees them have breakdowns or revelations about their identity that she realizes that the family pressure they are under due to Abuela is crushing. While they see how Abuela scorns Mirabel to an extent and don’t want that for themselves, they all envy how she isn’t pressured to use her gifts all the time. They envy her identity outside of her magic. Mirabel’s role was unclear and Abuela was too concerned with family image to guide her into a support role, or appreciate her attempts to be a support to the family in the same way her father and Félix do. Luisa expressing insecurities surrounding her worth and identity outside of her juggernaut abilities, and Isabela expressing her unhappiness with having to fulfill a perfect role to help the family shows Mirabel that everything comes with pros and cons. Isabela was sick and tired of pretty and perfect flowers being her main image, she had a creative side and wants to explore with more than just delicate flowers. As an extension to her identity being the perfect flower who needs to marry well to help the family. She isn’t as delicate or perfect as she seems. Her delight in creating a cactus and a palm tree that grows forever and other more exotic plants than flowers is reminiscient of Seattle-area plant guru Ciscoe Morris who was featured in a John Oliver sketch and it shows she has a lot of appreciation for all plants that she wants to explore. Luisa also reminds me a lot of where I work and what it is like going anywhere - she is just walking through town and people are asking her left and right to do stuff, and she just agrees. On the surface there is a placid, nice demeanor but underneath there is a lot of stress and pressure and insecurity. She emotionally breaks down when she loses her strength. Her strength and outwardly calm personality led people to assume she was always strong, including emotionally. She breaks down emotionally because nobody thought to check in with Luisa and see how she was feeling. 

And they don’t even try to portray Abuela as a complete villain! She can be kind to the gifted Madrigals and supportive in her own way, but she also drives home the point that they need to give back to the community and protect it with their gifts. Which isn’t even necessarily a bad thing to try to teach your kids! She’s basically telling them to use their privilege to help the less privileged, which IMO should be considered the civic duty of the privileged. It turns into a family neuroses about their magic. But Abuela is a refugee, and the movie makes no bones about showing the trauma that she endured before she was given the Miracle. Her reasons for trying to keep the family house and image strong are understandable. The whole community started because of the magic gifted to the Madrigals, so if the magic breaks down their magic house, there is a real risk that the other buildings and mountains created by the magic initially will be destroyed too. So she’s not even thinking about just her family, she is a big-time leader in her community which is built on her family’s magic. She fought tooth and nail to be the matriarch of a powerful family in a community she helped make better, she had nothing when the Miracle happened. She knows full well how easy it is to lose everything. She wants her children and grandchildren to never have to experience that. She is genuinely unaware of the neuroses she’s imparting in her family over their magic gifts until the house literally starts breaking. In her defense, the kids and grandkids largely try to cover up their own insecurities and neuroses about their gifts and the family responsibilities. Bruno patching up the house himself also created a lot of weakness in the foundation that went unacknowledged by everyone, symbolically showing how toxic families often try to cover up the cracks in the family image until they can’t anymore. 

She underestimates how respected her family is in the community until she loses the gift she believes is the only thing keeping the family in power. Then the community she spent 50 years helping comes together to help her rebuild her house out of something more than magic. The real show of Abuela’s character is what she does in light of the information that she is driving her family insane and treating Mirabel unfairly for no real reason. She changes, and starts to show her softer side to Mirabel, and stop putting pressure on her kids to uphold an image incongruous with their true selves. Ultimately the real villain was the toxic family environment and the magic could only be restored once they worked on having a healthier dynamic. 

11/10 would reccommend

[earthnashes]

FINALLY! After a little while of work I’ve finally designed and drew each of the main races for Lorule! So that means, LORULE HEADCANONNNNNNNN!!!!! 8D aight ya’ll, let’s get right into it:

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Lorule is one of the Seven Kingdoms in the world of LoZ (not sure what to call the actual world itself), and the direct neighbor to Hyrule. Despite its harsh climates and highly varying regions, Lorule is prosperous and a staple realm among the Kingdoms. It’s ruled by the queen Hilda and inhabited by the following races (alongside some lore bits for the characters representing them):

-Lorians: A people who are of the same race as Hylians and thus share the trait of having pointed ears. Lorians, however, commonly have darker skin tones and lighter eyes, raging from copper brown to golden yellow in contrast to the common greens and blues of Hylians. While scattered all across Lorule, their capitol resides in the center of the vast drylands, smack-dab in the middle of an oasis.

Queen Hilda is the current ruler of Lorule and the youngest one to assume the crown (she became queen at the age of 16). She gained her position due to her father stepping down in light of ailing health, and has since earned a reputation of being a just and competent queen. She's strict and can be intimidating with how no-nonsense she is, but does whatever she can to do right by her subjects and allies. A bit of a big sister/mentor figure to Zelda.

Ravio is a young farm lad who has big aspirations to be a court mage. Thin as a rail with a timid, shy disposition to match, Ravio scares rather easily, but he works hard and dreams big for his future. He was taken in by Ooccoo when he was just a baby, having found him hidden under a blanket within a ransacked carriage. He idolizes the Queen and wishes to be as strong as her.

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-Yamatami: This race of humanoids are as tall as they are lean and thin, characterized by their unique masks they never take off and their ability to transform into giant snake-like creatures. The Yamatami inhabit the marshlands and mostly keep to themselves, though they are highly sought after trading-wise for their venom. They are lead by the somewhat oafish chief King.

Mamba is King’s daughter, and therefore the next-in-line to be chief once he steps down. As much as Mamba adores her tribe, she longs for a life of adventure, ever so curious about the world beyond their marshland boundaries. Part of her hesitation on being chief secretly banks on her fear of not being fit for the role. She’s a dreamer, very bubbly, friendly, and somewhat naive, but all she wants is to be able to make her own path.

Faux (pronounced “fawks”) is resourceful, fast, and cautious. They’re one of the best warriors the Yamatami have to offer, and through that they’ve become the trusted bodyguard to Mamba. Faux might seem indifferent to the overtly friendly princess but don’t let that fool you; they are ever watchful and ever so protective of their charge.

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-Oocca: Bird-like race with human-esque faces, they are a peaceful people who inhabit a great city hovering in the sky. The Oocca dislike conflict, though this is possibly because they themselves have no means of self-defense nor combat prowess, though they more than contribute their fair share to the Lorule alliance via their expertise in trade and commerce, as well as their advanced technology. Given their general lack of combative means, their city is inhabited by guards from the other native races, as per their negotiations. Anywhere you go, there’s almost certainly an Oocca merchant handling the finances of the city.

Ooccoo, sometimes known as Miss O, is the sweet, gentle single mother of Junior.  She makes her peaceful living running a homely inn and selling knick-knacks in the small farm village Ravio grew up in. She also doubles as the resident repair shop, using her skill in tinkering to keep the village's tech and tools in tip-top shape. Ooccoo has a knack of taking in any stragglers that she may run across, which has led her to taking in Ravio and raising him as if he were her own. She has an unusual assistant: an old battle-worn Lynel (to be designed later!) she calls Lyo.

Junior is Ooccoo's outgoing young son. Ever so eager to make friends and lend a hand whenever he can, Junior helps his mother run her inn and shop. He's high on energy and sometimes runs too fast for his legs to carry him (he has a penchant for tripping), and someitmes he talks a little too much, but all he wants to do is make sure you feel welcomed when under their care. He often uses berry branches as hair ties so he can have a small snack anywhere he goes!

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-Yook:  Otherwise known as Yetis, they are a race of huge, gorilla-like bipedal creatures who live on the peaks of the freezing, snowy mountains of Lorule. Despite their fearsome appearance and gargantuan strength, they're rather friendly, and have been known to guide lost hikers back on the trail to return home. Unfortunately, the Yook were once hunted to near genocide for their thick coats and tough hides before the practice was outlawed, and so they're cautious towards outsiders. It's only recently that they've begun to allow visitors to their humble village, but the current political climate among the Yook is a tremulous one.

Yeto was once the leader to the Yook before being beaten in a fight for the title against his younger adversary, Yuk. Now he and his beloved wife Yeta live out in the outskirts of the hidden village, living a quiet life while dedicating themselves to helping lost travelers and keeping them away from the village. This is mostly because, under Yuk's aggressive leadership, the Yook village is not safe for outsiders.

Yeta is Yeto's soft-spoken wife. Yeta is motherly to a fault, with barely a hostile bone in her body, but she isn't one to be pushed around. Upon her husband's defeat to Yuk in combat, she was outspoken on the harm he would cause their village by leading them down a violent path and was the only other one to stand up against the newly crowned chief, the others too afraid to say anything. She and Yeto were then forced to leave the village, living on the outskirts and dedicating themselves to keep outsiders away for their own safety.

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-Mogma: Andromorphic mole-like peoples who make their homes in the dry grasslands, the closest neighbors to the Lorian capitol. They generally grow to be large with huge, long claws for digging, and their villages and cities are known to mostly reside below ground. They are largely artisan by culture, focusing most of their energies in making, and collecting, knick-knacks and treasures. Their drive for all things shiny and pretty make them excellent treasure hunters, and many Mogma make lucrative careers out of being treasure-hunters-for-hire. They are a semi-nomadic people.

Guld was once the leader of the Mogma before he finally stepped down and gave the title to Ledd. One of the few Mogma to make his residence above ground, Guld has retired to a peaceful life of farming and selling pumpkins and other little trinkets he finds during his evening strolls. Despite long-since stepping down as leader, the Mogma often seek him out for guidance still, and he’s worried that it’s because they aren’t trusting their new leader as much as he’d hoped.

Ledd is the newfound leader of the Mogma, chosen by Guld for his courage and finesse in finding treasures. For all of his perceived confidence, Ledd is unsure of his newfound position, and his lack of action has led other Mogma to believe he is unfit for the role. His only supporter is Plats, his best buddy, and Guld. He’s determined to prove that he wants to be the leader the Mogma deserves, but is unsure how to do so.

Plats is the kindly and rather nervous buddy of Ledd, and the youngest brother of three. Unlike the rest of his kin, Plats is far more interested in simply trading items and hunting for food instead of shinies, which contributes to his round figure and his resident duty as town merchant. Given his rather cowardly disposition, Plats rarely ever tries to go treasure hunting, something his brothers often tease him about. He is the only one who has faith in Ledd’s leadership among their kin with the only other exception being Guld.

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WHEW!!! That got a bit long, but I’m glad to say that it’s out there for ya’ll to see! :3 I had a whole lot of fun working on this headcanon and if you have any questions please feel more than free to ask!! ;w;

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[white-collar-lawmen-and-conmen]

Pulse Point

A/N: Requested by anonymous. Warning for canon-typical violence; minor character death, nightmares, and post-traumatic stress. Also: borrowed Dr. Sweets from the show Bones.

Summary: A near-death experience leaves you with recurrent nightmares. Neal offers some comfort.

Word Count: 5,154

The steady beeping of hospital equipment was driving you insane. It had been hours now of nothing except the monotonous noise of your own heartbeat. If it didn’t shut up soon, you would claw your ears off. With a stiff body and an ache that penetrated down to your bones, you forced your body upright and pinched open the pulse monitor on your right hand.

You let out a relieved sigh as the equipment went silent and dropped yourself back onto the well-padded pillows behind you. The pulse monitor clattered to the floor on its long white cord and you settled down for a nap. The ache in your bones made you feel heavy, like lead. There was nothing quite like a well-deserved nap.

In mere seconds after you had closed your eyes, the equipment started acting up again, this time blaring one long, constant shriek. The surprise made your heart skip a beat, but your eyelids were too heavy to look and see what had happened. Then your heart kept skipping, and your throat tightened. You couldn’t breathe. Your chest burned. It wasn’t a heartbeat; it was a flatline.

You were dying.

The leaden feeling in your body doubled. Your muscles didn’t respond to trying to move and you couldn’t force your lungs to take in a breath. Footsteps pounded around you, incoherent shouts going in one ear and out the other. You were desperate for your paralyzed eyes to open. Was this what you’d have for the rest of your life? Nothing but darkness and unintelligible, mind-numbing noise, punctuated by electrical humming and the pain of a vice clamping itself again to your finger?

The flatline paused for a second. Your ears rang and you thought, for a moment, that you were safe, your heart was beating again. Instead, your stomach twisted and you realized you were losing feeling in your toes. No blood. No life. When the screech of your flatline came back again, it was louder, more piercing. The shrillness reminded you of screaming.

As soon as you remembered it, it was there – the same screaming as before, somewhere in your room, echoing from every corner. In the next pause of the flatline, it turned into a hoarse shriek and a plea. “No! Please!”

You couldn’t hear anything underneath it, no more overlapping voices, and your panic increased. Where were the doctors? Did they think you were gone? Help me!

Your eyes opened with a sudden snap, the droning of your alarm clock replacing the flatlining of the monitor.

As you stared at your ceiling, you panted for breath. Rationally, you knew, you had probably never stopped breathing, but in the panic of your nightmare, it felt like you’d been smothered. Terror powered your desperate gasps and convinced you that your feet and hands were numb, even as you could feel that one foot was poking out from the end of your blanket. After a long moment, you dared to move your arm, ready to scream if you weren’t dreaming after all and still couldn’t move. You turned your alarm off easily.

Soft rain pattered against the glass windows, creating shiny-looking streaks as droplets collected and streamed down the side of the building. It was much more soothing than the silence that usually reigned in Dr. Sweets’ office when he was waiting for you to talk. Maybe he should invest in one of those noise machines with rain as an option. You thought about making the suggestion, but knowing him, he would probably call you out on the procrastination, or deflection, or whatever else he wanted to call it.

You broke the silence. “I’m certain I can wait you out for the next…” You checked the clock. “Twenty-seven minutes.”

Dr. Sweets raised his eyebrows, still leaning his head on a closed fist, propped on the arm of his chair. “I’m equally certain I can recommend you remain on desk duty for the next…” He pretended to check his watch. “Twenty-seven weeks.”

You scowled.

Psychological clearance was a bureau mandate after something traumatic occurred during the course of the job. You’d been lucky enough not to need it up to this point, but after… that, you hadn’t been given a choice. Dr. Sweets was a highly qualified psychotherapist, and you were sure that he did amazing things to help a lot of people, but so far you felt neither amazed nor helped.

“Agent L/N, you went through something incredibly harrowing that you were very close to not walking away from.” The psychologist finally took his head off his fist and put his arm down in his lap. At least he’d taken the bait and you weren’t the one starting the discussion. “You were a half-inch or couple minutes from bleeding out.” He pinched his fingers to demonstrate as if you didn’t have a scar on your body that distance from your femoral artery. You’d never be able to forget what half an inch looked like.

“But I did walk away, and the person who did that to me is in prison for the rest of his life.” You crossed your legs, trying to look more comfortable than you felt. You weren’t sure how effective you were going to be at convincing a therapist that you didn’t need therapy, but it was worth the try.

He looked utterly unconvinced. Actually, the jerk looked like he knew exactly what you were trying for and thought it was cute that you thought you could trick him. “Justice, or even retribution, which it feels like you’re leaning towards, doesn’t erase a wrongdoing or its associated harm.”

“I didn’t erase it, I healed from it. I took medical leave, now I’m back.”

“Physically, you healed. It takes a lot longer to heal mentally from those kinds of wounds.”

“Does it?” You challenged.

“I think your nightmares speak for themselves,” Dr. Sweets said pointedly.

You glared at him, at a loss for a quick comeback. You knew you didn’t look like a million bucks, but you hadn’t thought it was that obvious you were losing sleep. If he knew, then the coworkers who spent a lot of time with you must know, too. Especially Neal – nothing got past him. Oh, that was embarrassing.

The nightmares had been recurring for weeks now. They had started once you had a return date to the office, but after actually resuming your work, they had increased in frequency and intensity. They weren’t identical, but they did all share some similarities: some fatal injury had you dying, alone, in the dark, like you almost had in real life. You never got to the point of actually dying in your dreams, you didn’t think, but you were just fine with that. They were bad enough as they were. Yes, they were a sign of trauma and anxiety. But if your mind didn’t heal itself from weeks safe at home, then you knew returning to normal as fast as possible was probably your best bet at getting over what had happened.

“I’m not your enemy here,” the therapist said to you more gently. You couldn’t say he was heartless, even if you didn’t enjoy the half-hour sessions where he tried to talk about your feelings whether you wanted to or not. “My goal is the same as yours. I want you back at work, safely, able to sleep through a night so you don’t jeopardize yourself or the people around you.”

You let out a deep sigh. “What do you want me to say?”

“I want you to tell me about the affect this has had on you.” Dr. Sweets encouraged, not for the first time. “You’ve accepted what happened. I can see that. But the next step is processing what it means for you, as an agent, as a person… maybe both.”

You felt helpless. What was that supposed to mean? You couldn’t very well tell him you were terrified your job was going to actually get you killed or cost more lives on your watch. When your employer paid your therapist’s bills, you couldn’t fully trust doctor-patient confidentiality. Maybe it was just paranoia, but you couldn’t bring yourself to risk it.

“I can’t sleep,” you admitted. Your tone sounded mournful. In a way, you were mourning for a time when you could sleep through the night and enjoy your days at work. It wasn’t like white-collar crime was your passion, but you did like puzzles, and you did like being around the people you worked with, especially a certain blue-eyed felon. “I keep having nightmares that I’m… injured, and I’m alone.”

“Your wire was jammed and your team didn’t hear you signal for backup.” Dr. Sweets talked slowly, patient and pragmatic as he validated your nightly anxieties. “You expected help, but they didn’t know to come.”

“They did come,” you said with a shrug. “It just… almost wasn’t in time. I know it wasn’t their fault.”

Your words about time felt glued into your ears. Yours had come really close to running out. And for what? Insurance fraud? No amount of money justified murder, and you likewise couldn’t put a price tag on a life. So why were you so eager to leap back into the same job that almost cost you yours?

It was something you had been mulling over since it happened. Your job was dangerous. You had always known that. You’d been shot at, been near explosives… your partner had been abducted by a murderer not that long ago, and your best friend had had guns in his face so often that, honestly, you’d lost count a while ago. Somehow it just hadn’t clicked, you supposed, that you could legitimately die. You were protected by the bureau and your body armor, until that wasn’t enough. Other agents had learned that lesson in a much harder way; being confronted with that was hard to simply get over.

Apparently, your use of the word “fault” led Dr. Sweets to talk to you about guilt and anger around the incident. You didn’t blame your partner or feel angry, except at the man who shot you, but you let him continue around your noncommittal, half-assed answers. You knew he at least suspected you were putting him on again, but you also knew you hadn’t given him much to work with. Then again, he didn’t call you on your bullshit replies, either, so you weren’t quite sure what he thought.

While Dr. Sweets had yet to approve you for field duty, there was still plenty to do at your desk. You pretended not to notice the itch in your legs to go somewhere while you kept yourself busy, preparing documents, performing research, helping delegate and manage case files, and topping off your team’s coffee whenever they got low. You had become even more of a desk jockey than Neal; at least he got to go out with Peter when given the green light. You missed outings with your partner, or really with any other agent.

Comparing yourself to a caged tiger was likely on the dramatic side, so you put it out of your mind and refused to feel sorry for yourself. You understood the protocols and the routines and they were for your benefit as much as the bureau’s. Besides, your team wasn’t treating you like you were fragile or demoted. They leaned on you to help just as much as they ever did, the assignment of duties just went a little differently.

You doodled a cat on your notepad during a meeting. Everyone had great ideas and you tossed in some ways you could contribute when you’d been quiet for a while. Peter’s proposed field op was going to go smoothly. Odds were high that any hiccups could be taken care of by Diana’s swift running of interference. Neal was raring to go and Jones was a little too excited to play the part of an intimidating brute, in your opinion, and Peter was appropriately apprehensive (someone ought to be, after what had happened to you).

“Let’s sleep on it,” Peter decided after looking out the window and seeing how low the sun had sunk. “If we’re all still in agreement in the morning, we’ll set the ball in motion.”

Jones graciously commented, “Good idea. We can all think on it.” He was probably the most cautious of all of you.

“Y/N?” Neal asked. You immediately looked up from your (admittedly lopsided) cat drawing. The forger was still in his chair, even while the others were pulling on their coats and blazers. “You’ve been quiet. Do you have any concerns?”

You shook your head, but not too quickly that it raised suspicion. You could get away with doodling – Peter often turned a blind eye to it; after several years, he’d developed a soft spot for you – but only if you were still paying attention and participating, so you didn’t want to give him a reason to suspect you weren’t.

Peter, Diana, and Jones all said their goodbyes. The two younger agents left the room, but Peter lingered at the doorway.

“Neal, do you want a ride?” He offered.

Neal looked from you to Peter, and then shook his head. “Thanks, but I’ll find my way. You don’t want to be late for roast,” he added when Peter looked unconvinced. After glancing at you, your partner decided that he really didn’t want to be late for roast and left without another look over his shoulder.

Now that you were alone, Neal softened his expression. “Seriously, Y/N, what’s going on?”

“I told you, I’m not worried. We’ve thought of just about everything we can predict.” You said with a straight face, pretending not to know that Neal wasn’t just talking about this specific case anymore.

He wasn’t having it. “Don’t lie to a conman, Y/N,” he chided you with a small, fond smile. “Come on. It’s not just today, you’ve been quiet ever since you came back. It’s not like you.” You raised an eyebrow and pursed your lips, uninterested in talking. Neal reached partway across the table for you but stopped there. It was an invitation but not a command. “I’m worried about you.”

The thing about your history with Neal was that it was a close one. You went from strangers when Peter got him out of Sing Sing to best friends within the span of two years. You trusted him more than you trusted just about anyone, and there hadn’t been a time when one of you needed the other and was turned away. He didn’t come to you when he was upset – seeking out reassurance and comfort was not Neal’s strength, because it involved professing vulnerability – but he never turned you away when you came to offer it, either. Now it seemed to be his turn to do the offering, as he had realized over the last few weeks that you weren’t going to ask.

You reached for his hand and silently sighed in relief at how solid and warm it was to the touch, so unlike the few dreams where you screamed and cried for someone to help and found yourself grasping at tricks that weren’t there. Neal turned his hand to hold yours and gave it a squeeze.

“It’s been so hard, Neal,” you told him reluctantly. “I have no idea how you do it. How you just walk away from all the close calls.”

Neal frowned a little. “I don’t just walk away,” he objected. “I have bad nights. I have bad days. Sometimes I have a whole bad week, or a few bad months.” You knew the latter was a reference to losing Kate, and you sympathetically gripped his hand tighter. “But, you know… there’s always something I can find to focus on instead, and after a while, the things go in the past. I let go.”

That advice was entirely unhelpful. “I’ve been trying to let go,” you said sourly. It wasn’t directed at him, exactly, but moreso at your brain, which was failing in its task of moving past what happened. “It’s not working. I can’t sleep. Sometimes I don’t think I can breathe.”

“It’s not easy,” Neal agreed, stroking the back of your hand with his thumb. It was an intimately affectionate gesture that comforted and eased the nerves beginning to bubble in your stomach. “Company helps. The reminder that I have backup, even when it doesn’t come right away. I’ve got Peter, Moz. You.” He met your eyes with a small smile and raised your hand to his lips, gently kissing your knuckles.

“Company?” You echoed uncertainly. If you were unconscious, how was company going to make a difference to what you dreamed about? Then you remembered what you had said to Dr. Sweets about your nightmares always ending with being alone. If you knew, on some level, that you weren’t alone, maybe you would feel safer. “Like, overnight?”

His expression didn’t change to give away whether you were right or wrong. Instead, he just asked, evenly, “Is that what you need?” The way he looked at you then, without judgment in his eyes, but with determination in the set of his jaw, you just knew that whatever you said you needed, Neal would move a mountain to give it to you.

“I’m not sure, but… maybe?” You hesitantly guessed. If it worked, it would be worth the awkwardness. Even just one night of solid sleep would do wonders for how you felt, and it wasn’t like it would be the first time you had stayed with Neal overnight. Long marathons on slow weekends, and the less pleasant nights after Kate’s death, meant he kept an extra toothbrush and a set of your pajamas in his penthouse.

“Okay,” he said right away with nothing but quiet matter-of-factness. It was so comforting to be proven right that you could rely on him to help you with what you needed. His tone just said, you need this, so we’re doing it, full-stop. You just hoped you were right, both so you could finally go eight hours without fearing for your life and so you weren’t inconveniencing him for no reason. “Let’s get dinner on the way. We don’t have to talk about it,” he quickly said, seeing your face. “Whatever you need.”

Everyone should have a friend like Neal, but everyone should find their own, because this one was all yours. If it weren’t for the table in the way, you would’ve launched yourself at him in a tight hug. As it was, you settled for a squeeze of his hand and a grin as wide as you could muster. “Dinner sounds great.”

The stickiness of your pants along your thigh made your hands shake, unable to bring yourself to look at your palms. You knew what you would see all over them. The fire lancing up your thigh told you what you already knew. So did the weakness in your body and the fog in your mind. It was done. The hourglass on the desk was trickling through the last of its sand. Moretti was nowhere to be seen. You couldn’t even die in the presence of a murderer.

There was screaming coming from another room. It was the desperate wail of another agent begging for their life. “No! Please!”

“No,” you mumbled, using all of your energy to turn your head to the doorway. He couldn’t… not now that you were down… you couldn’t even raise your voice to cry for help. You were completely helpless. You couldn’t save him.

Your chest burned with the effort of your heart, ironically helping you to bleed out faster. Your breaths came labored, and then they couldn’t come at all as your vision faded. The dark carpet blurred from a mass of pilled fibers into a solid navy sea. The pain in your leg was excruciating, it was all you could feel; the idea of feeling peace ever again slipping away.

Screaming. Banging. Footsteps. More screaming. Pounding. Shouting. It was all indistinguishable, a mess of men’s voices and loud gunshots. Then, you heard it. Just your name, barely audible above the rest, in a voice that made you strain to see past the blackness.

“Y/N!”

You’d give the rest of your precious seconds away just to see him one last time, just to know he was beside you and you weren’t alone.

“Y/N!”

Footsteps came closer and the pressure on your chest intensified. The blood loss made you dizzy and your body shook.

“Y/N!”

You jolted awake, eyes snapping open in time to see Neal leaning out of the way just in time to avoid your hand flying at his face. You processed slowly that his hands were on your shoulders – had he shaken you? – and it was still dark. You could barely see his face, but his figure was lit from behind by the lamp next to his bed. You could tell from his messy hair that he had been sleeping not long ago, and you felt awful for waking him up.

After cursing, you sat up and gripped the warm blanket on your lap tightly. “I’m sorry,” you said remorsefully, feeling like a fool. Not only hadn’t you been able to sleep through the night, but now you’d ruined his rest, too. You cussed again. “I really hoped being close… just not being at my apartment, alone…”

It had felt like a safe bet off to a good start. You had gotten dinner together near Gramercy Park, then watched a lighthearted movie before turning in for bed. Neal offered to let you take his mattress, but you didn’t want to put him out and you had slept over enough that he didn’t feel like a bad host for letting you insist on the sofa. You’d been out by ten, but now you could guess it had been less than four hours. Your heart was still racing, your leg still tense with an imagined pain.

“It’s okay,” Neal said, sounding unsettled. He kept his hands on your shoulders like he was keeping you grounded on the earth. “Don’t worry about it. It’s okay.”

Neal’s eyes must have already adjusted to the low light, because his aim was spot-on when he lifted a hand from your shoulder to cup your neck instead. His profile ducked and you felt his lips land on your forehead, checking your temperature, signalling forgiveness, and administering reassurance all at once. He rubbed his thumb across your jaw as he stood up straight, releasing you, and walked away around the couch.

You put your legs down in front of you and rubbed your face, exhausted mentally and physically. Helplessness made you want to cry. Time wasn’t healing. Sleeping pills just made it harder to wake up, letting the nightmares ravage your psyche for longer. Not even the proximity of someone you trusted and adored was enough to let go of the past.

The light in the kitchen came on, bright enough to illuminate the studio but far enough away not to be blinding. Neal came back to the couch holding a bottle of water and offered it to you before sitting down. He looked so adorable, still sleepy and with a bit of pink in the side of his face from sleeping with his arm under his pillow. You scolded yourself for even thinking about how cute he was when you were the one who had woken him up.

You sipped at the water. It was so nice and smooth on your throat. You felt fine, now that you were awake, but the vividness of your nightmares always left you feeling parched and you always expected swallowing to hurt as if you had strep. Neal leaned into the back of the couch and put his arm up along the cushions. You capped the water, bent your knees to pull your feet back up onto the furniture, and let yourself lean into his side. Neal dropped his arm softly on your shoulders, holding you in a tender sideways hug.

“I’m sorry,” you apologized again after a couple of minutes. You felt much better, much faster than you usually did, thanks to him, and if you were being fully honest, you were not ready for him to get up and go back to bed, but it wasn’t fair to ask him to stay up cuddling you at god-knows-what-time just because you were a wreck.

“I told you, it’s okay,” Neal said, his voice firm. If you apologized again, you figured he would start scolding you for it, so you let it go.

“I just – I should’ve expected this,” you said with frustration, feeling like you were confessing to knowingly bothering him. “I haven’t been able to sleep well in ages. I keep having these nightmares, I feel like I’m losing my mind.”

Neal was quiet for a few seconds, making sure you had said all you were inclined to. Then, knowingly, he asked, “This is about the Moretti case, isn’t it?”

“I can’t let it go,” you said with a whimper. “It won’t leave me alone. Every night, it’s a little bit different, but at its core it’s always the same.”

Neal’s voice cutting through the fog of your nightmare had been a saving grace, giving you peace even in your unconscious, but now that you were awake, you realized with clarity that his voice saying your name wasn’t the only voice you could make out. In fact, you always heard the same thing, every night, no matter what else changed.

“What’s the same, Y/N?” Neal asked you, trying to help. He stroked your upper arm with his open hand. You were already shaking your head. Neal could comfort you all he liked, but he couldn’t bring back the dead. In grief and shame, you turned your head and bent your neck to bury your face in his shoulder. Neal tilted his head so his cheek was resting gently on your hair. “Tell me, darling,” he coaxed in a whisper.

You felt like someone’s hands were wrapped around your throat, strangling your reply. “Agent Flynn,” you answered dryly, barely more than mouthing his name. “In every nightmare, I hear… I hear his last words. Begging Moretti not to take the shot.”

Neal was quiet for a long time, but never pushed you away. He held you closer when you started to shake, crying against him as quietly as you could manage. The artist rubbed your arm and periodically kissed your head, but he knew that there was nothing he could say to erase the horror of what you had heard or take away the guilt that you had survived because Moretti was distracted by taking out the other agent.

Moretti was part of a family gang, often in conflict with the Barellis, who, interestingly, paid a little deference to the white-collar division ever since you and Peter had recovered a stolen Book of Hours. The Morettis had no such connection or gratitude, so their response to the FBI sticking their nose into an embezzling scam was violent and bloody. Moretti shot you in the leg and intended to finish you off, but one of his own men had reported you came with someone. He left you to bleed out, and only a few rooms over, you had heard Flynn’s pleas – and the subsequent gunshot. Your team, wising up to the dead signal, arrived for a takedown before Moretti could make his way back to you, but it was too late for your teammate.

Neal shifted after what felt like forever, only to pull you closer to his chest and wrap both arms around you. You trembled in his embrace, but that just made him hold you closer, like you were delicate and breakable. When he next talked, his low voice was quivering, just like your body.

“I thought we lost you,” he said, cupping the back of your head in a gentle hand. He massaged his fingers into your scalp, even as he kept you cuddled in his lap. “I thought I lost you, Y/N. Two gunshots. I thought…” He struggled to find his words and you hiccuped, trying to stop crying. “I was the one who found you, and I was so scared I was too late.”

You sniffled and uncrossed your arms to melt against his chest and hug him tightly around his waist instead. “I didn’t know you…”

“We found him first, but you weren’t there and I needed to find you.” Neal now sounded equal parts frightened and furious. “If he had taken you away, I would’ve…” He shook his head and pressed his forehead to yours, as desperate to be close to you as you felt to be close to him. “I would’ve shattered. I can’t lose you, Y/N. I just can’t lose you, too.”

“I’m so glad I didn’t die,” you blurted, almost in a sob. You felt so safe with him, but now you knew for a fact that your own safety wasn’t what had been tormenting you. It was a nearly debilitating case of survivor’s guilt. “I just wish I hadn’t been the only one who survived.”

“No one wants that,” Neal promised you, untangling his hand from your hair and stroking it down instead. “I’m so sorry. I wish I could fix this and take it away, but all I can do is be here and hold you and tell you it’s going to be alright. It wasn’t your fault.”

You sniffed. Neal’s words were more of a comfort than you had thought they would be. They changed nothing about the situation, but… you weren’t alone. You hadn’t been alone since you met him. You just agonized that Flynn had been. “Neal, I can’t lose you, either. I love you, you’re… you’re who I’m going to heal for.” You had to find a way.

Neal seized your lips with his in a searing kiss. It wasn’t as sexy or patient as you may have imagined, but you gripped his shirt and gave as good as you got, and wow, the man gave verygood. It was a desperate kiss, needing to bring you together and reaffirm your life. To you, it was the seal of a promise that you wouldn’t let the past crush your spirit. When you could sleep through the night and had a handle on your post-traumatic stress… if he would just be patient, you would be his the way you wanted him to be yours.

He released you to breathe, eyes opening wide as if he only just realized what he had done. Before he could pull away, you pressed your forehead to his again, urging him to stay close. Your breaths mingled between you and you were sure you could feel his heart beating through his chest.

“I love you, too,” he said once he had caught his breath.

[evolutionsvoid]

Ho boy, where do we even begin with these things? How do I write this entry without going insane? No real clue. I have to say that I try my best to keep things fair for all the species I write about, regardless if I like them or not. No one is reading my work solely because they want to know what my top ten favorite animals are, they want information! So even if I despise a certain beast, it is my duty to share straight knowledge and facts without steeping it in bias and personal opinions. However, thinking about this species gives me a headache, and it only gets worse as I delve deeper into the details. So I ask for the dear reader to forgive me if I diverge a bit or get a little negative in some parts. I don't mean to do that, but I can't guarantee anything! Now on to the Boracund! The Boracund are a mammalian species, with their relations tied to pigs and boars. With a porcine frame, a signature snout and those nasty tusks, it is easy to see how the three are alike. How they are different should be pretty obvious too, unless all your ham wears armor. Covering the top of the body, tail and upper limbs of the Boracund is a hefty layer of boney scutes and keratin scales. This home-grown armor is surprisingly durable, as it can withstand blades and even deflect arrows! Obviously it is used for protection, though the Boracund tend to use this defense more for other Boracund! This is because of those giant tusks that the Boracund possess, which can easily slice through flesh and gore a hapless victim. Both male and female Boracund grow tusks, but it is the male's teeth that grow to such an impressive, and deadly, size. When your rivals carry around such weaponry, armor is pretty much a must! The habitats they should prefer are in temperate climates, and they tend to be found in forests and surrounding areas. They like forests that produce a lot of mast (which means the fruit of forest trees, for those who don't know), as it provides a steady food source and also lures in other tasty treats. Like many members of the pig family, the Boracund are omnivorous, eating pretty much anything they can get into their mouths. With powerful jaws, razor tusks and a big appetite, there isn't a whole lot these fellas won't eat. Fallen fruits and nuts are a common meal for them, as well as small reptiles, mammals, eggs, and even carrion. Their snouts and teeth can also aid in digging up roots and tubers, which they will also happily devour. They are also capable of downing prey with the help of numbers, as this species travels in sizeable sounders. They rarely go after creatures larger then them and tend to only take advantage of the sick or weak. It is said that predators who live in Boracund territory must be fast in dispatching prey, lest a sounder descend upon the injured target and devour it. With the ability to take advantage of many food sources, it is easy to see how this species is so freakishly adaptable. What an utterly wonderful trait.    

  During most parts of the year, Boracund travel in these sounders, with them usually divided into male and female groups. The females sounders will possess multiple mothers with various litters of piglets, who all live under the watch of a matriarch. The male groups, however, have little leadership to them, working more as a friendly crowd that enjoy the benefits that sheer numbers bring. Their time is either spent searching for food, resting in their home shelters or grooming. Their version of grooming and hygiene is taking mud baths, as it helps cool their bodies as well as remove parasites. Things change up for all these sounders when the breeding season kicks in. When it is time to mate, the males grow rather irritable and obsessed, their family groups dissolving as they search for viable sows. Driven by the season and hormones, they scour the land for females, barely eating or slowing during their pursuit. When they find a female sounder, they begin to mark their territory. The piglets and other young members of the group are attacked and driven off, though the ancient matriarch is quick to protect them if things get too violent. Crazed males that kill piglets can incite the wrath of the matriarch, whose age and experience often makes them powerful foes. As long as the male does not cross this line, then they may remain with this sounder and attempt to claim it. Since the first male that enters this sounder is rarely the last, they must turn to defend their claim from rivals. Other males will soon arrive and they will fight to be the top hog. These battles are brutal and bloody, with tusks and hoof leaving terrible injuries. Even decked out in armor, male Boracund get pretty mangled during these fights. When the breeding season comes to a close, all viable females will be carrying, eventually giving birth to four to eight piglets. With a litter that size, and with that many females per sounder, you can see that this species has quite the population boom each season! Why, their reproductive rate is so high, its almost like you could harvest entire sounders and the population would bounce right back without hardly a stumble. How delightful. An incredibly interesting thing to note about the Boracund is that their breeding season can undergo a bizarre change every so often. A decade could go by with things going as normal, males running after females and what not, but then suddenly the next year will become something quite strange. After years of study, the consensus is that this unique breeding season is triggered by a high population of Boracund. When their numbers within an area reaches a critical peak, something in their bodies will be set off when the breeding season kicks in. This powerful change seems to only affect the males, if the females are involved then it is very subtle. When this switch is flipped in the males, their bodies undergo a terrifying transformation. Their armor darkens until it is almost black and their fur takes on a reddish hue. From numerous bony protrusions and pedicles that run along their body, velvety growths will begin to form. Much like the antler of a deer, these structures are growing something flashy and pointy, but it is rarely classy. They will grow all across the head and body of the male Boracund during the build-up to the breeding season, and you can already notice that they are growing agitated. The male sounders will break apart long before the season gets into swing, as they are driven into an angered state from the growths. Just as the season is about to start, the velvet will fall away, or rather be torn off in bloody strips. The furious males will rip apart this fuzzy sheathe to reveal a horrible dagger made of bone. What emerges from this gory ceremony is a beast covered snout to hoof in twisted, gnarled spikes. Bony jagged "teeth" now run on the outside of their jaws, while skewering spines line their backs. Bony spurs jut from their legs, while ivory wings sprout from their shoulders. The whole beast is now loaded with pointy bits and terrible weapons, which fits quite well for what comes next. Not only do their bodies transform, but so do their minds. It isn't so much a "transformation" but more of a "degradation." These males go absolutely berserk. The hormones in their body drive them to an even crazier state, which is further fueled by their gnarled bodies. You see, these bony growths aren't usually shaped to fit their bodies. Their formation is quite erratic, often leading to bony blades that hurt the very beast that wears them. I have seen a male Boracund who was so overgrown with these nasty things that they couldn't even open their mouth, the teeth-like formations grew around the jaw and forced it shut. Even then, its head was covered in gashes and bloody tears, as its attempts to open its jaw just caused its weaponry it dig into its own hide. Absolutely horrible! This pain puts them in a constant rage, and all this is directed into this bizarre breeding season. Now decked out in weapons and on the warpath, the males turn into rabid beasts that rip apart the countryside. They plow through the landscape in search of sows, but they are so blinded by their terrible state that they will literally throw themselves at walls in order to get to a female. What was once a fight between males to claim a group of sows has now become a bloody frenzy, with males shredding each other in the madness. Their battles seem to have no end in this state, they just tear each other to pieces. They lose any concept of surrendering or accepting defeat, they just throw themselves at each other until only one remains standing. Even the females aren't spared! Younger ones who do not have the strength to withstand such punishment can be butchered in the melee, slaughtered by the bloodthirsty males who have lost themselves to this agonizing frenzy. Eventually, the carnage will end and the season will finish. What males remain will lose their extra growths and revert back to normal, while the surviving females raise the new batch of piglets. This horrific breeding season is referred to as "Devil's Rut," when this species goes into this self-destructive state. It is believed that this event occurs to help regulate the population, only activating when their numbers reach a critical state. Too many Boracund could lead to all food sources being wiped out, which would leave them to starve. Reducing their numbers through this season, as well as cutting out those too weak to handled it, helps the population remain stable and strong. Thank goodness it takes years for such a thing to occur, right? RIGHT?!       I have to imagine that some folk have read through this entry and come to a realization. "Hey, Chlora," you may wonder, "you said this species likes temperate climates and lives in the woods, right?" To that I would say, "yes, I did!" With that confirmation you may reply "but I don't live near such a habitat, and yet I see the Boracund everywhere! Why is that?" This would call for a congratulations on my part, as you have read my entry and taken its word to heart. Thank you for your attention and mindfulness! Indeed, you have seen Boracund in a habitat I haven't mentioned and that is because, dear reader, THEY AREN'T SUPPOSED TO BE THERE! Boracund love temperate climates, they love forests! You know what else they love? EVERYTHING! Marshes, deserts, fields, grasslands, mountains, you name it, they stole it! Their ability to eat practically anything combined with their adaptable lifestyle and hardy bodies means they can live wherever they blighting please! There are populations of them scattered all across the globe, and every living thing that has to put up with them feels that presence! They strip the land bare with their feeding! They steal resources from other creatures! They tear up vegetation and plants that should have been safe from herbivory! They even chase predators away from their kills! They are a disease, and we cannot seem to freaking stop them! You slaughter a whole sounder of them and they just all pop back after the next breeding season! They reproduce so quickly and they don't go down without a fight! This isn't like the pig farm, you can't just round them up and give them the axe! They are armored, they are vicious and they are cunning! Kill one and the rest scatter into the wilderness! Set one trap and they learn to avoid that area! It is maddening! And to make it all worse is the fact that they undergo that Devil's Rut. When that kicks in, they are a threat to everything. They become insanely aggressive and incredibly dangerous. Driven by smell and pain, they will go after anything they see as a threat or anything they think is a female. Pig farmers have talked about these wild Boracund attempting to break into their own pens to get at domesticated sows, as they mistake them for their own kind. The damages are insane, and that doesn't include the fact that they can maim and kill anyone who tries to stop them! Crops are ruined and trips into the wilderness become dangerous. If you live in an area that is undergoing Devil's Rut, do not let your children outside of the town! These things are dangerous and they will attack anything they come across. Keep your saplings inside and don't even venture out there yourself! Cities and towns lock up their gates during these ruts and many warriors have been hired to ward off these crazed beasts. Good thing this only occurs about once every ten years! Whoops, did I say "ten?" Because with their exploding numbers, it takes half the time to trigger a Devil's Rut in areas they have been introduced! HOW WONDERFUL! They are a plague wherever they have been introduced, as the ecosystem is not designed to handle them! "So if they are invasive," you may ask, "How did they get here?" SO GLAD YOU ASKED Due to their large size, signature armor and impressive weaponry, there are some folk out there that would see them as a beautiful hunting trophy. Look at those tusks! Look at that armor! Think of how much meat we could get off that beast! What a dream, they think, AND THAT IS ALL THEY THINK! They just want to be the cool guy who has a big devil pig stuffed in their study so they can show off to all their friends and be like "look how cool and tough I am!" And then all their stupid friends would think "gosh gee I need one of these crazy beasts in my domicile so that I may too show off how big and cool I am!" And when you get enough people thinking that, then you get the idiots who think "well, all these people want to hunt this big awesome pig monster, why don't I import some for easy cash!" And then they do, and they build a hunting ranch specifically for hunting Boracund so that they can fill their coffers with all the money these showoffs will throw at them and then use none of that gold to BUILD A DECENT FENCE! Nope, just some posts and some boards, that is enough to keep these monstrous creatures contained! Lo and behold, they break out and vanish into the wilderness, where they may breed like rabbits and infest countless habitats! NOW THEY ARE EVERYWHERE, ARE YOU HAPPY NOW!? Oh of course they are! They are thrilled! "I can just go into my backyard and kill one, all while wearing my bathrobe! What's that? Dozens of species are threatened and entire ecosystems are being ravaged by these things? Well, who cares? I get to bag me a pig!" Those gall-headed weeds don't give an ounce of care for the systems they rely upon for their wonderful hobby! What about all the crop damage?! What about all the people who are vulnerable to these beasts?! Not every town has the means to ward them off, and the damage and injury that occurs is horrible! Markets raided, people attacked! It is insanity! It has gotten so bad in some regions that people have called them "Pig Dragons!" OF COURSE THEY DID! NOT ONLY DO THEY DESTROY THINGS, NOW THEY HAVE TO BEAR THAT CURSED NAME! You want a dragon?! I will show you a dragon! You all laugh at me when I talk about the "Dragon's Pig Program," but if I can get that going then there is hope! What better beast to help harvest these monsters than actual dragons?! These animals are a hefty source of meat and hunting them is crucial! If I can convince enough dragons to turn their attention towards this species for a potential food source, then their populations could be easily reduced! I think it is a genius idea, but oh no all the fancy aristocrats are like "Dragons? Near my land? Unacceptable! Those ugly beasts will cause so much damage!" UNLIKE THE HOG MONSTERS YOU PEOPLE BROUGHT OVER! You cause this huge problem and then stick up your nose at every solution! Just because it doesn't affect you! Well you listen hear you overgrown, blight-filled piece of rot! If I ever get my hands on you I am going to take that fancy hunting spear of yours and*   *No further text is provided, save for mention by the editor that several pages have been removed. Chlora Myron Dryad Natural Historian --------------------------------------------------- Behold! The long awaited Pig "Dragon!"  And by long awaited, I mean that I once offhandedly mentioned something about a Pig Dragon in a description I wrote years ago. I am sure no one remembers me naming such a thing, but my memory exists solely to torment me and couldn't let it go.

[tennessoui]

33 obikin 🙏

bless i can't write anything straightforward or normal to save my life

33. Celebrity/Fan AU (modern AU, singer Obi-Wan)(1.8k)

Obi-Wan had only wanted to cook, really.

He’d decided on Tuesday night that he would take Friday off as a sort of self-care day. He needed it. In the midst of a world tour, finally with a week to breathe back in his home city, he’d wanted to relax for a day. One day without music or an audience of any kind, just him in an apartment filled mostly with dusty counters and almost expired foods.

He loves his fans, because of course he loves his fans. He loves the fact that people relate to what he writes enough to listen to his albums, although he has gone through several different sounds over the course of his career. He loves that he can be 39 and still touring the world, even though he started his career as a 13-year-old-child-actor turned teen-pop-sensation turned serious musician turned perhaps-washed-up-serious-musician turned very-much-serious-musician-actually-this-time.

If not for his fans, he wouldn’t be able to afford this house on the outskirts of his town. He wouldn’t be able to boast his performances in three-fourths of the world’s major cities. He wouldn’t be able to continue to have a career. No. He loves his fans.

It’s just that sometimes he doesn’t. Sometimes he just wants peace and quiet, a moment to himself, where he can float away without concerning himself with the flow of the setlist, the timing of the encore, the lyrics and rhythms of songs he wrote a decade ago when he was practically a different person.

It’s just such a shame that Obi-Wan leaves the handle of the wooden spoon too close to the stove’s open flame when he stirs and adjusts the heat to low for an hour so he can go soak off his stress in the bath.

It’s just such a shame that the smoke alarms from the kitchen cannot be heard over the music he’s playing in the master bath.

Obi-Wan sinks beneath the water, enjoying the unyielding pressure. He doesn’t want to retire, he tells himself. He has so many more songs to write. Sure, he hasn’t written an actual good song in two years and people are starting to notice. Sure, the intense scrutiny is driving him up the wall and killing anything creative that he’s ever harbored in his soul. Sure, his muscles and bones ache and he had almost had a breakdown the other day when he first walked through the door of his home and couldn’t remember if there was a bathroom on the first floor, but.

But he doesn’t want to retire yet. He just has to admit he’s waning, even to himself. Whatever inspiration he had has been used up or otherwise escaped. All he has now to his name are songs that have already been sung.

He doesn’t know how long he spends in the bath, really. Long enough that the album changes twice. Long enough that his fingers prune up and his eyes grow lax. Long enough that he tells himself that no matter how soothing the lavender essence is, it would be very dangerous for him to fall asleep in the bath because the news articles alone would be enough to raise him from the dead only to strike him down again.

(Long enough for the wooden spoon’s handle next to the pot to catch on fire. Long enough for that fire to burn down to the oil on the spoon itself. Long enough for the dishtowel it was resting on to ignite as well.)

The smoke alarm clues in before Obi-Wan does.

Luckily, Obi-Wan had paid extra for a smoke alarm that, when registering a certain threshold of smoke, sends a notification to the closest fire department.

Luckily, this all happens while Obi-Wan is unaware, but before he becomes in peril.

He actually remains unaware of the whole thing right up until the moment a fully-suited firefighter kicks through the door of his bathroom.

That’s when he jerks up, very unceremoniously. “Fucking Chr--what?” he shouts, raising a hand to cover his exposed chest for reasons unknown.

“Obi--??” the masked firefighter starts to say, in something akin to shock, but like Obi-Wan is going to give ground here and now. He’s cornered the market on shock on this occasion, thanks much.

“What the--”

“Your house is on fire!” the man yells over him, looking around the bathroom wildly until he sees a fluffy off-white bathrobe hanging by a hook near the door. He throws it at Obi-Wan, who just catches it before it can get wet.

“My house is what?” Obi-Wan splutters, standing automatically to put on the piece of clothing. The helmet of the firefighter turns away to give him privacy. Despite himself, he finds it rather endearing. He ties the belt around his waist tightly, stepping out of the tub.

As soon as he’s out of the water, the other man swoops him up and over his shoulder. Obi-Wan lets out a scream which he’ll probably be absolutely mortified about later.

But now, what’s more distressing is the way his body is responding to the hold he’s been placed in. He’s thirty-nine years old. He’s definitely too old for this. He should definitely know better than to be even slight aroused by such a display of...strength and stalwartness and--

The man walks him out of the bathroom and the very first thing he notices is the heat that hits his skin. “Oh!” he whimpers and then yells wordlessly in absolute panic as he realizes what this heat must mean. His house is on fire. Actual fire. Actually on fire. There’s a fireman here. Because his house is on fire.

He’s only a little ashamed to admit that there’s a fair amount of thrashing that happens immediately upon this realization.

Enough so, in fact, that the firefighter transfers him from over his shoulder to cradled in his arms, so as to hold tightly against the movement of his limbs. “Stop--moving!” the man says irritably. Obi-Wan wants to tell him to work on his bedside manner, seeing as how his house is on fire, but he doesn’t have time before they descend the stairs and he can see the actual flames.

The stairs themselves are fine, which makes sense. Hot air rises. The dining room, parlor, and entryway look like they’re absolutely covered in fire though, so really his fireman was just in time to save him.

The smoke is acrid against the back of his throat, and Obi-Wan buries his face against the textured shoulder of his rescuer's uniform just so he doesn’t have to look or breathe the air, although he feels the smoke already working its way through his lungs. Well. That might just be his imagination.

They’re out of the house in a matter of seconds, and Obi-Wan’s eyes water immediately at the difference in air quality.

The man who’s been carrying him sets him down gently on the lip of the fire truck, far enough away from the house that he’s not in any danger--though most of the place is fine still--but close enough that someone can keep an eye on him. He doesn’t know why he hadn’t remembered to grab his phone. That phone was very important. Hopefully the other firefighters will be able to stop the fire before it reaches his bathroom.

His firefighter seems intent on hovering close to him, even as there's a fire raging in the background. Obi-Wan supposes that there's around five firefighters on his property, including the one in front of him. The other four should probably be able to handle it, whether or not the fifth decides to join in or stay hovering around Obi-Wan like he's a sickly orphan.

“Are you okay?” An earnest voice asks him from under the helmet.

Obi-Wan opens his mouth to say he’s fine, that at most he just feels like an idiot for being stranded outside in his bathrobe as a group of public service officials fight a fire he certainly, most likely, probably caused.

But he starts to cough instead, and his firefighter steps forward immediately, placing one hand on his back and the other on his chest, both beneath his robe. He hopes the man can't feel his shiver. That would be even more mortifying than his current situation.

“Do you even know what you’re doing?” Obi-Wan wheezes after the coughs have passed. The helmet the man is wearing only shows a quarter of his face, but he looks awfully boyish. “Aren’t you a little young to be a firefighter?”

“Deep breaths, please,” the man (boy?) tells him, which isn’t a proper response. “There’s an ambulance already on the way--it’s protocol, sir--but yes, I’m trained in emergency medical response.”

“A man of many talents,” Obi-Wan says dazedly, rubbing a hand against his chest where it aches as he watches a few men run around his house with a house. “And here all I can do is sing.”

“Hopefully you still can, sir,” his firefighter responds. “Only I’ve got tickets for your show in two days, and my little sister has been excited for weeks over this.”

Obi-Wan laughs despite himself. He’s sure it sounds at least a little bit hysterical. “Would you like me to dedicate a song for you? The man who saved my life?”

Even the helmet can't hide the nice shade of red his firefighter blushes at those words.

“What’s your name?” Obi-Wan asks, smoothing down his still-damp hair. It feels important to know his name. It feels just as important to look his best, given the circumstances.

The firefighter ducks his head and takes off his helmet. Obi-Wan wonders if the man should be going back to work, or if he’s been assigned victim duty. Either way, Obi-Wan isn’t going to complain, definitely not after his firefighter shakes out his hair and turns to face him with a sheepish grin stretching across a handsome face. “‘M Anakin,” he says. “It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Kenobi.”

Obi-Wan is awfully aware that he’s dressed only in his bathrobe in front of a very pretty firefighter who seems to know who he is--who seems to have tickets for his upcoming show. “Call me Obi-Wan,” he tells him, already trying to remember his manager’s phone number so that he can bump Anakin and his sister’s tickets up to the VIP section. It’s the least he can do, after all. Anakin had just saved his life.

“Wish it was under better circumstances,” Anakin says with a shy sort of twist of his mouth. Obi-Wan gets the impression that it isn’t just his little sister that’s been excited for his concert. An impression that is solidified quickly as Anakin tacks on, “I’m a huge fan of your work.”

Obi-Wan laughs incredulously at this, at the entire situation, at the man in front of him, at the fact that some part of his brain has started composing a song the second his firefighter had smiled at him in his bathrobe with his tired face and wet hair, kitchen burning his house down because he’d forgotten basic fire-safety rules in favor of his own self-care soak.

“Well,” he says, patting his firefighter’s knee, “I don’t have to tell you that I’m a huge fan of your work as well.”

[twistedapple]

On Pomefiore

[Note: Tumblr being Tumblr, I’ll put the links and due credits in a reblog; also, partially under the cut because it’s a bit long]

This post is something that has been brewing for a while now – my more observant followers will know when it started based on a certain tag. To preface this write up, I’d like to precise that I have been motivated in working on it because of the way Pomefiore was being received when I joined the fandom. Since then it has been followed by certain beliefs that – while being qualified as headcanons, which is perfectly fair and fine in itself – tend to be treated as actual gospel. It’s not a thing specific to the Twst fandom mind you, it happens in most fandoms – heck I still keep an eye on the KHR fandom and there are still people regularly making posts about mischaracterisation, and that fandom has been around for at least ten years. So I’m not here to preach, but to clarify a few things regarding what Pomefiore represents as a dorm, as well as provide a comprehensive commentary on its associated characters.

First belief: Pomefiore is the shallow dorm of pretty people.

But is it? The very first thing we learn about Pomefiore is that it’s the dorm of Hard Workers and other Overachievers, right in the prologue. This dorm is presented as built on the hard work of the Fair Queen, and she’s regularly taken as an example of how one should conduct oneself – especially by Vil, who expresses a lot of admiration and respect in his lesson chats, and clearly treats her as a model to follow in order to reach perfection.

Now you may think “but Crow, the very first thing we learn about the students is that they look impeccable and polish their appearance”. And you would be right; it is indeed how the students of that dorm are presented. However, let me expand a bit on this thought by making something clear: there’s what the dorm is defined as, and then there’s the path each dorm leader decides to follow. To give a few examples, we see Riddle follow the rules of the Queen of Heart to the letter, and dole out punishment whenever these rules are broken – to the point it impedes the students, who can’t use their magic in an environment where it is required. We see Leona applying the Might is Right type of thinking, which leads to Savanaclaw students being often depicted as bullies (and let’s not talk about the Magift tournament...). Azul, under the pretence of benevolence, is actually ruthless in the way he binds people to his contracts – it’s also shown that the Leech brothers act as his enforcers, either by forcing people into deals (during exam periods, as shown at the start of Episode 3) or by reclaiming the due payment of the contract in more or less pleasant ways (Jade being the local master manipulator, while Floyd canonically states that he finds the breaking of bones a more efficient method). Are you seeing where this is going? As a dorm leader, Vil applies his own views on his fellow Pomefiore students; his views happen to include appearances because he aims to be perfect in every way and has a professional background that justifies it. Is it fair to go as far as he is going when it comes to pressuring other students? Of course it isn’t, it’s the whole point of showing him slapping Epel for what he deems an inappropriate behaviour (see Epel’s Ceremonial Card). It sets the conflict of the dorm – and I personally dig how this major narrative bit is hidden in a story... Which brings us to the other point, the meta aspect of Pomefiore. It’s based on Snow White, a story that relies heavily... On appearances. Now let me ask you: is it really surprising to have a dorm based on such story have a focus on appearances as well? And we even get to see different aspects of it: Vil focuses on the tiniest details to be as polished as possible, Rook has a deep love for change and fleeting moments, Epel can turn something nobody wants into something highly desirable (carving damaged apples to sell them better). Pomefiore is the dorm of transformations – both literal and metaphorical -, a fascinating concept in my opinion and a brilliant idea for a solid narrative arc.

Second belief: Vil is a horrible, narcissistic person, but he will also play dress-up/makeup

Let’s sit for a second there, because there are many things to unpack. Now, what do we know about the fairest of all dorm leaders? Well, quite a lot, for someone who has yet to properly appear in the main story! The very first thing we learn about him is that he has a whooping 5 million followers on Magicam – which is massive and not a number you reach while sitting on your hands and waiting for something to happen. This is such an impressive number that we even get to see various reactions to it, from being very impressed to trying to use that fame for personal purposes. Through reading the stories in which he appears, we get to learn some interesting things about Vil: generally speaking, he fits perfectly the image of the consummate professional. In Jade’s SSR story, we get a solid peek into his life and the man has a busy schedule. He juggles daily with his duties as a student, a dorm leader, an influencer and a professional model – these things take time and he manages to go from one duty to the other with both the ease of someone who’s used to it and the precise organisation of someone with a solid head on his shoulders as well as an incredibly strong work ethic and drive. Speaking from personal experience with the modelling part and an informed opinion on the influencer part, these two fields alone aren’t easy to handle at all. Being an influencer can be very cutthroat (as a certain beauty community has been demonstrating since last year...), and being a professional model requires a lot of drive and dedication, as well as major self-care in regard to both your body and your mental health, because those are the tools of your trade as a model. In consequence, Vil as a dorm leader focuses on appearances as a result of heavy intellectual work to honour the Fair Queen he so highly respects (he says so in his voicelines: “True beauty is determined by strong intellect. You can always doctor your looks, but your true colors will still shine through right away.”), but Vil as a person is also extremely focused on his appearance because he’s doing his job. It’s not narcissism, it’s professionalism. And with his Ceremonial Robes story, we even get to learn that he was ostracised in his hometown for being a performer, yet he kept going and working to reach his goals. For someone who’s only 18 years old, this is an exceptional display of drive, discipline and maturity.

Vil has the highest standards for himself, but because he comes from pretty damn far, he also expects other people to be capable of showing the same degree of determination to achieve their goals. He expresses that in various ways, from being openly displeased with Leona’s general negligence (with Ruggie doing all the work in the background – see Leona’s school uniform story and Ruggie’s lab coat story), to being unimpressed by the new Pomefiore students and getting ready to whip them in a shape he’ll deem desirable as soon as he lays his eyes on them. He’s also highly critical of people going for the easy way out: in his school uniform story, he not only criticises Cater for trying to use him for his own five seconds of fame by buttering him up, but he also emphasises the fact that his services aren’t free. Emphasis on that: Vil isn’t a charity. He isn’t the sort of person with whom you’ll mutually brush your hair while sharing smoothie recipes. Rook is more likely to be the one up to that sort of thing, because Rook is nice and a good senior (see: Rook’s ceremonial robes story). Vil, on the other hand, encourages a lot to try and learn on your own, to use your own head in order to create your own brand (see his lab coat voicelines). He’ll be more enclined to help only after you started doing a part of the job independently and showed you can think and act for yourself. And even then, he’ll likely kick your ass to push you to keep up, because behind all the sparkles and lustre Vil is very much depicted as an overbearing Drill Sergeant. Like I pointed out earlier, it’s heavily hinted that he didn’t get where he is by waiting for good fortune to come by. He works for his success daily and expects other people to do the same. Does it seem like a rather unfair treatment? Sure, but at the same time it provides a great learning opportunity for those willing to put up with it, and Vil offers it in a surprisingly selfless manner: there is an open concern about the way people present themselves, and how they can do it to be their best self at all time.

Interestingly, it creates a peculiar dynamic with his vice dorm leader, Rook. There’s a constant sway between them, with Vil bluntly telling him he can be easily replaced if he fails in his duties, while still relying on him more than Rook relies on him in return – in fact, Rook pretty much follows his own path, and Vil happens to be a very nice view along that path so Rook decided to stop and hang out for a bit, but he still checks his surroundings for other nice views. So while Rook puts up with Vil’s tight requirements (see Rook’s ceremonial robes story, where Floyd cleverly observes that he doesn’t seem that fond of the perfume Vil created for him and forces him to wear during ceremonies), he’s also the one taking actual charge of the new students (see when he checks on Epel in his ceremonial robes story, or when he offers his support during the Ghost Marriage event) and trying to smooth things out when Vil is being too rough (see Vil’s ceremonial robes story). Interestingly, it leads to a communication issue between these two, fueled by what looks very much like a unilateral dependant relationship on Vil’s part, no matter how much he denies it. He rejects Rook through threats of replacing him, yet fully trusts his eyes and sincerity, yet this very sincerity is the reason why Vil doesn’t fully open up to Rook (see Vil’s lab coat story, he goes to Trey to vent about Rook’s lack of consideration) and uses a Harsh Commanding Queen attitude to hide his own insecurities from the eyes of the person who can see them best. It’s likely not helped by the fact that Vil is aware that he needs Rook more than Rook needs him – it’s obvious when reading the latter’s profile: Rook likes his privacy, and while he keeps putting his nose in other people’s business (not out of malice, but genuine curiosity), he’s notoriously deemed annoying by characters like Leona and Malleus because of his overly curious yet inconsiderate nature. There’s a selfishness in Rook which protects him from getting fully controlled by Vil, I’ll repeat myself here but I’d rather insist on that: Rook willingly decided to follow Vil, it means he has the power to refuse him as well (which is very much like... Oh, the Huntsman in Snow White – though in his case specifically, there’s also variations in which his family is held hostage and all, while Rook makes his own decisions).

This entire situation is heavily fueled by Vil’s need for control. As aforementioned, he focuses on the tiniest details and holds complete control over everything that makes his life what it is: from the type of makeup he picks to every single component used in the meals he prepares himself, Vil has a clear need for full control, and it’s reflected in the way he interacts with other students, as well as in the way he handles even his club activities. Vil isn’t just a model, influencer and even actor, in the film study club he works as a director and in one of his stories (lab coat), he’s even shown to create the special effects himself, because only he can provide for his own desires in the most exact fashion. This is where his little “I can replace you easily” becomes funny, because it translates his need for control without really holding since Rook is the one with the most agency in the relationship. In comparison, in Silver’s PE uniform story, Silver is treated like a pawn and Vil even berates Malleus in front of him because Silver dares deny him (how dare he have his own agency instead of being a nice prop who should feel honoured to be selected). Interestingly, Silver also compares Vil’s way of doing things to something martial. AhemDrillSergeantVilahem. In this story, the interesting point is that things finally start working well when Vil stops considering his own vision and decides to look beyond it a bit: taking Silver’s actual abilities into consideration, he finally has a scene that works. It works because he loosened the control a bit – while Silver went along with it but remained vocal the whole time about where his own skills lie.

While the relationship between Vil and Rook, as well as Vil and the rest of the Pomefiore dorm, have been holding through a quietly tense status quo, there is one pebble - dare I say, one potato - who is more than willing to challenge the whole situation through open defiance and a strong will: Epel. He has been set by the narration to be the catalyst to an incoming breaking point, because he wants to live his life to the beat of his own drum, yet remains a teen still in need of a journey of self-discovery. It’s illustrated in how he misunderstands the point of Pomefiore by only looking at the surface - something Vil reproaches, which is why he even talks about his need for more self-awareness in the lesson chats. Of course, Vil uses his own language (beauty) to get his point across, but the underlying point is that Epel has yet to reach a certain degree of self-realisation - such as the fact he is free to try and work hard to become beefier (Vil wouldn’t object as long as he puts in the necessary efforts), or that he is a good fit in Pomefiore because he has the drive to reach his goals and gives himself the means to do so (high awareness, anyone?). Basically, he’s the example of Vil’s communication issues: Vil’s martial nature tends to drown the actual meaning of his motivational speeches. Paradoxically, when dealing with someone like Epel, it actually fuels the teen through spite, which is both comical and quite impressive given Epel’s results (reminder of his own lab coat story, in which he manages to impress Crewel, a man made from the same fabric as Vil, with his formidable results through hard work). However, this form of motivation isn’t healthy, and just like with Rook, a good, long talk is needed to create a better understanding - instead of forcing his Tyranny of Beauty on others.

Bonus point, because I really want to address it

For some time now, I’ve been vocal about my personal feelings regarding the reception of Pomefiore and its characters. While it became more positive since June, it still tends to miss the point for a reason I’d like to address: the Not Like The Other Girls mentality and how it specifically affects the way Vil and his own femininity are perceived.

While I am not invalidating this thinking as part of a larger growth process, I think it has been unfairly used against Pomefiore. In a way, it’s very much the way Epel reacts: it’s just a Pretty People Dorm led by an Annoying Pretty Boy, and Savanaclaw is cooler. However, this is not only superficial, it puts a judgement of value that means that one has to be put down for the other to shine. In other words, Vil as a character is undervalued because his way of life - which matches traditionally feminine occupations, hell he’s even using a feminine pronoun - has been associated with vanity, narcissism, and superficiality by the fandom. To get my point across, let me provide you with quotes from some of our most brilliant minds:

“Woman wants to be independent […] this is one of the worst developments in the general uglification of Europe. Woman has so much reason for shame; in woman there is concealed so much superficiality, petty presumption and petty immodesty – one needs only to study her behaviour with children!” - Nietzsche

“What is truth to a woman? From the very first nothing has been more alien, repugnant, inimical to woman than truth - her great art is the lie, her supreme concern is appearance and beauty” - Nietzsche (again)

“A man’s face is his autobiography. A woman’s face is her work of fiction.” - Oscar Wilde 

“All the pursuits of men are the pursuits of women also, but in all of them a woman is inferior to a man.” - Plato

“As regards the sexes, the male is by nature superior and the female inferior, the male ruler and the female subject” - Aristotle

Do you see where I’m going with that? Because he has an occupation focused on appearance, something historically associated with women, Vil should be… Less? Should be negative? Even though he is quite vocal about it being a mere result of a much deeper work on himself, throughout his voicelines, lesson chats and personal stories? It’s not vanity, it’s not narcissism. It’s Vil expressing himself through the age old art forms of fashion, skincare and makeup. How, and why it being focused on something external should be less? It’s especially obvious when you stop and consider Vil’s own testimony: he has been ostracized by his own community for being a performer. His appearance is as much a mask as it is a proof of everything that preceded it – him saving himself with his own means and work. It’s both a protection and a result that he proudly brandishes – and he absolutely can afford the arrogance to do so, considering his achievements at such a young age (reminder, again, that he’s 18 years old, despite being very disillusioned with life already). Why should it be less that? Vil’s inclination towards appearances is both his truth and his fiction, that’s what the narrative tells us - and there’s nothing bad about that.

I guess I’m especially tired of this point because I’ve had to deal with that thinking pattern myself irl, for evolving in similar fields/similar hobbies, and it’s frustrating to see that sort of close mindedness. It’s infuriating. So, that’s a more personal aspect of my rant... But here we are.

[rusty-k]

A Theory About the Saint of Duty

[HTN/TLT SPOILERS]

Hey TLT people--

There was a reddit thread about the Saint of Duty the other day (link), and I commented some G1deon thoughts of mine that’ve been brewing in my head for a while. I figured I’d bring them to the tumblr tag to open up some discussion and see if anyone else buys this theory, or honestly just to spread some G1deon love. (I imprint on minor characters; it’s a curse.)

This is more or less copied from my reddit comment word-for-word, but here’s some general thought on Gideon the First’s personality, and why I have a theory that he might’ve lobotomized himself like Harrow:

G1deon character thoughts

G1deon as we know him in HtN is likely very different from the man he must've been 10,000 years ago. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if he changed significantly between the start of the Wake affair and the events of book 2.

More so than any of the other Lyctors, Gideon and Pyrrha seemed to have had this strong synergy going on. Unlike most necros, Gideon is a buff beef jerky man, and we see two rapiers in G&P's room. The winnowing/construct trial is also referred to as "Pyrrha's trial," which has always struck me as a curious detail and suggests to me that Pyrrha knew more about necromancy than cavs generally do. We know that the saintly epithets refer to the cavs, in general, but I don't think that was exactly the case for G&P; based on the previously stated, I believe they were both equally dutiful people, willing to throw themselves into each other's studies and share each other's skills.

Aug and Mercy were forced to rush their Lyctorization process because of their reckless cavs, and G1deon was next, but the fact that Pyrrha compartmentalized suggests they were closer to figuring it out than Aug and Mercy were--which I think is greatly due to the harmony of their relationship.

We know from what the other Lyctors & John have said that Gid loved and respected Pyrrha deeply. I wouldn't be surprised if the ferocity with which he threw himself into his saintly work over the 10,000 years emerged--at least partially, if not primarily--from his devotion to her. There's Pyrrha, the most spectacular cav and an all-around badass, and Gideon--having taken her to fuel his ascension--acting as John's attack dog with an intensity that would make her sacrifice worthwhile.

It's difficult to gauge how much Gideon actually enjoyed any of this; John seems to think he did, but I wouldn’t trust John for shit, and I'm sure John's understanding of G1d is heavily skewed in his own favor.

I think it's also important to consider Pyrrha's side of this story as it relates to G1deon’s current state, as well as the Wake affair. Her actions raise several questions. First of all, how long did it take for her to realize that she could take control of his body? How exactly did it happen, the first time? And how aware is Gideon? Does he have any inkling at all? Is there something more to his forgetfulness, something purposeful?

I have to imagine that in any case, Pyrrha must have gone through a lot over those 10,000 years. 10,000 years of odd sensory deprivation, which was probably hell for a fiery badass like P. 10,000 years of watching Gideon put up with John's bullshit, of watching the other Lyctors die off one-by-one and accumulate a host of mental, physical, and emotional scars. I'm convinced that Pyrrha's relationship with "duty" changed over the course of the years as she watched from this disembodied perspective, and that her "treachery" against John (her affair with Wake & possibly feeding intel to the BoE) was just a natural progression of that change.

When Wake factors in, I'd bet good money that the driving factor in both Pyrrha and Gideon's attraction to her is that she reminds them both of Pyrrha. Hell, Pyrrha even says this outright: "She was the most dangerous woman I'd ever met who wasn't me." I imagine that P's attraction to Wake, beyond this cool display of cockiness, also emerged from a sort of nostalgia--maybe Wake reminds her of what life used to be when she had a body, when she could fight and command, when she had a cause to occupy her energy. On G1d's side, he sees a woman who's dedicated and dutiful, even if it's for an enemy faction, and a woman who would undeniably make one hell of a cavalier (I think someone says this in HtN, although I'm forgetting who, so correct me if I’m wrong). I'm sure there's nostalgia in it for him, too.

Then, there's elephant in the room: Wake's fiery red hair and Pyrrha's name, meaning "flame-colored." I'm convinced that at least some of the similarities were physical. And at the bottom of it all is the inherent sexiness of finding a worthy opponent who's also hot. Lol.

Gideon Prime Lobotomy Time(?)

Here's where things get squirrelly for me, and the main reason why I have a theory that G1d's current state might be partially self-inflicted.

G&P were having discrete affairs with Wake, which inherently brings up logistical questions. First of all, how? And how exactly did Wake come to "kiss" Gideon "before she realized what they were?" How long were the durations of time in which Pyrrha kept his body under her control? In any case, after Wake & Gideon initiated their leg of the affair, it continued throughout the two years up until Gideon Jr.'s birth, which implies that Gideon Prime had some agency and willfulness in all of it. It's difficult to imagine the permanently-spaced-out-thousand-yard-stare man we know in HtN actively participating in such an entanglement.

Of course, I’ll acknowledge that it's entirely possible that I'm wrong, and that Wake just jumps his bones when she feels like it, and he's like "ok I guess," so take this as you will; but I'd like to put forth the suggestion that G1d's memory loss and overall lack of lucidity might be self-inflicted, to the tune of Harrow's lobotomy. We don't know how aware Gideon is of Pyrrha's presence, but it does seem to be the case that Lyctors having an awareness of the cav is dangerous for the cav. Being an accomplished necromancer, I'm sure Gideon was/is a smart man. Pyrrha mentions that she was "able to go underground" from him, but what if Gideon started to catch on to Pyrrha's presence through the double-affair? What if Wake let something slip? What if the thing that Wake didn't realize about them was the fact that Pyrrha's survival depends on Gideon's lack of awareness?

What if he lobotomized himself at some point, after catching onto Pyrrha's presence, at the expense of his sanity?

What really strikes me is the post-incinerator scene (HtN ch.31, pg. 292 in the hardcover):

The Saint of Duty turned his body toward you. He was clutching his rapier; but it was idle ... His eyebrows were very slightly drawn together, a sort of exhausted crinkle. He looked at you, and he said in a voice you had known since you were eight years old: "I sometimes--forget."

It was the tone--clinical, enamelled, half-defensive, half-endangered--the tone of someone admitting a final fraily. It was familiar because you had used it yourself. Understand I am insane.

It's his quiet resolution that does it for me; he knows something's missing, and he's accepted it. He's being set up as a parallel to Harrow in this particular moment, and it just makes me wonder if the parallel goes beyond his understanding of his own “insanity” and extends to the means by which he has become "insane." 

Pyrrha's already being set up as a parallel to Gideon Jr., both in terms of her formerly-skewed sense of duty and her compartmentalization, so I think this sort of dual-parallel between G1d and Harrow would work nicely, if only from a meta perspective.

In short, I think Gideon the First's feelings on everything that happened are complex, fraught. I think "duty" is what defined much of his personality, and I think what we see of him now is the result of split senses of duty having torn him apart:

he's torn between his devotion to Pyrrha (and by extension, ironically, his devotion to John) and his interest in (and perhaps love for) Wake;

torn between John's command to kill Harrow and whatever it is that caused him to pull punches (I'm guessing a combination of basic decency and solidarity); and

at the end of it all, he's quietly accepting of his own "frailty," understanding that the current situation is the shitty result of everything that's happened over the past myriad, and that there's likely no way to set himself straight, even though his shortcomings put him in direct conflict with the man he's "supposed to be," according to this awful religion, and according to what others think of him.

Anyway, for those who’ve stuck around, that’s all I have to say for now! I’m just so fascinated by the Saint of Duty/the Pyrwakeon story that’s going on behind the scenes; there’s such an understated intensity to it, and honestly, it didn’t even hit me until months after my first read-through. 

I’m curious to hear what other people are thinking, too!

[pseudofaux]

even an injured hand grasps at grace

A lonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng time ago I did a follower celebration with short fictions and promised a longer story to the winner. That (incredibly patient) winner was @fieryanmitsu, who asked for a story set after Mitsuhide’s Act II. Holidays, family stuff, a global pandemic, more family stuff, a crisis of creative drive, MORE holidays and MORE time later... Here, at last, it is. Anmitsu, thank you so much for participating in that follower celebration, for being so kind about the mortifying amount of time this has taken, and for being a fellow Cat Daddy fangirl. I am very, very grateful for your grace! M, 6000 words, SLBP Mitsuhide. CWs: obvious but unnamed depression, brief discussion of death by weapons. (But mostly it is happy-thinky-poetic wife worship and baby fever.)

Sometimes when she is exhausted she speaks in this silly way. His love for her makes him warm to his toes. Adorable, his wife is adorable. He will never again allow any other duty to shove her out of the place she deserves in the center of his heart.

He will never hold a sword again. The discovery that there is still any strength in the arm once so mighty, enough that he can use it to work: a cause for gratitude and relief. A gift. He can attend to the responsibilities of his new life. He has a new life. Master Tenkai knows better than most men what death looks like when it bears down in a flash of metal. Sword death is the smooth silver of steel, spear death is the sluggish brown of mud that will cradle a dying man, and death by bullet is the black of blood that comes out so thick it is purple before it is red. Weapon deaths are cold, as though to compensate for the heat of their forging. There is a depth of balance in this that he cannot yet name, a mystery of the heavens like the others he spends so much time thinking about and helping the mountain villagers understand.

This new life is mostly keeping up their modest home (half residence, half tiny temple), and sharing knowledge with the villagers and their children. Of course he still thinks of Sakamoto when he sees the children growing... but his entire life he has been too much in his own head, and since they came to the mountain he has gotten better at leaving memories alone. He does not forget, and he hopes this makes him a decent man. Like any decent monk, he allows the thoughts of Sakamoto their due, which is to rest and flow over him as water flows over every side of a fish. It is right that it surrounds him. He could not and cannot do anything for Sakamoto, or address the irreparable harm he caused. He can consider it, meditate on it, and live with what he has done. And he will. Because he can live.

Swordwork’s precision and steadiness are forever gone from him, he believes. But he still has his arm and still has his life, even after he made peace with losing much more before Hideyoshi’s sword came down. He can pet the cats that congregate around the little temple, and he can twirl bits of string and stalks of grass for them. He can still write, his characters more calligraphic than they were before. He has to work hard to make clear strokes when he teaches the village children, and he feels that is a just requirement. When the house needs repairs, he can make them, and he can draw air into his lungs and live with his failures and successes both, or at least live with his failures and the grace he has been given. He has the brush, and he has the strong walking stick that his wife has helped him cut to the right height. The staff is smooth in his hand after only a few months’ use, a little extra oil applied when they have it. He wonders if he is allowed this easy comfort, but will not allow a walking stick to be a thing that trips his thoughts. His watchword now is moderation, not abnegation. If a fallen tree limb comes to him he will be grateful, and if the wood breaks he will let it go. He is willing, now, to let so much go.

There is only one exception, and she sleeps easy these days, when the cold of night on the mountain curls them together as though they are rabbits in a burrow. They wake slowly to this dream life. The part of him that is a decent monk cannot help but wonder how different their lives might be if it had been this for them all along. He did not want to rule; he had only ever wanted to spare others the hardships of ruling, and allow all good people the comfort of safety, from most divine ruler to most helpless child. These thoughts are in his head. Here in their tiny room in the building that is their home and the village’s temple, she is in his arms. In his heart and his bones, he knows that fact is grander than any man’s attempt at divinity.

He never has to force smiles at the children who come to the temple to learn. They are rowdy, eager, and completely charming. He is comfortably grinning at a group of them when he catches sight of her at the bend in the path that leads to their home. She is smiling, too, and there are tall leafy greens sticking out of the pack behind her shoulders that remind him of the folded wings of a fine hawk, the kind favored by samurai and nature alike. What would they do, if not for her hawklike competence and gentle ferocity?

Likely starve, he tells himself, on both melancholy days and happy ones. It is only the truth. He has learned a few things, but cannot match her, and while he is always available to the villagers, he stays near the temple unless he is asked for in the town. She does their shopping, she is their face. No one of quality can resist being won over by the warmth of her smile.

The children are thrilled to see her, and it reminds him of a dream he has had several times now, something he has kept to himself because it is so precious and he still does not want to ask anything of her. He is not sure if the slips of dream come from the peace of their life or the torment they left behind them, whether the dream is reward or recompense. But the cheers of the children take hold of his heart and make a tapestry of the scraps of his happiest dreams, weaving them tightly with what he is truly seeing. His thoughts nearly take him to his knees-- or perhaps that is an insistent little person, tugging at the edge of his sleeve.

“Master Tenkai!” chirps the village child. “Hana is home, so it is time for our lesson!”

They teach the children together in the afternoon’s warm, clean light, and only send them home when it is time for her to prepare their evening meal and him to complete the evening sweeping of the temple floor. Later that night, she seems relaxed and sleepy next to him, full of food, full of love. She asks, “Do you remember when I asked you to bring me a stone, so I could make you pickles?”

That is a pleasant memory from their life before, a luminescent pearl floating through silt that suffocated so much happiness. But the memory itself is light. So his smile is easy and does not feel like punishment, and he nods and strokes the space between her shoulders.

“On this mountain I have all the stones I need,” she declares, pressing her cheek to his chest. The smoothness of her face is finer to him than any pearl, a marvel of sensation that settles him, instantly and completely. “And I will make you pickles every week, if you want them,” she adds.

Sometimes when she is exhausted she speaks in this silly way. His love for her makes him warm to his toes. Adorable, his wife is adorable. He will never again allow any other duty to shove her out of the place she deserves in the center of his heart.

“Only whenever you are inclined,” he says, drumming his fingertips to tickle her.

Her giggle is sleepy. “There’s not time to make them every day,” she quips, snuggling closer and sliding an ankle between his calves. He has only the one dream that is sweeter than his actual life, and he is keeping it close to his chest for now. But he will not keep anything closer to his chest than she is. They squeeze one another, and he expects they do not fully relax their arms until they fall asleep.

A winter has passed, and a spring. This is their first summer on the mountain, so they are learning the cycle of invigorating mornings, sweltering afternoons, and unpredictable nights. They have already learned from kind villagers how to best coax food from the pebbly soil of their garden, and their efforts in the summer are devoted to this every day until the air grows too hot and they retreat to the shade of the temple to fan themselves with their hands and drink water that (they hope) has managed to hold some of the chill of the night before.  

Every morning he braids her hair, and in these summer days a few strands always escape and stick to the back of her neck, temptations that coax him to bare her shoulders and murmur along the skin he worships. She often swats him away, because even after tending the garden there is plenty of work to do. But sometimes she does not swat him away at all, and some days she draws closer with a magnificent, confident need. He cannot determine if it is need for him or need to show him something, but each time, their bodies become hotter still, sweat running like streams and stinging their eyes even as it makes moving together easier.

There is a day at midsummer when they cannot help themselves, resting on the step to their home. They are covered from the relentless sun by the good new roof of the temple. He is vulnerable to melancholy in the heavy air that precedes a storm. She knows this. By the time the thunder and rain seem to be on every side of them, heaven’s own veil around the little holy place where they live, their hands are in each other’s hair, she is straddling him, and he is kissing her so deeply he can taste their midmorning snack. The last time she went to town she came back with karashi seeds, and their food this week has been bright in their mouths, cleansing and flavorful. He is hungry for it.

“Mitsuhide,” she pants quietly. The rain around them is so dense no one would hear her, but that name is never spoken above the softest whisper. Her other sounds are louder, even louder than the roar of the rain, and he loosens his hold on himself to match her. He groans as he tilts his hips up toward hers, everything that he is straining for her. They are so warm that even though the air is cooling around them, the rain may as well be steam. One of her hands slides from his hair to his neck and then down his chest, between their bodies, until she palms his insistence and he gasps for her until she squeezes. They moan together, unbearably hot in the sweet agony before they join.

“Now? Here?” he asks. They’re alone, but he craves her comfort as much as her indulgence. There is always a point where he stops asking, but before that he needs permission. She gives it in a nod and shuffles off his lap onto the floor, still stroking him through his clothing. Her clothes are already loose from their embrace, and she puts her other hand inside her collar and tugs down until she is cupping her breast. His blood in his ears is louder than rain or crashing waves or the war chorus of a hundred desperate men. He lunges at her, one hand in her hair and another at the back of her neck to soften her landing. When he is over her, he snarls at her temple before kissing the space with the beastliness that is revealed by these stormy days. It is a wet kiss, and because his tongue cannot taste enough of her he ends up licking from her cheek to her hairline. He savors her, salt and spice and earth and somehow his, as he pushes into her hand. She does not let go of him. He never wants to let go of her.

His hand slips from her neck into the heaven of her opened collar, and his thumb finds her nipple between her fingers. She lets go, gives herself to him, and he pants adoration into her ear as he rolls the peak, beautifully strong, until she moans. He knows this is right, that nothing else in the world is anything next to the truth of how right it feels to cage her in, make her tremble, and soothe her, serve her.

So he doesn’t hold back. He tells her she is the most wonderful, beautiful, desirable, beloved. His mind makes poetry for her and he licks the words onto skin he pinches delicately between his teeth. You are rainfall to a dying man, you are here, you feel better than breezes, you are mine. After all he has done, he remains a man, and a man is an animal, as any man who has gone to war can say with certainty.

The thin clothes he wears for gardening are sticking to his body, and he swears he can feel the drag of each thread against his skin as he moves with her, friction enough to spark a fire through their sweat. Her hand on him is maddening kindling.

“You are flames,” he declares as he ruts down into her hand. “You are burning me.” A man is an animal, a gasping creature not sophisticated enough to express all she makes him feel.

She slows her hand and hums, pleased by they way he gives himself over. That is the way they play. “It is too wet for flames,” she murmurs, as though she is consoling him instead of throwing tinder on the fire she has made. “Drown in me instead of burning, my love.”

The affection in her words soothes his amorous madness and spreads the familiar, comfortable warmth to all the tips of his body as the power shifts between them again. He loves her so much. Could any man convey so much feeling? To be an animal is not bad, but it is base, and she is made of heaven and still chooses to be with him. He smiles at her in wonder of all her beauty and bravery. He will focus on giving her anything that he can.

“Gladly,” he whispers, smiling wider. He takes her wrist and pulls her away from her work. When she complies and settles her hand against the floor by her head, he unties the rope of faded jute braids that hold her kosode closed at her hips. She is worthy of finery but dressed in these threadbare rags with him instead, and still her eyes say she has what she desires. As he drops the thick cord beside their bodies, he thinks he will try to find her a pretty bead, or even a nice smooth stone from the stream, something to adorn her middle and give her pleasure when she sees it. She gives him so much pleasure.

Their clothes as temple keepers are very humble, but they are much easier to remove than their daily wear of only a year ago. Sacrilegious but sincere, he mutters his gratitude at the simplicity of baring her body to his eyes. Her slopes are gorgeous, winding like the gentlest river against the air. She reminds him of a war map he saw years ago, illustrated with hills and pools so lovely he mourned as war was planned against the unarmed ground.

He shakes away that memory to construct another of the way she looks right now, sensual and receptive, womanly in the way she came to be when they started their lives here. Back in control of herself, of both of them, she parts her lips and breathes his new name. He undoes the scrap of old kimono that serves for his sash, and peels away his own sweaty robe. When he comes back down to her, she has freed her arms from her sleeves and their hands find each other, fingers dancing warm and worn as they wrap together.

Now it is still raining, but the roar of it has quieted to a loving hiss. The light is gray and blue, so she looks like nighttime. She pulls him to her with the power of dusk closing flowers, and their kiss is moon-soft, full of promise instead of frenzy. Her lip is a marvel between his and he loves pressing it with his own lips and teeth and sucking gently to make it swell. He wants to touch it with his thumb while he’s inside her and then kiss her again, maybe kiss her while he touches her with his thumb.

The chill at his back cannot last when there is so much heat between them, no matter what she says of drowning instead of burning. A man can drown in the bubbles of a hot spring as well as he can in winter’s water. He sucks in a breath and breathes it out into her mouth, and when she does the same with more force he shudders. His hands slide to her hips, where her curves fit into his palms as though he were a farmer and she were a ripe stalk of rice. She is at least as crucial and nourishing.

He is so hard he doesn’t need to take himself in hand. The head of his cock slides (with a sureness he would never claim aloud) between her folds, against the spot that makes her thighs flex. The movement is easy, a slip if not for his control. They are always so eager for one another.

“How?” he asks, and kisses the chin she is offering as her head is thrown back. “Here? This? Just outside the reach of the rain?” A demon is in him, to tease her like this, but the demon wants her pleasure as surely as he does because this is what she wants, for everything to be drawn out until their tension snaps. “Do you want the air on all your skin?” he continues. “I will give you anything. Just tell me.”

She hums the thoughtful sound that means she’s thought of some way to drive him insane. Thunder cracks with an ominous sharpness in the distance, and when she tilts her head and looks at him there is lightning and mischief in her eyes. He squeezes her but still she wriggles out from beneath him... and she goes to one of the beams that holds up the roof, safe from the rain thanks to the overhang. She moves her feet back and bends at her waist and he can do nothing but feel blessed and aroused, so aroused he is stupid. The warmth she put in him turns to tingles, like she has displaced the lightning from her gaze and made his skin the sky and his bones the bare, vulnerable earth. Within himself he feels a frighteningly intense buzzing.

“This first,” she declares. “Just watch for now, darling. Stay where you are.” Her thighs and calves are so defined from the ways she has to toil in this new life that he feels a shadow of guilt for enjoying the sight of her so much. It vanishes when he sees her fingertips between her legs, right at his eye level. She is pulling his mind apart, but her method for that is giving him this gift, and in this life he takes what he is given.

“Yes,” he rasps, and swallows before the dryness in his though makes him cough. “Yes, of course.”

The movement of her arm slides her loosened braid along a shoulder like a brushstroke. Her touches are sure-- she told him months ago that she learned to do this when he made her sleep alone for nights on end. He curses his foolishness even as he is grateful for it. She is always turning the most miserable ingredients into feasts, his wife.

Her sure fingers make circles and dip into her folds to smear her arousal. She likes it a little messy sometimes, another thing she has revealed in the safety of their seclusion. He loves what she loves, and he wants to put his mouth on her, put his cock in her, so badly that he fears his voice will scar his throat in a mad escape if he has to stay apart from her much longer. But he will die of idiocy alone if he interrupts. So he watches, the cool air of isolation doing nothing to keep his belly from tightening when she coos. Her hips begin to drop forward to meet her hand and he bites the flesh of his palm to stave off insanity as long as he may. She is a cat, he realizes, playing with all his many frayed ends. When she glances back, whatever she sees on his face-- he must be flushed, he feels terribly hot-- makes her laugh, dark and sweet. She keeps going and keeps her eyes on him. There is that gentle command so uniquely her in the way she looks at him. It makes him feel like he is blooming frantically, too fast, a blossom pummeled by rain and completely out of control... and she keeps looking, keeps smiling, draws the moment into moments until he thinks he might sob.

And then she curls her fingers against herself to beckon him and says “Come here.” The way her voice puts the words somewhere between request and demand is flattering, but he has no time to be flattered. Rain-cooled air yields against his arms and legs as he rushes to her. Immediately, he is there behind her legs, positioning himself, and the heat of her backside would burn him were he not already so ruined. Against her at last, he can appreciate the way the weak light on her sweat-slicked back is more beautiful than the finest inkwash, the ways she smells competent and domestic and alluring, like the precious sweet scent of soil that hides between mountain pebbles. She is all these things, and she is so calm as his mind whirls in its delirium of adoration and arousal.

He doesn’t mean to tremble, but his hold on himself has been too tight, and the spaces where his teeth dug into his hand throb. Like the mongrel pet to a noble lady, he has little other purpose but to love her. He sees that she can sense it. There is a grace to her certainty when he grits his teeth, even though she is wound so tightly that when the head of his cock finally presses inside her, he must push. Slick, soft, smooth, she feels, somehow, despite the pressure. As he pushes fully inside, their groans are wanton to the point of inhumanity, more like the sound of creatures in the night than of a man and his wife. His wife, his wife. He pulls back and groans again at the way her body fights to keep him. He swipes the braid off her back and kisses her shoulder, pushing back in slowly as her soft, strong body welcomes him.

“More,” she cries, her first sound of vulnerability, and he is eager to take care of her. He knows to move steady and powerfully but keep it slow at first. She comes better around him, but needs to be allowed to focus, so he is quiet as he focuses on her and the way the muscles of his back stretch and roll to please her. He is still a fit man, and he hopes his body thrills her as hers thrills him.

She makes a needy noise between her teeth and moves faster, shaking just a little. She hisses “keep going,” and of course he does. The tension he felt a moment ago is so unimportant now he is not sure if it was real. In the time when things shift between them he no longer needs permission, and he feels the magic calm settling over him-- it is his turn. All he needs to do is what she needs from him, it’s so simple. And he would do anything she asked, for the chance to be so near her when she finds bliss. It is already rising up his legs, like a snake squeezing and sliding, like ripples... and her sighs are like waves. Maybe she is too wet to be flames because she is water itself. The way into her is blissful enough, a slick heavy pressure around him where she is swollen from all their kisses and touching. The challenge of it makes him grin with a ferality he usually keeps well out of sight, and he presses on, pulls back, kisses her shoulder again and calls her his beloved. His voice doesn’t shake.

Hers does. “Again,” she pleads, grasping back for his hand. “I want it again.” She guides his fingers in circles until he knows where she is and what she needs, and then she lets him give it to her. Trust is such a sacred thing.

When he touches her she laughs, and he laughs too, and fucks her with a great deal of joy. They find their pattern: her hips push back to meet his thrusts, so when he presses in, deeply, they fit as cleanly as a carpenter’s masterwork. The storm has truly cooled the air but all it does is chill the fresh sweat on their skin as they move. It invigorates him, makes his spirit shout with a freedom he cannot contemplate at the time. His wife is using the beam that holds up their roof to push back against him, allowing the tender space between her breasts to be abraded by the wood. There is room for nothing but happiness here, nothing to do but honor her sacrifice and make her feel more pleasure.

“Yes,” she rewards him with her voice for a particular thrust, dragging out the sound at a pitch that registers inside him while he is inside her. So he moves himself even faster to try and repeat it, then relishes the sweetness of her soft whine. It makes him feel like he is surprising her with his love for once, instead of the constant way she graces him with her own.

He leans over her a little more. “I want nothing as much as I want your happiness,” he tells her, the croon of his voice broken by the intense way their bodies are connecting. Her hand comes back over his, keeping him in place. Magnificent. “Go on,” he tells her. “Again, love. Just like you want. Just like I want. Again.”

She shudders and stops moving her hips (she clings adorably to the support beam, her arm as tense as her hand on his). He keeps going, because he knows that is what she expects. At the end, what she needs is to be filled, to be given something to clench around, and he needs to be that for her. He is so driven, from inside and out, to fuck her, that he cannot do anything else until he feels it, not think or breathe, only move into her as though he can shove bliss into her body. So he tries, until he feels the shaking of her legs as perfection alights, and then he takes one great breath before it hits them both as she squeezes tighter still. They gasp together again as her clenching and soft sounds pull his warmth to fill her. Abundantly. Deeply. The air comes out of his lungs onto her shoulders, then touches his cheeks with the softness of a cloud.

She is breathing heavily, and slowly she puts her weight against the wood and becomes still. There’s a gentle press against his hand before she drops her arm. He’s tempted to catch it and kiss her knuckles, but he does not want to move from being curled around her back. He does move his hand away and puts the arm around her belly instead, holding her that much closer. She feels exactly as warm and soft as a cat who has fallen asleep in the sun.

There is a slick, sticky feeling all around his cock, but there’s nothing unpleasant about it-- something in him actually relishes it, loves the thought of mixing, loves the thought of there being too much, it makes him want to take her to the floor and have her again-- and she does not ask him to move, so he stays until he softens. “Darling,” he whispers then. “I’m going to get us a cloth.” He has desires, but he has mastered himself.

But she mumbles “No. Hold me.”

So when he pulls out as not to slip from her, he simply sits down and pulls her with him, right down into his messy lap. There’s not a breath between the time they land and her turning so she can snuggle his chest. He strokes her hair and kisses her cheeks and nose and tells her what a marvel she is. She is all pliant affection, touching his arms, kissing his jaw, raising a love welt on his shoulder... reaching to stroke him gently, experimentally, just like she did when they were on the steps.

He has mastered himself, but not as well or fully as she has.

He pulls over their clothes and lays her out on top of them on the temple floor so he can join their bodies yet again, unhurried. They have the time for slow lovemaking in this life, and the grace. Her knees frame him as he moves and he cannot help but kiss one and then the other, reveling in her laughter (when he tickles her ribs, she tightens deliciously around him) as much as in her love. They lay together for a long time after that, cool and lazy in the quiet. When the rain is replaced by the first note of tentative birdsong, they know they should move in case someone comes to the temple. Despite the afternoon, they are a cautious couple by nature.

He attempts to clean her with their clothes, and carries her to their room to rest more comfortably. Her hair clings to the idea of a braid, but much of it is loose and floats about his arms in the sodden air. There is a satisfied tilt to her mouth when he helps her sit, and as he moves behind her the last he sees of her face is her smile curving deeper. He settles his robe over her shoulders and combs his fingers through her hair to ward off tangles. When he is finished, he replaits her hair and kisses the ribbon, then her mouth. She shakes her head, hiding her mouth and making him chase it. His rewards are sleepy giggles, enchantingly low, every time he catches her.

Several kisses later, he redresses and leaves for the kitchen to make them a simple meal. He delights in feeding her by hand as soon as he returns, because their closeness makes him feel whole and doting on her feels right. They stay near as they bathe, and then they go back to bed. It is early, but they will need to start early tomorrow to make up for the time they spent not working this afternoon. They have earned their sleep. He wonders if he will have the dream again.

Tucked into their bedding, she is in his arms, not yet dreaming herself. “Darling,” he says quietly into her hair, and murmurs love until she turns to kiss him sweetly and tells him to go to sleep.

He does have the dream. It is the most wonderful dream yet.

“Chichi-ue!” The voice is high and happy. It is coming from behind him, so he must turn away from the sight of his wife with a baby at her breast. Before he can see the little one who called him-- called him chichi-ue, his child-- the dream shifts and his wife is with an older child, tasting broth and listening patiently as the child recites ingredients. Then his wife is with two children, each holding one of her hands as they turn on the bend of the path to their home, and the smallest lets go of her to run to him. Their faces are all obscured by a sudden cloud of mountain dandelion seeds borne on the wind... all he can see are healthy little legs and feet in clean sandals, slapping against the ground as fast as they possibly can. The movement becomes a child’s hand with a brush, marvelously steady and precise. The same hand around a cluster of flower stems. Scraped knees and palms and little puffs of breath between shrieks and giggles as tears are soothed away. Two voices laughing over the plunking sound of skipped river stones ending their flights, and he recognizes the stream where they stand. The face and voice of the herbalist in the village, kindly telling them to be patient and then whispering something they might try. Four simple bowls, mismatched but meant to be together, set around a table. He can see this scene over his own shoulder, hears those same two voices dutifully expressing gratitude for their meal. The sounds change as his dream gives him the voices at different pitches through time, thankful for their rice, fish, vegetables; the bowls stay on the table, the food in them changing in dizzying whirls of color until he wakes.

“Good morning,” says his wife, in the voice she can only use for the first words of the day. Quiet and deep as a hidden pool. “I love you.”

He reaches to stroke her cheek, and tells her about the dream at last. She tells him her dreams, too.

Exhausted but awake, awed and unsure, he holds his son for the first time in the crook of his better arm. All of him shakes, because he is weeping at the perfect newness of this child. The baby, so unhappy with the village woman who came to help with the birth, settles into his father like poetry, and closes sweet dark eyes, and yawns flawlessly. They way the baby’s tongue trembles reminds him of a stretching cat. Master Tenkai of the mountain cannot look away. There is so much to see, and there is something about gazing at this tiny face, shifting magically from pinched to peaceful, that shows him the virtue of disregarding time completely. He should know it for what it is: another effort by man to control what he cannot. Everything that marks time in a human way can be broken. The sun rises no matter what people do in the night.

One of the temple cats senses a fellow creature and leans up to sniff at the baby. The baby’s father is happy to share the sight. The cat noses at the baby’s plumpness and then slinks off, but Tenkai stays where he sits, holding his son beside the bedding where the baby’s mother is gazing at them both with a tired, happy expression on her beautiful face. Her hair has all come loose from its ribbon. The woman from the village said it was an easy birth, but it certainly took its time. At the end, they have their perfect son, and she is alright. Everything is alright. The greatest challenge facing them at the moment is that he will have to learn to braid one-handed. He chuckles to himself and the baby blinks, then settles.

He will never hold a sword again. Whatever time may be, it feels like he made his peace with a more important truth a very long time ago, perhaps in another life entirely, and had only to relearn it. To hold his woman, and child, and the other he believes will join then... that is more than enough for the warrior who was once Mitsuhide, who became Master Tenkai of the mountain. All else may come and go. He will treat everything with respect, and allow all that is temporary to leave his hand like water. His family, permanent and indescribably precious, is the only thing that he will never, ever give up.

[staranon95]

DinCobb Week Day 1: Clan of Three (SFW)

@dincobbweek is finally here! ive never participated in something like this before so hopefully i don’t run away with any of the ideas lol. anyway, here’s my version of Clan of Three

AO3 Link

i could never stay away (not this time not from you)

“This was well earned, partner.”

The Marshal Vanth hefts the Mandalorian armour onto Din’s speeder. The man no longer seems to be morose at the fact of losing the armour and seems rather relieved that it’s all over.

“It was a good fight,” Vanth says, looking out over that half carven carcass of the krayt itself. “I hate to see that it’s finally over.”

“I thought you would be happy to see the threat to your town is over,” Din says as he secures the armour to his speeder. He covers the slab of meat while he’s at it, and the Child turns his ears down now that his easy source for a free meal is covered.

“I wasn’t talkin’ ‘bout the krayt.” Vanth sends him one of those easy smiles in Din’s direction, and Din has to look to the speeder, setting his hands on the helmet. “Listen if you ever find yourself in the area.”

Din nods once. “I’ll have to take you up on that drink. If it’s still available.”

“Hey, I hope our paths will cross again. But you got a friend in me, partner.” He extends his hand and Din reaches up to shake it, and it remains for a time, Vanth squeezing reassuringly before he slides his hand away in what can only be a deliberate move. “Oh, and you tell your people it wasn’t me that broke that thing.” He points to the Rising Phoenix before he’s walking off, armourless and relaxed, towards his people and the Tuskens.

Din sets his hand on the helmet and rubs his hand down over the crown of it. When he hears the Child coo next to him in a questioning tone, he realizes he’s still staring at Vanth’s retreating figure and the lean lines of his body.

He turns to the Child. “What do you think?”

The Child tilts his head, ears flicking upward.

“Want to get back to the ship or stay for the night?”

“Abwa.”

“That’s what I’d thought you’d say. Hold on.”

He lifts the Child and sets him in the bag that sits on the side of the speeder. The Child knows what’s coming and hunkers down as Din mounts the speeder and ignites the engine for the long road back to Mos Eisley.

This time his journey only takes a matter of hours rather than a full day. He knows where Mos Pelgo is now and it’s a fairly direct route through the rocky outcroppings and shifting dunes. Four or five hours by speeder? It’s not a bad ride, and he’s left undisturbed throughout the entirety of it, pulling into Mos Eisley just after the twin suns have passed their zenith.

He’s looking forward to the cool embrace of the Razor Crest. He can’t say he likes Tatooine for it’s sun and heat, and his flight suit and beskar’gam do not make for a cool system to work within.

He swings his leg off of the speeder and lifts the cover off of the krayt meat as Peli Motto approaches him.

“I take it your trip was a success?” She marvels at the slap of meat and snaps her fingers at her droids to come over and handle it.

“In more than one way,” Din says as he begins to take his equipment off of the borrowed speeder in an effort to return it to the Razor Crest.

“Oh! Mando, before you go.” She holds her hands up and looks to the Child expectantly, and Din nods. “Aha, come here you little womprat.” The Child extends his arms to be picked out of the bag, but his attention is still on the meat and to where the pit droids have carried it to an open grill. “So I guess you found it then? Mos Pelgo?”

“I did indeed.”

“What’s it like out that way?”

“Small.”

“Well, that’s frontier towns out there for ya.”

“Do you know of the town’s Marshal at all? Cobb Vanth?”

“Cobb Vanth you say?” Peli looks to the sky and then turns her attention to the Child. “Can’t say I have. The name sounds familiar, though. There was a rebellion a few years back before the second Death Star went—” she uses her free hand to mimic an explosion “—it could’ve been one of his names I was hearing.”

Din hums. He wonders if she’s recalling the story of the Mining Collective that attacked Vanth’s town, but Vanth seems the type to have been in the rebellion business awhile. Sticking up for the small folks. Building something out of nothing. Giving everything he has to those he’s decided to protect.

Including giving up a set of Mandalorian battle armour even if that armour could’ve saved him countless more times.

“So are you heading out tonight then?” Peli asks.

“I was thinking . . .” He trails off and looks to the ship then looks at the armour he clutches in a bundle.

He never did take the Marshal up on his drink.

“I think I might stay for a few days yet,” he says. “There are still some unfinished matters I have to see to.”

“Ah, well, that’s the charm of Tatooine then. Everyone’s itching to leave ‘til they realize there’s more to it than meets the eye. Some of the old timers like to say everything starts and end on Tatooine but that’s only because they’ve never been anywhere.”

Din knows he has a promise to keep. To find the Child’s people and bring him to them. And his own personal drive of locating Mandalorians, his tribe, his own people.

If he has a people.

“At least stay for a bite to eat,” Peli says. “Seems like the kid here is wanting to have something too.”

Din nods. This is something he can do.

There are many things in his life that would be categorized as unfinished business, missed opportunities and the like. If he has to admit it, he would say he’s tired—tired of the grind, of the running, of fighting, and it’s been a long time since he’s connected to someone so quickly like Vanth. Not since Cara Dune perhaps but their professions will lead them in different places. Vanth is here. He’s welcoming and he wants to see more of Din.

And Din, well, he wants to see more of Vanth. How he learned to use the armour. What it was like for him to use the Rising Phoenix the first time.

He might not be a Mandalorian, but he does possess certain traits and qualities a Mandalorian would themselves be admired for.

What if there’s something there? What if there’s a connection?

He can’t know unless he tries.

He sets out just as the first sun touches the horizon. The armour is safely stowed on his ship to make his travel lighter. The Child is safe in his bag, peering out across the sand as they race across it once more, coming into Mos Pelgo just after the suns have set. The town is clearly celebrating the defeat of the krayt and the new peace between them and the Tuskens. The cantina in the center of town is a lively and bright affair, and for a moment as Din pulls the speeder in front of it, he wonders if he shouldn’t have come. It’ll be a lot of attention on him, and he has no intention of being worshipped as a hero. That’s not who he is.

He lifts the Child out of the bag and holds him in his arms. He’ll likely be crushed if they head into the cantina with how full it appears to be.

He walks up the steps and into the cantina and immediately heads turn towards him.

“Hey! Look it’s the Mandalorian!”

The breath in his lungs feels tight at the sudden rush of attention, for people looking his way and wanting to greet him, but then he sees one person cut through the crowd easily—Marshal Vanth.

He’s still dressed as he was—red shirt, cargo pants with a blaster sat in a holster on his hip. The only thing he has removed is his scarf, exposing the lean line of his neck.

“Mando!” He looks genuinely surprised and happy to see Din, a bit pink in the cheeks from imbibing a touch too much spotchka perhaps, but he seems steady on his feet even as he claps a heavy hand on his shoulder. “Didn’t expect to see you back so soon! What brings you out this way, huh?”

“I, uh, thought I’d might like to take you up on that drink.”

Vanth’s face splits into a wide grin. “Thought you’d never ask, darlin’. Come with me.” He slings his arm over Din’s shoulders, leading him through the full establishment and keeping the others at bay. “Leave him be, ya vultures.” But it’s all said in good jest and soon Din is being shown to an empty booth far to the other side of the cantina where he and Vanth can sit in peace.

“You mind if I?” Vanth holds up his hands towards the Child, and Din hands him over. The Child is already reaching for Vanth, and they did become close with one another while they negotiated a deal with the Tuskens. It’s why he chose Vanth to look after him if things were to end poorly. He knew, deep down, that Vanth would care for him. Just as he cares for this town and everyone in it.

“I was gonna miss this little fella,” Vanth says. “He sure does pull you in with those big eyes, now doesn’t he?”

“He has,” Din says, but his eyes are on Vanth himself and how relaxed he seems now, like a huge burden has been lifted. He looks happy to be here, and Din wants to bask in that for a little while longer.

They end up talking for a bit, Vanth more often than not and Din less so. Vanth doesn’t seem to mind that Din doesn’t talk about much, but when Din does talk, Vanth looks at him and listens. He asks questions. He asks for clarification if needed. But he listens, and Din doesn’t know about the last time when someone listened like this.

And as the night draws on and as the cantina slowly empties, Din is beginning to feel a deep-seated weariness settle into his joints and bones. The fight is over and now he must rest but—

“I got a spare room,” Vanth offers. “Could get something together for the kid here.” The Child has fallen asleep in the crook of Din’s arm, his ears downturned despite the hum and drum of the cantina.

“I don’t mean to put this on you.”

“Eh, it’s nothing. Just being a good neighbour. And I’m still the Marshal here. It’s my duty to look after folks. Come on. I won’t hear nothin’ about it.”

He follows Vanth to his house, this little place partially sunken into the ground as is Tatooine fashion. It’s a small place, but more space than Din is used to or has been treated to in a long time. Vanth sees that the Child is set down in something of a makeshift crib, and then it’s just the two of them and no one else.

Vanth stretches and rubs at the back of his neck. Then he turns his gaze to Din. “So what now, Mando? You looking to stay for a while?”

“For now.” He looks to the photos hanging on Vanth’s walls, the bookshelf covered in more knickknacks than actual books, the striped blanket over the back of the couch. “I feel as if there is unfinished business between us.”

“Business, huh?” Vanth brushes past him and sits down on the couch, looking relaxed and inviting. “Anything business you want to discuss right now?”

By the way he’s looking at Din, he knows what Din is meaning by the use of business.

“I’m not sure,” Din says.

“Well, lucky for you I’m a patient man. Now come here.” He pats the cushion next to him. “If you don’t mind me sayin’, I want to get a better look at you.”

Din feels himself flush and he moves slowly, deliberately, and sits down next to Vanth.

“There are a lot of things I can offer,” Vanth says. “But it depends on what you’re looking for.”

“And what if I’m not sure?”

“We take things at your pace.”

It’s a lot to consider yet what this halt in Din’s quest, but he thinks he needs this. He thinks he needs Vanth more than he realizes. Needs the respite. Needs the comfort. Needs the support.

He had offered that all to Vanth in the beginning, and now Vanth is here to repay the favour.

“My pace.”

“Mmhm.”

“Then I think it’s only right you know my name. It’s Din.”

Vanth smiles. “Nice to have it, Din. Call me Cobb.”

[imaginesandinserts]

Irreverent Pt. 42 - Strangers

Title: Irreverent Pt. 42 - Strangers Pairing: Aaron Hotchner x Reader Rating: M Words: 9533

Irreverent Series Masterlist

There was a dull throbbing pain in your arm when you woke up the following morning - an apt reminder of the day before. Your room was cast in shadows and it was still early in the morning. The faint sound of rain could be heard outside, blanketing you with its presence. You're still laying on your side and Aaron's warm arm sits across your waist, his deep breaths gently blowing the hair at the nape of your neck.

You find yourself reaching for his hand and covering it where it lay across your stomach. You'd nearly died yesterday. Twice. You'd had a gun to the back of your head. You could barely see through the smoke. If Emily hadn't come in the nick of time, you're pretty sure he would've shot you. You hadn't had the time or space to do anything about it. You can feel your breathing get harsher as you reckon with that realization. If you'd died, Aaron - him and Jack - what about them - how would they handle it? You can feel hot tears in your eyes  and the panic caused by the entire situation rising, imagining Aaron having to go home alone to Jack - having to tell him that… The thought was far too awful to bear. Funny how dying becomes scary once we have something to lose.

"Hey, hey, sweetheart, what's wrong?"

Aaron had felt your breathing change and then felt you tremble against him. He turns you around, noticing the tears in your eyes, and pulls you to lay on top of him. Rubbing your back soothingly, he guides you through breathing regularly, reminding you that you're safe, that you're alright.

It's working. His voice and his touch are helping. You close your eyes and focus on the beating of his heart. He continues to rub your back as your breath evens out. When you finally open your eyes to look at him, his face is one of the utmost concern and you're pretty sure you're going to start crying all over again. You really hadn't meant to worry him.

"I'm sorry," you gasp out, reaching up to touch his cheek. He leans into you as he always does.  Your voice breaks as you continue, but you really need to tell him. "I'm sorry for scaring you yesterday, I'm so sorry."

"I know. I know you are." He can tell you're finally allowing yourself to deal with what happened last night. It had been all too terrifying for him to contend with. Walking away from you afterwards and directing the crew on what to do next had been an ordeal, his mind constantly on you and how you were doing. But he knew you - he trusted that you'd made the right decisions, the same decisions he would make in the situation. Prentiss had told him how you'd gone after the unsub and it wasn't any different from what any of them would have done. He couldn't truly fault you for it. When she'd told him how you'd thrown yourself on top of her however, his heart had about threatened to give out. He saw it for what it was - you doing your very best to not lose Emily again.

He helps you situate yourself back on the bed, this time facing him as you tangle your legs together and run your icy toes against his shins under his flannel pajamas, causing him to hiss. He's not sure why he's surprised, since you do this every time. He wraps himself around you, your arm slung around his stomach, as he plays with your hair because he knows it soothes you and would help you fall back asleep.

"You know I love you, right?" you ask him, your voice small and unsure, as though you're not sure if this is something you should voice. "I know I'm not the best at saying it, but I'd hate to think you didn't know that." You'd hate to die, thinking he didn't know that.

He nods, "I do." He knows you love him. He knows it's hard for you to say - that you're not used to saying it. More often than not you simply smile and kiss him when he says it to you. That doesn't mean he doesn't know. Even before he'd moved in, a subscription to the Wall Street Journal had started being delivered to your house. Jack's teachers were far more familiar with you than they were with him - the number of bake sales and booth duties you'd signed up for spoke for themselves. You hadn't given up on him yet - he knew he wasn't the easiest of partners to be with. You put up with his neurotic tendencies, you handled him when he became domineering and controlling and unyielding, you were there for him when all he needed was for someone to stay. Out of all the things you did for him and Jack, all the compromises and accommodations, that was the one thing that told him without a doubt that you loved him.

The two of you fall asleep again with his arms wrapped tight around you, your face buried into his chest and your hands bunched up tight into his shirt, unwilling to let go.

When he wakes up again, you've turned around in his arms. You can never stand to be in one position for too long and he's gotten used to you shifting every couple of hours in the night. He barely notices it anymore as you move and maneuver around him, contorting yourself to him no matter which way you decide to settle down.

He knows you're awake because you're grinding yourself into him, moving your hips against him. "Mm, don't write checks you can't cash sweetheart," he mumbles into your skin, kissing the side of your neck.

You grin. It had taken him long enough. "I'm not," you reply, continuing your movements against his growing erection. You grab his hand that's wrapped around your waist and move his hand to cup your breasts.

"You're still injured," he breathes out, stalling as if to stop your movement, though his hand instinctively squeezes your breasts, drawing a small moan from you. You were going to drive him insane.

"Then I guess you should do all the work." You turn, your lips finding his and you can feel him smile into the kiss. He's going to give in. He always does.

By the time the two of you get ready and leave your room, the rest of the team is already up. Derek gives you a knowing smirk from his spot near the window, bringing his coffee mug to his mouth right before Aaron looks at him. JJ and Spencer are at the dining table, eating the frozen waffles that Tatiana had stocked in the freezer, despite you telling them they could order anything, and both Rossi and Emily are situated on the couch, their eyes trained on the television playing the news.

You two greet everyone and JJ tells you that Penelope will be arriving soon. Her, Reid, and Derek have tickets to go catch Hamilton courtesy of your Broadway contact and you'd gotten in touch with your old friend Maeve, because you had a feeling her and Spencer would hit it off. She was joining them for the play. He'd lamented to you after the dinner party, that he was really starting to miss having someone despite never really having had someone. You could sympathize with that feeling of yearning - the kind that burrows into your bones and forces you to miss someone you don't even know yet.

Aaron watches as you go over to Emily, leaning down over the back of the couch and hugging her around her shoulders. You thank her for coming back for you yesterday and she squeezes your hand, turning to place a quick kiss to your cheek.

He hands you a coffee right as Jack calls and the two of them chat briefly before his son demands to speak with you, and you carry the phone into the bedroom, a conspiratorial smile on your face. His birthday is fast approaching and he has a feeling you and Jack have something in the works. He goes to sit by Emily and Dave, content to watch the anchor discuss the latest events in the election that is underway.

"Is she alright?" Emily asks him, her voice low so as to ensure that no one else can hear her. She had a worried look on her face as her eyes settled on the door you'd disappeared behind.

"She had a bit of a moment regarding yesterday," he reveals, looking around to make sure the rest of the team was engrossed in their individual activities. Dave was closest, however his head was bent over a notebook where he was undoubtedly documenting the latest case. "I think it was a lot and she just realized how much of a close call it was."

Emily nods understandingly. "Good. Yesterday was way too close and sometimes that fear helps us figure out what we really want. What matters."

Aaron agrees. These moments were usually a reset, coming along when he needed them most. It had happened around the time of his and Haley's divorce, when he'd nearly gotten shot and had the realization that he had a wife and young son he had to stay alive for. He'd nearly quit the team then, and while that hadn't happened for other reasons, death had a way of clarifying priorities like none other.

By the time you exit the bedroom, Penelope has arrived with dresses for both Emily and JJ. She greets you with a quick hug and thanks you for securing the Broadway tickets, before settling onto the couch with everyone else.

"This is supposed to be the best party in town all month," Penelope gushes. "I looked it up and getting on the guest list is impossible. They've got a veritable who's who of New York society. They've even got a Prince!"

"Which Prince?" JJ asks, her mouth quirked up into a smile at Penelope's obvious excitement.

"The Prince of Bulgaria."

"Oh! Markos is in town? I haven't seen him in ages!" you exclaim from your spot on Aaron's lap. Penelope had been a little surprised to see the two of you so obviously affectionate with one another, but had merely called it adorable and not made it too awkward. After last night it seemed the others were just used to it now.

"You know the Prince of Bulgaria?" Aaron asks, a slightly amused look on his face as his fingers play with the edge of the skirt you'd donned.

"Yeah, we went on a few dates to make his ex jealous," you reveal, turning slightly to look at him. "He promised me an extradition to Bulgaria, should the need ever arise."

Your explanation is met with some incredulity and laughter and the conversation goes from the party that night to the best parties of everyone's college days, meandering through the group.

Once Derek, Penelope, and Reid leave for the play, JJ declares the need for a nap and a long video chat with her boys, leaving you, Aaron, Emily, and Rossi to figure out lunch for yourselves. You leave, promising to bring something back for JJ.

Rossi's been a bit of a pain about the clubbing, claiming that he's far too old for that scene, especially once he hears that the party doesn't really get started till eleven at night. However, you promise to make it worth his while, and it might have to do with your reputation for keeping your promises or it’s the fact that you were injured yesterday and you pouted at him, that he gives in and agrees to come along without complaint.

The four of you had a leisurely lunch (you had food sent to the apartment for JJ so she wouldn't be waiting for too long) and walked through the park, talking about the upcoming holidays and everyone's plans. Aaron was onboard with your idea to take Jack to Europe for Christmas, however everyone on the team would be back in town for New Year's Eve so Rossi had decided to host at his place.

By the time you all return to the apartment, the Broadway goers were back as well, Maeve in tow. You'd been right, her and Spencer had hit it off wonderfully. They'd bonded over some obscure philosophers and were debating their work enthusiastically when you'd seen them. Maeve had to unfortunately beg off clubbing with the team for the night as she had a prior engagement, but she and Spencer exchanged numbers before she left. He got some teasing about that from Derek but overall everyone was thrilled for him. His colored face never really did return to its normal pallor the rest of the evening.

You made a large batch of coffee and encouraged everyone to drink some and take a nap, as it would be a long night ahead. This wasn't your first rodeo but it had been a while since you all had gone all night on something that wasn't a case file. You could use all the help you can get.

Everyone wanders back into the living room by the evening and you ordered dinner that would keep everyone satisfied for some time, choosing to order Thai as you knew that at some point after the club, you'd force Aaron to let you get dollar pizza even though it would upset your stomach later.

"JJ, is Henry reading on his own yet?" Penelope asks from her spot on the couch, a forkful of Pad Thai halfway to her mouth.

"Yeah, he is. Why?"

"I need to start my Christmas shopping. I figure maybe Jack and Henry might enjoy starting on the Harry Potter series if they haven't already," she explains, looking at both you and Aaron as well.

"That'd be great Pen, thanks," you tell her. Jack's started reading on his own, but either you or Aaron try to also read the books he's reading so he has someone to talk to about the story. He'd started reading the Magic Treehouse books recently and you and Aaron were switching off reading books in the series and then filling in the other person so you're both caught up on the overall plot.

"Great! It'll be fun to see which houses the kiddos want to be in," she says. Spencer agrees from beside her. You know he's been waiting for the kids to be old enough to be into the things he's into.

"As long as its not Hufflepuff," you joke, poking your tongue out at her. Penelope was a very obvious Hufflepuff.

"How very Slytherin of you," she retorts with a huff, before she looks at Aaron seated across from you and you see her eyes widen ever so slightly. "Oh! But actually Hotch would be a total Gryffindor - you two would have the Romeo and Juliet forbidden romance thing."

You laugh at that. "Nah, he'd be the hot professor I have an affair with," you joke, throwing a wink in Aaron's direction. He blushes ever so slightly and shakes his head at you, a small smile gracing his face. You're pretty sure he has no idea what the houses are - the books didn't really come out until he was an adult, by which point you doubted he'd had the time or interest. You'd just have to make sure he read them alongside Jack so he got all the references. While you'd love nothing more than to have Jack be in Slytherin too so you can gang up on Aaron, you had a feeling that in this case, it would be very much like father like son.

Everyone goes to get ready, and you're standing in your bra and underwear, going through the closet to find something to wear. Aaron walks in wearing a black shirt that he hasn't buttoned up yet, as you're sifting through the hangers, holding a dress up to your body as you look at yourself in the mirror.

"You almost ready?" he asks, glancing from the pile of rejected dresses to your dejected face reflected in the mirror.

"I think I've outgrown clubbing attire," you sigh, placing the dress to the top of the pile.

"Let me help."

Aaron moves to the other side of the closet, going through a different row of outfits while you continue on with yours and reject another few.

"What's this?" he asks, holding up a hanger with a plaid skirt and blazer.

You look at him, noting the slightly dilated pupils and how his voice had taken on the slightly deeper quality it did when it was just the two of you. Pretty sure I could get off from him just talking to me. Should try it sometime.

Smirking, you answer, "My old boarding school uniform. Should I pack that to bring back home?"

Aaron clears his throat before speaking. "That would be nice, yes." He hangs the outfit on the door to the closet so you wouldn't forget it.

That would be nice. There was something oddly endearing about the straightforwardness with which he spoke about things of this nature. You chuckle slightly, before edging towards him. "Am I going to need extra credit to pass the class, Professor Hotchner?" you ask teasingly, placing a hand to his warm chest, feeling his heart beat underneath.

Aaron rolls his eyes and huffs slightly before pecking your lips quickly. "Please. Like you'd need extra credit. You'd be the attractive grad student helping me with my research," he replies, grabbing your ass and causing you to yelp and consequently retaliate by pushing him into the wall and dragging his face down to yours.

That's what you liked about Aaron. Even for a fantasy, he wouldn't let you dumb yourself down.

*------------*

You'd managed to pick out a dress finally, and Aaron watches as you strut out of the bathroom, your hair pulled into a sleek ponytail, wearing a short emerald green dress that exposed quite a bit of leg. You'd donned tall strappy heels which he was sure you'd shed halfway through the night and insist on being carried by him. You might like feeling tall but you really hated being in heels for too long.

"So?" you ask, doing a quick twirl for his benefit.

"You look amazing," he tells you, grabbing your hand and spinning you around once more, before bringing it to his lips and sending little butterflies through your stomach. It was kind of astonishing that he could still have that effect on you with the smallest of gestures.

He keeps your hand in his as the two of you exit your room and join the others. JJ was the only one missing as she was making a final good night call to Henry and Will. You let go of Aaron to go rummage around at the bar and gathered up enough shot glasses for everyone.

"We're doing shots!" Emily exclaims, noticing what you're setting and coming around to help you.

"We're doing shots?" Derek groans, looking at you with some amount of trepidation.

"Yes, of course. We're all going clubbing together for the first time. We have to do this right," you tell him, pouring tequila into every glass and setting it on the counter. "Since when did you become an old man?"

"I promise to be extra slutty if you get me drunk enough," Penelope jokes, grabbing a glass and passing one along to both Spencer and Derek.

You pour out a shot of juice and hand that to JJ when she returns, and then quickly congregate everyone in the center of the living room, a shot of tequila in everyone else's hand.

Rossi clears his throat and raises his glass. "Here’s to cheating, stealing, and drinking. May you cheat death, steal hearts, and always drink with me."

With a resounding chorus of Here Here you raise your shot glass and tip it back quickly. Aaron has his arm wrapped around your waist and he squeezes you when he sees you make a face at the taste. You look over to see his mouth pulled up in amusement and you can't help the smile that breaks out on your face despite the harsh taste in your mouth.

*------------*

Your photographer friend, Terry, had sent a limo to pick everyone up, and Aaron had seen the visible change in you as the car pulled up to the club. It was deafeningly loud outside and the flash of cameras could be seen everywhere. Morgan opens the door and exits first, helping the other girls out one by one, following by Reid and Rossi. Aaron looks back at you - you're sitting incredibly straight, your jaw is locked, and your eyes closed - he recognizes it as your way of preparing yourself for the onslaught. He reaches out and squeezes your hand. Opening your eyes, you smile slightly at him, indicating for him to exit first.

He steps out and is met with a sea of cameras and people. He turns back and offers you his hand, which you grab, before delicately standing up and out of the back of the car. Your face breaks out into a wide smile, your eyes big and sparkling. If he didn't know you better, he'd think it was real.

The rest of the team has already walked past a red carpet outside the entrance to the club. There was a line wrapped around the other side - people waiting to enter the club while cars of socialites arrived and had their photo taken, bypassing the line.

Aaron lets you walk ahead, and as you approach the red carpet, the calls of your name get louder and louder. There are lights flashing all around and you easily pose for photographers, smiling graciously and waving hello to people you recognize. He can't help but feel proud of you for handling this so well.

You spin and smile, doing your best to stay in the moment. Aaron is standing to the side, waiting for you to be done with the obligatory photographs. You can't help but be grateful to him for putting up with this - this entire thing was so entirely out of his wheelhouse that you'd half expected him to beg out entirely and go do something else with Rossi for the night. You hadn't expected him to tag along with you to a club opening and actually seem happy about being there.

You reach out to Aaron, indicating for him to join you for a quick photo. You're both dressed up and you didn't want to miss the chance of grabbing a picture of the two of you together - it was already such a rare occurrence. To your surprise, he actually joins you, placing his hand on your waist and smiling at you. He doesn't look at the cameras. He looks only at you.

Before he can talk himself out of it, he's grabbed you firmly by the waist and dipped you backwards, his lips meeting yours.

You couldn't believe it, Aaron had tipped you back, his warm lips meeting yours and for a moment the entire world is you two. There's no one else - no people screaming, no cameras, nothing but his hands around your waist holding you up and his lips married to yours in the sweetest of kisses.

As he pulls you back up, your heart threatens to beat out of its cage and you know you must have a dazed look on your face as you look up at him. He seems just as surprised by his actions as you, and you can't help the laugh that escapes you.

The two of you join the rest of the team. Your group is led inside to a private table and you speak briefly with the club owner whom you recognize but can't quite place.

The party is in full swing and the dance floor is positively crowded with people. You all squeeze into the seating area and Emily is quick to flag down a waitress to help out with drinks.

"Alright, well I came here to dance, and since I'm not drinking I expect the rest of you to drink my share," JJ says, standing and reaching for Penelope, who knocks back the shot in her hand before allowing herself to be led to the dance floor.

"Come on pretty boy. We better keep an eye on them." Derek drags Spencer with him and the two of them join the girls on the dance floor.

"You coming?" Emily asks, standing to dance as well.

"In a bit. You go ahead," you nod, indicating towards the spot where Spencer is embroiled in a JJ and Penelope sandwich while Derek does his best to avoid being approached by too many eager women. "Go save Derek."

She laughs, swaying as she stands, and walks over to join him.

You cross yours legs and lean into Aaron's side, still somewhat reeling from the kiss earlier outside. You can't help but love this side of Aaron - you'd feared that these parts of your life were entirely incompatible with him, but seeing him stride over and stand to take a few photos with you and be so publicly affectionate makes you think that maybe - just maybe - the two aren't as incompatible as you'd once thought. Not that this would be something that Aaron would want on a daily basis but you now knew that he could handle it in small doses.

"Alright kid," Rossi says, taking a sip of his scotch, "I think you promised to make this worth my while. And while seeing the little show outside was definitely a highlight," Aaron colors ever so slightly at that, "I think I'm going to need a little something more."

You chuckle, moving your hand from the crook of Aaron's elbow to come and rest comfortingly on his thigh instead. On the team, it was really only Rossi who could talk about him like that to his face.

"Go order a drink at the bar," you tell him.

Rossi raises an eyebrow at you. "We have drinks already."

"Rossi, go. Trust me. Be sure to order something straight up. Also, you don't know me."

He shakes his head, but heeds your words. Standing, he settles his drink down and turns to walk over to the bar. Aaron looks at you quizzically but you merely shake your head. You watch and wait until he has the bartender's attention.

Standing, you stride over to where Rossi is and pause until you see what you were waiting for. "Oh my god! Are you David Rossi?!"

Rossi turns at your high pitched, exaggerated valley girl voice and you can see him stifle a laugh. Instead he simply nods, so you continue, elbowing the girl who was standing next to him.

"I am such a big fan of your work! Serial killers are like, totally my obsession," you say, maintaining your fake voice and speaking far louder than necessary.

"Hm, well maybe the two of us can - "

He doesn't get to finish his sentence before the girl you'd elbowed past earlier appears on his other side and taps him on the shoulder to get his attention.

"You're an author?" she asks, her voice low and throaty, as she flutters are eyelashes and leans advantageously against the bar.

Rossi smirks at you and nods, before turning to her. You'd done your job.

You make sure to leave in a bit of a huff as though you're annoyed, and walk back to where Aaron was sat, deciding to ignore the vast span of seating available, and simply dropping yourself into his lap.

"That was impressive," he whispers into your ear, having seen the interaction at the bar go down even if he couldn't quite hear it. "But what about Strauss?"

You lean back to look at Aaron. "You do know that they aren't exclusive, right?"

He hadn't known that, and he turns to take in Rossi and the young girl who had chatted him up, leaning far closer to one another than strangers ought to. "I think I could've gone without knowing that, actually."

You laugh. "It's not for everyone."

At his raised eyebrow, you clarify, "It's not for me. I don't share."

He nods. Neither did he.

"Are you going to dance with me at some point tonight?" you ask, indicating to where the rest of the team was.

Aaron glances out at the dance floor. The median age in the room was roughly twenty five and the last time he was even near a club was when you'd gone undercover over a year ago. Watching you dance with strangers and Morgan had been one of the hardest things he'd had to do and that night had fueled quite a few of his dreams before he'd had the real thing next to him most nights.

He's realized that prior to this trip, there had been quite a few things about you and your life before the BAU that he hadn't been privy to. He knows that the reason behind it was partly due to you both - he's hesitant to ask about things you'd rather not relive, while you're reluctant to bring up parts of you that you'd let go of long ago. However, learning all of these new things about you - everything from the stalker and the photographers to how your taste in artwork had evolved and that you were an avid chess player (based on the well-worn, heavy chess set that sat on its own table in the main room of your penthouse) - all of these new things helped him better understand and truly appreciate the person he knew today. You'd conquered so much in far less years than him, dragged yourself through the dark abyss that had swallowed you in the aftermath of Julian's passing, and today stood by his side, embodying everything good he knew to be true in life.

He smiles and with a nod, he helps you get up and allows you to lead him out into the crowd. "You know I don't really grind the way the kids do, right?" he asks, his breath warm against your ear.

You turn and smile at him. "I'll do all the work."

You guide him to the middle of the crowd, allowing the two of you some cover and anonymity from your coworkers. Aaron quickly realizes the advantages of having a girlfriend who used to be a dancer, as you turn in his arms, pressing your back to his front and bringing his arms to wrap around you. The music is pounding around the two of you and the throngs of people makes it feel like one could do almost anything and it would go unnoticed. You move your hips purposefully against him, helping guide his movements as well. He buries his head into the crook of your neck, his lips traversing down the side and to your collar bone and back again, while your hands roam - across his hands, his thighs, and back around through his hair, tightening your grasp and holding him close to you. It's euphoric - the darkness, and music, the lights, and you.

*------------*

You'd managed to round up everyone - even Rossi - and made it out of the club. Penelope had to be dragged away before she could start climbing on tables, with Emily goading her on and ready to join her. A sober JJ was no match for the two of them. Derek and Spencer had to both help Penelope out, while Rossi handled Emily. You'd seen her making out with some cute guy at some point during the night, so you're mostly just glad she hadn't let Eastwood get to her too much.

No one had wanted to end the night quite yet, so the entire group was squished together into a large round booth at the bar around the corner from your place. You'd ended up here many nights when you'd been unwilling to go back to an empty apartment by yourself; Tom, the bartender, your captive audience as you regaled him with stories of the night you'd had.

You're on the outside, next to Aaron, as Derek and Reid argue about some girl who had been hitting on them both and what her intentions might have been. Penelope was of the opinion that the girl had wanted a fun night with the both of them, at which Emily - still drunk - had chimed in saying that if it was on the table, she'd take them both up on it herself. Needless to say, she should be cut off from further alcohol consumption for the night.

"We should really examine why half of our casual conversations have to do with sex," you mumble under your breath so only Aaron can hear. You're pretty sober, having drank very little once you reached the club. You're hyper aware of how different of a position you hold now versus when you'd actually been a crazy party girl.

Aaron breathes out a quiet laugh. "I reckon it's because we're always on cases and no one's getting laid enough," he murmurs back, his eyes dancing in amusement as he half listens to the conversation at the table, the other half of his mind occupied by thoughts of taking you back to the penthouse and having his way with you. Nothing like having your girlfriend rub up against you for hours and not being able to do anything about it, to push a man to the brink of frustration. His hand has quite confidently rested on your thigh, fingers grazing the inside every so often. By now, he knows very well what little things get you worked up.

You extract yourself from him and grab the empty pitchers on the table, going to grab a second round. You needed a breather from Aaron for a moment anyways. The entire night had felt like extremely drawn out foreplay and you had to pace yourself. It was always so much better when it had been built up, and Aaron was far more patient and methodical than you ever could be.

You balance the two pitchers and slowly walk back to the table. You can feel Aaron watching you as you approach, his eyes growing darker. You know the outfit is something he isn't used to. Your wardrobe from before is definitely more on the risqué side and you've felt his scrutiny all night, eyes moving slowly over every inch of you, drinking you in. The only other time you've worn so little is when it's only the two of you behind closed doors. You typically made it a point to save some things for just him.

You set the pitchers down, turning up to meet his heated gaze. You bite your lip - it was crazy how entirely turned on you were. All you wanted was to get out of the bar. Or just drag him into the restroom. You're just contemplating suggesting that as you turn to sit down, when you feel someone approaching behind you.

"Hey Cap."

Your heart falters at the sound of the deep baritone voice behind you. You turn away from Aaron, a small gasp escaping you, your eyes widening as you take in all six feet four inches of the towering man standing behind you. Wearing jeans, a fitted t-shirt, his brown leather bomber jacket slung over one arm - his very essence invading your space. It had been years.

Before you know it, you've propelled yourself up to him, arms around his neck and he is quick to wrap his arms tightly around your waist, nearly lifting you. He's warm and solid and oh so very familiar.

"John," you breathe out, as you slowly let him go, remembering the people seated at the table behind you.

He has a slight smile on his face as he releases you, that you can't help but return. "Since when did you start drinking beer?" he asks teasingly, gesturing towards the table where seven pairs of eyes are looking at the two of you with a great amount of interest.

You let out a breath of a laugh as you turn to face everyone else, a hand guiding John with you. "Guys, this is my friend John Hawthorne. John, these are my coworkers." They all smile - nodding or smiling at him. You shift closer to Aaron, placing a hand on his shoulder, "And this - "

"I'm sorry," John interrupts, "It's nice to meet all of you," he smiles politely around the table before turning to look at you, his face the picture of apology marred only by the urgency that has entered his tone. "Can we talk?" he asks, nodding towards the door leading outside.

You nod immediately, a rush of worry flowing through you. "I'll be back," you tell Aaron, your mind still slightly in shock as you feel John's warm hand at your lower back, helping guide you outside.

Aaron watches as John places his hand to your back, and as he does, Aaron's eye is caught by some writing on his hand. Just above the wrist, in a familiar black script, Aaron sees a date that he is all too familiar with. A date his lips have tasted, his fingers have traced, and his soul has imprinted into its very self. His eyes quickly move back up to you, but you've already turned away, allowing John to lead you away and out the door.

"Oh my goodness! The ass on that man!" Garcia exclaims as soon as you're out of earshot. "Who was that? Was that her special friend?" she asks, turning to Morgan. If anyone would know it would be either him or Emily and Emily looked just as intrigued as she did.

Morgan glances at Hotch quickly before nodding at Garcia, which results in a squeal that she quickly covers up - poorly - as a cough, when she catches Hotch's eye.

Prentiss - in her drunken state - hasn't quite caught on to the awkwardness that has settled on the table as everyone realizes that you had just walked out the door with the man who was - as far as they knew - your ex lover. "I would climb that man like a jungle gym," Prentiss declares loudly, knocking back the rest of her drink.

"Anyways," JJ interjects, thankfully sober, "we should figure out the plan for tomorrow - are we all going back to DC at the same time?"

With the topic of conversation sufficiently changed, Aaron's mind is free to think over what had just happened. He's figured out why the man appeared familiar. It was from the photos he'd seen from your cotillion. He hadn't been your date, he'd seemed older than you, much closer in age to Julian. However, it was unmistakably the same man. He looked at you in the same manner he had back then. The two of you had matching tattoos of your brother's birthdate. He wonders why that hasn't ever come up before - that someone else's skin is marked to mirror yours.

He feels an odd unease start to fester within him and he keeps eyeing the door, as though expecting you to walk back in - hopefully alone - any second. He knows you feel safe with this man - you would've never gone off alone with him otherwise. With every minute that passes, Aaron feels an odd pit of dread growing in his stomach, despite knowing that you're more than capable of handling yourself. It was jarring how quickly his temperament had changed - the two of you had been teasing and touching all night and he had noticed the dark spark in your eyes when you'd returned, typically a sign that he was about to like whatever came out of your mouth next, very much.

Nearly thirty minutes pass and there's no sign of you, and the team is ready to head back to the penthouse to sleep. "Aaron, why don't you go find Y/N?" Dave says kindly. Aaron had been fidgety ever since you left. "We'll handle the tab and meet you out there."

He nods, grabbing his jacket, but not bothering to put it on. You hadn't brought one and would be freezing cold in that tiny little scrap you had called a dress. He leaves the warmth of the bar and pushes open the heavy door. Just across the street, he catches sight of you and John. You're facing one another, John's jacket is draped around your shoulders, the two of you visible in silhouette, backlit by the street lamp behind.

He's about to call out your name, when John leans down and capture your lips. It's as if Aaron was watching in slow motion - it feels like it goes on forever - the image of another man's lips on yours stamping itself to the inside of his head.

The door clangs shut behind him finally, drawing both of your attentions, and Aaron sees you turn and catch him staring at you in what was probably shock, but he's never had a stroke before and it could just as easily be that.

You look at him and he can't make out your face, but you turn away and say a few more words to John, who backs away from you slightly. Aaron is unsure of how to proceed. What was the proper procedure when someone saw another man kiss their girlfriend. Was he supposed to storm over in a rage? Was he supposed to fight this man? Never before had he been confronted with the reality of such a situation. His rational side implores him to remain calm and simply wait and talk to you, while putting up a valiant fight against the demon within, who threatens to rip out from his chest and emerge into the world in order to avenge this complete betrayal.

He watches silently as you jaywalk across the street, quickly making your way towards him.

"Aaron," you begin, before you're even close enough. He's never heard his name from your mouth shaped in quite that way. It causes his stomach to twist uncomfortably and his mouth feels like cotton.

Before you can say anything further - before he can respond - the door to the bar opens again and the rest of the team comes ambling out.

Your eyes are trained on him, searching his face for something - a hint at a reaction, but he's been careful to school his expression through years of training. He can feel the fight inside him, uncertain at how he feels and doing its best to assess and analyze the situation instead of allowing himself to succumb to the baser emotions that rule his head when it comes to you. You'd left John immediately, you're back here standing in front of him and it is as though he could taste the acrid guilt flowing off of you. A part of him wants to reassure you immediately that it was alright and the two of you would talk about what happened and you would explain and everything would be fine. However, the larger part of him knows that there is more at play right now and he can't say or do anything until he knows for sure where he stands after having seen that.

"Later," he manages to get out, looking quickly from you to the team.

You would know better. Not in front of the team. Not in front of people.

You nod just barely and he can see a visible shiver run through you, having returned John's jacket to him before you crossed the street. He's reminded why he's carrying his own jacket. He walks over to you, draping it around your shoulders. He can see you almost recoil from the gesture despite how cold he knows you must be, before recalling the presence of everyone around you and thinking better of it.

Aaron looks up, over your head, and sees John still standing across the street where you'd left him. His eyes were trained on you alone.

*------------*

Aaron's jacket felt far too heavy around you. You couldn't believe what had just happened. Aaron wasn't supposed to see that. He shouldn't have seen that! You can't even imagine what he's thinking at that moment. You'd crossed the street, fully prepared to talk to him, fully prepared to explain it all away - ease his worries and soothe any concerns he had. Because you were his.

As you'd approached, you'd caught a quick second of the look in his eyes, revealing exactly how confused and betrayed he felt, before he'd slipped on the mask that hid him away from you.

You're hit with a stab - you'd hurt him.

Everyone else appearing had thrown a wrench into the immediacy of your need to talk to Aaron. He'd still put his jacket around you. Still buttoned the top button for you. He wasn't raging mad - but you knew he wouldn't be. He wasn't a reactionary sort of person, but right now that might be better than nothing, you think.

You hurt him.

He saw someone else kiss you. You know how you would've reacted if the tables were turned and yet, he was being calm. He was being calm in the way he was when he negotiates a hostage deal - overtly so to the point that nothing can shake him and all he becomes is a human risk calculator. His fury isn't a boiling rage; it's a burning frost, leaving piercing icicles in its wake.

You hurt him.

It appears most everyone had sobered up considerably as you all walk the two blocks to your place. Your hands are shaking as your mind goes a mile a minute. John hadn't known - not that that would be of much consolation to Aaron - but he hadn't. You hadn't gotten a chance to tell him about Aaron and there had been a small part of you, once you were outside with John, that didn't quite wanted to tell him. You didn't think much good would come from him knowing you were happy with someone else. You couldn't have anticipated that he would kiss you. It had happened so quickly.

Derek holds the door open for everyone as you lead the group, waving everyone past security. In the elevator, you feel Emily standing right behind you instead of Aaron. He's at the opposite corner, not looking at you, but instead looking straight ahead. You feel another sharp pang.

You hurt him.

As everyone exits the elevator, all you're hoping to do is head to your room so that you can talk to Aaron. However, you have no such luck.

"Hey, Y/N," Penelope asks softly, "was that your friend? Your friend from New York?"

You can tell she's merely curious. She doesn't know what happened. You were gone for so long, it makes sense that they'd all wonder. Sighing you turn and see that the rest of them seem just as interested in your answer as her. All with the exception of Aaron who's leaned against the wall before the hallway, leading to your bedroom. He appears entirely closed off and he doesn't so much look at you as he does look through you - like he doesn't even know you.

You hurt him.

You sigh internally, knowing you need to talk to him as soon as possible, no matter how much you're beginning to dread it now. The fifteen minutes since you'd crossed the street and approached him afterwards felt like hours ago. You can't help but race through what he must be thinking - he'd seen someone who - if Derek had helped them piece it together - he knew to be the last person you'd been with before him. It was the first time he was meeting John and he had no idea who John was really. To come upon the sight of John kissing you - knowing Aaron, he's already thought through every piece of evidence available to him and come to whichever terrible conclusion was holding him as far away from you as possible.

However, there were other people present - people who supported you, cared for you, and who were all looking at you in question. You owed them the truth about what had happened. They didn't deserve to be lied to by you.

You nod slowly, very aware of everyone's attention on you. "Yes. That was John," you say, speaking carefully. "He's a friend - he was Julian's best friend. We all grew up together. When he heard I was back in the city, he wanted to come and offer his - " you let out a breath and swallow, feeling completely overwhelmed by everything. "He wanted to offer his regards on my father's death."

That catches Derek's attention. You can see him assess your words and hone in on regards. Regards and not condolences. "You told him," he says, his voice sharp. He's not asking. He knows you did. Derek stares you down - his expression a mixture of shock and judgement that you're not used to being on the receiving end of.

You're barely able to meet his eyes, so instead you slip out of Aaron's jacket and place it on the arm of the couch, despite how cold you feel. "Yes."

"Everything?" Emily asks, her face a mix of worry and the struggle to focus as she tries to comprehend what's happening through the haze of tequila still clouding her brain.

You nod again, feeling pinprick tears in your eyes that you're quick to dismiss. Only three other people in the world besides you knew what that meant, and they were all in that room. Now there was one more name on that list. You can't look at Aaron. You can't stand to see the disappointment in his face. Not right now. Not on top of everything.

"That was a classified case." Derek's voice holds the tinge of accusation.

You look from him to the rest of them. Rossi, Reid, JJ, and Penelope appear a little bit confused at Emily's question and you hope they won't think about it too much. Rossi probably suspects. You've often thought that he knows the truth about how your father died. Derek stands very tall, intimidatingly so. Emily is worried. You know she doesn't care if you told. Aaron won't look at you, his face betraying nothing.

You look around the room at all of them. They'd all risked their lives on that case. Emily, Derek, and Aaron had completely covered for you and helped you escape the worst of the aftermath of your father's death. Had they not helped you - covered for you - you definitely wouldn't be in the Bureau right now. They'd all kept a terrible secret for you and you had never once been investigated as a result.

It had been entirely different from when Aaron had killed Foyet despite his surrender - Aaron had brunt the professional consequences and nearly lost his job because of it. It had only been due to the committee understanding the charged nature of the event, combined with Aaron's otherwise impeccable reputation, that he had been allowed to stay. His had been in the heat of the moment while his dead wife lay in the other room. You had planned your killing.

You look at Derek and find yourself nodding. It was time for you to stop getting away with stuff - using people to shield you from the rightful reckoning. No one in the room should have to suffer through the culpability of protecting you. They didn't owe you that. If anything, your past indiscretions had proven you to be entirely undeserving of it.

"I know. I don't expect any of you to keep this quiet," you say, your voice shaking ever so slightly, hands bunched into tight fists. Steeling yourself, you continue, "John was the only person I had after Julian - the only person who also knew the truth and who was just as affected by his death as I was. He was there for me when I had absolutely no one. I felt like he deserved to know. However, I cannot expect the rest of you to either share my view on the matter or expose yourself to retribution for keeping this quiet. You should tell Strauss if you are at all uncomfortable with this."

As you finish, you look around the room. Your words have rendered all of them into a dumbfounded silence. They cannot understand how you could so plainly ask them to turn you in for your actions. However, they're unaware of the dam of  guilt that had overflowed within you earlier when you'd caught sight of Aaron. Your actions - against him, against the team, against the Bureau - were entirely reprehensible. Whether they were intentional or not was of little concern. You would welcome punishment - not for the sake of penance, but because you deserved to suffer the consequences of your actions for once in your life.

You're unable to look at Aaron again. Usually you can see his love and adoration for you clearly in his profoundly brown eyes; his eyes were empty now. You couldn't bring yourself to look at him and be met by vacant eyes that left you feeling cold - your heart would splinter at the sight.

"Sugar," Penelope starts, breaking the silence and walking towards you slowly, the way one would with a frightened animal. Her voice is calm and soothing, designed to draw you in and allow her to help you. "No one here is going to say anything to Strauss. We trust you."

You want to recoil from her, the thrumming of blood pumping through your veins entirely too loud in your ears. "Don't do that," you tell her. "Do not make excuses for me. Do not make exceptions for me. I did something that could potentially endanger all of you. It would not be fair to expect you to keep this quiet for me."

Penelope stalls on her way towards you, uncertain of how to proceed. She looks around at the rest of them, the only sound in the room stemming from the air conditioning turning on and the sound of your harsh breathing as you try your best to compose yourself and keep from caving in under the weight of your own judgement.

It's Rossi who speaks next, after looking around at the room, for a consensus - his eyes honed in on Aaron, standing uncharacteristically apart from you and silent in the face of your confession. "Family's the people you make exceptions for, kid," he says kindly, his mouth quirking up in a half smile as he walks past Penelope towards you.

You watch him approach. Family's the people you make exceptions for. Family.

You look around at all of them - Derek, JJ, Emily, Spencer, Penelope - they all nod with him, even through their initial concerns and questions. They'd all seen you throw yourself at the mercy of the guillotine and they'd said no. Not a single one of them would allow that - not while they were around. You were theirs to protect.

A quiet sob escapes you, despite your efforts to keep it in. Your eyes are clouded by tears as Penelope reaches you and tucks you into her, wrapping her arms around you in a tight hug. One by one, they all approach you, offering a quick hug or a smile - reassuring you that it would be alright. They had your back, no matter what.

You're not sure you're deserving of such faith and trust from all of them.

"I think it's time we all went to bed," Rossi says quietly, as soon as Spencer lets go of you.

Everyone agrees and they all make their way down the hallway towards the bedrooms. Rossi lingers in the hallway for a moment, looking at both you and Aaron, a concerned look on his face, before he too opens the door to his bedroom and closes it behind.

If the rest of them had noticed Aaron's complete absence for your admission and subsequent plea, they hadn't let on. He'd stayed against the wall the entire time - through all of it, never once approaching you like the others.

It's just the two of you left now in the living room. You force yourself to look up to meet his eyes, but you don't get the chance to force words out of your mouth before he looks away. He turns and heads down the hallway, and you watch as he opens the door to the bedroom and enters, leaving the door open behind him.

You hurt him.

[misterewrites]

Intro to.....????

Hello everyone! Been awhile. It's been busy and really hot for me so it's hard for me to sit down to write sometimes.

But it's here!

E here with the next chapter and the final intro character chapter! The intro chapters were supposed to introduce everyone to the main and important characters of the story, who will be driving the main plots and stories though sometimes i might use new characters or different background characters. So beyond this chapter will be more worldbuilding, story arcs and oneshots. just stories about this world and its characters. I might even use some of my friends ocs i accidentally convinced them to make for my world. It was so much fun!

Alright that's it for me! Stay safe, wash your hands, wear your masks, take care of your loved ones, get vaccinated if you can, push to release the vaccine worldwide and have a great week! Enjoy! feel free to leave likes, feedback *I love feedback and comments even if it's just a line you liked or a scene you found awesome or funny* reblogs and tell your friends! Promoting myself still feels weird haha. E is out! Byeeeeee

If you want an easier time to read the story and since I’ve been shadow banned from tumblr for like ever now, here’s the newest chapter on ao3 right over here! 

https://archiveofourown.org/works/30599756/chapters/82583164

If you are interested in my work and want to read from the beginning check it right here  https://archiveofourown.org/works/30599756/chapters/75486005

Interested in my full catalog? https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrE42/works

Summary: Jackdaw is a powerful crime lord in the magical side of Newton Haven. He is feared more than respected and he doesn't care who he has to crush to accomplish his goals. So when his lucrative club is burned to the ground with his guards piled neatly outside, battered broken but alive, he takes it personally. Of course who is crazy enough to burn down a club of a notoriously dangerous crimeboss? A mercenary paid to do so. 

Obviously.

----------

Tap, tap, tap, tap.

The sound of footsteps pacing back and forth thundered throughout the silent room.

Tap, tap, tap, tap.

No one said anything. No one could say anything given the disastrous failure of the night. It hadn’t mattered if they were physically present at the site of offense or that they were scattered across town in one of many locations vital to the boss’s business: Someone hit them and the boss was itching to hit back.

Tap, tap, tap, tap.

“Alright” A voice spoke up, smooth yet cold.

The room was already quiet but now the air filled with a frighten tension.

The boss whirled around from the massive window he’d been staring out of, eyes narrowing on the defeated group of guards who averted their gaze from his.

The few still conscious were in varying states of dishevel and injured: Broke bones, nasty bruises, clothing ruffled and torn in places. Not a single one had gone unscratched from the assault on the club earlier that night.

Jackdaw was not pleased.

No one in the room knew much about their boss despite devoting their lives to his cause: He was in his mid 30’s, his nose uneven after being broken in a fight though no one could agree what he had been fighting. Long wavy raven black hair ran down his shoulders while his dark brown eyes glanced about, icy and piercing.

“I’m a little confused.” Jackdaw said with a menacing drawl as he approached the closest guard “Mind answering a few for me?”

The guard nodded shakily.

Jackdaw smiled, patting the guard’s cheek in a mocking manner “Good, good. Now let me paint the picture: My club is currently a smoky, charred corpse of its former self. Yes?”

The guard gave another timid nod.

Jackdaw puckered his lips thoughtfully “Okay, okay. How many guards on duty?”

“8.” The guard murmured fearfully.

“Okay. How many standing?”

The guard shot a nervous glance to the other three. They found the floor more interesting.

“F-four.”

Crack!

The guard’s limp body tumbled backwards and laid still on the ground.

Jackdaw flexed his fingers “Wrong! I count three. You!”

The next in line flinched but stared their boss in the face “Sir?”

“Since that one.” Jackdaw lazily motioned to the unconscious man “is sleeping on the job, you tell me what happened.”

“O-okay.” The next in line mumbled “Well the night started same as any other….”

----------

The Gray Waves nightclub brought in a decent crowd for a weekday: Dozen or so people lost in the dim shadows with only a disorienting array of ever changing lights for company. Drinks served and the booming, thundering sounds of music set the chaotic mood clubs thrived on.

Nice peaceful night.

Floyd, the current storyteller, had been watching from the second floor landing when he noticed the gathering of guards below. The eight guards on duty were often out and about performing their different duties ranging from gate keeping the door to making sure nothing disturbed the vibe of the club. The fact five of his coworkers were huddled together should’ve been the first red flag.

The group talked in hushed tones despite the deafening bass and techno music the DJ’s speakers blared out. Once or twice, someone glanced to the far end of the club. Floyd looked and found the source of meeting.

Someone in their forties was loudly drinking at the counter tucked in the shadowy part of the club: It was impossible to tell who they were from this distance but they clearly were enjoying themselves: Head tiled back with messy, wavy salt and pepper hair. They gestured to the bartender (A wonderful woman named Carolyn who unfortunately had school debt to pay off and mob work was the best paying.) excitedly as their drink spilled onto the floor. They wore a large, tattered dark green trench coat that had seen better decades with faded worn out blue jeans. Their black boots were caked with grime and dirt that dirtied the floor. The only thing remotely new was their black t-shirt with some words in white font.

Floyd understood what the problem was: Clubs thrived on their popularity and image. People wanted to feel like they were special, all access stars to the hottest place in the city. With such a reputation came a mighty need to uphold said rep. No offense to whoever was having fun over there but with that look, it might send the wrong message and no amount of cash would ever change that.

Evidently a plan was reached as the meeting broke up. Two guards remained behind, returning to watching the room as the pit boss made his way over to the hapless customer, flanked with back up.

It was oddly satisfying watching the pit boss work: He gracefully slid in and out of crowds, slipping through the lost dancers like a snake treading through water. He motioned to the others to wait then made his way to the person.

The person was singing something at the top of his lungs. Drink, clink or something like that. Maybe it was the song playing at the time but Floyd hadn’t been paying attention to that at the time.

Trench Coat slipped Carolyn something and she laid a bottle of alcohol on the counter beside them: Vermouth? Absente? Vodka? One of those probably.

She nodded gratefully and disappeared into the back.

Floyd frowned at the red flag number two he had just seen: Carolyn was a pretty woman and was told more or less to just do as the customer asked be it answering questions or a reasonable request that wasn’t too out of the ordinary. Of course this was with the strict rule of not to leave the counter unattended.

At the time Floyd thought it was weird, not yet realizing what was about to unfold.

The person poured the bottle directly into their mouth, shaking their body to the catchy beat poorly. Whoever they were could not dance to save their life.

The pit boss, Malcolm, closed the distance between himself and his prey. He snuck closer and closer, the unaware customer too lost in their antics to noticed. Malcolm reached out for their shoulder and…

The thud was loud enough to cut through the noisy club and got the attention of everyone present.

Before Malcolm could even tighten his grip, the person struck: They whirled around, grabbing Malcolm’s head and smashing it into the counter. As Malcolm sunk to the floor, limp and unmoving, the person turned to shoot a smug grin towards the guards.

“I’m on the floor, floor! I love to dance!” They sang, one hand outstretched to the sky, the other gripping the bottle upside and draining its contents onto the counter.

The back up drew their weapons, standard issue nightsticks, and made their way forward.

“So give me more, more, till I can’t stand.”

They emptied the bottle, their green eyes never leaving the approaching guards.

“Get on the floor, floor, like it’s your last chance.”

They chucked the empty bottle into the wall of drinks, broken glass and different alcoholic drinks spilling onto the floor and mixing together.

“If you want more, more, then here I am!”

They pulled a match from within their coat pocket and lit it with the backside of their boot. Without looking, they threw the match over their shoulder and smiled as a raging flame broke out behind them.

The club goers were slow to realize what was going on but the remaining guards, Floyd included, mobilized to action.

Before anyone could react, however, an unexpected shrill shrieked throughout the building: The fire alarm designed to be the most annoying and loudest thing you’ve ever heard.

Even though it had been a slow night and only a dozen or so people were here, the customers panicked with a surge of three times that number.

Screams and yells filled the air as bodies shuffled about in a mad dash. The guards were thrown about, tossed this way and that while the lights, alarm and music worked together to confuse everyone.

Luckily the club was deserted within moments, leaving only security and the troublemaker.

The person hadn’t moved an inch despite the increasingly raging blaze behind them.

The back up pair approached carefully, unsure what this person was capable of.

All of them really had no idea.

The person raised their hand to the sky, belting with full force “LET’S DO THIS ONE MORE TIME!”

Without warning, silence and darkness filled the club: The fire alarm and music died suddenly. The lights followed a moment later but the raging flames, growing hungrily, remained. Floyd’s eyes watered with a sharp pain, the stuffy air and sudden shift in lighting too much for him

Floyd paused his story, uneasy growing at the sight of Jackdaw’s tightened jaw. The poor lad could actually see the veins pulsing with barely contained rage on his boss’s forehead.

“And why did the power go out?” Jackdaw asked through clenched teeth “No one was watching the power? Or the fusebox? Not a single person was guarding what I pay them to guard?”

Floyd remained silent, unsure how to answer that. He was just one of the lower rank and file guards: He got told what to do and he did it.

“Well? I’m waiting Floyd my boy! Why did the power go out?”

Floyd felt the beads of sweat run down his neck.

“Umm sir?”

Floyd nearly collapsed as one of Jackdaw’s techies nervously stepped forward, a loaded video on a tablet in hand.

Jackdaw blew a loose strain of hair out of his face and took a moment to slick back his hair. The vain gesture was enough to allow him to regain some level of composure as he snatched the tablet from the techie. With a grunt, he pressed play.

The video was short: It was a camera feed set up to watch over the fusebox to prevent tampering. Two guards were gesturing to the box, idly chatting with somebody in a red jumpsuit with a clipboard in one hand and a toolbox in the other. The back of uniform had the words “Newton Haven City Maintenance” scrawled across it in some rather hard to read font. The guards laughed out loud, jokingly patting the stranger’s shoulder before leaving frame. The city worker opened the fusebox and began tinkering without anyone stopping him.

The tablet crunched nosily as Jackdaw’s grip sent a ripple of cracks across the screen.

He turned to the techie.

“It was a routine check up.” the techie sputtered out “Our guards called it in this afternoon. Said there was an official letter with stamps and signatures and everything!”

“Did you check with me?” Jackdaw snarled “Because I pay the city specifically so they don’t send anyone to the club. Because of my illegal business practices that I perform there.”

Floyd could see the techie’s shoulder slump, whispering quietly “You were in a meeting….”

Jackdaw growled furiously but returned his attention to the nearly broken tablet.

It hadn’t taken more than a few minutes for the mysterious city maintenance worker to finish. They slammed the fusebox closed, doing a little jig before checking the contents of their toolbox and went on their merry little way.

Jackdaw’s blood froze as the figure gave a cheeky wink to the camera, knowing exactly where it was despite the magical wards in place to keep it invisible.

“Savant.”

An eerie emptiness replaced the hostility in the room.

The fight disappeared out of Jackdaw, leaving only an intense sense of dread and paranoia.

All this was lost on Floyd, who saw the troublemaker’s face and couldn’t help but blurt out “That’s them! The one who beat up Malcolm and burned the club down!”

Jackdaw chuckled darkly “Oh. Oh this makes sense. No one wonder you all get your ass kicked six ways to Sunday. Someone sic’d Savant on me. Ya’ll never had a chance against them.”

Floyd shuddered, the memory of how brutal and efficient Savant had been against them: Grown men dragged kicking and screaming into the shadows, the crunchy noises of bones broken, bodies falling down and yells stopped mid-shout. He still remembered Savant standing over him, nightstick in hand, whistling cheerfully as they brought down the weapon and sent him into unconsciousness.

“Alright!” Jackdaw clapped his hands “Lock it down!”

Everyone glanced towards one another, unsure what exactly the boss meant.

“LOCK IT DOWN!” the snarl that escaped Jackdaw’s lips sent goosebumps down everybody’s spine “NOW! I WANT THIS PLACE SEALED UP NICE AND TIGHT!”

“But we’re 14 stories up...”

Techie flinched as Jackdaw whirled around, eyes blazing with unrestrained rage and impatience “You deaf? I said lock down the building or so help me I’m going to use you as a human shield when they start coming for me.”

Techie opened his mouth when an unexpected sound filled the silence: A muffled, cheeky yet tacky melody of a cellphone ringing.

Glances and gazes looked about trying to find the source of the disturbance. Floyd was baffled when he realized it was coming from inside his coat pocket. Nervously, he reached within and slowly pulled out a palm sized flip phone, the kind hadn’t been used in decades.

Jackdaw’s eyes widened with fear and alarm as he snatched the phone from the poor guard with inhuman speed.

“It’s them!” Jackdaw’s voice was manic “IT’S THEM!”

The mobster was torn about what to do next: Answering meant playing right into Savant’s hands and whatever the mercenary had plan. On the other hand, not answering would no doubt annoy them into far worse retaliation.

With a hard shallow, Jackdaw answered with an uncharacteristically shy “Hello?”

He could feel his heart screech to a stop when a bored, almost nonchalant voice replied “S’up.”

Jackdaw threw as much charm and cheer into his voice “Savant, buddy! Pal!”

“Don’t.” the voice sighed tiredly “It’s pathetic when the begging start. You’re a big, bad mob boss. Act like it you dumbass.”

“Fine” Jackdaw let go of any sense of civility “Good old threats: if you so much as show your face around…”

“Ugh too much in the wrong direction” Savant replied, seemingly uninterested in what the mob boss had to said “You people are all the same: False bravado and overcompensating. It’s embarrassing. Just say you’re scared of me and we can move on.”

Despite the severity of the situation, Jackdaw couldn’t help but feel irritated “Oh is that what you want? Get your jollys when powerful people admit they’re afraid of you? You think you can….you can…”

Jackdaw paused, unsure if his ears were working correctly.

“Are you eating?”

“Hmm??” the sound of smacking lips and chewing was the mercenary’s response for a few moments “Oh yeah. Get hungry when working. Normally I’d be all for the theatrics but it’s been a long night what with fucking with your fusebox, burning down your club, planting the phone on a guard. It’s like 3 in the morning dude.”

Jackdaw bit his lip angrily, a single drop of blood running down his chin “It is 3 in the morning and I’m very tired so I’d very much like to conclude our business. How much?”

“To hire me?” more lip smacking “An amount. You could probably afford it.”

Jackdaw let his shoulder’s sag with relief “So it’s agreed? I’ll hire you and we can all be on our merry way.”

“Sure!” Savant said cheerfully.

Bullet dodged.

“You can hire me after I finish this job. By the way did you like the gift I sent you?”

Gift?

Jackdaw was a powerful and feared member of the illicit side of the magical world. He climbed to his position through sheer force of will and power. He left countless of his enemies broken and defeated in his wake.

To see him reduced to a flailing, paranoid mess would be a story no one would believe.

“GIFT?!” Jackdaw screamed, unable to keep the high-pitch whine out of his voice “WHAT GIFT?! SOMEONE FUCKING ANSWER ME!”

The techie was the first to shake off their stupor “Well there was a box that came in today. It was empty and we detected no magic so…”

“Box?!” Jackdaw spat as he wildly searched the room before landing on the seemingly innocent box just sitting on his desk “You brought it the fuck here?”

Everyone backed away.

“I…”

“Wait” Jackdaw cut off the techie’s answer “Maybe they were hoping you’d take it somewhere or get rid of it. No, no this is good. We’re outwitting the fucker.”

“Sir, the box was empty. And you told use you personally wanted to inspect any and all….”

“You hear that asswipe!” Jackdaw grinned ear to ear “My people are the best! We’re ahead of you. Your game is over, you hear me?”

“My man.” Savant’s voice was infuriatingly calm “It’s just a regular old box for a boring ass mobster.”

“Stop lying!” Jackdaw roared angrily, instinctively bringing down his fist on the closet object in the room.

Which of course was the box.

The parcel collapsed under the mobster’s supernatural strength with little effort. As the box was smashed, the two inert glyph drawn in an invisible ink on both ends collided and activated each other.

The room erupted in an array of dazzling, blinding lights.

The light show hadn’t lasted long but no one knew that as they stumbled around, disoriented and lost, the display still burned in their retinas.

Jackdaw howled violently, swiping at the air blindly with long talon-like nails. Any calls for explanations or help were lost under the raging mobster unleashed.

Jackdaw didn’t hear the window break, the sound of glass shattering as it rained upon the floor. He didn’t see the muzzle flash that flared across the street, Savant’s sniping perch. He knew nothing but the sudden searing pain that filled his shoulder without warning.

Everything drained out of him, he slumped to the floor like a doll. He weakly clutched at his shoulder, steam wafting off the wound as the sliver bullet dug itself deep in its new home.

It didn’t matter what kind of werebeast you were: Wolf, bear, rat or even a raven like Jackdaw. All them were deathly weakened by sliver. The mere smell could cause nausea, touch burned worse than third degree burns and any injuries could take weeks, maybe even months to heal.

Jackdaw wheezed, the room spinning in a messy blur.

“Right.” the phone landed by his ear but Savant’s voice sounded far off like it was echoing down a long tunnel “Sorry I got the paper right here.”

Muted sounds of pockets being turned inside out: Scraping of metal on brick, shuffling papers, even rustling fast food wrappers.

“Got it!” Savant beamed “Quinn says stay the fuck off his turf. Mind your lane or the next time he sends me I won’t be aiming for your shoulder.”

“How did you know I was...I was… no one knew...?” Jackdaw murmured incoherently.

“Your heart.” Savant explained “It’ll be your heart. Okay well I gotta go so take these next few months to reflect on any sort of ill advised turf wars, domestic disputes and fighting with your rivals. If you’re still interested in hiring me for revenge or whatever, you call me at my business payphone. Bye little birdy!”

----------

Savant dropped the phone to the floor, crushing it under their boot while rubbing the tension out of their neck. Around them was the standard stakeout gear: high powered and totally illegal sniper rifle, a neatly piled trash heap and a sniping pillow (Sniping’s hard on the stomach and knees.).

They packed away the gun, kicked the trash heap to make it look more like natural rooftop garbage and went downstairs.

Savant yawned tiredly, not at all concerned with the guards that were pouring out of Jackdaw’s hidey hole. They glanced around, trying to get their bearings when they noticed a hot dog vendor across the street.

“I really shouldn’t” they pursed their lips “Especially after paying for someone to set up the pyrotechnics spells. But I am hungry. Stomach wins!”

Savant made their way over, patting their stomach lovingly “One hotdog please. Everything on it.”

“You got it!” The vendor nodded before eyeing the commotion “What’s with that?”

“I don’t talk business.”

“O-kay. Umm here’s your hotdog. That’ll be two bucks.

Savant reached into their pocket and shoved a hundred dollars into the waiting vendor’s hand. Without a second look, Savant gratefully took the hotdog and walked away.

“Hey buddy! BUDDY! You gave me way too much!”

“You too!” Savant replied, took caught up in the rapture that was their meal.

This was a really fucking good hotdog.

[dreadfutures]

WIP Wednesday at BTV: @kita-lavellan | @silvanils | @noire-pandora | @ellie-effie | @musetta3 | @jarakrisafis | @nivenor-krosis | @kittynomsdeplume | @inquisitoracorn | @ohhgren | @medlilove | @morganlefaye79 | @hollyand-writes

And @crackinglamb who also tagged me!

I’ve had a really awful week but I’ve been slowly chipping away at this very important conversation between Ixchel and Solas. And I’d actually appreciate thoughts on this. I’ll just listen to whatever anyone has to say. This is long though so I’m going to put it under the cut.

Question: Specifically, I'm trying to navigate this complicated cause/effect and question of autonomy and individuality in their relationship, which happens to hold the weight of the apocalypse over both their heads in different ways. It is important that they both can operate as they wish, without fearing they will misstep and drive the other away

Ixchel definitely is one of the reasons Solas ultimately confronts some of his stubbornness/willful blindness, as his friend and someone he respects--it’s the way she lives her life and the way she hopes and fights and the world she believes in that ultimately makes him see more paths available than his din’an’shiral. It's not that she loves him or he loves her.

And he's aware that because of so many complications and questions about her resurrection, that she constantly feels like it might indeed be her love--and lovability--that’s holding back the apocalypse. And their relationship will never be equal and truly healthy until she stops carrying that burden. Somehow she needs to learn to trust that he has made his decision and will continue to make decisions based off of himself, and not her.

But also at the same time, he loves her, and she loves him, and they do help each other with like, reinforcing each other's hope, and reminding each other what they're fighting for, that the fight is worth it, and when the other one is tired, being able to prop them up and help them keep going as equals. There are the shadows of her own anxieties and depression that aren't entirely based in reality, but there are also these fears that are so deeply founded in reality. idk.

The Excerpt:

Ixchel and Solas finished bathing and washed their clothes—smiling like the foolish da'lenala neither of them had ever had the luxury to be. She was full of wine and laughter, and she knew that there would only be more waiting back in the Hold.

But as they dried off in the warm evening sun and she thought about the celebration of Hakkon's rebirth, her mind strayed to the name the Spirits of the Basin had given her, and what she had done to earn it. The shock and gratitude she had felt upon hearing herself called 'God-Song' had faded some, and now the chill of anxiety returned to the pit of her stomach. She shivered despite the golden light that surrounded them, and she felt Solas's attention shift from the sky down to her again. He did not speak, but she felt the question in his eyes on her bare back. "Vhenan," she began in a low voice, "should I… The Spirits called to Mythal through me. Was it her power that they summoned with that song? Or my own? Or theirs?" His grip around her waist tightened. "Do not be afraid," he said, but of course that solidified the cold tendrils of anxiety into hard, heavy dread in her gut. "The Spirits here are older than many," Solas said haltingly, "but they are still young. They remember only echoes of…'elf songs,' they call them. The echoes by themselves have power, even if the subjects of the songs cannot hear. That is the power of a prayer, spoken where the Veil is thin." He took a deep breath, and after a moment of consideration he sat up beside her. He rested one arm across his knees and began to trace idle patterns across her cursed forearm with the other. "I do not think she heard you." She stared across at his tense jaw, though his eyes remained on the horizon. "We summoned Flemeth at Mythal's altar in the Arbor Wilds, with a song," she whispered. He tilted his head slightly. "Did you not have the Well of Sorrows in your company?" "Ah." She gave a shuddering laugh as something, not quite relief, swept through her. "That's true." Solas responded with a shallow nod, but then, for a moment, his chest seemed filled with words. She waited, but he did not speak them before sighing again. "What is it?" she asked, and bit her lip. Solas slipped his arm around her waist to shift her closer, and then he sought out the Anchor. He spread her palm open, and with deliberate slowness, he dipped the pads of his fingers into the shining tear of magic her skin. It was as though he might slip through her hand and into the Fade that way. A vicious shudder wracked her frame; the penetration itself felt strange and dull, like a cramp, and yet the magic in her hand came to life with a hot flare. She could see the spirals of his orb across her skin, as she often could if she examined her palm closely, but now she could see the green tendrils of green rift magic as they wound their way up her wrist and her forearm. To her horror, it was clear that the Anchor had embedded itself almost halfway up to her elbow. She could feel Solas draw upon it with his concentration, and yet the reaching veins of the Anchor did not retreat. The damage had been done. Her fingers had curled around his instinctively, until the bones in his hand seemed to creak in protest. "I will not let them have you," he said. The finality with which he spoke made her feel as though he were not quite answering her question. Some other conversation had played out in his mind, and he had come to this answer. She did not know exactly whether he spoke of Flemeth and Mythal, or even perhaps the all-consuming power of the Anchor. She stared down at their joined hands, eyes burning, which was likely a sign that she was too exhausted to handle these conversations. When she heard and saw the resolve in him, she should have been able to stifle the part of her that remembered how he spoke to her of the din'an'shiral he must walk alone. She should not have immediately been afraid that the calculation he had done in his head was about his loyalties. It should have been a settled matter, and yet, still, it was not. Ixchel took a deep breath and tried to swallow that part of her. "I am more concerned about what she might do with you, Solas," she said truthfully. "How did I end up with Old God's spent soul within me? How did he come to possess it, when Mythal had taken it? Was he moving to the beat of her drum—knowingly, or not?" She saw the slightest twitch of his ear and knew that she had touched on a raw topic there, too. But this was a better topic, and one that was just as important for her to know the answer to. "If I have enticed you from the path that she wanted you on… Should I not be afraid, to stand against Mythal?" He turned his head abruptly, and she met his piercing gray eyes dead-on. After a moment's consideration, he reached around her to stroke her cheek gently with the backs of his knuckles. And she knew immediately that he had heard, beneath this line of questioning, the doubt that still ate at her. There was no challenge in his gaze, but the look with which he pinned her was not soft, either. "My loyalty is to our People above all else," he said, to make her heart seize in her chest. He continued in a measured voice that was heavy with blood and wine. "In Wycome. In Halamshiral. In Serault, and Minrathous, in Skyhold, and across the Veil… If Mythal indeed remains, she would not keep me from such a duty. For all the fearsome tales of the Witch of the Wilds, I cannot believe the All-Mother, if she truly remains, would undercut that work." She gripped his hand ever tighter. "And you… You are not afraid of Mythal," he said, a bitter note coloring his words. "You are afraid of walking your path alone. You are afraid that you cannot hold the Dread Wolf at bay with the strength of your love. And you cannot. You have not." His breath was hot across her face as he drew closer—not to kiss her, of course not, but rather as though he might impress upon her the full weight of his words with the strength in his silver eyes. "You are the Champion of the People. You have sworn, and I have believed." He squeezed her hand back, to emphasize his point. "For as long as you hold true to your purpose, you are my Champion, 'ma'lath, 'ma'av'in. But as you insisted, you chose yourself first. You gave yourself a name, decided its meaning." He brushed her hair behind her ear and then settled his hand firmly at the back of her neck, fingers tangled in her hair to hold her, ground her. He gave her the smallest shake. "Let me do the same." Ixchel swallowed. "Hope is a choice," she murmured. "Yes," he replied, "it is. So is trust." He kissed her gently then, and she tried to lose herself to it. The hand at the back of her neck slipped back to her ribs, to pull her close against his chest. She could feel his heart beat steadily beneath their skin, a steady, certain rhythm. She sighed into his mouth, and he hummed in response. "Ir abelas," she whispered as she broke away. They rested their foreheads together, eyes closed. "Do not be," he said, more gently than before. He raised their joined hands between them and traced the scar that ran down her chest, over her heart. "For all your stalwart strength, Ixchel, for all that you have reforged yourself from ruin, you cannot be blamed for fearing the one who shattered you. Especially when you have given him the very tools with which to shatter you again." Ixchel lost her breath as his words impacted her physically, and she opened her eyes to see that he had, too. For a moment, they were no longer silver—but rather they burned with the blue light of a god's power. That terrible gaze was focused on something deep within her chest…something that responded, and reflected his power back at him in painful resonance. "If there is one burden you can put down," he said, voice falling to a lilting whisper, "it is that you still carry the responsibility of the death of a world in your heart. Please… You must know it was not your failure." The magic in his eyes faded, and his lashes flicked up as he caught her staring at him. There were creases of grief at the corners of his eyes. "My mistakes will always be my own." The grief in his face might have seemed incongruent with the hard and heavy weight of his words, but she could feel how they hurt him as much as they hurt her. "I have told you that you have changed everything, but it was not your love for me, nor even my love for you, that has changed my course. It is the harm I have done to the world, the harm I know I might yet do, that stays my hand. Ane mala vasreëm." Perhaps it was the tears he saw well up in her eyes, or maybe it was simply his anxious mind trying to cut off any possible way he could hurt her more than he had already, but his own face was suddenly torn with pain and apology. "In saying this, I might seem to take away from your perceived victory—" "No," she said suddenly. "Solas, I do not need to believe it a war between us." She freed her hands from his so she could brush briefly at her eyes. "Thank you. I have only ever cared for your path as a friend... I love you, but--" she could not stem the flow of her tears, and she laughed at herself.  She wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face in his shoulder. He obliged and held her tightly; warm, smooth skin pressed against her rough constellation of scars, and she was enveloped in his smell, his warmth, his magic. She knew that she was safe in his embrace. And she knew that he was right. Perhaps she could have thwarted the Dread Wolf's plans, had she not killed herself. But he had chosen his path, chosen to excise his heart and give it to her, and she had been right to think that to carry it—to redeem it, to return it—was a futile task. Solas had never betrayed her. He had never promised anything. Cole was right: Solas was only ever his own. It was Solas who had watched her walk her path. Solas had chosen to follow, open-eyed. And ultimately, it would be Solas who chose to stay. Life is a story written by two hands, after all.