#kaesa ocs

[kaesaaurelia]

Made little Hero Forge guys out of every single character I've ever played at least one session of in a TTRPG. (The ones with closeups I've played for more than one session.) Details under the cut.

Top Row:

Literally Just Terezi Pyrope, Pathfinder; half-orc Investigator Made for a Pathfinder oneshot wherein my friend was playing a Vriska-inspired character. I feel the need to disclaim that we did not kill or maim anyone out-of-game. I don't even remember if we killed anyone in-game because I remember it being pretty puzzle/trap-focused?

????; Ryuutama; Crafter/Autumn Sorceress I'm kicking myself that I don't remember her name. She was a seamstress, and in the specific world we were playing in we were the descendants of space colonists, so I decided her ancestors would be from a culture with really pretty fabric patterns.

Ylva Truehand, D&D 5E; half-orc monk. A herbo if ever there was one. Accidentally became the figurehead of a coup d'etat at home and had to Leave Right Now Immediately. We only got to the part where we all met at an inn before outside circumstances meant the campaign fell apart.

2nd Row:

Katja, 3.5E D&D; human cleric prestige class (maybe a Radiant Servant of Pelor?) My very first TTRPG character! I played her in a high school friend's historical-fantasy-inspired homebrew setting campaign he ran one summer in college. She was meant to be an army doctor for Fantasy Imperial Russia and we were doing an escort mission across a desert that was, iirc, disputed territory between three superpowers? Mostly I remember killing a lot of ninjas and then stumbling across a magical oasis where the water was magically pacifying, finding the mineral that was responsible for this effect, grinding a bunch of it into powder, and then making our GM's life a living hell by slipping it into NPCs' drinks whenever we wanted something from them.

3rd Row:

Safira, Stewpot; Paladin/Artisan. This one's pretty obviously an expy of my angel OC Vehuel. Stewpot is a game about retiring from adventuring so the character concept for her was "Holy warrior chosen by prophecy to kill a great evil with a magic sword; accidentally fell in love with the great evil. Eventually killed it anyway. Deeply traumatized."

Yarrow Tunneler, Mausritter; Acorn sign wireworker. Yarrow came out so cute here! A lot of stuff in Mausritter is randomly assigned and I think her class was one of those things, but I liked the wireworker thing (basically she's a mouse electrician) and one of her starting bits of equipment was a spool of wire. There weren't any good wire spools on Hero Forge, but I managed to make a battery-looking thing for her to carry around on her back.

Esca Glowfin, Ocean Tides; mermaid. Yeah so the game wanted me to choose whether she was going to be a mermaid or pirate but I wanted to be both so I made it work. The actual character concept I had in my head does not look much like this but turns out one of Hero Forge's weaknesses is deep sea benthic horrors with needle teeth. So I just made her hot. Sorry, Esca, you probably deserved better.

4rd Row:

Minu Darzi, Shadowrun 5E/Definitely Not Shadowrun At All; elf face. This one's an expy of my demon OC Nisroc, but like, a very very tiny sliver of Nisroc's whole schtick. I tend to describe her as "what if Grendel's mother was a shitty grifter who wanted to be an influencer?" but she shoots a lot of people so I feel like her sphere of influence is powerful but limited to like. Influencing people to die.

5th Row:

Royse, 5E D&D; Aasimar rogue. Another Vehuel expy, this one much younger and less traumatized. Royse was made for a West Marches group I didn't really vibe with. The one session I played was great but the out-of-game downtime stuff felt like a part-time accounting job and I don't have any interest in accounting. Anyway Royse was fun and she was gonna be a Swashbuckler.

Pandora (& Scylax), Worlds Without Number; mage (Necromancer/Beastmaster). For the oneshot group I'm part of we've started doing a test combat session at the end of Session Zero to make sure our characters aren't going to die immediately, and after that our GM decided we should be using the Heroic rules. In the combat trial, Pandora used her one (1) spell slot to mind-control one of the wolves that were attacking us and it killed a bunch of the rest of them, so given the opportunity to add another 1/2 mage specialization I picked Beastmaster and gave her a wolf. I really liked some of the lore for this game but oof, it's super unforgiving. (I think it might be a good starting point if you wanted to play a Locked Tomb campaign, though?)

Zamira the Magnificent, Blades in the Dark; slide. This character was a disgraced stage magician who accidentally killed her assistant (maybe sawed them in half?) and I liked the concept but our Blades in the Dark party really didn't end up doing much RP, even though we are a very RP-heavy group; I kind of wish the game had facilitated it more.

6th Row:

????; Tempus Diducit; Weird Scientist. Tempus Diducit is a no-prep chaotic game about a time travel crisis where a lot of things are randomized; mostly I remember there being superintelligent octopi and making strong acids, and also me having a lot of very annoying ideas involving my specialized knowledge of both cephalopods and chemistry.

????; Subway Runners. I remember very little about my Subway Runners character but basically this is a no-prep game where your character sheet is entirely randomized and every character is probably at least a little Done With This Shit because every Subway Runners PC is a gig economy worker whose shitty gig job is fixing an urban fantasy public transit system full of extremely weird shit. I think by the end of the session all our characters had cat ears.

Miriam; You Awaken in a Strange Place; marine biologist. Once more my specialized cephalopod knowledge comes back to bite me in the ass! (Also, this is the second Miriam on the list; 'Zamira the Magnificent' was a stage name.) YAiaSP is another no-prep chaotic game; you also get to make up all the skills your characters have, and Miriam was good at Identifying Marine Animals but bad at Working Under Pressure, which was great because they were in a locked submarine murder mystery and identifying marine animals was basically of no use whatsoever. I think in the end she failed a Using Scientific Equipment roll and then bluffed that she had actually gotten the DNA results to get the murderer to confess. This is unethical if you're in law enforcement; if you're a professional marine animal identifier it's still unethical but I think it's also kind of impressive. Only I forget if it actually worked, so maybe it wasn't.

7th Row:

Heshky, Pathfinder 2E; half-orc investigator. I have literally only ever played half-orc investigators in Pathfinder, which is very funny to me. [Edit: This is no longer true! I have a dwarf ranger now.] Heshky here is not much like the Terezi expy, though. He is an expy, but of one of my OCs rather than someone else's and his backstory is that he's a former mob accountant whose boss died in circumstances that were technically not his fault, so he had to leave town for a while. I would absolutely love to play him somewhere else; he was made for my one-shot group but we ended up stretching that Pathfinder one-shot out to like 5? 6? sessions and I got very attached. (If I played him again I miiight not start him out as an investigator though, because he almost died like 3 times.)

8th Row:

Zirane, I'm Sorry, Did You Say Street Magic, baker. ISDYSSM is a cooperative worldbuilding game so I kind of forgot there was a character I played in it, but apparently I did! This guy lives in a fantasy city and works at a cafe owned by some mystery person (possibly a vampire?) but he's not worried about that. He is good at baking, but likes experimenting with weird combinations of flavors, which sometimes means his extremely well-made baked goods taste regrettable.

Kjersti, Session Zero; war-witch deserter. Session Zero is a character creation/development game without character classes; it can actually be played solo as a writing exercise too! So I just kind of went wild here. I really like the concept I ended up with and keep meaning to post what I wrote up for her; over the course of the game she went from annoyed arcane college student to spoiled rich girl to army deserter trying to survive a magical war crimes-induced apocalypse and daydreaming about overthrowing her own government in no time at all.

Edie, Genesys; dwarf mad alchemist. The setting we decided on for the Genesys one-shot was cyberpunk fantasy, a bit like Shadowrun but if magic had always been in the world, so I decided to pull out one of my old, old LJRP characters (Ed Espis) and repurpose her. Edie grew up a third- or fourth-generation corporate citizen and very privileged, but when her parents died under mysterious circumstances and she was fired shortly thereafter, the company decided she had to pay off all the resources they had invested in her entire family so now she's broke and has to do crimes (petty) instead of crimes (war) to live. She ended this session by shooting a guy in the head but listen, he extremely deserved it.

[kaeyapilled]

what's fun about asa and kaeya is that they have like nothing in common. there is no reason for me to be shipping this underdeveloped oc with kaeya beyond just the fact that i really like kaeya and i really like asa and itd be cool if they kissed

[mintkupocream]

Patreon reward for @kaesaaurelia​!  Always a pleasure working with you.

[lordeasriel]

Hello, I published another short story on AO3. This one is a fanfic, set in The Old Republic timeline (precisely a bit before the beginning of the class stories on the MMO game) and I want to make more short stories with my OCs, so if this one is interesting enough to people, I will continue. This one is called Bloodline, and it’s already finished. It is very short, but I believe it is fun to read! I would love if anyone check it out! Thanks!

https://archiveofourown.org/works/15545154/chapters/36086652

(yes, andras’te is named after dragon age’s andraste. and yes, theirin is also from there. i’m not even sorry lol i mean, it’s the same game developer lmao)

[icannotreadcursive]

OC toner Day 5!

Prompt: OC as a child

“So, why is Kaesa crying?” Leryk asked without looking up from the word puzzle he was working on.

Bryn, who had just returned from the half-hour ordeal of making sure Kaesa wasn't dying or something since she'd run in and to her room utterly sobbing, levered himself up from where he'd flopped onto his bed and sighed. “Because Yutar kissed Miki.”

Leryk looked over slowly and tilted his head. “And that's...the end of the world?”

“Apparently.” Bryn shrugged.

“That's dumb,” Leryk said shortly.

“I know! But I couldn't tell her that.” Bryn stood and stretched and came over to sit by Leryk. “She likes Yutar, y'know, so, yeah, it's dumb but she's upset.”

Leryk snorted and shook his head. “Teenagers.”

“We're teenagers, Leryk,” Bryn reminded him.

“We're thirteen, that hardly counts!”

[kaesaaurelia]

pop quiz!

For @whumptober day 8, using the prompts “outnumbered,” “it's all for nothing," and the song prompt ("All These Things That I've Done" by The Killers).

Continued from Day 5, wherein Aziraphale returns to Earth, hoping some allies he's contacted will be able to help him, has a big fight with some archangels, and is horribly injured leaping in front of Crowley, who wasn't supposed to be there.

(Crowley's prior experience with Cerviel is something I wrote about in an ark of acacia wood in 2019, but you don't need to have read that.)

He could hear Crowley swearing and scrambling to get out of the passenger side door -- had he been hit? Aziraphale couldn't let any of this happen, but it already had, and oh, he was so stupid, so utterly stupid. At least they would die together, though he would have preferred if Crowley had lived, at least. He would have preferred if they both had lived. He wanted to see Crowley's eyes again, and tell Crowley how much he loved him, and to kiss him, and now he would never get to do any of that.

Crowley was shouting and Michael was closing in, now wielding her sword.  The only thought left in Aziraphale's mind was that he must do everything he could to incapacitate her or she might kill Crowley. He pushed himself forward along the spear, enduring the agony of it to lunge towards Michael, and with the last of his strength he grabbed her wrist and shoved the sword away from Crowley.  (Away from him, he would later realize; she hadn't actually been trying to get at Crowley at all.  Aziraphale was not sure he would have been able to muster the strength to save only himself.)  It cut a wide arc through the air in front of him, and though he was in great pain from the spear, the sword had miraculously missed him.

There was a brief, undignified struggle for the sword, but Aziraphale's complete lack of self-preservation and the borrowed strength of his Supreme Archangel's title won out in the end and he managed to grab the hilt before the sword fell out of Michael's grasp. Aziraphale swung wildly, trying more to keep his balance than to hurt Michael, but he sliced a streak of red upwards across her cheek.

"No!" she shouted and sank to her knees, feeling the wound, looking for all the world like some doom was upon her.

Aziraphale gripped the sword tightly and looked around for Crowley. His knees were giving out, but that was all right, actually, because the spear was supporting him, keeping him painfully upright.  He saw Crowley coming around the car now, and he wondered if perhaps he would have a chance to say goodbye after all.

"Oh god," said Crowley, forgetting himself for a moment, forgetting that he didn't swear to God, and Aziraphale had to smile. "Aziraphale. Fuck. We have to get you out of here," he said, putting an arm around Aziraphale so he could support him.

"Not so fast," said Uriel, and Crowley turned and hissed at her, as if that would help. He was such a dear, and Aziraphale hoped desperately that he would survive. "Looks like it will be me after all," they said, closing in on the two of them, their own sword drawn. Michael was clutching her face, but she was still alive, he thought, wasn't she? It wasn't even that bad of a wound.

"Angel, I'm sssorry, I -- I don't think I should pull the sssspear out, but," said Crowley, frantic and hissing and not paying nearly enough attention to Uriel.

Aziraphale forced himself to concentrate, forced his remaining blood into his brain so he could speak. "There's a book in my inside pocket," he whispered to Crowley. "Take it and run."

"I don't care about booksss, I care about you," Crowley snarled, and he was so angry, only he didn't understand, and Aziraphale wished he could explain it all.

"Please," said Aziraphale, "it's not -- it's --" He couldn't find words anymore, and after a moment of struggle, he gave up on consciousness.

--

"Back away and I might let you live, serpent," said Uriel.

Crowley had been panicking, but their threat gave him a sort of light-headed clarity: if Aziraphale died, Crowley did not give a single shit what happened to him anymore.  He knew he ought to, but he hadn't done what he ought to for a long time and he certainly wasn't starting now.

"Fuck off," he said, planting himself firmly in front of Aziraphale. "You don't ssscare me."

"Then why are you hissssing?" Uriel asked, with a sideways smile.

Crowley opened his mouth to say something very clever and found he had nothing.

"Are you still dealing with this idiot?" the Metatron said, staggering. "Just stab him and be done with it. Michael, I'm very disappointed in your performance today," he said to the other archangel, who was still on her knees on the ground, apparently in shock. This statement caused her to make the sort of growling sound he'd never heard come from a human throat before and dive towards the Metatron like a furious animal.  But the Metatron kicked her aside easily, as if she was not the Archangel Michael, as if she was not only not a threat, but not even a person. "Handle her, Uriel," he said, and as Uriel turned towards Michael, she struggled to her feet and fled. Had one little scratch with a sword really lost her all her standing?

"Crowley," said the Metatron. "Come now. We both know you're not brave. Stand aside."

Crowley did know that about himself, but he did not care. "Doessn't change the fact that I'm not moving. Go to Heaven."

"Oh, please," said the Metatron, rolling his eyes. "He must not be that important to you. If he was, you would have taken Heaven's offer.  Let us deal with our own internal discord and we'll pretend we didn't see you here."

Crowley gritted his teeth against the guilt. These mind games were so stupid when Aziraphale was behind him, bleeding out, and he wished he could sink fangs into the Metatron and watch him succumb to the agony of death by venom. 

He was gathering his thoughts for either something withering to say to the Metatron or a really stupid attempt to incapacitate him or maybe just a desperate, weak punch, when he heard an odd noise coming closer. Someone was running towards them, and when he turned to look at the newcomer, Crowley was very surprised to see who it was; he could not have guessed it in a million years, because he hadn't seen the fucker for -- well, all right, not a million years, but it had been several millennia.

The last time Crowley had encountered Cerviel, the angel had been serving as the Power of Jerusalem and he and Aziraphale and Dagon and Crowley had been involved in a very stupid scuffle over where the Ark of the Covenant was.  In the ensuing chaos Cerviel had apparently discorporated Aziraphale with his spear by accident while trying to deal with Crowley, and Crowley had taken offense to this, turned into a snake, and discorporated him right back by crushing him to death.  (Aziraphale had got better, although Crowley hadn't found out about that until about a decade later.)

Now Aziraphale had been speared on purpose, and he wasn't going to get better, and Cerviel, for some perplexing fucking reason, had come all the way from New York City just to murder Crowley while the Metatron watched, and it was all a horrible, nonsensical palindrome. Crowley had never expected the end of his life to be at the hands of some random Power, but there was nothing much he could do about it now except try to keep his dignity, so he gave Cerviel his least-impressed sneer.  "What do you want?"

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Cerviel said. "You can't just drive through a bunch of pedestrians like that."

This was a confusing note to start his imminent destruction on, and when Crowley hazarded a glance at the Metatron, he seemed just as confused.   It was a nice change of pace, at least.  He had to give Cerviel that.

"And you!" Cerviel said, rounding on the Metatron.  "Hold him up, I need the spear," he told Crowley, nodding at Aziraphale, and something in Crowley decided that he might as well, so he did.  Cerviel wrenched the spear free and pointed it at the Metatron, who looked very affronted, and Crowley guided Aziraphale gently to the ground to lean against one of the Bentley's front wheels.  He pressed his hands over the horrible wound in Aziraphale's chest to keep the blood in, because humans always seemed to do that in films, but he didn't know if it was helping, or if he dared use his demonic power to heal an angel on the verge of discorporation.  Aziraphale's breathing was weak and shuddering, and even though Crowley knew Aziraphale's body was only breathing for him out of habit, the fact that it was having such trouble doing so was concerning.

"Are you working with demons, Cerviel?" said the Metatron.  "Really?"

"Don't you even fucking start with me, asshole," said Cerviel.  "You've screwed me over so many times and I am sick of it.  And so are the rest of us."

This sounded like it was going to be a whole conversation, and Crowley decided he might as well at least get Aziraphale into the car.  Maybe he could somehow sneak away from the angelic confrontation.  In a large black vintage car that was right next to them.

As he was dragging Aziraphale into the car -- Aziraphale and the stupid sword he'd got from Michael, because he had a death grip on the thing -- it occurred to him that actually, probably this had something to do with the phone call he'd got earlier today, letting him know Aziraphale was likely to be returning to Earth.  It had been from Muriel at the bookshop, but they'd mentioned something about several Principalities being about, and they'd also said Crowley ought to be careful and come right to the bookshop without trying to rescue Aziraphale.  So perhaps Cerviel was on Aziraphale's side?

(Crowley hadn't done what he ought to in a very, very long time, and he loved Aziraphale too much not to rush to him like a fool.)

Aziraphale took a deep, wheezing breath.  "Crowley?" he asked, so quietly Crowley could barely hear him over Cerviel's enumerations of the indignities he had suffered at Heaven's hands.  "You --"  His chest rose and fell laboriously.  "...not supposed to be here."

"Well I am here," said Crowley, "sso that'ss jusst too bad, isn't it?"  He opened the back seat of the Bentley.

"...bleed all over your car," said Aziraphale, sounding like he was about to wink out of existence at any moment.

"Oh, it's not our car anymore?"  His tone was harsh but he was as gentle as possible moving Aziraphale into the backseat.  "Did I get it in the divorce?"  Aziraphale didn't look dismayed so much as confused, and Crowley couldn't tell if it was because he didn't know what divorce Crowley was talking about or because he hadn't quite heard what Crowley had said.

"Can I -- your face," said Aziraphale, haltingly, reaching down to squeeze his hand with the hand that wasn't clutching the sword.  "I want to see..."

"I'm right here, you can see my face perfectly well," said Crowley, irritably.

"Your eyes," said Aziraphale, sounding more alive than he had for the past few minutes.

Crowley found that he was tearing up, and the last thing he wanted to do was show anyone that.  But.  Ugh.  Fine.  He took off his sunglasses.  "There.  Are you happy?"  He tried to ignore the tears rolling down his cheeks, because they were ruining his whole aesthetic.

Aziraphale beamed.  "So happy," he said.  There was a lump in Crowley's throat and he didn't trust himself to speak, so he just... sort of propped Aziraphale up against the seat back and pretended the Bentley had always had seatbelts -- special ones with cushioning to keep from aggravating large chest wounds.  He shut the door and hurried to get back into the car on the driver's side, passing his hand quickly over the gaping hole where Michael's spear had got stuck.  He loved this car, but he hated how easy it was to heal when he hadn't been able to do anything about Aziraphale.

As he started the car, Cerviel was accusing the Metatron of being a "wannabe Wizard of Oz fucker," so that was fun.  Crowley began backing away, but Cerviel stopped the car by the simple expediency of sticking one hand in the window and yanking it forward without even turning away from his argument, so that was very rude, but then Crowley began listening.  "...just one question for you, Mr. I Talk to God and You Don't," said Cerviel, gesturing slightly alarmingly with Michael's spear.  "Where's the Ark of the Covenant?"

The Metatron looked very bored.  "Ah, well, of course it's in an undisclosed location, but rest assured, it is very secure and --"

"No, you don't understand, this is a pop quiz," said Cerviel.  "Where is it?  You get one guess."

The Metatron hesitated for just a moment, and then sighed and said, "You've hidden it in the desert in --"

"Wrong!" said Cerviel, gleefully.

The Metatron's face became furious.  "Where have you hidden it?  Where is it, Cerviel?"

"Right now, I don't know," said Cerviel, shrugging, "but if it's important, I'll make a few calls and find out.  Anyway, good talking to you, don't follow us, and maybe just go to Hell.  It's not like you're not collaborating with them anyway."  He sidled around the Bentley and got into the front passenger seat before Crowley had quite realized what was happening, but Crowley supposed he wasn't about to be murdered, so he stepped on the gas, bowling over several Archangels in the process.

[kaesaaurelia]

an appointment with the supreme archangel

For @whumptober day 20, using the prompt "you will regret touching them."

This is the last installment of this fic!

The previous installments were posted on Day 1, wherein Crowley definitely did not move into the bookshop, took a nap on the couch afterwards, and when he woke up his lungs hurt and he passed out, Day 2, wherein Muriel carried him into Maggie’s record shop, because they hoped a human might understand better than they do what was wrong with him, Day 10, wherein Crowley’s illness was causing strange and terrible weather, and help from Heaven was not forthcoming, Day 13, wherein Crowley got even worse, but Muriel thought they might’ve worked out what had happened, Day 14, wherein Muriel and another angel worked out a very unpleasant cure for Crowley, and Day 19, wherein Muriel learned about deceit and betrayal, and got the evidence they needed to show exactly who was responsible for having poisoned Crowley.

Content warning for everyone in Heaven taking their frustrations out on each other (even Aziraphale).

Muriel had never met Arariel in person before, and they were much more anxious about making a good impression on them than they were about their meeting with the Supreme Archangel. At least they weren't the only one who was anxious, because when they got to Physics & Metaphysics, Arariel seemed almost startled to see them, and they were wringing their hands as they showed Muriel around Physics & Metaphysics.

After the brief tour, they said, "You're shorter than I thought you would be."

"Oh, sorry," said Muriel. "I could be taller if you like." That seemed like a weird thing to say, they realized, a little too late.

"No! It suits you," said Arariel. And then they smiled nervously and straightened their tie. "Sorry, don't pay attention to me, I've never had an audience with the Supreme Archangel. Not any of them."

"I don't know if it's an audience," said Muriel. "I'm just popping in to say hello, and also to tell him about the whole... incident. It's an update. And I want to make sure you get credit for your help!"

"Right. Yeah." Arariel swallowed. "You're certain they won't be angry with you for saving a demon?"

"It's Crowley, he's not a bad demon. You'd understand if you met him," Muriel insisted. "Ooh, if you ever get to come down to Earth you have to meet him!"

"I don't think I want to meet a demon," said Arariel. "They were bad enough before they were demons, when they were forgetting to use eye protection and fooling around with resonance structures and rebelling against God."

"Crowley's not like that. You'd have loads to talk about, I bet," said Muriel. "Like. Hydrogen!" Arariel was very big on hydrogen, Muriel knew; it was one of the top two components of their proudest accomplishment, water. Muriel didn't understand why they liked hydrogen so much specifically, but they liked Arariel's enthusiasm, and apparently there was a lot of it in stars too. "I bet Crowley'd love somebody to talk about hydrogen with."

"Oh. Do you think? I never thought of that," said Arariel. "I don't know that I'd do well on Earth, really. It sounds very dangerous."

"It really isn't," said Muriel, "at least, not if you've got a guide. But we had better get going. You don't have to come along if you don't want to," they added, because Arariel seemed so nervous, and after all, they had been wrong in trying to assume the best about Kabniel and Pahadron; they could still be wrong about Aziraphale.

"I know, but it doesn't seem fair to let you take all the risk," said Arariel.

"Don't worry," said Muriel, "I'm very brave, I can handle it." Sometimes if they said something enough it ended up being true.

They got to the waiting area where the Supreme Archangel's personal assistant sat. His nameplate said his name was Phanuel, and Muriel recognized the name -- he'd been Gabriel's personal assistant too. But they'd never talked to him.

Phanuel frowned at the two of them. "Do you have an appointment?"

"I have," said Muriel, "but also, I think he might want to speak to my friend here, so --"

"The Supreme Archangel does not have time to waste on everybody's friends," said Phanuel. "Your friend can wait here, on the extreme off chance he wishes to speak with them. What's your name?"

"Muriel," said Muriel. "Actually I already filled out the visitor form, unless you've changed it, just so things could go --"

"Fill out the form," said Phanuel. "Both sides." Muriel looked down at it. Nothing had changed, so they took it, sat down next to Arariel, and began copying the version they'd already done onto the fresh new form.

"Sorry you're stuck out here," they said to Arariel.

"That's all right," said Arariel. "Don't think I've ever had a friend before. It's... nice."

Muriel laughed, which Phanuel apparently disapproved of. They ignored him. "It is nice, isn't it?" They looked over the form a few times, just to be absolutely sure nothing had changed, and when they were satisfied, they gave it to Phanuel, who didn't even look at it.

"Go on," he said, motioning towards the bit of ether where the Supreme Archangel worked. They took a deep breath -- a new human skill they'd learned -- and went to speak to Aziraphale.

"This had better be important, Hamaliel," said Aziraphale, rounding on them as soon as they got there, but then he saw them and his entire demeanor changed. "Oh! I'm so sorry, I think I forgot about our appointment. What can I do for you?"

"I'm actually just here to update you on the situation on Earth," said Muriel, cheerfully. "It's very unimportant and dull, and I doubt it would interest anyone else." Hopefully that would throw any unseen eavesdroppers off. "Anyway. Er. So. A little over a month ago, the demon Crowley, er, moved a lot of his things into the bookshop -- I mean, the Angelic Embassy -- and --"

"Oh," said Aziraphale, looking stricken for some reason. "Oh, I wish... well. I'm glad he's using it."

"Yes," said Muriel. "And. Er. This is where things get extremely boring," they reiterated. "But. I received a housewarming gift from you."

"A housewarming gift?"

"It's a charming human --"

"I know what a housewarming gift is," said Aziraphale. "What do you mean, from me?"

"Well. The note said it was from you, but later on I realized it couldn't possibly have been sent by you," said Muriel, "because of course, you're very busy, and that it must have been sent on your behalf, very generously, by persons unknown, who were maybe too shy to take credit for it. And I think..." They paused. Did they really want this? They suddenly wished they had asked Crowley, since he was the one who'd almost died, but Crowley looked so unhappy every time anyone mentioned Aziraphale. So they'd have to trust their own judgment. They decided to press on. "I think you ought to reward them for their generosity."

"I don't understand," said Aziraphale. "What was the gift?"

"It was a candle," said Muriel. "Very smelly. The note that came with it suggested that I be sure to light it while Crowley was around." And they recounted the whole incident, Crowley's cough and fainting, the blood rain and the thunder and all, as though perhaps it had been the result of a very minor misunderstanding. Aziraphale was a very impatient audience, and Muriel kept having to reassure him that Crowley was doing very well indeed, and when they were done the air was full of ozone and electricity and fury, and they were a little worried, actually; they could see why Arariel had called him smitey if he did this kind of thing regularly. "And, and I did try to let you know," they said, "only I couldn't get through to you at all."

"But he's all right? Crowley, I mean?" Aziraphale's expression was fierce and furious.

"Of course he's all right," said Muriel. "I wouldn't let anything bad happen to him. He's so nice!"

"Yes, but you said --"

"I couldn't contact you, but I was able to talk to somebody in Physics & Metaphysics, and we worked out how to get the holiness out of Crowley by having him breathe holy water. It's very lucky he's immune to that," they added, and this seemed to be a shock to Aziraphale, whose face twitched for just a moment in a way they could not read at all. "Anyway, he got better very quickly, and I played a lot of evil records to clear the holiness out of the shop, and now he's fine! He does still sleep a lot but he's right, it is very different from that hallucinating he was doing before, even from the outside. It seems like a much calmer sort of hallucination. And he's excellent at making customers leave, especially when he's a snake."

Aziraphale let out a breath that seemed to contain all the tension in the universe. His shoulders sank, his eyes closed, and he tilted his face up a bit, as if in thanks to God. "Well. That's. Quite a story."

"Oh, I'm not done," said Muriel. "I think I worked out who sent the candle! On your behalf. So you can reward them," they reminded him, in case he forgot that was what he ought to be doing. Which seemed a very real possibility. "Although there might be other people who helped, so you might want to be careful who you tell. Just in case the others are also... shy."

"Ah. Of -- of course. Reward them." A hint of ozone still lingered in the air. Muriel swallowed. "Who was it, then?"

"Well. I can't be 100% certain, and apparently handwriting analysis doesn't always hold up in court on Earth, but fortunately Heaven barely ever has to have trials, because God's judgment is infallible!" This seemed to upset him for some reason, but Muriel was almost at the important bit. They produced the note that had come with the candle (in its little plastic bag) and Pahadron's signed form. "This is from one of the angels who visited to collect the saint's relic afterward."

"Yes, I see." Aziraphale manifested reading glasses out of the ether to examine both the form and the note. "Did you draw up this form?"

"Oh, yes," said Muriel. "It was nothing, really."

"Pahadron... doesn't she work down in Wrath of God?" He got to the second page of the form.

"That's what the edition of the Heavenly directory I have memorized said," said Muriel, "but things might have changed since then."

"Oh, I assure you, if they haven't yet, they will now," said Aziraphale, darkly. "Good heavens, how many places did you have her sign and initial?"

"Six, I think?" said Muriel. "The more places people have to sign, the less likely they are to read any of it." Aziraphale looked up suddenly from reviewing the work, and he seemed... just, really sad, like he didn't want to be there at all. Muriel felt badly, but they couldn't imagine what they'd said that made him feel that way, so they just added, "Crowley taught me that."

"Yes. I had a feeling," sighed Aziraphale.

"He's very clever," said Muriel.

"He is. And he's all right now?" Aziraphale asked sharply. "No lingering symptoms?"

Muriel knew he had been listening when they'd told him that the last several times, but they were prepared to be patient about it. "If there are he hasn't said anything," said Muriel. "He's still very grumpy, but he seems a bit less grumpy than he was before all this?"

Aziraphale sighed; he did not appear to be much cheered. "Well. I suppose that will have to be good enough. Now, you said there were two angels who came down to retrieve the saint's relic?"

Ah. This was the part Muriel was uncertain about. "Well, yes, but the other one's handwriting doesn't look anything like the note, so --"

"Muriel, who was the other angel?" Aziraphale asked, looking uncharacteristically stern.

They felt rather than heard a distant roll of thunder, and they shivered. "I don't know if they actually wanted to -- to do anything that -- I mean, I don't know if they deserve to be, er, rewarded --"

"It is not your task to judge that," said Aziraphale. "Who were they?"

Muriel knew, of course, that Aziraphale's judgment would be just. He was so nice. And also fairly kind. And he was Supreme Archangel, which of course meant his judgment had to be good. For some reason none of these thoughts made Muriel feel much better. Kabniel had not been kind to them when he had been their supervisor, exactly, but he had not been deliberately cruel, either, and he spoke so highly of their work, and most importantly, he didn't know Crowley, and had no way of knowing Crowley wasn't the usual sort of demon.

"Muriel?"

"It was..." They swallowed. "Kabniel. He's really very nice, though, I don't think he -- he might not have meant to --"

"Did you have him sign one of these forms?" Aziraphale asked.

Muriel did not look at him. "Yes."

There was an expectant sort of silence during which Muriel could only look at their own hands. "Can I have the form he signed?" Aziraphale asked.

Trembling slightly, Muriel produced the form. Guilt lay heavy in their chest, which was awfully strange, because, being an angel, they had only ever done good.

"Thank you," said Aziraphale. "I will consider my actions carefully."

"Please, sir, you must remember that he doesn't know Crowley, he can't have realized --"

"He shouldn't have to know Crowley," snarled Aziraphale, and this time the air was prickly and the thunder was audible. Muriel went very still, as if by doing so they might escape his wrath. Aziraphale looked suddenly ashamed, and shuffled the papers he was holding. "I'm so sorry to have frightened you, my dear, I don't mean to. I'm just under a lot of stress these days. I'm very glad you were there to make things right."

Muriel nodded, relief flooding through them. They remembered Arariel suddenly. "It wasn't just me, actually. I had help from somebody in Physics & Metaphysics to work out the stuff with the holy water. They're here, actually, and..." A wild impulse seized them. "I think they're a bit bored over in Physics & Metaphysics, so, er, if you had anything for them to do on Earth they might like that. Don't tell them I told you that, though. Do you want to meet them?" Muriel asked.

"Well, if they're here I suppose I ought to," said Aziraphale. He was not half as enthusiastic as he had been in Muriel's imagination. A lot of things had not gone quite as they had in Muriel's imagination, and Arariel's misgivings about Aziraphale made a lot more sense now.

But things went well with Arariel; they were visibly very anxious, so Aziraphale was perhaps trying harder to put them at their ease when he talked to them. At one point Aziraphale asked them, "If you were -- purely hypothetically -- going to go to Earth, where would you most like to go?"

"Oh, this is going to sound a bit silly, but speaking hypothetically, I'd... well." Arariel looked away shyly. "I'd really like to see some water. I know it's a very dangerous chemical, especially in large amounts, but I think it would look very majestic, running free and wild in, in, rivers and things."

"Well, I think we can find someplace on Earth that has a lot of water," said Aziraphale, smiling slightly. "And perhaps also some land, to look at it from."

Arariel looked up sharply. "Oh! I didn't mean -- it wasn't a request, I know my job up here is very important and --"

"Arariel, when was the last time Heaven asked you to complete a task. A specific task, I mean, I'm not asking about when you were last on call?"

Arariel considered this. "Hm. I think... two hundred years ago? Give or take. I could consult my notes, but I didn't bring them, I should have thought to --"

"No, no, that's all right, you weren't expecting the question," said Aziraphale. "And before that task two hundred years ago?"

"Er." Arariel frowned. "Not since the Flood, I don't think. We got together -- the seven of us on the water team, I mean -- and worked out rainbows, it was a lot of fun. Each of us put in one color. Wish there were more rainbows I could work on. I don't know what it was for, exactly, but it seemed delightful."

Aziraphale had winced at the mention of the Flood for some reason, but the rest of Arariel's explanation seemed to genuinely delight him. "Well, while you've done some very good work here, I don't know that this is the most efficient use of your time. If anything comes up on Earth that you might be suited for, would you mind being reassigned?"

Arariel stared at him for a moment. "I. That would be. If you're sure I could -- yes. I mean, no! No, I wouldn't mind at all. As long as it's something I could do well."

After a bit more talk about water (and hydrogen) Aziraphale sighed and said he had a meeting to get to, and they left him to it. Muriel went back to Earth, mostly satisfied, and clutching a bit of paper with a passcode to call on Aziraphale directly should something like the housewarming gift happen again.

They were a bit worried about Kabniel still, but Aziraphale had said he would consider his actions carefully, and they knew Aziraphale wouldn't lie.

--

After the two junior angels left, Aziraphale snapped his fingers to speak to Phanuel, who was, unfortunately, the Supreme Archangel's personal assistant. Tragically, this made him Aziraphale's personal assistant, whether Aziraphale wanted him or not. "Supreme Archangel?" said the little glowing ball of light that connected him to Phanuel.

"Send Pahadron up to my office, please."

"From Wrath of God?"

"Is there another Pahadron I don't know about?" Aziraphale asked.

"No! No, no, of course not," said Phanuel. "What, um. What's the occasion?"

"Given that she's in Wrath of God, what do you think the occasion is, Phanuel?" Technically it was the Wrath of Aziraphale, but he didn't need to know that.

"Sorry!" said Phanuel. He needn't sound so frightened; Aziraphale wasn't smiting him. Aziraphale still needed him around to bore through the thick shell of bureaucratic nacre Heaven had built up around its core mission of Goodness and Light.

"Also send up Kabniel, if you wouldn't mind?" He would mind. Aziraphale expected him to do it anyway.

"He's..." Aziraphale heard the sound of pages being turned very quickly. "Doesn't he supervise a handful of scriveners? What do you need him for?"

Aziraphale looked down at his own copy of the directory, which was open to Kabniel's entry. "My understanding is that he's also one of our curers of stupidity, and it's come to my attention that he has been falling down on the job."

"Ah. Very well. Did you want to meet with Pahadron first, or --"

"Oh, I need them both here at the same time," he said. "Don't let them know that, please." He wanted the schadenfreude of seeing the moment they both realized why they were here, and that it was too late to pretend their little adventure in outre candle-making hadn't happened.

"Did they... are they..." The little glowing ball of light fell silent while Phanuel tried to work out how to ask if they were in trouble without getting himself in trouble, because absolutely no one in Heaven just said what they meant.

"Are they what, Phanuel?" he asked.

"Nothing! Never mind. I'll send them both up right away," said Phanuel. He sounded properly frightened. That gave Aziraphale little pleasure, but it was a decided improvement over Phanuel's smug self-importance when he'd first been assigned to Aziraphale. He'd heard an awful lot of things about what Gabriel did and how Gabriel did them, but now Phanuel kept his thoughts to himself, which was the greatest blessing he could grant anyone.

Aziraphale looked over the forms Muriel had left him. He was really very lucky they were there to look after Crowley. This job was very trying even on the best days, but fortunate little things like that made him more and more certain he was meant to be up here, no matter how much he wished he was not. Things would work out for the best, he told himself. They always did. He just had to have faith.

[kaesaaurelia]

I understand why people are like "I would die for Muriel!" but my current feelings are "Oh thank goodness I decided not to name that recorporation technician after briefly considering calling them Muriel in the Whumptober fic the other day."

Although, actually, for a while I've been envisioning Michael trying to talk Vehuel into a reassignment to London after the apocalypse to surveil Aziraphale and Crowley and Vehuel quietly in the back of her head being like "well, easiest job ever and I'd like an excuse to hang out more with both of them, but for reasons of not wanting to be cast out of Heaven I cannot and will not be able to explain to her why I would rather carve out each and every one of my eyes with an ice cream scoop than uproot my entire life and move to another continent to stalk those two and send reports back to Heaven about whether I think they've gotten to third base, please no..." and she just makes some shit up about how uh London has such bad weather, what about, uh, all that, um, pea soup or whatever, Chicago never has pea soup in the air, she really can't see relocating, she's never liked peas that much...

Only now I'm picturing Michael like "You don't understand! They want to send someone named Muriel and I talked to her and she's... very... earnest... and. We need someone who is capable of occasional untruths! You are our most expendable experienced liar!" and in that context it would be really funny if I had coincidentally named the recorporation tech Muriel, because then it would read like apparently Muriel's takeaway from seeing Vehuel be horribly discorporated like 10 times in one century was "wow Earth is so cool!!! I wanna go there!!!"

[kaesaaurelia]

hungry as fire

For @whumptober day 14: Die A Hero or Live Long Enough to Become a Villain, using the prompt “desperate measures.”

(This fic is technically set in the Good Omens universe, but primarily concerns original angel and demon characters.)

Continued from Day 3, wherein the angel Vehuel was stabbed by her demon ex, who is doing some work for Famine during an exceptionally cold winter, Day 4, where she had a chat with the Archangel Raphael, who sent her back to Earth without her body, and Day 8, where she made a deal with a human, borrowing his body in return for helping him find food.

Content warning for extensive discussion of food and hunger, and brief mention of cannibalism.

The hunter's name was Anong, and it was not until she came to know this that she realized she hadn't even thought to ask. He was suspicious of her, and he had good reason to be, but her hunger, at least, was well masked by his own more natural hunger pangs.

She tried to see this as a learning opportunity; her assignment down south was the capital of what Anong's people called the River Empire, though her city's residents had a host of more self-aggrandizing names for themselves, mostly revolving around how they made their own landscapes by moving the earth itself. Anong did not trust the River Empire either, and he was slightly affronted to find out where she was from. "You guys gonna conquer us, or what?"

"I wasn't planning to," she said. "I was just, you know. I came up here to deal with the monster, and my ex. I'm their protector, not their scout. Anyway, I don't think they mean you any ill."

"They make good pots," he admitted. "Nice designs, sturdy work. My grandma likes them. But I hear they do human sacrifice down there, as some kind of game."

"Well, it is an empire," Vehuel pointed out.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"All empires do human sacrifice," she said. "You wouldn't think anything of it if you were part of an empire. A lot of times they call it something else, though, like mandatory military service, or slavery, or just getting out there and killing a bunch of people and taking their stuff. It's how empires work. The Sculptors-of-Land are at least being honest with themselves about it." She had mixed feelings about this; she was proud of her humans, as always, and she'd initially assumed the human sacrifice was to honor whatever god Nisroc was pretending to be these days, but she'd killed Nisroc several times and the humans seemed to return to it whether Nisroc was there or not. After several thousand years on Earth, Vehuel had wandered across four of its continents and seen much variety in human cultures, but some things were the same everywhere, and one of them was that humans could often be found killing each other for no goddamn reason. "It's generally considered an honor, I think."

"Doesn't seem like much of an honor to me," he said.

"But you like their pots," she pointed out, still feeling protective of her humans. "So, I mean. They're not all bad."

"My grandma likes their pots," said Anong.

"She could make her own pots if it bothered her that much."

"She has arthritis," said Anong.

"You could make her pots."

"I'm busy hunting, and making bad deals with mean spirits," said Anong, irritably.

"Sorry," she said, realizing suddenly how rude she was being. "I'm not very good with people." This was true, but she was usually not quite so mean. Something in her made her really want to win this conversation, and it took a lot out of her to say "Let's just focus on getting back to town with all these deer."

And so, stuck in the same body, they made their way back into town. Everyone was very impressed with Anong for finding so many deer, although he was embarrassed to have made a deal with a spirit, and lied about having just happened across a herd of them just outside of town and brought them laboriously back one by one.

Dinner was sparse that night; Vehuel worried she would get dinged for overuse of miracles if she made the food stretch too much, but at least some of the other hunters and fishermen had also had luck that day, and between them and Anong everyone in town would eat, if sparingly.

But the smell of the food cooking made Vehuel's hunger grow and grow, and she found herself resisting the urge to gnaw at Anong's lips and fingers. And when darkness fell, she knew the food would be ready too late for her, because she sensed two familiar presences approaching the town -- the sharp cruelty of Famine, and the deep dread of Nisroc. With a great deal of discipline, she talked Anong into staying away from the cooking fire and scanning the treeline for movement, keeping out of the firelight so as to keep his eyesight sharp.

"What's your plan?" he asked Vehuel, once they were safely out of earshot.

"Um." She didn't have one. "We can burn its heart out."

"Yeah, I know, but how? We didn't have time to dig a pit to trap it in. That's how they do it in the stories."

"Well, I can make fire," said Vehuel, "and then you can... um. No, you'd have to get closer to it. Can you... climb it?"

"I'm not climbing that thing," said Anong. "It'll just grab me and eat me."

"Well, um..." She caught sight of something taller than the trees moving against the night sky, as if it was walking. "Shit. We'll have to think fast."

Anong grabbed his bow and fumbled for an arrow. "Think this'll do anything against it?"

"Not really," said Vehuel. As the ice monster broke through the trees the hunger within her became ravenous, and her stupid fucking halo flared around Anong's body, highlighting him so that the monster couldn't miss him.

"Why am I glowing?" Anong demanded.

"Oh, uh, that's, uh, so I uh..." Vehuel took control of Anong's body, dodging one long grasping monster arm faster than he would've been able to, but fumbling and dropping his arrow in the process. "I used to make stars? And, uh --"

"You used to make stars?" Anong asked.

"It's why I'm so good with fire. Anyway, the guy who was in charge of them, he was always a huge asshole, and..." It was definitely not the time to explain all her emotional hangups about Lucifer and her theory as to why all her strong emotions manifested as light, especially with the ravenous hunger in her soul saying kill him, take his body, and the monster turning from her to take interest in the cooking food and the crowd around it. "Uh. Anyway, I was put together wrong," she said, "and that's why I glow."

"Wow, that didn't explain anything," said Anong. The humans were screaming now as the creature lumbered towards them. "I have an idea. You need to get closer to it to burn its heart out?"

"Yeah," said Vehuel. "But uh, please don't sacrifice yourself or anything, that probably would just make it bigger."

"Obviously not," said Anong, offended. "I'm going to shoot you at it."

"What?" said Vehuel.

"Get ready," said Anong, drawing his empty bowstring back, taking aim, and -- with a twang Vehuel found herself soaring through the air and into the heart of the monster.

She hadn't realized he could do that, and she was briefly delighted at human ingenuity, and blazed gloriously through the ice monster, melting the thick coating of rime and greed that protected it from decay, and she forgot all about the hunger in her soul for one brief, beautiful, victorious moment.

And then the entitlement of the human soul at the core of the monster had hit her, freed from its icy prison, and she had the realization that finally she had a body -- this body -- and the only thing keeping her from taking it for herself was that she'd stupidly wanted to protect the humans by burning its heart out.

She did burn its heart out, of course; she did not want this annoying human soul interfering with what she wanted to do. She'd had more than enough of that shit today. Besides, she could sustain the body with fire much more easily than it had been able to preserve itself with ice. And she could make it bigger more easily, too. This whole town was made of wood, after all; perfect fuel for the fire. And she was still so very hungry.

"Vehuel!" shouted someone from below her. She looked down, and grinned, flames licking out of her jagged teeth. It was Nisroc, because of course it was, and they were going to burn alive. "Vehuel, you won! I give up!" they said. "Now get out of that thing!" Vehuel tried to stomp on them, and they jumped back and flew into the air with a few flaps of their wings.

"'That thing'?" Vehuel asked, incredulously. Her voice sounded like angry wind, and she loved it. "Don't you mean Buddy?" She was going to teach Nisroc a lesson in what happened when you fucked around making monsters with Famine.

"Okay, look, whatever," said Nisroc, circling her head. "Just, I give up, go ahead and kill it --"

"No. You destroyed my body," said Vehuel, swatting Nisroc away like a fly. "I'm going to destroy you." She considered stomping Nisroc, dazed as they were, lying on the ground.

But then she looked towards the townsfolk. Some were shooting arrows at her or brandishing spears; others were trembling, frozen in place. And then, behind those, there were the people who were herding their children away from this place. But there wasn't really anywhere for them to go except for out into the cold, and Vehuel had heard that freezing to death was a terrible way to go. She'd burned to death a few times, and she hadn't totally lost her mind yet. It would probably be a mercy to burn them. And it would certainly teach Nisroc a lesson.

She stepped over the would-be warriors easily to go after the children.

Behind her, she heard Nisroc shout "Excuse me? Vehuel! What the fuck is wrong with you?"

[to be continued on day 21]

[kaesaaurelia]

take care

For @whumptober day 11: "911, What's Your Emergency?", for the prompt "sloppy bandages."

In ancient Pompeii, a woman finds the demon Crawly on her doorstep, badly beaten. She's aware of the supernatural -- her husband serves a goddess, after all, though he's away on business in the heavens somewhere -- but she assumes he's an agathodaimon, a spirit of good fortune, and takes him in to try and heal him with her husband's holy salves.

Content warning for period-typical attitudes about slavery and well-intentioned but very poorly-thought-out first aid.

Also, while this fic is Crowley whump, the first part and some subsequent parts are from the point of view of an original character I've written about elsewhere, so there's backstory and it might not really be your thing if you're just browsing Crowley's tag. I haven't decided if Aziraphale will show up, but the angel Lucilla's married to is definitely not him.

Lucilla had been about to go out for a nighttime stroll, because her husband Volesus was away on business, and stargazing always made her feel better about him being gone. He had explained to her that the goddess he served did not operate on mortal time -- well, no, he'd said, "Heaven doesn't really respect human lifespans, and fuck if I know what Gabriel wants this time," and he'd sounded very annoyed when he'd said he might be gone for a year or more, but Lucilla tried not to think uncharitably of the gods, not because the gods didn't deserve it, but because she didn't want to annoy them. (It was difficult not to judge this Gabriel person, but everything her husband said about him suggested he thought he was hot shit, so she wasn't worried.)

At any rate, she had been about to go stargaze away from the lights of the city, perhaps up the mountain a little, only she nearly tripped over a man lying in her doorway, which was very disconcerting.

At first she'd assumed he was a drunk, or maybe a vagabond, and she tried to rouse him, but her hand came away wet when she'd tried to grab him by the shoulder and shake him, and the coppery smell wasn't wine or piss. He made a small, pitiful sound, and his eyes came slowly open. They gleamed yellow in the low light of the street, and they were slitted like a cat's eyes, or maybe a snake's.

She had been about to get a physician, but seeing his strange eyes, she knew this must have something to do with her husband's work, because they weren't even the strangest eyes she'd ever seen -- her husband's were gold in the light, and his longtime lover's eyes glowed a brilliant red. (What exactly his lover was was a matter of some dispute; he claimed she was a daimon, and she said she was an aspect of Venus. Lucilla was on the fence about this, although the evenings she'd spent with the woman were pretty convincing on the aspect-of-Venus front. She ought to visit Nisroc sometime; she must be getting lonely for Volesus too.)

So, quietly, she hurried inside and roused one of their servants, and together they carried the man to the spare bedroom and lay him on the bed. In the light of the lantern they lit, she saw that he had a scrap of papyrus pinned to the front of his clothes, and she read it quickly. It was addressed to her husband, under the name he used when he was working for his goddess, and it said:

Sorry, in a hurry, please take care of this demon. -- M

"Should I go fetch someone to patch him up?" said the servant. Technically he was a slave, but Volesus had always asked her not to treat the slaves any differently, because they were to be freed as soon as he found them homes and jobs. It annoyed Lucilla a little bit not to be entirely the mistress of her own home, but her husband asked for so little, and he was so kind, so she obliged.

"No," said Lucilla. She had always suspected that the goddess he served was Minerva, although he said a lot of very silly things that made her sound like half the pantheon rolled into one. She had to assume that that was what the M stood for, though. "He was sent for Volesus to care for."

"He doesn't look like he was sent," said the servant. "He looks like someone beat the shit out of him and dumped him."

"He was sent," said Lucilla. "This note says Volesus should take care of him, but he isn't here, so I'll do it for him. If they'd wanted him to have a physician's care, they would have left him with someone else." She did not think the servant could read, but he was a recent purchase and sometimes they surprised her with how much they knew, so she did not show him the note; she didn't want him to find out her husband had another name.

"Get Volesus' special ointment, the one he uses on new arrivals. Do you know where it is?" When this servant had come to their household, he had been in much worse condition than the man before them -- had been missing an eye and several fingers! But her husband had infused some mixture of herbs with his own holy magic, and the result was capable of curing nearly anything very quickly.

"Ah. Yes. He showed me," said the servant. "Is -- do you know if it's safe to --"

"I can take care of myself," said Lucilla, with confidence; she was much handier with a sword than most women she knew, and at least several men who'd had the gall to try and fight her. "Go get the ointment." Volesus was awfully trusting with these servants, and she tried not to resent that; it had taken her years to gain his trust, and she was his wife. The servant must have noticed her tone, for he scampered away.

She turned her attention to the man -- or daimon, apparently -- in front of her. He was bleeding in several places -- there were large gashes across his chest and one in his stomach that looked very nasty. His nose had been broken and his lip split, and his face was one big bruise. She began to undress him so that she could better apply the holy ointment.

"Ssstop," said the daimon, trying weakly to push her arm away.

"You're very badly hurt," she said. "It's best not to move. Probably." She didn't actually know anything about medicine, but that seemed like a sensible assumption. Hopefully the ointment would help with that.

The servant came back with Volesus' holy ointment and she spread it on the man's wounds, though he squirmed and tried to escape, and the servant had to help her hold him down. "Burnsss," he hissed. She could see he was going to be a difficult patient, so she had the servant fetch some undiluted wine and made him drink it, so that he would sleep, and when, after drifting into a fitful, hissy slumber, the man's form flickered and became a large black snake, she knew she had been right. This must be the mountain's agathodaimon, and it was a good thing she'd been here, even if Volesus was away. Most mountains were pretty even-tempered compared to what Lucilla was used to, but their mountain was different, and Lucilla didn't like to think how angry Vesuvius might get if she'd allowed its daimon to bleed out on the streets of Pompeii.

And so, the demon Crawly drifted off into a confused and drunken stupor, knowing only that some idiot human had taken him in, but at least the Archangel Michael was gone, and what harm could this human do? He didn't like whatever she'd put on his wounds, but at least here he was absolutely safe from angels.

[To be continued on day 22]

[kaesaaurelia]

dark and cold and starving

For @whumptober day 8: Everything Hurts And I’m Dying, using the prompts “stomach pain” and “back from the dead.”

Continued from Day 3, wherein the angel Vehuel was stabbed by her demon ex, who is doing some work for Famine during an exceptionally cold winter, and Day 4, where she had a chat with the Archangel Raphael, who sent her back to Earth without her body.

Content warning for child death and a brief, cartoony reference to cannibalism.

Vehuel landed with a jittering sort of discomfort.  She panicked at her lack of senses for a moment, but then she consciously shed her perception of herself as human-shaped, and opened thirteen golden eyes that did not need light to see.

She'd landed on the lake, she realized.  It was an enormous lake, the biggest of the cluster that sprawled across the continent, and the top foot or so of water was frozen solid, except for a large circle of shattered ice around her.  It was difficult to judge scale in this form, but the impact had been enough that Vehuel was relieved she had landed in the lake, rather than cratering a large part of the forest.

She didn't know what Raphael had assumed she was supposed to do here without a body, but presumably she would be able to affect events here somehow.  It might take her a while to figure that out, though, so first, she stopped time.

Stopping time on Earth had been the kind of thing she did as a last resort, because she thought she was probably getting away with something wrong by doing it, but also, it felt weird.  The bodies that Heaven gave her weren't exactly human, but they were close enough, physiologically, that pulling hers out of the timestream along with herself was always a little rough.  This, though -- this felt like the old days, when she had been able to turn time back millions of years to move a star a nanometer to the left.

Experimentally, she nudged time backwards, and found with both relief and disappointment that this was still difficult, that she could not go back to the beginning of time and methodically fix all the things she had regretted since time began.  In fact, it seemed even harder to push backwards, as if her physical presence had served as a fulcrum for the lever of her abilities.

That terrible emptiness inside her, that definitely wasn’t nausea, exactly, sharpened a bit, and she found herself irritated more than anything by reality's failure to do what she wanted, just this once.  But, she reminded herself, there were humans to save, and that sudden recollection sobered her up quickly; what the fuck had she been thinking of, turning back time, ripping their world apart, just because she'd been a fuckup since the moment of her creation?  She pushed the idea out of her mind quickly; she knew she had a bad habit of lingering on her own failings, but it wouldn't help anyone now.

So she pulled herself out of the frigid water and started up and towards towards the shore, scanning the horizon for humans.

She spotted a settlement -- not large by her standards, but larger than others she'd seen recently -- on the shores of the lake.  She began to drop towards it, but senses other than sight made her recoil, and she spotted a slender black canoe in the ice of the lake.  It wasn't moving now, of course, but her time stoppage seemed to have caught its pilot mid-row, as if he had been cutting his way impossibly through the frozen lake.  She moved closer to examine the craft, moving cautiously.  She knew he wasn’t going to turn and look at her, but part of her worried about it anyway.

The pilot was man-shaped; unusually thin and sharp-featured, but there was nothing inhuman about him at a casual glance.  The only remarkable thing about his appearance was that his skin was as dark as Vehuel's, which meant that if he was human, he'd done a whole lot of traveling to get here.  She’d made that trip, up from Tunis, over the Mediterranean, and then on foot northward through Europe before hitching a ride westward across the sea, waiting a while at Iceland, and hitching another ride to Greenland before making her way to the mainland on her own.  The alternative had been spending a few centuries in in Heaven, and probably doing filing for Gabriel, who she loathed.  The years in Iceland had been rough; she had no access to miracles there, but the Huldufolk had been kind to her once she made it clear she was not there to hurt them, and she had never regretted her decision.

If she ever had, though, it would’ve been because of this asshole in the canoe.  He’d been there too, of course.  The winters had been hard on Iceland, even if they were worse on Greenland, and when there was nothing to eat the humans had resorted to burying sharks and waiting for enough of their poison to leech out into the soil before eating them, and this guy, this fucking asshole, he’d been around laughing to himself every time the weather was too terrible to fish, or someone lost all their sheep, or the crops failed because he’d eaten the fucking sun.  She’d tried to punch him once and he’d opened his mouth and devoured her arm, and she hadn’t been able to grow it back until Greenland.

The discomfort in her center -- what she had been thinking of as nausea -- roiled and grew.  She pushed it away.  Famine had arrived to hollow out these humans, and she was going to have to deal with him before she could fix herself. She avoided the village, therefore, and looked for humans on its outskirts.

Maybe that hunter she'd talked to could help her?  He hadn't seemed like he wanted to be a hero, but he'd had good intentions.  You'll have to be convincing, she remembered Raphael saying.  She hoped she could be.

She found him in a stand of pines, and as she drew closer, she felt herself pulled towards him, as if she could just slip into his body and wear it like a jacket, and she considered doing just that, the pain in the center of her flaring and reminding her how uncomfortable she was.  No, she told herself.  I can be convincing.  An archangel told me that.  You can't just take people's bodies.

She collapsed herself back into more or less human shape, and tried to manifest visibly to him, though her own vision was blurry and hard to interpret.  "Hey," she managed.

He shushed her.  "You're going to scare the deer!"

"What deer?"  She tried to keep her voice quieter, but she wasn't really sure how well it was working.

"There might be deer up here," he said, making a gesture.  She thought maybe he was pointing at the pines, but it was so hard to perceive like this.  Vehuel was impressed that she'd found a new way to be socially awkward.  "They sleep in there," the hunter added.

"Look, uh.  How about I tell you if there's deer in there, and then maybe you could do me a favor?"

"What kind of favor?" he asked.  She couldn't tell, but he sounded kind of suspicious.

"I uh, I lost my body?  I think... I think I might be able to use yours?  Not forever, just for some stuff I need to do."

"What kind of stuff?"

Why am I being so fucking vague?  He has to know what he's getting into.  Because he might say no, she knew, but she was usually more up-front about risks to humans, even though it really didn't help them on that whole being not afraid thing she was supposed to tell them to do.  "I need to kill it."  No need to specify what it she meant.

"It get to you first?"

"Nah.  My ex," said Vehuel, sheepishly.  "Probably fed my body to it, though."

"What did you do to him?" he asked.

"Who?" she asked.

"Your ex," he said.

"Oh.  Uh.  Nothing that merits that," she said.  "Well.  I did tell her that her son's death was her fault."  He was silent.  Vehuel suspected he was judging her.  "Okay, but it was her fault, and he didn't deserve that, and she should've --"

"You have trouble knowing when not to say things," said the hunter.  "Like right now, when there might be deer."

That was a good point.  "Do we have a deal, though?" she asked.  "I check for deer, you let me borrow your body?"

"No," he said.  "You make sure there's deer there," he said, "and you help me catch one, and... we'll see."

Vehuel didn't know why she was so furious, why she wanted to take his body and make him help her, and then he'd see how much better off he was with her help, and he'd be sorry, and --

She noticed the wind pick up as it blew snow through her, and decided to make a bargain with herself.  If he won't help maybe I can make him, she said.  She knew that was wrong, and she shouldn't, and there was no way she would do that, but the emptiness that had been plaguing her since Nisroc killed her was getting worse.

It didn't matter, she would deal with it later.  Probably Nisroc had done this to her on purpose, found some weird demonic way to harm her worse than usual.  But she'd show them; she'd push through this and defeat Nisroc and Famine and the monster and get this fucking done, and then she could go back to Heaven and wait for a new body.

What if you don't, though? said the same voice that wanted to take a body by force.

Fuck off, she told that voice, and she went through the tiresome motions of doing what the human wanted: going invisible so as not to traumatize him when she returned to her natural shape, stopping time, finding deer -- no, not just one, finding enough deer to make his frozen desperate search for any kind of food worthwhile -- and then watching him only kill one, because he couldn't carry any more back, and kicking herself a little for that.  She told him she could help him carry the rest, and he took two more, and let the rest flee into the winter woods, her effort wasted.  Kill them all, you stupid human, she thought, furiously.  But then again, he was being careful, something more humans could stand to do.  Normally, she would've been grateful.  She tried very hard to feel that now, but she couldn't quite reach it.

Finally, looking over the three dead deer in the snow, he said, "Well.  Guess I have to let you help me, don't I?  But we're taking these back home first."

"I want to go there too," she said.

"Well, uh... I guess, come on in?"  And she did, and the emptiness roared within her, and now, finally, with all the sensations of a physical body, she recognized it from that cold, dark century in Iceland, waiting for humans to bridge the gap between continents.

It was hunger.

Fuck.

[To be continued on day 14.]

[kaesaaurelia]

When Aziraphale flees Heaven with the Book of Life, he's planned for it -- he's alerted other angels stationed on Earth to Heaven's plans, and asked them to take steps so that humans won't get caught up in the inevitable battle he faces with the other archangels. But Crowley shows up too, and he doesn't know the plan, and in the chaos Aziraphale leaps in front of a terrible blow meant for Crowley. And so, still very angry with him, Crowley must get him back to the bookshop (which is full of annoying angels) and help him heal, and try to figure out how to move past their previous fight, because, sure, he's mad at Aziraphale, but he doesn't want him to die. But soon enough it becomes clear that Aziraphale isn't necessarily dying. He is changing, and no one quite knows what to expect, because this situation has only happened once before, when Supreme Archangel Lucifer Fell and became Satan.

So I don't think I posted the AO3 link to this uhh very weird fic I'm writing. It's. Hmm. It started off as moderately self-indulgent Whumptober fic with some of my OCs and some of my favorite action and hurt/comfort tropes, but part of the way through Whumptober it became very weird Aziraphale/Crowley transformation/size difference kink. There's still a plot, but also if you aren't into Aziraphale slowly and crankily turning into a giant, horny, ravenous dragon and Crowley pulling out all the snakey stops to help him through this trying time with ridiculous amounts of food and even more ridiculous amounts of orgasms, uh... read something else.

However if that sounds like your thing, enjoy the dragonfucking WIP. It's five chapters, a little over 35k, and hopefully about halfway finished?

[kaesaaurelia]

annoyed because today I woke up with a lot of Feelings about old HP characters (I used to write the Founders and also in an LJRP I wrote a cadre of 1970s top secret spy/scientists for the Ministry). due to JK being the actual worst, while I am fine engaging with other people's fanwork (especially stuff that gleefully disregards her extended canon), I extremely admired her when I was a teenager and the idea of going back to that writing now makes me feel slimy because it brings back all those memories. but I love those characters and a lot of my development as a writer/discovery of my favorite tropes came from them and you know what, I did a lot of work on them! so I don't feel like it's weird to call them my characters.

on the other hand, I feel really lucky in that most of my writing in HP was about original characters or about fleshing out characters who were just a name and an occupation, and I'm contemplating filing some serial numbers off and writing full-blown stupid iddy stuff that's basically Godric/Rowena But Darker And Weirder. I just want Monstrous But Kindhearted Self-Taught Inventor With A Lot Of Self-Loathing/Unpleasant Elitist Academic With A Dark And Terrible Past and they're rivals and there's size difference and they're stuck working with each other and they learn to get along and they make some important magical discoveries, and also, they kiss.

[kaesaaurelia]

here he is... the babiest grendel.

[from here]

[kaesaaurelia]

Yes hello life is hard so I did some picrews of OCs instead of anything productive.  Someone linked to this tiefling generator on discord so I had to!   Also pictured: earlier experiments from this angel generator.

First two pictures are my angel OC, Vehuel, and also an AU demon version.  Second two are my demon OC Nisroc, and... I mean... you get it.  The last picture is of the sweetest babiest boy Grendel.

[kaesaaurelia]

NOBODY ASKED but too bad, here is my Shadowrun character, whom I love.

Minu is a hardworking single mom from LA who lies, steals, and (occasionally) murders for fun and profit.  Mostly for profit, because her very sweet babiest boy Rashnu has to eat.  (Rashnu is sick; he has some... dietary challenges.)  When she’s not doing crimes, taking care of her kid, or out picking pockets at a shitty club, she runs a minor celebrity gossip blog, which started out as celebrity fashion but has lately been concentrating on her favorite are-they-or-are-they-not-a-couple??? actresses.  (Listen: if they’re not a couple, they should be.)  She dresses like a box of highlighters even when she’s going for corporate casual, and yet somehow tends to roll pretty well on stealth?  Forget it, Jake, it’s Shadowrun.

I think my favorite thing about playing her is that she is petty as fuck.  Last run she broke into and trashed someone’s car solely because they parked over a line and took up two spots, and this run she locked some nerds in a gross restaurant bathroom because they were really bad liars.  (Also xenophobic, but like... she was definitely more insulted by their bad lying.  They were just that bad.)

[corporate casual look by poicon maker] [off-duty look by alohasushicore] [club look by cyberpunk fashion dressup game]