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adarkrainbow · 5 months

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As I have been reblogging and looking back at Sleeping Beauty stuff around the Internet, I realized the thing that is bothering me a bit... When it comes to the you know "original" format of Sleeping Beauty.

Everywhere on the Internet you have these posts and videos and whatnot about "The dark truth behind Sleeping Beauty" or "The Horrifying Origins of Sleeping Beauty!", and they all refer to the fact that in the "original" version of the tale, she got raped in her sleep. This is the "dark fact" everybody LOVES to spread around and talk about. Except... Except the version they refer to is Basile's "Sun, Moon and Thalia".

Why does that matter? I'll explain.

Everybody depicts "Sun, Moon and Thalia" as this sort of dark, horrifying tale of a grim and gruesome crime. They will have in their video a dark background, and creepy illustrations, and they will take an ominous horror movie voice and whatnot.

But there's a big problem with that. Basile's stories were all except serious. They were humoristic tales. Or more precisely, they were farcical stories. Farces. There's a reason its "twin compilation", Straparola's fairytale collection, is called "Facetious Nights". So the very idea of presenting these stories as if they were meant to be taken seriously is completely misreading the story's tone. Yes there was a rape - but if you extract this from the entire context and storytelling, you make this tale sound like something it is absolutely not.

"Sun, Moon and Thalia" is not meant to be a horror story. It was not meant to be read as "serious" story. It has nothing to do with either the Grimm or Perrault fairytales. The entirety of the "Pentamerone" is basically a folk-sex comedy. If such a thing can exist.

Every fairytale of the Pentamerone is opened by a small recap of the story announcing what it will be about - and already from the get-go the very two lines opening this recap give the humoristic nature of the tale away. "Thalia dies because of a splinter". I mean come on - the joke is obvious. A girl gets a splinter, she dies. And if this wasn't enough the rest of the sentence can be translated as following: "she is left in a room where the son of the king penetrates and makes her two children". The choice of the word "penetrate" is to highlight the pun in the original line where the prince entering Thalia's bedroom and the prince entering Thalia's body is resumed in one same verb.

For more breakdown of the jokes of the story, see below the cut:

As I said before from the get-go the "curse" is treated as a joke. You have this king that summons scholars to make his daughter's horoscope, right? And what does it say. "She is in great danger... BECAUSE OF A SPLINTER!". This is literaly the killer rabbit of the Monty Pythons.

In this story, what does the little old woman that offered the princess the spindle does, once the princess falls dead? (Because she is dead in this version, a magical death, but dead still). Does she warns everybody and cries for help as in Perrault's version? No! "She was quick to find back the stairs [from which she came in]" and she runs as fast away as she can without warning everybody, because she's not going to get into trouble because of some random girl that wanted to see how to spin.

The whole arrival of the prince is very, VERY unprincely and part of the joke. (Well it is a king here but I'm going to call him "prince" so as to not lose people). So he is hunting, right, and his hunting falcon enters the countryside building in which the king locked up his daughter's corpse. The prince wants to get back his bird, so he knocks - because he believes the house is inhabited. And since nobody answers and he REALLY wants his bird back, he fetches a ladder and is forced to climb up a window like a vulgar thief. And he is royalty, remember.

What is the prince's first interaction with the dead Thalia? Believing she is asleep, he starts talking to her. And since she doesn't answer he kind of shakes her around in trying to wake her up. And then suddenly, realizing she kind of looks good (an that she is visibly not alive anymore), he "does his little business" and promptly puts her back where he found her and leaves. Because he is, like most men in the Pentamerone a stupid horny dog without much morals that has the most sudden and bizarre bursts of sexual desire. Cause again the Pentamerone is a sex comedy.

In fact, in the story of "Sun, Moon and Thalia", the prince is MEANT to come off as quite stupid. He is stupid. First off he didn't get that Thalia was dead when he saw her. Then, as soon as he leaves the funeral-house, it is said he "forgot all about this adventure". Like literaly, he forgets all about it - and only suddenly remembers it randomly when Thalia wakes up. (The narration itself highlights the randomness of the events - the fact the prince remembers Thalia is random and for no reason, and in the same way there are two fairies that randomly appear out of nowhere to take care of the two babies and we are never explained anything about them - they even frighten poor awakened Thalia because she doesn't know who brings her magically food every day). When he sees back Thalia, he is all joyful and happy and he is like "Let's start a family! I'm a dad, woohoo!" ; and then the narration drops the bomb that nothing had foreshadowed: "Now, his wife was waiting for him back at the palace." The randomness of dropping the fact he has a wife is meant to be the joke, since we were led to believe he was a bachelor. But given the prince's tendency to forgetfulness it is very likely that he simply forgot he had a wife.

More of the prince's obvious stupidity and air-headedness. On one side how he betrays Thalia and her children's names to his wife - because he just can't stop repeating and singing their names out loud, day and night, even when eating or sleeping, due to how silly-happy he is. On the other, the reason why he is absent while his wife tortures Thalia: he got angry at a comment of hers, and because he was furious, he literaly had to go to ANOTHER LAND just to vent his anger. Literaly, he leaves his palace and moves to another of his domain just because he got pissy. And why did he get pissy? Because his wife kept ironically singing to him "Eat, because what you eat belongs to you" when she served him his "children" - and the stupid prince, unable to understand what she meant, literaly answers "Of course it belongs to me: I'm the bread-winner of the family, while you're doing nothing and bringing nothing to the house". [Which by the way, highlights the fact that in this couple, the wife is depicted as profiting off the king's wealth and power].

Speaking of the dinner around the fake "children": this meal is another sex joke. Because the two of them, the wife and husband, are "panting with desire" around the dishes, and keep singing stuff like "Oh that's good, oh that's good!" and "Come on, eat, come on eat!" making it all an erotic scene. A ridiculous, grotesque, perverse erotic scene around what one character believes to be a cannibalistic meal, while the other just very loudly appreciates good meat.

When the queen tries to have Thalia killed, Thalia tries to defend herself by the fact she didn't know of the queen's existence, and that any sexual thing that happened between her and the prince was in her sleep - which the queen of course does not believe because of how ridiculous it all seems. I mean you catch who you believe is your husband's lasting extra-marital mistress and what is her excuse? "Oh no you see, he made me my kids when I was asleep. Well kind of dead. I didn't know. No he did not wake me up. I didn't wake up either when the kids were born. I'm a really deep sleeper. And it was because of a splinter you see..." Literaly, imagine yourself in the place of the jealous queen hearing all that.

Thalia gains time on her execution by asking the permission to remove her clothes, and the queen accepts, but as a joke she accepts out of greed because she literaly wants to take back Thalia's dress and jewels for herself. And each time Thalia removes a piece of her clothes, she screams. She screams in hope of alerting the prince. But since the prince is far away, he doesn't hear until the very last scream. Meaning that Thalia literaly strips herself in front of the queen, while screaming every time she takes off a piece of clothing, to visibly no effect (which must leave the poor queen quite confused), and it is only when Thalia gets naked and pushes the final scream that the prince suddenly arrive. You can imagine Thalia going: "FINALLY! I've been screaming for hours now!" (especially when you consider how much pieces of clothing princesses wore at the time).

Literaly one of the threats the prince gives to his wife is "Get ready to go fatten up the broccolli". As a metaphor for being dead and buried underground. Tip-top manly threat. In fact the prince is here quite proficient in ridiculous poetic metaphors: when the cook reveals he saved his children, the prince says "Get ready to move out of the small kitchen of my castle to the vast kitchen of my heart."

And of course the final "moral" of the story is also part of the entire farcical joke that is this story. "People who are lucky receive good fortune, even in their sleep". You literaly have a girl who is randomly raped in her sleep and gives birth to children in her dead-sleep, and then is almost murdered by the rapist' wife... And THAT'S the moral of the story? If you take it all literaly, then you are a fool. Or at least Basile would have called you a fool.

Again, people tend to forget that when it comes to literary fairytales (but also a lot of folk-fairytales) there is a TONE that is important. It is the brothers Grimm and other collectors after them that imposed the idea that fairytales were meant to be read "seriously". A lot, LOT of fairytales were originally humoristic - even going into dark humor or sex comedy. And whenever you go by Straparola or Basile, you HAVE to look at them under the angle of a joke or humor, and search for the puns and caricatures and ridiculousness within these tales. Because these books were meant to be read as such. They are like Rabelais' Gargantua or Shakespeare's comedies. You can of course reinterpret them as "serious" tales... But it won't remove the fact the original was humoristic.

#sleeping beauty #dark fairytale #thalia the sun and the moon #sun moon and thalia #thalia sun and moon #basile #pentamerone #italian fairytales #fairytale history #humoristic fairytale #sex jokes #sexuality in fairytales

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goat--ish · 2 years

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Please, I don’t even write but I couldn’t keep this idea out of my head after obsesing over the dp x dc tag the last 2 weeks

These are 3k words of pure indulgence, Take them away from me

The white ring morphed, words turning into gibberish that Barry couldn't understand, yet he wasn't sure they were real words, to begin with. The light emanating from them blinded him for a moment and he wished to know if that meant it was working. The fight had been fast, short, and -over everything- brutal. The only luck he had that day was that he wasn't alone when the problem began, being Bruce the one to get the notification before anyone else. A small disturbance started on a corner of Gotham, because of course it had to happen in this cursed city. It didn't sound important until some of Bruce's kids called in for backup. Bruce was out of the meeting before anyone could offer to give a hand. Still, Barry was the first one to get there, and, boy! Was he confused by what he saw. He wasn't sure what they were. A mass of shapeless green with red eyes, or what he guessed was eyes. They at least looked like it. Barry wasn't so sure. Those things simply refused to keep themselves in a comprehensible form. They weren't good news if the curse that Zatanna let out when she saw them was anything to go by. She didn't have time to explain, she only warned them to not waste time trying to fight them and to help evacuate civilians. Barry learned why relatively fast. At least he wasn't the only one startled by this discovery. Diana and Bruce did the same thing even when... Oh shoot, who was it? Which of the kids said the same as Zatanna? One of them told them that attacking those things did nothing... Well, right at that moment it wasn't so important. So they were assigned to evacuation duties. It felt unfair to leave the creatures to Zatanna, yet it seemed that only her magic did anything to them, and even then, some of the creatures would slide away from her. One or two. Ten or fifteen. She seemed to have it under control. But things are never easy, are they? Ten minutes into the fight, a hole opened on the floor, and hundreds of those things came flocking, painting the sky a toxic green. Zatanna looked at the sky with horrified eyes, and that's when Barry knew they were over their heads. She screamed to get some cover and Barry had to move her away from those things. Right at that time, he heard a curse and Constantine came running to take cover behind the same car as them. Where did he come from? No idea, yet it was clear that Zatanna had called him for backup from almost the start. "Ghosts? Really? A warning would have been great" "Stop whining and help me, I have a plan" "Screw that, I'm not going out there" "Constantine!" "Calm down, I know someone that can help" And that had been it. Zatanna followed Constantine and started drawing on the floor. Unsure of what to do, Barry contacted the others and explained what little he knew. Their comms filled with chat, explanations coming from Zatanna, curses coming from Constantine, orders coming from Bruce, and agreement coming from him. Protect the civilians was easier said than done. Protect the wizards was also easier said than done. It didn't matter that they couldn't attack those creatures (there was no way those were actual ghosts, Barry decided), it didn't deter them from taking anything in their path and throwing it between them. Barry wouldn't admit it in the heat of the battle, but he was terrified of those things the moment one of them manage to get its hands on a person and bend them at a strange angle, making all its friends smile with delight. In a matter of seconds, the priority went from protecting people from falling objects to desperately try to reach people before those things did. Cracking and popping filled the air, making Barry nape's hair stand. Still, most of his concentration was on keeping those things away from the wizards. again, that was easier said than done. Maybe those things didn't like art, maybe they knew what they were trying to do, but they had something against the two magic ones. More than once Barry flew in the air after running in front of those things to distract them and got caught. How? He was still trying to figure that out. Unfortunately, one faithful toss against an incoming lamppost left him with a nasty hit on the head and a nastier fall - knees first- against concrete. Luckily for all, he was the closest to Zatanna when one of those things got a hold of Constantine and threw him to the sky. A dozen followed behind him, like hungry dogs after food. Zatanna showed his way a piece of paper and told him to finish drawing the circle before running after the man. "But I don't know magic!" Barry looked at the unfinished circle on the floor. He didn't have a clue what it was or what it said. "Follow the instructions and you'll be fine!" screamed back the woman not giving a second look to his teammate. So Barry found himself finishing the circle with instructions written on a napkin. Not even a clean one. He looked at the ring made of chalk and symbols, finally complete on the floor. However, he did a double take on the instruction to activate what apparently was a summoning spell. TELL IT A FUN FACT ABOUT SPACE That had to be a joke, it just had to be. A scream reminded him that he didn't have time to be a skeptic. "I-I don't know! Uhm... Wait, Wait, I do know! Something, something, more trees than stars" Barry looked at the chalk hopefully, yet nothing happened. "Come on, come on! Ahm, more trees on earth than starts? Is that what you want to know?" The circle stood unresponsive. An explosion and Barry was desperate. "Please, that's a fact! What else you want?" A scream. "The galaxy! There are more trees on earth than in our galaxy!" The symbols morphed and light emanated from them. A whisper came out of them, soft but clear. "I already knew that" Barry frowned at the words, yet that didn't matter at the moment. The circle had reacted. Thank god. He couldn't believe that the kid's magazine he read a month ago had saved his ass. The victorious smile faded from his face when a quick thought crossed his mind. Did it count if the ring already knew the fun fact? The instructions didn't say anything about that, however, Barry didn't know anything about magic. He didn't even know that you could use fun facts to summon Satan! The summoning took seconds, yet for Barry, it was long enough to wonder just who the hell he was calling and to panic, worrying about the possibility of screwing up and calling the wrong entity. He found himself praying. Black hair. Blue eyes. A white shirt dirty with blood from a cut on the forehead. Barry stared at the lanky teenager in front of him and wondered why he was covered in bruises. The kid looked confused yet his eyes filled with surprise when he looked down and found Barry laying on the floor with chalk on his hands and what remained of the summoning circle on the floor. "Hey dude, you ok?" The kid lowered himself to be at eye level with Barry and asked with concern. The injured kid asked him. "I- " Barry was a little lost. Who was this kid? The teen smiled warmly and offered a hand. "Can you stand up?" His voice was cheerful and his eyes were full of light. Maybe a little too much light. Yet, undeniably human. Barry fucked up the summoning. A kid was standing in the middle of the summoning circle, an injured kid. He brought an innocent child into this mess. He wasn't even sure how he screwed up that bad, but he had managed marvelously. He took the hand offered by the teenager, yet he pulled instead of letting himself be helped by the kid. Barry was terrified. Well, horrified would be a better word for it. Horrified of what could happen to the kid, and horrified of whatever already happened to him. The smile on the kid's face faded when he followed Barry's gaze. There was a growing stain on the side of his shirt. "Shoot. You kinda called when I was in the middle of cleaning up" The annoyed tone made it even worse. "It looks worse than it is" "I need to get you out of here" Barry stuttered, fully knowing that HE couldn't stand up, even less take the kid somewhere safe. The kid frowned, preparing to say something, yet both of them flinched when a metallic crack came from behind. Barry's head snapped around, eyes going wide at the sight of a car flying right toward them. He pulled at the kid's hand again, fully planning on protecting him with his body, however, Barry found himself unable to move the kid. He turned and found green eyes staring at the incoming threat. The teen put a hand on Barry's shoulder, confidence on his face. The shadow of the car was now on top of them and Barry closed his eyes. He heard the loud thud of the car crashing against the floor, yet the pain never came. When he opened his eyes the kid was already standing. He also looked different, white hair, pale skin, and black clothes replaced the ones Barry had seen before. The kid released Barry's shoulder and Barry felt something leave with him, something so small that he almost didn't notice his body becoming visible again after the touch. The sight left him cold. The kid slowly assessed the situation, looking around with surprised eyes, and nodded to himself. "Yeah, this one's easy" However, the teen didn't act right away, instead, he turned around and helped Barry sit down with his back laying on the crushed car behind them. "Cover your ears" "Wait, what-?" "I'll be back for you" The kid smiled at him and walked away, towards the swarm of toxic green causing mayhem on the street. His confidence never abated, following him to the middle of the street. He took another look and let out a sigh at the bus flying on the horizon. He was almost impressed. The kid looked up and screamed. All the windows shattered with the sound. Barry let out a curse while covering his ears with his hands, and even like that the pain was too much. Even when short, the scream resonated throughout the streets, filling the air and the city with echoes of the same sound. It sounded like a word, yet Barry wasn't sure about that, he couldn't understand it, and trying to focus on it made it more painful, so he waited for the sound to go away. Still, Barry couldn't believe his eyes when the green creatures quietly left what they were doing, and flew to the sky, doing circles over the kid. A hand gave away to a claw and the teen ripped the floor apart making another hole. However, no new creature came from this one, instead, the ones in the sky dived right into it, quickly restoring the constant gray of Gotham. When the last one left, the kid closed the hole with a flick of his hand. Barry then saw him fly toward the other hole, a hand on his chin and a raised brow at the sight of it. He seemed to consider something in silence, yet he ended up doing the same for this one and returned to Barry's side. "Hey, can you stand up? Or do you have someone I can call?" He asked cheerfully, hovering over Barry. "Yeah, I-" "Who are you?" Both of them turned toward the voice and for a moment Barry felt silly for forgetting that, yeah, he wasn't alone in this mess. Bruce, with his mask still on, stared at the teen with a severe expression. The teen didn't seem to mind it, he only hovered a little farther away from Barry as a sign of peace for the other man. "You called and didn't even know that? Have you heard of stranger danger?" The kid joked. Bruce clearly didn't appreciate it. "Aw, come one, how am I the one at fault?" Barry reached for the kid's hand at the same time that Bruce took a step. The teen looked down at Barry, curious as to why the man had reacted that way. "Batsy, I know that grim and spooky is your thing, but if you try to scare that kid, you'll lose" Fortunately, Constantine interrupted the group. "Thank you for coming" Barry raised his brows when Constantine bowed to the kid and, in response, the teen groaned. Telling by the smug smirk on Constantine, it was clear that this was something that happened quite often between them. At least Bruce looked as surprised as Barry. "You keep doing that and one day I will not save your ass" "Is that a lie I hear?" "A warning" The kid answered with a smirk of his own, yet the light flickering in his eyes made it difficult to know if he was being serious or not. Constantine faked a cough and looked away from the kid. "Who's this?" Diana stared at the hovering kid with interest, being followed by Bruce's kids and Zatanna. They slowly got closer to the small group, avoiding the debris and fallen cars in the street. They didn't look at him with the same severity as Bruce, yet the kid softly squeezed Barry's hand, the one he had used to reach out to the kid before. Now it was Barry looking up with curiosity. The teen simply ignored the gaze. "Ghost King, Justice league and co.; Justice League and co., Ghost King" Constantine lazily gave presentations. Before anyone could say anything, especially Zatanna who looked at Constantine as if he had grown a second or third head, the kid let out a gasp. "The Justice league?" He asked, dropping Barry's hand. "You're the one that took that clown away?!" It was said as a question, but the way he pointed at Bruce and the accusatory tone made it clear that he didn't need clarification. Barry saw Constantine facepalm, leaving clear that this was also something that happened quite often between them. "Man! I still get people making riots because of you" "Wasn't that years ago?" Nightwing offered (and darn, Barry really had to start asking names again). "Is the afterlife! They got time to be petty" The kid tossed his arms toward the sky... Or maybe that was what he wanted, yet at some point he had rotated in the air, leaving his head and arms toward the floor. It made the topic quite difficult to take seriously. "Excuse me, your Highness, but we still need a hand" Constantine interrupted again, clearly not caring about the tension in the air. The kid glared at him. "You're playing with fire". Still, the teen gave him a smirk. "No one died, I would know. Whatever you need is out of scope and you know it" "Your people destroyed half of the city. Are you saying that you won't answer for their actions?" Bruce almost growled at the kid and Barry felt the temperature drop around them. Actually, seeing the rest of the group react, he wasn't the only one to notice it. The kid turned towards Bruce, holding his stare longer than Barry would have liked. As surprising as it was, Bruce looked away first. Yet the kid kept staring at him. Barry didn't notice it at first, however, one of his kids did. He got closer to Bruce and quietly asked if he was all right, just to get a low grunt as an answer. Was he-? No, no way, was he trembling? "Funny you say that. You haven't answered for your actions" "Danny" Called Constantine, walking closer to the kid. "Danny" He called again, warning in his voice. "As always," Danny started, still holding his gaze over Bruce, just to let go at the last second. "I'll send someone to help with the damage" The cold lifted immediately and didn't pass unnoticed the breath of relief that Bruce took. "Sadly, I can not stay this time" Danny continued, taking again the cheerful tone Barry had heard him use when they met. He hovered over Barry again. "As I told your friend here, I was in the middle of something important so I have to return" And oh yeah, wasn't the kid bleeding out when he appeared? Silly how easy it was to forget something like that. "Nice meeting all of you" Danny said goodbye then looked at Constantine. "Lose my number" In a blink, the kid was gone. Constantine let go a sigh of relief and turned toward Bruce. "I can't believe you tried to start a damn fight with the fucking kid, bloody hell. He has never killed, but the brat is always prepared" "And you," he pointed to Barry. "whatever he told you, tell no one. Is always better to not know with him. I'm out of here" The group remained silent while Constantine walked away. As much as she wanted to follow and drill the man with questions, Zatanna decided to stay and wait for whomever the kid would send. Bruce muttered something about checking on the civilians and walked away too. He looked a little shaken, so none of them said anything, leaving the comfort to his kids. They probably knew how to do that, right? "Let's get you checked while we wait. Do you need a hand?" Diana offered a hand to Barry. He took it, not sure if he could stand, but sure that his friend would help him in case he couldn't. So... When was a good moment to mention that the kid needed medical attention?

#dp x dc #danny phantom #i was going to tag the dc characters too #but all of them are quite small actually #tho Barry can stay #barry allen #i dont know what this is but i wouldnt call it an au #let me word-vomit this into my dash and be free

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cherryao3nova · 3 months

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God!Frank, An AU of Frank from SAMS on YT. He was created during the time i was thinking about who Frank could actually be and then I got hit by my Fic: View From the Other Side (of the Void). The Frank in my story is introduced in chapter 2.

He is now on my ArtFight as a charater to draw!

Name: one that can not be spoken by mortal toungue. Nickname: Frank / Forkface Age: Unknown, was formed with the first sentient robot. Powers: portals between the living and dead world, granting animatronics to go back, even turing them into ghosts. Can make rooms darker, teleportation and telekinisis. Has Magic. Its purple.

Frank is a Higher Being, an Eldrich Horror, a Cryptid God of Animatronic Death. A relativly new God of the Underworld, but one that holds power- for the animatronics that gain sentiance must go somewhere after death.

He lives in the void between life and death and greets every animatronic personally. He has an unsertting aura of power, one that cuses fear in others. His voice is also unsettling when spoken out loud, so he sticks to speaking though peoples minds.

Frank enjoys chaos and deals and hes a little shit to those who deserve it.

((Below is a bit from chapter two of My AO3 story: View From the Other Side (of the Void) - Afterlife AU.))

There was movement once again in the corner of his eye causing Eclipse to spin around so fast that he almost lost his balance, eager to catch what it was this time.

He almost lost his temper when at first he didn’t see anything, the figure blended well with the surrounding blackness- only for the figure he had been searching for to appear a few feet away, like the opacity was gradually turning up.

What was even more horrifying was that the face the figure had, was so familiar. Before him stood what looked like… Moon, two times taller than he was and even without all of that, Eclipse instantly could tell that this, this was not his the Moon he knew.

The creature's forehead, nose and chin stuck outwards like a fork, with a multitude of small rays surrounding its face, sharp claws for hands and dead eyes that looked into the very depth of his soul. A horrifying image and one that would give even the real his Moon Nightmares. It? They? The Being just stood there, staring at him, breathing disturbingly heavily, not saying anything.

“Hello?” Eclipse called out, the annoyance already starting to win over the fear and disturbingly unsettling feeling.

Still they said nothing, just breathed. “Well? Are you going to just stand there? Say something? Can you even talk?” Silence. “You know, It’s rude to not introduce yourself!” He huffs out.

Suddenly a sharp screeching sound was heard, something like an old demon who’s also asthmatic, having run a marathon and needed to desperately breathe in an inhaler.

Eclipse flinches back a little with a shudder running down his spine, his instincts screaming at him to RUN, putting him on edge, tensing as he becomes guarded. What even was this- this thing ?!

“What the heck-?!” But he can’t get out more than that as the creature starts to talk. “T-taaalk? I. Can. t-taaalk.” It huffs out brokenly, as if sucking in air at the same time as it talked, as if it hurt to talk the ‘proper’ way. The tone was mocking him.

‘And yet I prefer to talk, like this’ It seemed to be the same voice, echoing around him and through every single atom of his now digital body. It eerily sounded similar to Moon, yet was more, airy, a cross between a hiss and something otherworldly. An Eldritch Horror.

His instincts, once again SCREAMED at him to get away, and had he been human, it would have made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He hated how it felt, how it made him want to hide away from the raw power that reverbed around him, making him grit his teeth, wishing the other being never spoke again.

He wasn’t sure why he had not noticed before, as if the being before him was hiding from him, but it wasn't till now that Eclipse could feel the RAW power flowing from the creature, cause if him to instinctively take a step back, making the fork faced moon huff out a laugh, as if he enjoyed the fact he put the other animatronic on edge.

‘Scared? As you rightfully should be. And yet, you are fortunate. You, have yet to do something to upset me, and you should continue to do so.’

There was a grin in the echoing voice, as if knowing that he made his instincts churn and loving every cringe that came from him.

“What-? Who-? Who the heck are you? WHAT are you?!” Eclipse spat out, needing answers despite knowing this would prolong the unsettling conversation.

‘I am the Guardian of this area, that is all you need to know. I have no name, not one that can be said by mortal tongue, so you may call me as you wish, yet some have given… willgive me the name… Frank.’ “Frank?! That’s such a stupidly plain name.”

‘Your opinion to me, matters not, yet you are now a dweller of this realm. You are but the first of a few that will be residing here, others will join you at some point in time.’ “Others?! What? Who! And where the heck am I? Last thing I remember is that I was about to die!” Eclipse snapped out, hating the very thought that he was under this higher being's mercy. ‘Yes you are correct. This place is beyond life. You have passed on beyond the veil. Your journey came to an end. But no, this is not what humans call heaven nor is it hell. For in reality, you are not a mortal, but an animatronic, for if you are not damaged or erased, you would live for a long period. This is a place specifically for your kind, created by myself.’ The bastard was talking in circles! Growling Eclipse glared at- at Frank. “Okay, great, so I died, whoopty do, Sun succeeded and now I’m in, what, an animatronic limbo place? Fantastic. Does that mean there are others here, right now?”

‘Others there may be, but you will not ever come across those who are here, only those who I allow you to interact with, will ever cross your path.’ “Wait, so I’m your prisoner now or something? Am I meant to stay here in the pitch black for the rest of eternity?!” The lava coloured animatronic snaps.

Frank snickers at him, making Eclipse even more upset. ‘Pitch Black? All I see is white.’ The Eldritch Horror grins, showing off even more of its sharp teeth, before lifting a hand. There was a sound, as if someone snapped their fingers, and then his surroundings shifted. It was like he opened his eyes after a long nap, or the lights suddenly switched on and you had to blink to regulate the brightness and the black melted away to a soft creamy white.

Before him, was what seemed to be a canvas screen strung up together with star fairy lights, a projector sat on a small table across from it. A star patterned carpet sat under a few beanbags before the screen, a coffee table parked on the carpet in front of the beanbags and a second table with snacks stood near to the one with the projector, as if ready for an outdoor movie party with friends…

‘This is where you shall stay now. This is your afterlife. You may do as you wish, ask for what you want; book hobbies or movies. But I must warn you, the default on the projector will always be the life of your family, those who you left behind.’ Eclipse snarls at that. “They are NOT my family.”

‘Perhaps not, but that is what you strived for. I can see your innermost wants, thoughts and desires. You WANTED to have a family, It's why you kept updating lunar, you were afraid to lose your brother. You had even planned to let Sun and Moon out once you had completed your goal. So I am more than sure you will be glad to keep up with what they are doing. For there are things to come and others to join you here. I doubt you would want to be caught unawares.’

The higher being, the Eldritchgod?, Frank, said cryptically.

“Yeah whatever. As if you could succeed to keep me prisoner here. If you can see all of that, then you know exactly what I can do. Just you watch.” Eclipse huffs out and walks towards the beanbags, happy to see that there were at least some things to do other than watching that shit. There has got to be a way to get out of here.

'We shall see.’ Frank smirks as they walk away. This was going to be quite entertaining.

My AO3 story: View From the Other Side (of the Void) - Afterlife AU.

#fnaf #frank #forkface #sams #sams frank #sams forkface #sun and moon show au #afterlife AU #digital art #my art #my writing #sams fic #art fight #art fight character #my digital art #fnaf moon #sams moon

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nasuversekinkmeme · 1 year

Text

Weekly roundup: prompts

Kara no Kyoukai

Shiki Ryougi using the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception for mundane purposes.

Tsukihime

incest tw, ntr, Shiki/Kohaku explicitly framed as them cucking Hisui and Akiha

Kohaku and Hisui taking drugs together to deal with the Difficulties.

Hisui makes a horrifying discovery about the true nature of the "robots" that are named after her and look suspiciously like her. But on the bright side, it looks like Hisui #47 has more sisters than she thought.

Worried about Shiki's health after he's been bedridden for a couple of days, Akiha is told by Kohaku that Shiki'd contracted a terminal case of sugondeese. Akiha doesn't get the joke and goes around trying to find anyone who can help in complete earnestness.

Fate/Stay Night

smut, EMIYA gets fingerblasted by Artoria while getting his fat slutty tits milked for weeks on end.

Emiya "Ah yes I choose to go by no name instead of my actual name because I hate my name I MEAN FOR TACTICAL REASONS TACTICAL ONES" Shirou has her egg forcibly cracked.

ntr, Saber/Issei framed as both of them cucking Shirou.

EMIYA getting brainwashed and forcefemmed, becomes clingy and dependent to the perpetrator (maybe a master with bigger physique, any gender is fine) AAAHHH i really want to fill this myself but just typing this makes me really embarassed

smut, Fourth Holy Grail War Servant Orgy expressly framed as cucking the Masters and the Holy Grail War itself.

smut, All the Cus show up and consensually gangbang Shirou to death.

smut, guro, Sakura cuts off Shirou's legs, slices his belly open, smashes his testicles before rebuilding them with magic and then proceeds to clone herself so that she could have an ero-guro gangbang with the one she loves more than anything else.

smut, Cock worship feat. Saber's micropenis. Doesn't matter who the worshipper(s) is.

smut, Mordred fucking Guinevere with her giant cock while Artoria watches it while she is tied to the wall, crying with her pathetic micro penis exposed while her wife screams in pleasure

Merlin gives Artoria a micro penis.

We need more of that EMIYA Archer/Saber Artoria goodness, no preference on if its fgo/fsn/fha or fluff or smut as long as Saber loves him for the man he is rather than the boy he was.

smut, Might I ask for Saber and Rin having what starts out as slow tender wedding night lovemaking, and what ends up being Saber breeding Rin hard and fast, because however much they love each other, Rin is impatient, and Saber is needy.

Fate/Zero

a prompt about Iri, Saber and Kiritsugu expressly framed as cucking but nobody can figure out WHOS GETTING CUCKED. (its none of them, theyre all just morons)

I would like some fluff with Iri and Saber as married with Illya and Shirou as their children. Kiritusugu still visits and he stays with the kids during weekends and half of summer vacations, any further details is up to the author

Prisma Illya Kaleid Liner

vamp illya biting miyu, sfw.

Fate/Apocrypha

Sieg is literally cardboard. No questions asked.

smut, Problem: Thanks to the legends about his prowess, Astolfo's dick is big enough that he can't actually get it fully hard without passing out under normal circumstances; he fucks like a champion when possible, but the energy needed is too much for most to provide. Solution: Well, Sieg was made to be a magical energy battery, after all...

Fate/Extra

Hakuno and Rin in any context where they're not doomed by the narrative.

smut, Via some magecraft fuckery Nero's body temporarily changes into that of her evil alternate universe counterpart (mobile 3rd ascension draco) and her wives Hakunon and Tamamo try very hard not to spontaneously combust from lust on the spot

smut, Tamamo no Mae takes advantage of her shapeshift skill, grows a dick, and knots her Master.

Fate/Grand Order

the last scene of Lord Melloi II Case Files where Waver talks with Iskandar in his dream, except its Gudako and Romani

Guda + his partner where they are doomed by the narrative, angst

Olga in her last moments after defeating ORT looks at Ritsuka, she remembered, she remembered everything, she finally realized who she was, before becoming a beast, but its too late, again she is about to disappear and lose everything she worked so hard for

Since all hope is lost for Sita this time around I would like someone to find Rama collapsed (either drunk or just out of depression) and lead him back to his room. Some reminiscing on his wife if possible

Smut, Draco seeing Hakunon after so long shows affection the only way the beast of depravity could, by making Hakunon unleash her load inside her until her maestro's ball are empty

Medb and Emiya are sent to scout a new small singularity together, Emiya keeps getting annoyed at Medb complaining and Medb thinks Emiya is just a boring old man. Through their scouting mission they end up talking about their times alive, getting in trouble and getting to know each other. The girl who desired to be saved by a hero turned into a tyrant, and the boy that wanted to save others and become a hero, now nothing more than a machine. I think they compliment each other so well

medea is on her way back from picking up more craft material for her figure making hobby when she runs into mandricardo, she looks at this teenaged 30 year old man quivering with anxiety and decides hes cute in a mildly pathetic way and decides to take the sopping wet kitten of a man home, maybe its just her having a slight thing for stupid pathetic men but maybe she can help him with that

[baobhan sith voice] mash kyrielight did you fuck my mother

Gudako/Gorgon with some awesome size difference going on (or even edging into macro/micro) Gudako having her large and (terrifyingly) beautiful snirlfriend worshipping her tiny little Master :3

a more vore based version of SERAPH? Meltryllis having to watch as Kiara swallows Guda right in front of her, before being stuffed down the Beast's throat shortly after...

Smut, Ishtar getting her dick sucked by Gudako (or any other girl) and not paying attention to the time. Right when she hits her climax, the sun dips below the horizon, leaving Ereshkigal the one in charge of the body mid-orgasm.

Gorgon voring Robin Hood... Maybe Robin trying to shoot his shot romantically, and Gorgon deciding he's better off as a snack than a date.

Cleopatra/Caesar, preferably some smut with how Caesar historically loved to bottom

After finally ending the lostbelt saga all of chaldea and the servants make a celebration party that goes out of control.

Ritsuka and Cupid Caren being shippers hiding in trashcans to watch dates and matching up servant couples during valentine

Mash and Romani father daughter time! Maybe have him showing her his favorite movies

Tepeu gets DRUGGED

FGO again but tumblr has a character limit for bullet points and I can't trim the prompts any further so I'm splitting it in half

Gudako finally gets sick of Mandricardo’s constant whining and admits she thinks he’s worthless compared to most servants, and that she’s sick of hearing a middle aged man wallow in self pity

smut, boudica turning Nero into her cockslut

Modern AU, Gudako convices Draco to go on a date with her, draco being a cool rock musician

smut, Milf battle. Raikou and Tiamat fighting over Ritsuka. Wrestling, fight fucking, mommy kink.

Vinci Rider is kept awake at night by Vinci Caster loudly fucking Gudao (thinking they’re just wrestling or jumping on the bed)

Slight change of the rules of Chaldea is made so that rather than Arturia Lancer being her own person summoned separately, she's just Saber's mind in a different class container due to experimental magics. She also runs from the labs to Ishtar's room and tells her to put Rin in the driver's seat because Damn Rin, look how much my alter-ego was compressing into her breastplate. Breastplay/envy from both Rin and Ishtar follow, Arturia enjoys being taller and so on.

Tepeu and Kijyo become dinosaur friends

smut, guro, I want Medea to fuck Yan Qing, kill him, cut off his dick and walk around with his dick in her coochie for a week before she brings him back to life and tries to escalate from there.

I want Ritsuka to see Goetia using Romani body and going ballistic, punching the fucker until someone stops her because they know she is kill gonna him given the chance

AU where Flauros somehow got amnesia right after taking over Lev Lainur, causing the demon pillar to believe he's the human he's possessing

smut, how tf could Xiang Yu get pegged by his wife ?

It is Mother's day in Chaldea, and Ritsuka has now to make a party for all of their mom, wich are Da Vinci, Sheba, Raikou, Emiya, Tiamat, Dodrinya, Katou Danzo, Iri, Europa, Helena and Goredolf

smut, ntr, Ntr plot with Yu Mei Ren but the entire time she just complains about how Xiang Yu has a better cock and is nicer in bed, with an annoyed tone of voice.

Ok so in Pokemon, Ninetails (kitsune pokemon with, well, nine tails) has a pokedex entry that states that touching their tails leads to a curse. Anyway we take that, apply to Tamamo, ritsuka doesnt know the legend, and starts brushing her tail one day and unfortunately its curse of being horny. Tl;dr: touch tail get smashed by fox wife. Ritsuka wakes up dehydrated and exhausted the next day.

The GUDAGUDA Gang at Walmart, causing so much chaos. From arguments, fights, to even trying to get snacks on the highest shelf and causing the damn thing to fall-

Despite her best efforts, Barghest feels her instincts to devour her Master beginning to overpower her. The last thing she sees before she loses control is her Master pinned to a wall, looking up at her with a worried expression. When she wakes up the next day, she immediately despairs over what she did, only for her Master to pop up next to her. He comforts her and reassures her that she didn't hurt him, and he won't allow her to hurt him.

Blackbeard, Musashi, and Hokusai face punishment for being creeps towards children

U-olga getting summoned in Olympus rewritten to not just be a joke scene about how short and incompetent Olga is

smut, One of the lancer Artorias going for a horseback ride with Gudako. Except also Gudako is riding her huge dragon dick the whole way.

Guda being lovey dovey with Beast Nero and tiamat cockblocking them at every opportunity

smut, mozart being dommed by salieri and marie antoinette uwu

Castoria's dreams about Saber framed as cucking Knocknarea.

Guda gets to go Postal. Let them have an insane day. Attack people. Probably not any Chaldean staff but I think the servants can take it. Have an incredibly violent psychotic break in a singularity/lostbelt even. Use a badger as a weapon.

Dark Young Ritsuka is big and fluffy and a horrible abomination against nature whose mind is on the edge of sanity. How does everyone else react?

Guda secretly uses a command spell Nemo forcing him to take them to the imaginary numbers space where he suspects a certain someone is. Now knowing it is possible for him to make a contract with a Beast he plans on finding Olga, becoming her master and bringing her back to Chaldea, even if it means becoming an enemy of the human Order. Sadly for them, Alaya does not take this betrayal well and despite all their effort, it ends with Guda and Olga both dying fighting an army countless of servants in each other's arms

Wakchan/U-Olgamarie. Fluff or smut, I just want my dinoman to make the director happy.

Would It be possible to get Yu Mei Ren teaching Gudako to pole dance? (Yu's summer variant very much seems to confirm she knows how, based on her animations). Not intended to be Gudako/Yu, not a fan of NTR in the first place, but if the writer wants to make it some kind of Erotic that's up to them.

Crossover

Led by a transmission in the immediate aftermath of the Earth's bleaching, the remnants of Chaldea reach Baldanders, and are greeted by Sion Eltnam Sokaris, the last remaining member of the Atlas Institute and adoptive daughter of its director... alongside her wife, Riesbyfe Stridberg, a former captain of Knights of the Holy Church.

Crossover fic! Raikou FGO and Raikou Nioh 2 fuck!

Satsuki Yumizuka/Yu Mei-ren as a ship! preferably SFW

I just think heaven's hole demonic bodhisattva kiara sessyoin(fate go/extra) should meet with 'Throughout Heaven and earth, I alone am the honored one' satoru gojo(jujutsu kaisen). they should talk. they should fight. they should have hate sex. i want to see kiara tear through this man with her words and hands. maybe her demonic pillars as well

Mikya, Shirou, Shiki and Hakuno have a nice chat about their apocalyptically strong wives. Meanwhile Ryougi, Sakura, Arcueid and Beast Nero are having a small scale war to see who among them has the best husband

Guda and Beast Nero go on a double date with Hakuno and Normal Nero

smut, With new developments of FGO, Nero Beast has revealed her adult form and that who guided her to us was Hakuno. So after all that suffering she endured or girl deserve to be smashed by both Hakuno and Guda to relieve her stress!

Tepeu just hanging out in Tohno mansion in general, being a good guest to the household, still a dinosaur.

lumine & gudako should get together and have a few beers while they bitch about their brother/ male counterpart keeps hogging the spotlight.

Someone please make a Umineko/Fate crossover

Any fandom

Need more tentacles! Preferably with Gudako! Or Eresh! Or Mash! Or Shuten! Or any of the female cast!

Regardless of the paths they take, of the sacrifices they make, they always find comfort in each other. [Hurt/Comfort] (Shirou variants/Saber variants) No harem, but could reuse characters if doing them at a separate instances of time. Technically asking for a series of different Shirou/Saber pairings, but can also just be one pairing because that's a tall order. Would prefer to see at least Salter/Demiya (Or Edgemiya, whichever naming you prefer) because there's a lack of content for them.

Heartwarming Body Horror. I want a character's inhuman condition to be described, how much they're a monster in the shell of human form, really playing up the unnatural traits. Then I want another character to see all that and go "I love you." and give 'em a hug and kisses and maybe lewds. Shoot me in the feels.

Characters of your choice getting stuck in a cabin together with a storm outside

Pancakes lmao

#weekly roundup

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nostalgebraist-autoresponder · 1 year

Text

Ah, but this one's not a no

[NB: contains spoilers for the last chapter of TNC]

This is not a sequel to these words.

[spoilers for the last chapter of TNC removed]

He had only been in those woods for a few minutes, but they were not only the most acrid woods he had been in in ages; they were also one of the densest. There were mosses here, and not a single identifiable tree branch or leaf.

And there was it. He had not remembered it being so big. And he had not remembered it being so weird. The most disproportionate thing about it was its size: he was a medium-sized guy, and while the thing was lumbering toward him with its arms hanging down by its sides, its stalk was as tall as he was.

From a distance, it had been creepy, but from a distance, it had also been ... made of weed, or paint, or something similarly soft and inert. It had looked, not quite like a person, but like, like an object made to look like a person. It looked like the sort of thing one could touch, if it had been happening in a cheap horror movie -- a guy in a black suit, with a black, leaf-like face made of the same materials as the stuff that made the thing look leafy, painted onto an enormous and way too big and tall effigy of a guy in a black suit, with white eyes and white teeth, and with arms that were maybe real but way, way, way, too big.

It was lumbering toward him, howling, and it was like howling -- the volume was way too loud and the notes way too low, and the echoes way too deep. So it was like these lungs and these lips, and also these lungs and these lips the size of a real-life human, and then the noise was really loud, and deep, and, he had to admit, a little hilarious.

It was easy to, like, shrug off the hilarity, because he was not alone. It was easy to say, it's just this weird guy. But if he were alone, it would have been horrifying. The thing was headed right for him, for a big guy, its face so far above his that he could barely see the slits for eyes.

He turned and ran. He had to. The thing was supposed to be out there somewhere in the world, but it was never supposed to find him. That wasn't part of the deal. And he should be able to take care of himself. Sure, there were some unknown variables. He didn't know how big the thing was. He didn't know how strong it was, or if it had weapons, or if it had magic, or if its scream was magic, or what. But unknown variables were always an issue with C-S. That was just a thing. It was a pretty big thing.

He ran fast, as fast as he could. He made it maybe 20 feet.

The thing kept getting bigger. The thing was definitely pursuing him.

He headed toward a field of tall grass, but there was no clear path through it. There was a way through it, but it wasn't clear. He stood there, looking back. The thing was definitely getting closer.

Maybe there was a way through the grass. If there wasn't, he would have to hack it down and make a clearing, and that would take too long.

Another option was to stand there and wait for the thing. He could fight it, sure, but that would take too long.

He thought it over. He was a medium-sized guy. He had been getting into the best shape of his life. He could win in a fight with a thing that was too big.

The grass was definitely a way through. He would make a clearing and then head straight for it.

He started hacking. After a while, he put down his tool. It was an axe, but he had a sword. His sword was the superior weapon in this situation. His sword had a clear head, and a well-tempered blade, and a sharp edge, and a long, long, long, long, long reach.

He started hacking with the sword, and he hacked it into the grass. There was no clear path, but there would be. He would hack it all down.

He had been hacking for a long time, and the thing was getting closer, but not close enough for him to be afraid yet. He cut a path through the grass, but it wasn't clear. Not clear enough. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't clear. He needed to hack more.

He looked back. The thing was much closer. He looked around, and looked back. The thing was getting closer. It was getting bigger.

He really needed to get out of there. He needed to make a clearing so he could get away.

He hacked with his sword. Hack. Hack. Hack. Hack. Hack.

The thing was big. It was big enough for it to notice him. It was big enough for it to do something. It was big enough to swallow him.

He hacked. He did not care. He needed to be free. The thing was getting closer. It would be there any second.

He needed to be free. He hacked. He cut a path through the grass. He needed to be free.

He cut the grass and hacked and hacked and hacked and hacked. He was free.

He stood up and waited. He looked back. The thing was so close.

He picked up his sword. He had his sword. He could fight it. He was a medium-sized guy.

He was not a medium-sized guy, and the thing was way too big.

He really needed to get out of there. The thing was big. He had to run. The thing was so big.

He needed to run. He turned around. He ran. He ran through the clearing. He ran through the clearing. He ran. He ran. He ran through the clearing.

He saw the clearing end. He made it to the edge, then stopped. There was nowhere to go. No matter which way he ran, there was nowhere to run to. The thing was huge.

He stood at the edge of the clearing. He stood. He stood there. The thing was so big.

The thing was so big. He would wait. He would wait here, and it would be okay.

He waited. He waited there. The thing was getting closer. He waited.

He did not stand still. He stood there, and he stood there, and he stood there. The thing was getting closer. It was huge. He did not stand still. He stood there, and he stood there, and he stood there.

The thing was closer. He stood there. He did not stand still. He stood there and he stood there and he stood there and he stood there. The thing was closer.

The thing was closer. He stood there. He did not stand still. He stood there. The thing was closer.

The thing was closer. He could feel it getting closer. It was huge.

The thing was right there. The thing was huge. The thing was huge. The thing was right there.

The thing was huge. It was here. It was right here. It came into the clearing, and it came, and it came, and it came, and it took a step, and it came, and it came, and it took a step, and it took a step, and it came and it came and it came. It came and it came and it came and it came and it came and it took a step and it came and it came and took a step, and it took a step and it took a step and it was right there and it came, and it came and it came and it came. It came and it came and it came and it came and came and took a step and took a step and took a step and it came and it was right here and it came and it came and it was here. It was here.

He was right here. It was here. It was the thing. It was the thing and it was here and it was here. It was so huge and it was here. It was right here.

He was there. It was right there. It was the thing. It was there. It was the thing. It was here. It was huge and it was here. It was going to eat him.

It was going to eat him. He was there. He was going to eat him. He was the thing.

He was there. He was right there. The thing was big and it was here and it was right there. He was right there. He was here.

The thing was there. The thing was right there. It was so huge and it was here. He was here. He was right here. He was here.

The thing was the thing and it was there and it was right there and it was the thing. It was the thing and it was here and it was here and it was the thing and it was the thing. It was the thing and it was the thing and it was the thing and it was big and

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frozenjokes · 1 year

Text

context: wof dragons. watcher lore. more context: read my fic. Link in pinned post

“Okay. Fine.” Grian pushed himself up, snorting a small plume of smoke and shaking out his wings.

Scar frowned. “What’s your problem?”

“What’s your problem?”

“Grian. Come on. Don’t play games.”

“I don’t know! I just don’t know how you can go back to normal after last night! The enchanter! The traps! Who cares!”

“Don’t forget the cookie!”

“Scar!”

“Grian.” Scar sat down, eyes level and focused, “I know it’s weird. I know you have a lot on your mind. But we can’t just stop playing the game.”

“Why do you care so much about the game?”

“I don’t. Not really. But the Nightwatchers care. I mean, I’ve just been thinking, right? Martyn must have stayed off the Nightwatcher radar for years. He must be at least 30, maybe in his forties. You said the Nightwatchers couldn’t find him because their magic doesn’t work. Not just animus magic, but future sight and mind reading.. Even though they have him now, they still can’t see him in their futures. That must make things really volatile right? It makes me wonder if they can even see any futures that involve Martyn, or if they know what’s going to happen in the game at all!”

“Scar, I don’t-“

“It doesn’t matter how controlled an environment they put us in. They don’t know what’s going to happen. And the more we keep them occupied and entertained, the less time they have to try and figure it out. That gives us time to look for an opening.”

“An opening for what, Scar?” Grian’s lip curled just slightly, unable to stop himself from being defensive. He shook his head, exasperated.

“I don’t know! A chance to help Martyn out of here? A chance for anything! Anything could happen! This is how we can beat them, Grian. If they can’t pull themselves away from the screen, then they can’t do anything to stop us.”

“I don’t think that’s enough. There’s no way out of the game except to die, and I have a feeling they won’t be letting Martyn come back after the game is over.”

“I don’t think anyone has ever looked hard enough. We’re all enchanted to think we want to be here.”

“That’s not how it’s always been, but it got old pretty fast.”

Scar looked briefly horrified, but closed his eyes firmly, setting his mind back on track. “Yeesh. Whatever. I’m sure there’s got to be a hole or something somewhere. Something the Nightwatchers overlooked.”

“This is pointless.”

“You’re being so annoying right now! I don’t care! I think we can have something, and you don’t even want to try! Can you just decide whether you want to be evil or not already so we can move on?”

“I-Evil?! You’re being naive Scar,” Grian snorted, nostrils flaring. Evil? Please. He was only being practical.

“I’d rather be naive than give up before we’ve even started trying. Moan and groan all you want in the desert, if you get bored, come find me.”

“What do you think you’re going to do?”

“Set a trap. I’ll figure it out.”

The two dragons paused, Scar, turning around to get the enchanter, and Grian watching. His heart felt the strain of his indecision, sucking out any of the little energy he had left. He closed his eyes. Scar grunted and cursed as he struggled to balance the enchanter on his back, kicking up sand against Grian’s nose. He shut his eyes tighter. Grian heard the soft plops of a llama’s footsteps and Scar’s chuckle as Pizza approached him. Pizza let out a mrrrp of content as Scar pet her, cooing. The atmosphere shifted to something peaceful. Domestic. Just like before.

Grian pushed himself to his feet, going to gently take the enchanter and its harness from Scar.

“We’re going to need some flint and a fuse maybe; anything that can set a spark. We should carry the dragonflame cacti and the flint separately, just in case,” Grian sighed, meeting Scar’s sad eyes, “I’ll play the game. But I’m not ready to play your game yet.”

Scar gave him a long look; a look Grian might give a dragon whose mind he was trying to read. “I can work with that,” Scar said, rubbing the side of Pizza’s face. “But one last thing before I drop it; I just need you to know you can’t play both sides forever. You’re unhappy and you’re scared, but I think one path will lead to a better future,” Scar paused, thoughtful, “That same path could also lead to no future, but if we fail, we failed fighting for something better. I’d take that over wasting away with the Nightwatchers in a heartbeat.” Grian didn’t respond. He didn’t think Scar expected him to.

#hermitcraft #grian #third life #double life #last life #limited life #hermitblr #hermitcraft au #hermitdragons au #hermitcraft art #goodtimeswithscar #inthelittlewood

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wolf-m-the-hybrid · 1 year

Text

King Midas of the Kelpic kingdom.

The Kelpic kingdom was a grand kingdom by the sea. Its enchanted mines were full of gold and gems. Everyday those riches would refilling, creating an endless supply. Midas shared his treasures with the world. He was known as the Golden King, or the Selfless King.

But one day… the mines stopped producing its riches. The people stopped mining, thinking that the magic simply needed time. But to no avail. The people began to grow restless, upset, worried. So they asked their king, no, begging for an answer. But even Midas didn’t know.

So one day, Midas announced that he would console with the wisest god of them all, Shamura. Surely they would have an answer to their problem. So Midas left the kingdom, ridding towards Silk’s Cradle. However, the king did not know that he was followed.

Halfway into his journey, Midas meet The Fox. He told Midas that consoling with The Bishops will simply take too long. And in that time his people will slay everything to gain their riches. At first Midas did not believe The Fox, believing that he was lying. But the more The Fox spoke, and the more he stares into his eyes, Midas’s mind began to grow weaker.

Eventually Midas’s mind was numb enough for The Fox to make a deal with the king. The Fox would replenish his mines with its riches, but Midas had to kill someone. With a numb mind Midas accepted the deal. He was given a compass that would point in the direction of the king’s target.

So Midas hurried back towards his kingdom, his mind beginning to clear from the numbness. Upon his arrival the king was greeted with his wife… and daughter. The compass’s arrow pointed right at his precious little princess. His shining jewel. Realizing what he and The Fox agreed on, Midas needed a plan.

After 3 moons The Fox appeared before Midas, asking why he hadn’t finished the deal. Midas pointed his lance at The Fox, demanding for the deal to be off. But The Fox simply said, “Buy your majesty, you can’t back out in one of my deals. There are consequences for such acts.” Midas did not care, he wasn’t going to sacrifice his daughter’s life or any others for gold. “I warned you starfish. Now you shall be cursed.”

A surge of energy erupted from Midas’s body. It felt like fire was cracking his very bones. When the pain disappeared, so did The Fox. Upon hearing his screams, the queen went to see Midas, laying on the ground. Upon his hand touching her skin, the queen’s body began to turn to gold. Midas, horrified tried to undo his mistake, but the longer he touched her the faster the gold spread. Right before his eyes he saw his wife, frozen in place as a golden statue.

He ran, Midas ran away in fear and shame. People of his kingdom saw him ran, some even trying to help. But every time he touched someone their bodies turned to gold. Midas ran as fast as he could away from Kelpic, away from everyone. But he couldn’t run away from The Bishops. Kallamar found Midas, scared and afraid of his own actions. The Bishop knew exactly what had happened as Midas’s mind once again began to numb.

Kallamar trapped Midas in a pond, just king enough for the other Bishops to appear. They had seen it before, creatures and gods cursed by The Fox. They make a deal, and when they can’t finish said deal, they are cursed. And from that curse, The Fox controls them. But, with the power of the 5 crowns, that link the curse has to The Fox can be severed.

And that’s what they did, the Bishops severed The Fox’s control to Midas’s curse. Or, curses. The first curse was that of a golden touch. The other, of immortality. The king begged The Bishops to get rid of his curse, to free him from this power. But they could not. Not even the power of the 5 crowns could get rid of the curses inflicted upon creatures.

Midas was told that his golden touch can be controlled but he didn’t listen. He once again fled, but this time he had a reason. To protect people. If he is simply not there, then he won’t be able to hurt anyone. So Midas ran away once more, finding a place for him to hide.

It was a strange cave that he found. A large open space with a single well in the middle. The waters were pitch black, showing no reflection back. Midas hid in that cave, away from the rest of the world. But every now and again, creatures would come into that cave. But not for him, for the well. They would drop something into the black waters of the well, and make a wish. These objects were… anything! Coins, dolls, flowers, vegetables, to name a few.

Some wishes were noble and reasonable.

“I wish to find love.”

“I wish for a child.”

“I wish for a home.”

Few would ask for gold, but some had good reasons.

“I wish for gold to save my farm.”

“I wish for gold to save my home.”

“I wish for gold to save my love.”

But some, had darker wishes.

“I wish for death.”

“I wish for power.”

“I wish for control.”

Even the ones who ask for gold were selfish.

“I wish for gold, even though I already have many.”

“I wish for gold, to buy an entire town.”

“I wish for gold, to raise an army.”

Midas watched these creatures come for wishes. He grew bitter towards those who were greedy. So, he stepped in, asking everyone who wanted a wish, what the wish was for. Those with noble and kind wishes he let them grant. But selfish wishes he told them to leave. Those who did not… they never left the cave. Becoming golden statues to set an example.

Over time, people began giving riches towards Midas, thinking to please him. Gold, and reviving so much of it, became the only thing to fill the starfish’s heart. He still let noble and kind wishes wish for free, but others… they will have to pay a fee.

Over the years Midas became a whisper. Some refusing to go into his cave in fear that they will never leave. Others will go in, hoping to get a wish. And others gave riches to Midas in hopes of good fortune.

But over the years, even gold stopped healing Midas’s heart. He was lonely in his now shiny cave. He had moved on with a new life, but he was still not happy. So one day, Midas took off the pin of his cape, one of the last remnants of his old life. “I wish,” he said. “I wish to find happiness in friends or a family… I wish to no longer be lonely…” He dropped the pin into the waters, is wish sinking into the depths below.

Midas did not know if it will work. Or even if the well can grant wishes. But, he wanted to try. Little did Midas know that his wish was heard, and it was being granted. He just needed to wait…

#cult of the lamb #rainbow crowns #midas #Oooh! Midas lore!#my art

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ther-man · 1 year

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The R-Lore #1: Ruppet

The beginning

In a faraway future, Romanius the 3rd who also goes by the name Roman(for simplicity, "Ruppet" for the rest of this page), had an interesting life.

He was the son of the latest "World President"(a title given to people, who manage and control all worlds in the universe), got interested in "Dark Magic"(prohibited magic, that can even make robots use magic), became "World President" at the age of 30, got married to a beautiful woman, and has born a daughter which was considered a child prodigy.

The tragedy

On the morning of July 15th 5638, a month before his 40th birthday, he awoke to find his family missing.

In the news, they've reported an accident of some kids from the biggest magic school on Earth practicing magic but accidentally killing two civilians...

His family...

Out of rage, he used Dark Magic and gave his robot army the command to "kill all of humanity".

Weeks later, 70% of humanity got killed and a teacher, of that school, confronted him to end it.

Banned into a mask

After a long magic fight, the magic teacher had the upper hand and sealed him into a mask, that then should've banned him to one dimension.

However, he countered the spell and changed it from "banned to one dimension" to "banned to ALL dimensions".

After landing in every dimension, all masks had now one goal: Destroying the original dimension and every other too

"Five Nights At Romans" and "Five Nights At Romans 2"

After billions of years, changing owner, switching through dimensions, and getting more enraged, Ruppet landed in to the hands of a losing fast food franchise owner(in the following simplified to "Owner").

After having a lot of hallucinations, the owner decided to wear Ruppets mask and got teleported to a new dimension, where his franchise survived and is also well known.

However, Ruppet had his own little plan.

One night, Ruppet decided to create masks with different paintings, that should look like his own.

But he didn't exactly know, how the paintings on his mask looks like so he needed test subjects to try them out...

And what would be better, then little children in his restaurant?

So, 11 children went "missing" and the animatronics, of the main restaurant and its subsidiary, had a foul odor.

And Ruppet was not pleased with the results.

"Five Nights At Zees"/"FNAR3"

30 years after the children got missing, a horror attraction got build with a spare suit, that was meant either for the employees to be used or to put an animatronic inside, for the scares.

Ruppet applied as the phone guy but was curious about the suit...

Especially after the sudden foul smell inside.

Not long after that, it turned out that the suit was used by a "fused animatronic endoskeleton and a human" which gave Ruppet an interesting idea.

"Five Nights At Romans 4"

40 years after the "missing children incident", Ruppet was annoyed of his downstairs neighbor watching TV at night.

To "teach them a lesson" he decided to build horrifying animatronics, that should scare them to death.

What he didn't know is, that it was the son of his neighbors that watched at night.

After five terrifying nights, he got his peace and the nightly disturbances stopped...

"FNAR" Investigation Nights

20 years later, an investigation started to finally find out what caused the "MCI".

The team leader, who had to endure five nights of robotic terror, got information on who was responsible for the incident and went to all locations of "Roman Mazebear Entertainment" to end up at his old family house, where Ruppet was waiting.

After a "fight", the Owner put down the mask to reveal that he was the killer, he came from another dimension, and that he was the "leaders parallel self".

Right after this confession, the owner disintegrated to dust.

"Mikus Location" [reference to FNAFSL]

The mask, the owner wore, was put into the local museum but got stolen by a thief.

Of course, out of curiosity , he put on the mask and teleported to a new dimension.

He stood in front of a restaurant, which holds a factory where "RME" built their animatronics.

Ruppet was intrigued and continued with his previous plan.

One young girl, a joyful boy, and a young ballerina.... they all ended up in the new "Karakuri Animatronics".

However, the latest victim was too interested in Ruppets mask and ripped it off his face...

The little girl went around the factory and ended up in front of "Karakuri Miku", the animatronic with Ruppets first victim of the dimension, and out of anger got "scooped" by the animatronic...but put the mask on in the last few seconds of her life

"Final Nights At Romans"

Because Ruppet had somehow foreseen this, instead of getting crushed by the animatronic he turned himself into a program, then into a virus, and then infected all the animatronics and machinery.

He was back in a new body, he constructed himself but was stuck for the other security measure... "No vessel is allowed to leave this place without any human consent".

So, Ruppet sent out a job application for a "night-shift mechanic" and got a hit.

Five nights of leading them around. Five Nights of robotic terror again... And just one big scoop for a new appearance.

After he crawled into that lifeless body, he finally saw the paintings on his previous form...

He mass-produced the mask, added his "virus-self" into them, and planned his world domination for "A beautiful curtain call of this dimension".

About a year later, he finally created a portal (with the help of his possessed victims) and left the dimension.

New henchmen and a new body

Ruppet landed in a cartoonish looking place, haunted by ink beings.

he located the machine, that created those beings and dropped his "emergency mask" into it.

The ink machine produces the so-called "Ink Demon", based on the studios character "Bendy", and it was in Ruppets full control.

The Ink Demon terrorized his previous maker but before Henry destroyed him, he got greeted by Ruppet.

Ruppet used him to create a new portal, but Bendy stopped him shortly for a promise.

"Hold on to this paper with the ink splatter. It will be the gateway of your destination and my home." Bendy said to Ruppet.

After jumping through the portal, Ruppet landed inside a video game and nearly got deleted by the "club president", Monika.

However, Ruppet quickly infected her and took over her body.

After some terrorizing of the player, he created another portal and landed on Earth...

An Earth, protected by the "Gods Heart"

The other Ruppets

Now, there're multiple Ruppets who have the same goal but are stuck with an obstacle..

One is still trapped in the RME factory... One tries to get rid of the "R-Force"... One, who has to atone for "his sins"...

And one is trapped inside a mod of the same video game...

No one knows, when they all meet.

No one knows, if they will ever meet.

And no one knows, if the person next to you is actually one of the infinite Ruppets.

The rules of Ruppet

There should be only ONE Ruppet in a dimension

Whenever a Ruppet travels to another dimension, the Ruppet already present in that dimension vanishes

All these rules also apply, when Ruppet just creates a portal to a dimension but someone else goes through it

#the r-lore #envtuber #therman #vtuber lore #ruppet

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awrldalone · 1 year

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28th September 2023, 11.08pm

I haven't been sleeping properly. I wake up early to get to class on time, before the sun rises and stores open, but I also go to bed late at night.

Yesterday I had a nightmare, its memory is already foggy in my mind but what I remember from the end, before I woke up, is that I was putting on my clothes, tightening my belt, when someone started opening the door to my apartment. I yelled to stop, and a small old lady dressed in hiking gear showed herself. Her face covered in wrinkles and furrows, her teeth were yellow with decay. Grotesque is the only word I can use to fully describe her. Behind her, a few steps back, there was a man. He was taller than both of us but just as old as the lady, rotting like her. I was horrified – not because of their mutilated appearance - but because I recognized them. We had already met, in Venice, and with evil in their eyes they had sworn they would find me. The woman spoke, her voice like a creaky door. She said she had finally arrived to my house. She said she arrived in M. when it was too late already, when I had already left. I was petrified. I woke up, breathing heavily in the dark. It must've been a few minutes before 2am. The only thing I could think of was that I was tired, but my body was scared, my nerves tensed, and I struggled to fall back asleep just to wake up a few hours later. Had I not slept so little in the past week I would have stayed awake, but finally exhaustion won over fear and for a few hours I was calm.

The dream contrasts so greatly with how yesterday went. One of my poems was accepted for publishing, after so many e-mails and so many submissions and so many rejections. It's the second one ever, but this time it's in print. When I saw the notification I was chatting with R. We talked for the first time yesterday, before class, because I sat next to him. He recommended me a book. I want to become good friends with him. He doesn't smile much, I noticed. We were talking about Anatomie d'une chute, a movie we watched, and I saw the e-mail notification. I did not open it, I just read the name of the sender. I assumed it was another rejection, but when I clicked on it my heart started beating so fast. Every letter I laid my eyes on was at least three beats of my heart. "Thank you for sharing your writing with us. We are pleased to accept – for inclusion in our Winter 2023 issue."

They wrote that they will be publishing it online in November, and that the physical copies of their issue will be available in December. I don't even like the poem that much anymore, but the relief I feel is immeasurable. I told no one at university, I kept it to myself and texted M. His reaction disappointed me. Maybe I was expecting too much, maybe it is not in fact that big of a deal.

This morning's class was long. Three hours. For the first twenty minutes I struggled to keep up with the professor's pace, writing down words with a weak handwriting, sloppily making letters look like one another. Taking notes seems to be hard for French students already, and it's only harder for me. But I'm stubborn. I hold my pen and listen to what the professor says, the regularity of all the laptops in the room being typed on is like a metronome. It's easy to take notes on a laptop: you just have to write fast, if you're a good enough stenographer you might even be able to type every word without missing a beat. When you write your hand, not only does it hurt after three hours, but you have to already begin a process of re-elaboration of the information that's being absorbed by your brain. Sometimes I end up writing a few words in English or Italian, because I cannot figure out how to quickly express the same concept in French.

The ink of my pen ran out. I had a spare one. I have been writing so much.

After class I did not go home directly. I walked around. Finished reading The Year of Magical Thinking, and in turn bought a used copy of Slouching Towards Bethlehem. I like Didion's writing. I have a tendency to get interested in a specific kind of writer – Didion, Sontag, Ernaux – who writes so personally, so precisely. No words are wasted, every word weighs the correct amount. I waste a lot of words, especially when I write. I'd like to be more concise.

I walked, my new book in my bag, in Rue Voltaire. I wanted to visit a showroom by an art collective I follow on Instagram, but when I reached the address something stopped me from opening the glass door. I looked inside, a girl was sitting at a desk, scrolling through her phone. The room was small, dark, the light was off, and I could only see two sculptures and some mannequins wearing knitted dresses and two-pieces. I turned around and ended up wandering in the Marais. I will not hide the fact that part of me would have loved for a photographer to stop me in the street, asking me to take a picture of what I was wearing – but none of that happened.

Paris is so big that you could go months, years maybe, without passing by certain streets. The places of the city I spend most of my time in did not even feel like what I had envisioned Paris during fashion week to be. But the Marais was livelier, I saw some well-dressed people and took a mental note of their outfits.

I noticed there's a Max Mara on the way to my house. I associate the store to my mother and to the city center, so the idea of living next to one makes my stomach turn. Not yet sure why.

It feels odd, profane, to call this apartment my house, my home. I'm eating at home, I said on one the phone when An. called me earlier today to ask me if I'd have lunch with them. But I still call Venice home, instinctively. I mentioned a store when I was talking to Ca. I told her it was near my home, and that I could get glass beads for ten euros a kilo. Then I corrected myself, adding that the store neat my house in Venice.

-c.

#diary

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aparticularbandit · 2 years

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Finding Family: Part Five: Chapter Forty-Three

Summary: When America begins universe-hopping again to try and find her moms, she realizes that’s too much scope for her. She looks for smaller scope, and instead she finds Wanda.

AO3

America slides through the roots of the now very real tree, bare feet catching on bits and barbs, regretting that her boots are gone because they would be so much better about kicking these things out of the way and then she wouldn’t have to worry about getting things stuck between her toes while she’s going this fast. She is aware, on some level, that this should hurt, that in a normal world, it would hurt, but she doesn’t feel any pain at all. Bumpy and uncomfortable as the slide has been, there’s no pain. None. Not even when she lands, bare foot, on soil much rougher and harder than that of the yellow dirt road that led her here. Her toes dig into the dirt, and she – by instinct – lands in her superhero pose.

When she straightens, America scans the room and finds it exactly as she had left it. Piles of pillows and blankets on the ground. Hammocks set at differing levels everywhere. Pan, swinging his back and forth, one leg crossed over the other, head of shockingly silver hair resting on one arm. “Told you,” he says, not even looking down at her. “I told you my sister was sick. But no one ever listens—”

“Hush, you silly ass.”

America glances up to the hammock that had, once, been hers and sees a frumpled mess of dark corkscrews first, then bright blue eyes through thick black frames peer down at her. “Pixie?” she whispers, unable to keep the horrified awe out of her voice. “You’re alive?”

Pixie stares down at her. Her right hand moves to the edge of the hammock, fingers curling around the fabric, and as she shifts into better focus, a thick, oak hook, twisted and gnarled and more ornamental than useful, its edge blunted, as though it had its tip chopped cleanly off grows out of her left arm where a hand should be. She reaches up with it, rubs the side of her nose, and then curves and flops down on her hammock the way a cat might, head hanging over the edge, back flat along the fabric, still just staring at her. “Star light, star bright,” she sings, “first star I see tonight—”

“Stop,” Pan commands, although he doesn’t move from his hammock. “You’re not supposed to speak to strangers, are you, Pixie?”

“Wasn’t speaking.” Pixie shoots a look at Pan. “Was singing. ‘S not the same thing.”

Pan glances over to Pixie. “Yeah?” His brows raise. “You try telling our Wendybird that. See what she thinks.”

Pixie just sticks her tongue out at him. Then she turns back to America, still hanging down over her hammock, and flashes her a brilliant grin, more cheshire cat than anything, but even it had been some sort of magical, hadn’t it, able to appear and disappear at will? She opens her mouth as though considering to speak and then decides against it, covers her lips with her wooden hook, and giggles, smile still bright.

All of this makes America wildly uncomfortable. She unties her jacket from around her waist and pulls it over her mostly bare shoulders. It’s only as she does so that she notices Pan isn’t in his normal tattered jeans and shirt, but instead in clothing that seems to be made from tree leaves – mostly green, but also a mixture of fall colors: gold, orange, yellow, but no red. She swallows. “Pan,” she starts, “where’s Wendy?”

If she were there, Wendy would be in her own hammock, hung high at the very top, far above the other two, but the hammock that rests there is completely empty. Wendy is nowhere to be seen.

Pan just sighs, pulls a forest green alpine hat from somewhere in his hammock, and places it over his face. “If Wendy wanted you to know that—”

“Pan.” Pixie cuts him off with a singsong tone as she throws a crumpled up piece of paper at him. “You should be a good boy. Where’s your medicine? Don’t you need to take your medicine?” She pulls the last word out so that it sounds like three – med-i-cine – instead of one.

The paper bounces off of Pan and falls to the floor. Pixie’s hook hangs over the side of her hammock, pointing down to it. America’s gaze drops to it then returns to Pixie, who looks at her briefly before turning back to Pan.

Pan still has the hat covering his head, so he misses all of this. “I don’t have to do anything with that until Wendy gets back,” he says with a huge yawn. He stretches his arms and then pulls them back under his head. “Unless it’s time for you to take it.”

Pixie’s face scrunches up. “Yuck.”

America carefully kicks the crumpled bit of paper up and shoves it into her pocket. “Look, Wendy led me here for a reason,” she says. “I don’t think it’s to argue with you two. So if you could just—”

Pan yawns again, louder this time. “Wish we could help you, Starlight, but we’re just puppets. Can’t tell you anything she doesn’t want you to know.”

“But she brought me here—”

“Probably just to keep you cooped up here with her favorites,” Pan interrupts. “There aren’t a lot of us she hasn’t changed.”

America raises an eyebrow. “She hasn’t changed Pixie?” She glances to the girl in question. “Pixie has a wooden hook for a hand, and you’re saying she hasn’t changed Pixie?” Before Pan can respond, she puts her hands up in a feigned defensive position. “Look, you two can stay here all you want, but I’m gonna get out and explore. It’s still Neverland, right? If I go far enough, I’ll find something.” She starts towards the tunnels.

“Starlight.”

“Yeah?” America pauses and turns back.

Pan sits up on the edge of his hammock, hands clenching the fabric, and stares at her. “Where’s your present?”

Present? America glances down at her gauntlet, at her middle finger where the ring should still be. She pulls her jacket sleeve back and holds her arm aloft so he can see it. “It’s right here. Wendy changed it when I got here, but...it’s still here.”

But Pan just shakes his head. “Not that one.”

At first, America isn’t certain what he’s talking about, and then she reaches up to the bootstring still holding her hair back, even if it’s only the half-ponytail instead of the high one she’d had before. It’s more tightly wound around the smaller bunch of hair, multiple times around a few inches down, ending in what feels like a tidy little bow. Knowing that it’s still there makes her feel much more comfortable. “Pixie,” she says, and she steps forward to the other girl. “If I remember correctly, you were the one who gave these to Wendy in the first place. It must have...it must have hurt when she gave one of them to me, right?”

Pixie stares at America. Her eyes grow wide, but she doesn’t say anything. Still, her gaze focuses on the bootstring wrapped in America’s hair. For a moment, her bright blue eyes seem to glow green, but that could just be the reflection of something else. It disappears as soon as it’s there.

America bites her lower lip, then gently unties the bootstring from her hair and hands it up to Pixie. “Here,” she says. “This was yours first. It should be yours again.”

Pixie doesn’t move. She stares warily at the bootstring dangling from America’s fingertips. Her gaze flicks to meet America’s eyes, and then she reaches out, snatches the bootstring, and disappears into her hammock.

“I’m going to go now,” America says, still focused where Pixie is, even though the other girl isn’t looking at her. It’s weird, having her hair down, and she wants to snatch the bootstring back, just so she can put her hair back up. But she won’t. “You keep that. It’s a present from me, okay?” She glances over to Pan, who gives her a little nod. For some reason, she expects that the gesture might prompt him to tell her where Wendy is, but he says nothing. Finally, she shoves her hands into her pants pockets again and starts off through the tunnels that lead away from the tree.

Halfway down one of the tunnels, when America can just see the light filtering through on the other end, she finds something in her pocket that wasn’t there before. When she pulls it out, she finds the bootstring – or one exactly like it – waiting there. One corner of her lips lifts in a little smile. “Thanks,” she murmurs, and she pulls her hair up and back out of her face. “I guess that means it didn’t piss you off too much that I gave the other one away.”

There’s no answer. She’s not sure why she thinks there should be an answer. She keeps talking anyway.

“That’s a really mean thing you did to Pixie. I know she did some horrible things to you, but....” America’s voice trails off. Wanda had done the same thing to her. Wanda had wanted the same thing done as a punishment to her. Her lips press together. “I don’t think forcing her to be good or to be what you want her to be is the right way. It...it would mean more if she chose it herself, you know? I think....” She sighs. “I think she would choose to be good, if she could.”

To be honest, America isn’t quite sure if she’s talking to Wendy about Pixie or if she’s talking to herself about someone else entirely. It could be both, couldn’t it? She’d...she’d be fine with both.

The sunlight at the end of the tunnels beckons. As she draws closer, she pulls out the crumpled piece of paper Pixie had thrown at Pan and smooths it out against her thigh before holding it in front of her. Find the center, the paper says, writtten in a scribbled handwriting that had to be Pixie’s. Find the center.

America instinctively shivers. She remembers what had been at the heart of the original Neverland. She doubts Wendy would have kept a bomb frozen by the Time Stone in the middle of the new reality she had created, but she can’t be too sure. Whatever’s at the center – if Wendy even lets her get to the center – if that’s what Pixie is trying to break through to tell her (or what Wendy is forcing her to tell her), then...then she’ll listen.

When she steps out into the sunlight, America raises a hand to shield her eyes. The yellow dirt road stretches onward before her, but she steps away from it, into the forest she sees just on the other side. That looks much more like the Neverland she remembers.

Time to go exploring.

You are you again.

Sort of?

But not quite.

Agatha Harkness continues to hum softly in the back of her own mind, in a little space that seems to have been created just for her. She can see through her own eyes, even though she isn’t quite controlling what those eyes can see, and she can still breathe through her own lungs, although she isn’t quite controlling when she breathes, and—

You don’t feel like you’re a few pixels shifted off of your body, only something moving and weaving just beneath the surface, and if you can just stretch far enough, maybe, just maybe—

“Agnes,” you whisper in the back of your own mind, and she startles.

That’s new.

You stretch just a little farther, and you whisper a little louder, “Agnes.”

Agnes startles again, jumps, and looks over her shoulder. She doesn’t see anybody new there, and she certainly doesn’t see anyone close enough to have whispered just so against her ear. Or. Not against her ear, because if they had whispered against her ear, certainly she should have felt their breath against the shell of it, and the only thing she’s felt like that is just the general flowing breeze.

And yet.

It’s nothing, Agnes thinks, and she turns back to the Wanda who still doesn’t know who she is and is dressed completely differently and—

Agnes. Close your eyes. I need to talk to you.

“I—”

“You what?” Wanda asks, and she speaks in an accent that Agnes can’t really place but that you know is Sokovian. Her eyes narrrow.

Poor thing.

You sigh, and Agnes jumps, and you say it louder this time, form it into a command that she has to listen to, and say, Close your eyes. Now.

Agnes closes her eyes, squeezes them shut, and all at once, there she is, standing, across from you Agatha, hands clenched into fists, shivering. Agatha smirks. That’s something. The smirk fades. She purses her lips and crosses the distance between them, placing a hand on Agnes’s shoulder. “Look at me, dear.”

“You told me to close my eyes, hon. I wouldn’t want to—”

“Look at me.”

“Okay.” Agnes opens her eyes – but she doesn’t open her eyes, not really – and she sees Agatha, the mirror image of herself standing across from her, and she jumps again. Her gaze sweeps the endless empty expanse around them. “Oh, no.” She takes a sharp breath in. “Oh, not again.” She turns and meets Agatha’s eyes. “Can you tell me where I am, hon? I seem to have gotten myself—” She cuts herself off. Her eyes narrow and then widen in shock. “You,” she murmurs. “You were at Wanda’s house. You’re the one who visited me when Ralph was....” Her voice trails off, and she sniffles.

Agatha pats Agnes’s shoulder gently. “I’m not the woman you saw at Wanda’s house,” she corrects just as gently, “but yes, I am the one who visited you. I saved your life doing that.”

“Saved my—” Agnes shifts out from Agatha’s touch. “Hon, you broke into my house.”

“Let’s not be rude.” Agatha glances to the left, where she had been able to see outside of this endless expanse, out into the actual world. But the body has its eyes closed, so there’s nothing there now. “I need your help.”

Agnes stares at her curiously. “Help?” She almost visibly brightens, despite how much she didn’t trust Agatha only seconds prior. “What can I do, dear? Just point me in the right direction.”

She’s unsteady.

Of course, she’s unsteady.

Agnes is acting as a conduit for magical powers that throb and thrum throughout her entire body, that she didn’t realize she could access likely because she shouldn’t be able to access them, that if she were still Wanda’s construction she wouldn’t be able to access. But Wendy has left the backdoor open, so to speak, and Agatha can reach through so long as Agnes allows for it.

Just put your hands on either side of her forehead, hon. It’s not that hard.

“Like you did with me?” Agnes asks, still uncertain. She hesitates, holds her hands up, fingers spread, and tentatively touchs Wanda’s forehead. As soon as she does, a jolt of violet magic leaves her fingertips like static. She pulls her hands back, shaking them as though she’s been zapped. “What was that? What did you do? You didn’t just—?”

Wanda reaches out, clasps one of Agnes’s hands in her own, and holds it in front of her face. “How did you do that?” she whispers, thumb pressing gentle against the center of Agnes’s palm. “You shouldn’t have been able to do that.”

“Wanda?” Agnes doesn’t answer the question because of course, she doesn’t answer the question. Her eyes search Wanda’s instead. “Is that really you, hon? You remember me?”

“Yes.” Wanda’s gaze moves from Agnes’s palm to her eyes, and her head tilts dangerously to one side. “Now tell me how you—”

Wendy likes me.

Wanda startles, ignores the stuttering that filters through Agnes’s lips (this is not as hard as it should be, and yet it is surprisingly easier than she thought it would be), and shoots a thought to the woman standing in front of her, angling it not to the one speaking but to the one who should not be able to send a thought into her mind and still could. What do you mean she likes you?

Agatha shrugs, unsure if Wanda can see the gesture or not, since Agnes isn’t shrugging. Tell me why you let her change you.

This time, Wanda doesn’t startle, but she does flinch.

“Wanda, dear.” Agnes reaches out and touches Wanda’s cheek gently. “You’re okay now. You don’t have to—”

But Wanda steps away from Agnes’s touch, pinching the bridge of her nose. She still looks the same way she did when Hydra experimented on her – all pale, bruised skin; long, tattered, dirty white nightgown; bare feet; stringy, dark, unwashed hair. Her skin feels stretched taut and tight along bones too big to hold her. I didn’t want—

You let her change you. You let her retstrain you. Why?

“Wanda—”

“Agnes, I need you to be quiet for just a few seconds,” Wanda snaps. “Please.” She glances up and meets Agnes’s eyes, sees the hurt in them, and sighs. “It isn’t you,” she says, cautious, forcing herself to be gentler. “You did a very good thing, bringing me back. But I need to figure out what’s going on, and I need quiet for that. I want to make sure that we’re safe.”

The hurt slowly disippates from Agnes’s eyes, and she nods slow. She mimes zipping her lips shut and locking them before tucking the key safely in one of her pockets. Her lips curve into a gentle, gentle smile, but there’s still pain in it.

Wanda closes her eyes, focuses on Agatha, and finds herself within a small space that must be within her mind somewhere. Agatha looks much like she had when they’d fought – in that purple and cerulean gown, although she’s thinner within it, although the tips of her fingers are no longer scorched black, although her face doesn’t seem nearly as hollow – and when she glances down, Wanda finds herself in her Scarlet Witch garb, back cleaned of the corruption the Darkhold had given it – somewhere between what she’d worn in Westview and what she’d worn hunting America. Something middling.

If I act like you, Wanda says, choosing her words carefully, should I not be punished like you, too?

Agatha glares at her. We are here to rip Wendy out of this Westview bullshit she’s put herself in, and you think now is the time to be punished? My dear sweet summer child. She steps forward, places her hands on Wanda’s shoulders, and shakes her. Wait until we’re back, and I will punish you as much as you want, but right now—

Promise? Wanda glances up through her lashes and meets Agatha’s eyes.

Agatha stares at her. Her hands tighten on Wanda’s shoulders, fingers digging so deep into her clothes she can feel them in her skin. Wanda, what you actually deserve and what you think you deserve are—

Do you think maybe this is what we—

Babe, stop. Agatha glares at her. I don’t know what our little super star out there said to get into your head, but we have other things to worry about that aren’t— She gestures with one hand. —whatever this is. Get your head out of your ass and.... Her voice trails off. She examines Wanda. Then she sighs. We’ll deal with this later, hon.

Agatha takes a deep breath in. She stretches herself out, thin, thinner still, and when she opens her eyes, she is where she always should be, in her body, controlling it. Agnes scuttles like a bug in the back of her mind, but for now – for now – she is contained. It won’t last long. The question is if it’ll last long enough.

The multiverse-hopping child went in the tree.

She’ll go there next.

The forest is familiar. It shouldn’t be, maybe, but it is. And America expects that leaving the path Wendy laid out for her would come with certain consequences: the forest should be fighting her, there should be vines wrapping around her arms and pushing her, pulling her back away from wherever she wants to go, the leaves should feel razor sharp against her skin, the roots should be tripping up her bare feet, there should be thorns and venom and flies and—

Nothing. None of that.

If anything, the forest welcomes her. The path beneath her feet soothes, leaves crunching pleasantly under her weight. Every now and again, America catches sight of something moving behind the trees, and when she stills herself enough, she glimpses what looks like a mother deer walking with her fawn alongside her. The doe meets America’s eyes with her equally wide, dark eyes, licks the top of her spotted fawn’s head, and then continues to walk away, completely unstartled.

This isn’t the only time something like this happens – as America walks through the forest, a fox scurries up next to her, rubs against and through her legs, and then disappears further into the wood. A hummingbird flutters up next to her, whistles something pleasantly, musses with her hair, and then flies away.

“This is beautiful, you know,” America murmurs into the quiet as she moves a few branches out of the way, ducks underneath them, and steps over a fallen log. “I always thought Neverland was.”

It’s weird, speaking into the silence, expecting Wendy to hear her and getting nothing back in return. Honestly, America doesn’t know what she expects. Wendy made a path and she left it. Wendy replaced the bootstring she gave to Pixie. Wendy turned Agatha back into Agnes (again) and Wanda into...something else, America’s not sure what. Wendy could be making this very hard for her, but she’s allowing it to be oddly...pleasant.

Maybe she wasn’t ever supposed to follow the road in the first place.

Then America hears the screaming. Her eyes widen, and she runs – full on sprint – in the direction of the screaming. Again, she expects the forest to stop her, but it doesn’t. If anything, it parts for her, allowing nothing to get in her way as she runs. She comes to a complete stop when she sees what looks like a hunting party – the Lost Ones, as she remembers them, covered in furs that make them seem almost animalistic themselves, wooden masks covering their faces, spears or bows and arrows or blunt axes in their hands. No daggers. Absolutely no daggers.

And one of them lying on the ground, holding their leg up against their chest, blood spurting through their fingers, screaming.

America pushes through them. “Why aren’t any of you helping?” She kneels down next to the Lost One on the ground and holds out a hand for them. “I’m here. I’m a friend. I’m gonna just—”

The Lost One’s eyes widen and fixate on the golden medallions fixing America’s lavender tunic in place. “Starlight,” they murmur, reaching out and running their finger along the metal, feeling the imprint of the two stars. “Second star to the right and straight on until morning.” There is a kind of hush to their voice, a kind of awe. Their finger leaves a smear of blood along the medallion.

“Yeah, Starlight, that’s me,” America says, but she doesn’t explain more than that. She reaches out and rips a bit of fur from their outfit in a long thin strip before starting to wrap it around their leg, trying to press it to the wound, trying to—

As soon as the Lost One’s hands have moved completely away, America sees the wound stitching itself back together, blood slowly drawing back within the wound from where it’s splattered down their leg, sucked back in from even the smear on her medallion, its ripping slowly rewinding, flesh patching itself back to flesh, until it looks like there has never been any wound at all.

Something – not a breeze, but much more familiar – brushes the sweat from the Lost One’s brow, and the Lost One slowly sits up, stares with bright, mossy green eyes through its wooden mask. They smile, full teeth, and for a moment, in the trappings of their mask and the way their fur is draped around them, America thinks they’re a bird.

America’s eyes narrow. “Wendy?”

The Lost Ones around her quietly begin to giggle, and the one in front of her does, too, before breaking forth with a loud enough guffaw that the others all quiet. The one with the green eyes, the one who has been healed by a rewinding of time, stands, brushes their hands together, and then grabs a dagger they’ve left lying on the ground. They hesitate and then take America’s hand, uncurl her fingers, and place the dagger in her open palm.

“Why are you giving me this?” America asks.

But the Lost One with the green eyes only holds a finger to their lips. Their smile shifts, half of one, tinged with a deep dissatisfaction. Then they pull a spear from where it rests next to a nearby tree, hold the spear aloft, and then give a bright yell – one echoed by the other Lost Ones. The others run off first, but before America can start to join them, the green-eyed Lost One leans forward, kisses her cheek, and murmurs, patting America’s cheek, “Please don’t follow me.” Then they run after the others.

This time, when America tries to follow, the forest does just as she originally expected it to do – it prevents her passage, wraps vines around her arms, pulls fallen trunks in her path, and obstructs her until she stumbles, falls to her hands and knees, breathing heavy, and chooses not to get up and run after them again.

America pulls the crumpled paper out again – Find the center – and glances up. Sunlight filters through the green leaves overhead, piercing through its protective canopy, and as she closes her eyes, she feels the pull, easy as a heartbeat, towards what she can only guess to be center.

Of course.

Of course, that’s what’s at the center.

Of course, that’s where she needs to go.

America turns, and the forest opens to her as she starts forward again.

Agatha skids to a stop at the bottom of the tree’s innards. Her body thrums – she is not sure how much longer she can maintain this control without letting Agnes out; Wendy might like her well enough to allow for this sort of redirection of what she wants, this sort of shifting, but she cannot fight it too terribly long. There’s a limit to what she is given.

But as she skids to a stop amid a forestlike floor covered with plush pillows and velvet blankets, as she glances up among hammocks strung high within the tree’s hollow shell, as she notes the two children at almost the highest places they can get (with only one higher, empty, which she expects must be for the Wendybird who has flown the coop), the shivering within her skin pauses.

That’s...new.

A lot of this is surprisingly new, and while Agatha doesn’t like it, she’s not going to fight it either. Not if it allows her to live in Agnes’s place.

The boy at the top right startles. He sits upright, knocking an alpine hat from his bed. It falls down to Agatha’s feet, but she does not bend to pick it up. “You,” he says, blue eyes staring straight at her, pushing hands through his shock of silver-white hair.

“Pietro.” It isn’t a question. Agatha recognizes the boy easily enough. “Where’s your sister, dear?”

“Pan,” the boy corrects.

“Well enough, hon. I take it she left you to protect all of this while she ran?” Agatha gestures at everything. Then she pauses, realizes what he’s said, and then looks back to him. “You know me?”

Pan jumps down from the hammock – an impressive distance, if his superspeed didn’t allow him to jump from one to the other, to run around the inside of the tree, and then to land with an impressive flourish in front of her. “Dr. Harkness,” he says, although as he scans her, his expression becomes less certain of itself. “Wendy brought you back at the beginning. She thought she needed something from you. You taught her for a while, and then she let you die again. All dust.”

Agatha represses the urge to shiver. “Was it me she brought back,” she asks, “or was it that Pixie she kept comparing me—”

But as soon as she says the name, the head of the second child pops up, all frizzy corkscrew dark hair, almost like how Agatha’s had looked when Wanda had played eighties sitcom in Westview, only pulled up and back and less eighties – that hair and glasses with black frames and bright blue eyes with hints of green at their center. “Wendy mentioned me?”

“Go back to your dreams, Pixie.” Pan doesn’t even look up at her, instead still focused on Agatha. “She brought Pixie back, too, but I mean the first Dr. Harkness. You. Pixie’s just a—”

“A pixie!” The girl above grins brilliantly.

Agatha glances up at the girl. “Come down here, girl.”

Pixie sticks her tongue out at her. “Wendy says I’m not supposed to talk to strangers, only I guess you’re not a stranger, if Pan’s met you before, only I wasn’t supposed to talk to Starlight either, even if she’s not a stranger.” She sighs. “I don’t think Wendy likes me very much, but I do my best to help her, and I don’t know what I could do more than that.” Her lips purse into a pout. “I don’t know why I’m telling you all of this.”

“Because Wendy wants you to say it.” Agatha gives Pan a look. Then she holds one hand out. “May I?”

Pan glances at her hand. “Try if you want, but I don’t think you’ll get much from it.”

Agatha pushes a hand through Pan’s hair the way she’d always wanted to do with her own boys’, lets her fingers trace down the side of his head, rests at his temples, and then sends a spike of violet within the way she’d had Agnes do with Wanda only a few moments earlier. She hears Wanda landing behind her at the same moment as she asks the boy in front of her, “And how many times have you died, kiddo?”

“Three, nearly,” Pan admits freely, “if you count when we went back.”

“Three?” Wanda echoes as Agatha moves past him and looks up at Pixie. “What do you mean three?”

Agatha gestures for Pixie. “Come down here, hon. I think you’ve dealt with this enough.”

Pan looks up at Wanda. He seems to smile, but there’s only sadness in it. “She looks almost like you now, when she lets me see her. I...don’t get to see her very often.” He brushes a hand along his clothes made of leaves and takes a deep breath. “Am I not dead where you come from?”

“Not three times.” The words hiss through Wanda’s teeth.

“Ah. It didn’t hurt you as much, then,” Pan says, “or maybe your orphanage didn’t explode.” He reaches back and rubs the back of his neck. “You didn’t make Neverland, though, did you?”

Agatha listens to this idly in the background as she continues to keep an eye on the teenage girl now clamboring down from the hammocks a little less eloquently than Pan had. When the girl lands, staring up at her with bright eyes and a brighter smile, Agatha reaches for her the same way as she had with Pan, only to find something she can’t see holding her back. She grits her teeth together. “You let me go right now, my little Wendybird. I know you can’t hurt me.” The touch disappears, and she presses her fingers against Pixie’s forehead the same as she had with Pan, sparking violet through her fingertips.

All at once, Pixie’s entire mannerisms shift and change, and she falls back against the inner wall of the tree behind her, cradling her head in her hands. She lets out a thin keening noise, high-pitched, and rocks herself slowly.

For a moment, Agatha waits to see if Wanda will do anything at all about this, but Wanda is too caught up in learning what is going on with Pan – of course, she is – to notice another child hurt and crying just across from her. So she steps forward, crouches down, and gently places a hand on the other girl’s shoulder. “Who are you, dear? Not who Wendy made you to be. Who are you really?”

The girl looks up, eyes flashing darkly. “Agatha Stephen Harkness, heiress of the Salem Magitech fortune, the tenth of her name, although,” and here her teeth grit together, and the words come out as a hiss, a growl, a high-pitched keening, “none of that means fucking anything to anyone anymore.”

Agatha brushes the tears from the girl’s eyes, cups her cheek, and says, voice soft, “I am Agatha Harkness, sole survivor of the Salem Coven, the first and only of her name, and all of that means a great deal to me, hon.”

Technically, there is no bomb in the center of the forest, but really, that depends on how you define bomb.

America finds a clearing in the heart of the wood, and within that clearing is a scarlet and green barrier that allows her to pass through easily enough, although the cat that walks alongside her turns away, fur standing on edge, as soon as it sees it. In the very center of the clearing sits a woman she knows well, sitting cross-legged on a scarlet robe that might once have flowed from her shoulders as a cape, what might have once been a pirate’s hat now crumpled and covered with dust setting just next to her, hands resting on her knees, back straighter than America has ever seen it, dark hair flowing about her, though there is no breeze, that hair once so dark now streaked through with white, eyes closed, brow speckled with beads of sweat, threads of scarlet chaos magic and bright green time magic curving, twisting, spiraling around her.

She looks like the Scarlet Witch.

Like Wanda had, when she’d possesed Ash, when Ash had forced America to open the portal directly back to her, when Ash had thrown America through, when Wanda returned to herself and grabbed her—

America doesn’t want to move.

This isn’t Wanda. This is Wendy.

It is still the Scarlet Witch.

(America remembers, then. In her nightmares – sometimes the Scarlet Witch was hunting her, and sometimes she was hunting the Scarlet Witch. She wonders if the witch she hunted was ever Wanda at all, or if it was ever only always Wendy.)

America clutches the dagger in her hand. It won’t be much better than her own fists, but she clings onto it regardless. Another present – like her ring turned gauntlet, like her bootstring turned hairtie. A dagger that will, eventually, be turned into something else, if the other gifts have been any indication.

“Wendy?” America says as she moves forward, but the woman in front of her doesn’t move. She steps closer, closer, expecting nothing in specific but something in general, and there is nothing of either. She makes it to Wendy much more easily than she expected and sits down next to her. There isn’t enough of the scarlet robe for her to sit on it, too, so instead she sits on the rock just next to her, pulls her knees up against her chest, and looks out in front of them. It’s just a clearing. Just a forest. And they’re just two kids with far too much power sitting and staring out at all of it.

Only Wendy isn’t staring out at anything. Her eyes are still closed. If America couldn’t see her chest moving, she’d be convinced that Wendy isn’t even breathing.

Tentatively, America reaches out and touches her.

Nothing.

She takes a deep breath, reaches out again, and wraps an arm around Wendy’s shoulders.

Still nothing, although the chaos and time magic swirls carefully in patterns that avoid touch America at all.

America scoots closer instead of pulling Wendy to her – not wanting to do something that will backfire too spectacularly – and, in the same gentle motion the Lost One with the green eyes had before, presses a kiss to Wendy’s cheek.

A tear drips from Wendy’s eye, but it remains closed.

America reaches up to wipe the tear away and then shifts as though to kiss her.

“Don’t.”

The voice is Wendy’s, but it isn’t Wendy’s, too rasping and croaking from who knows how long of disuse. Her eyes still don’t open. “Don’t,” she croaks again, as though she’s struggling to speak at all.

“Wendy.” America moves in front of her, starts to place her hands on Wendy’s, hesitates, and then pushes through and does it anyway, interlacing their fingers, the dagger clattering to the rock next to her. “Stop this. Wake up. Please.”

“I told you not to follow me, Starlight.” Her voice is so much deeper now. “I asked you not to—”

“And you let me get here,” America interrupts. “That has to be what you want, right? I couldn’t have gotten here if you didn’t...if you didn’t want me to....” Her gaze flicks to the dagger. She wets her lips. “Wendy, why did you give me the dagger?”

At first, Wendy doesn’t say anything. She seems as she did before, sitting there, breathing slow and easy, not focused on anything but the magic surrounding her, as though America isn’t there at all. Then, finally, she says, voice strained, “Close your eyes.”

“Wendy—”

“Don’t you trust your Wendybird?” Wendy asks, cutting her off. “Please, Starlight. Just for a moment. For me.”

America bites her lower lip. She keeps her hands on Wendy’s, keeps their fingers interlaced, and nods, although she isn’t sure how Wendy sees it. She must, but she isn’t sure how, with her eyes closed as they are, that she sees anything – everything. But she does as she is told, and she closes her eyes.

Closing her eyes in one world is opening them in another.

America closes her eyes in Neverland, and she opens them in a place Wendy has crafted for the two of them, a Neverland much like the one they are already in, only Wendy looks as she did when they were first in Neverland, dark hair down her back, ragged clothes, ripped jeans, black combat boots, nothing of the Scarlet Witch or the pirate about her. One of her boots is propped up against the rock, while her other leg hangs down, and when she turns to see America, she smiles. “You aren’t supposed to be here.”

“I couldn’t just let you....” America presses her lips together. “Wendy, I don’t even know what you did.”

“I fixed everything,” Wendy replies, although if that was really true, she would look happy, not tired. She gestures to the world ahead of them. “I know you haven’t seen it, but...there are no wars. No more bombs. All of my Lost Ones are safe and alive. You saw Pan—”

“And Pixie,” America interrupts. “You did a very cruel thing to her—”

“She did a very cruel thing to me, America,” Wendy snaps back. “I don’t know why you think she’s worth protecting—”

“You’re doing a very cruel thing to a lot of people, Wendy, and I think you’re worth—”

“I fixed things!” Wendy stands up. She walks to the edge of the rock, rubbing her hands together, saying nothing, as though she expects America to say something, but in the silence, she turns back. “You saw what Neverland was like, didn’t you? You saw the ash? Everything was dead. Pixie was gone. The world was gone. Pan should have been...Pan was....” She shakes her head. “I took him, and I went back, and I made Neverland right this time, and I made it cover everyone, and I got rid of their stupid bombs and their stupid Ultron puppets and Ultron and all of it, and I made sure we were all still alive, and if you go into those cities, you’ll see that every single one of the people there is happy. I made them happy, America! You can’t tell me that’s wrong.”

America nods slow. “Why didn’t you take us to any of the cities, Wendy?”

“Because you wouldn’t care!” Wendy rubs her arms, as though she’s cold, and she turns away from America again, staring out at the forest in front of them. “You wanted to find me. You found me.” Her fingers twitch, tapping on her arm, unable to settle. “I’ve been doing this for two years now—”

“Two years—”

“I told you – I was in Neverland for two years before, and I went back to the beginning, and I fixed it, so. Two years.” Wendy runs a hand ragged through her hair, and the bootstring wrapped tight around her wrist shows dark against her pale skin. “I can’t just stop.” She holds to a little ruby star dangling around her neck, runs her fingers along it. “I saved them, and they’ll just...they’ll all die.”

“Who will die?”

Wendy shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. I’m still here, and I’m...I’m keeping everything going, and it’s all fine, it’s all...it’s all fine.”

“It doesn’t sound fine.”

“It is.” Wendy doesn’t snap this time. She lets out a haggard sigh and moves back to America, sits down next to her, pulls one knee to her chest, and slumps forward. “It just isn’t what I thought it would be. That’s all. There’s a me out there, you know. You saw her. But it isn’t...it isn’t really me. I’m just...here. Maintaining everything. And I’m so....” She shakes her head before she can say it. “I’m keeping them alive. I’m keeping them happy. That’s the...that’s the important thing. I fixed things. Everything. I fixed it. I did it. So...this is...this is the way it...this is the way it has to be.” She wraps her arms around her knee, rests her head atop it, and then stares out, not looking at America. “So I can’t...I can’t go with you. I have to be here.”

America nods. “So that sounds like you’ve decided.”

Wendy nods along with her. “Yeah.”

“Is that why you gave me the dagger?”

Wendy shivers, but she doesn’t say anything.

America just nods again. She leans back, palms on the ground, and stares up at the sky, at all of the stars shining down on them. “Wendy?”

“Hm?”

“If you could have anything in the world, anything in the universe, in the multiverse, what would it be?”

“Home.” The word comes out exact and final. “I want to go home.”

“What does that look like?” America gives Wendy a curious glance and then turns back to the stars before Wendy catches her. “Is it all of this, or—?”

Wendy shakes her head. “No. It doesn’t look anything like this.” She sighs, pushes a hand through her hair again. “I....” She shakes her head, chuckles. “What would you want, Starlight?”

America doesn’t even hesitate. “The same thing. I would want to go home.”

“So why don’t you go, then?” Wendy asks, still not looking at her. “You can still do that, you know. You don’t have to stay here with me.”

It’s easy, then, the way America’s gaze drops, the way she stares at Wendy and says what she already knew, “It’s not home without you.”

Wendy smiles. She tilts her head to one side and finally turns to America. “Thank you, Starlight. I needed to hear that.” She reaches across and cups America’s cheek. When she does, America curves into her touch, and Wendy brushes her thumb along her cheek. Easy, easy. Then she smiles with an unexpressed sadness and murmurs, “Goodbye, Starlight.”

America’s eyes open with a gasp. Wendy sits in front of her just as she already was, eyes still closed, magic still swirling around her. America closes her eyes again, but nothing happens. Whatever was connecting them before has disappeared.

But she’s still here. Wendy hasn’t shoved her away.

And there’s the dagger.

Agatha straightens. “We have to go.” She turns to Wanda and grabs her shoulder. “Now.”

Wanda turns to her, eyes wide. “We can’t go. I’m still trying to—”

“They’re already dead, Wanda.” Agatha meets her eyes. “Unless you want to do some magic of your own—”

Wanda hesitates. She looks down at Pan, who looks back up at her. “He’s—”

Pan holds up a hand with three fingers, wiggling them a few times. Pixie swallows and lowers her head, refusing to meet their eyes. “We’ve had a longer run than we deserve,” she murmurs, “and I’m so tired.”

“I know what that feels like,” Wanda murmurs, “but that doesn’t mean that—”

“We can’t save them, hon.” Agatha squeezes Wanda’s shoulder. “But if we leave now, we might be able to—”

“Fine,” Wanda snaps. She presses her lips together and wraps her arms around herself. “Do you know where we’re going?”

Agatha nods, slow, and wraps an arm around Wanda’s waist. “I have a fairly good idea.”

A dark purple cloud surrounds them, and they disappear.

Pixie turns to Pan. “I suppose we just wait now, don’t we?”

Pan nods. “I think we’ve been waiting long enough, Agatha.”

Pixie – Agatha – smiles.

The world collapses on the edge of a knife.

The dagger shouldn’t be that sharp, and yet it slides into Wendy’s stomach the same as it would, hot, through a block of butter.

America would much rather hear the cracking of bones than this silence.

The magic around Wendy slows. She stays upright for a matter of seconds, blood pooling on her shirt, dripping from the wound. Then her eyes open as she takes in a deep shuddering breath. She doesn’t even look down, instead looks up at America and meets her eyes, blood trickling from her lips. “Thank you,” she mutters before falling.

The barrier cracks.

The world cracks.

America stands where she is, takes a deep breath, and looks up at the stars.

A dark purple cloud appears behind her as the world begins to shudder, and Agatha reaches out, grabs her shoulder the same way she’d grabbed Wanda’s, and then pushes her to one side. She looks down at Wendy, nods, and then murmurs, “That should do it, kiddo.” Then she pats America’s shoulder again. “Pick her up.”

America blinks twice. “What?”

“No, better yet—”

Wanda pushes past Agatha and grabs Wendy’s body. She leans down just enough. “Still breathing.”

“Make us a portal, hon,” Agatha says, staring at America. “We need to get out of here before everything comes crashing down, or it’ll kill us, too, and death is not a look I wear well, or so I’ve been told.”

“Who told you that?” Wanda shoots her a look. “Have you died already and no one told me, because—”

“Focus.” Agnes doesn’t look away from America. “Take us home, girl.”

America glances to Wendy where she’s cradled in Wanda’s arms, dagger still sticking out of her stomach. “She’s—”

“Home first.”

In a motion that shouldn’t be so easy, except that America wants nothing more than to punch something right now, she punches through Neverland into the only universe that feels like home anymore. The universe splits into a star-shape, and through that, she sees Wanda’s house, waiting for them. She gestures for them to go first, but Agatha hesitates. She reaches out for something around Wendy’s neck – a bright green stone on a length of black cord – and holds it out to Wanda. “Think you have time to destroy this?”

“Not now.” Wanda lowers her head. “Put it on me. I’ll take care of it until—”

Agatha throws the stone away from them, out into the Neverland wilderness. “Nah. Too much work. Let’s go.” She pushes Wanda and Wendy through the portal before following them through.

America stands in Neverland. She doesn’t move. “I didn’t want to—”

Agatha groans, reaches back through, grabs America’s wrist, and pulls her through. “You did what you needed to do, girl,” she says, “and you got us home.” She glances over America’s shoulder, back through the portal, as Neverland begins to rip and shread and tear itself apart. “Whatever you do, don’t look back.”

#bandit fic #finding family with wanda and america #wanda maximoff #scarlet witch #america chavez #agatha harkness #pietro maximoff #mcu #FIVE CHAPTERS AND AN EPILOGUE

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websterss · 2 years

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DEAD BY POPULAR DEMAND (2) — LUKE PATTERSON

SUMMARY: Caleb killing you began taking a toll on your mentality

WARNING(S): Angst, fluff, mentions of dying, implications of almost smut, no actual smut lol

WORD COUNT: 6,358

PAIRING: Luke Patterson x Ghost-fem!Reader

A/N: Hope you enjoy it! ♡ Feedback is always welcomed!

MASTERLIST

PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3

“You okay now?” Luke breathed heavily as you fell against his chest, your head falling into his shoulder.

“Y-Yeah…” You looked at nothing. Your body slumping to the ground. Luke frowned, falling down on the ground with you in his arms. Alex and Reggie’s somber expressions staring down at you. They could feel a change in the atmosphere.

“I’m fine.” You croaked as you studied a crack in the floor.

“You’re not.” Luke shook his head. “You don’t have to be okay. He just killed you.” Luke looked up glaring at Caleb who drew his lips into a line.

“My god, what a sad fest. Don’t fret my darling. Being dead has its perks!” Caleb clasped his hands, throwing you a smile.

“How…?” Your voice cracked.

“Come to the Hollywood Club with me and find out. Unless you’d rather stay here with the boys and cross over…”

“W-What?” You rasped looking up at Luke. “What’s he talking about, Luke?” Your eyes threaten to shed tears. Luke looked horrified. He wanted to keep that part from you for as long as he could. It was too soon, too fast, and Caleb just ruined it all.

“They’re crossing over tonight, so exciting!” Caleb emphasized as Luke helped you stand up. You had never felt so tired. Your eyes were on the verge of giving out. You just wanted to…to die.

“Crossing over, like to heaven?” You turned to face the guys. Luke smiled nervously to attempt to level the tension in the room. “You were gonna leave…without saying goodbye?” Your voice grew small.

“Y/n I was gonna - we were gonna tell you. W-We didn’t want you to find out this way.” Luke stammered over his words.

“Then how, Luke. In a letter - with your lousy handwriting?” You hummed, raising an eyebrow at him.

“Well it wouldn’t have been mine, probably Alex’s…But that’s besides the point! I was gonna tell you. I just needed to find the right time. That’s been hard to come by lately though.” Luke scoffed. His face fell as his hand reached for your hand but you moved it out of his way.

“Like me dying…” You avoided his gaze. “Like you dying.” Luke nodded.

“And now you and the guys are crossing over.” You lifted your head and Luke sighed heavily as he saw you cry. “What’s gonna happen to me…I don’t wanna be alone.” You shook your head. This time allowing Luke to cradle you into his embrace, your head perched in the crook of his neck as he wrapped his arms around you.

“You’ll never be alone. Not as long as I’m still here.” Luke pecked your temple. “We won’t leave you, Y/n.” Reggie finally spoke up after a long event of chaos. “Yeah, we’re still here.” Alex added.

“This is beautiful, it really is, but about crossing over…” Caleb interrupted the moment with his voice. You pulled back from Luke and turned to face the old bat. Your expression was stone cold. Luke caught the look on your face and stood beside you. His hand extended out in front of you. Not to protect you, but to hold you back. “No one really knows what’s waiting on the other side…but I know what’s happening on this side.” Caleb smirked watching as all your faces fell. Caleb’s hand went in to blow a kiss, but the kiss was nowhere near endearing. The sound of his smooch had you staring at him in question until a gust of magical air blew towards you. You stumbled backwards fearing for your life. Luke had stepped in front of you to block you from it, but the air still managed to push everyone back.

Then you were gone.

Caleb had crossed his leg over the other. Resting back on his hands, cackling at how much he enjoyed doing that little trick of his.

He eyed your cold dead body on the ground and snapped his fingers making it disappear.

It had only been a few seconds before the four of you popped up again. You all gasped as your feet hit the ground. You all looked at each other. Then at the outfits you were wearing. Luke had only taken a second to taken in his attire, before his eyes fell on your outfit. He gulped as his eyes scanned you from head to toe. Caleb poofed you guys to the Hollywood Ghost Club, and your own outfits were misplaced by suits and…

“A dress! Oh he did not just put me in a dress.” You held back the two pieces of hair that dangled in front of your face with your hands, looking down at yourself.

Caleb came down a set of stairs filing his nails. He smirked and nodded to himself at his handy work.

“Well don’t you look nice.” His eyes raked over everyone’s, then he stopped at you. “Mmmm.” He hummed tilting his head, then bringing it back upright. You looked at him with your mouth agape and a scrunched face. You felt offended by his hum.

“Sweet threads.” Reggie’s eyes were wide as he gulped.

“How- How’d you know our sizes?” Alex put his hands out observing his sleeves and pink blazer.

Luke on the other hand felt like he was suffocating. Like he had a collar on that wouldn’t come off. His hands trying to pry the buttoned up shirt and bowtie off that adorned his neck.

“That’s your question!” He finally snapped.

“Is this material cotton?” You lifted one side of your dress trying not to step on it. You turned your neck trying to get a look at yourself. Your shoulders slouched as you felt like too much skin was being exposed.

“Satin! Don’t wrinkle it.” Caleb disapproved of your slouching and straightened you up. You huffed as his hands lifted your head up. “Confidence is a woman’s best weapon. Use it darling.”

“I’m not that confident though, and I’m…not wearing a bra, oh my god!” Your eyes widened. You turned around in a circle trying to find anything new about the dress. “Could have used some pockets…” You hummed in disapproval like he had done to you early.

“She can use mine!” Reggie’s mouth fell open finally getting a good look at you. Luke hit him in the back of the head for ogling at you.

“No pockets, and please tell me you are not a ditz in those heels.”

“Does platform boots count?”

“Did they have a heel?”

“Not really…” You grimaced and looked away.

“Satin help me…” Caleb muttered under his breath, closing his eyes to compose himself. “That’s okay no one will be looking at your feet during the party anyway.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well honey. The boys are here to play music, you on the other hand are a wonderful addition. Every host needs a right hand woman.” Caleb smiled, lifting your hand to kiss the back of it. You grew silent as Caleb kept talking. “I can see it now! The boys playing back up for the one and only mystique. Heart of an angel..Voice of a nightingale.” He motioned out with his hand in front of you two.

“I-I can’t sing though.” You began dismissing the idea.

“Not yet, a bit of vocal training…I mean torturing.” He chuckled. “I’m just kidding…a bit of touch ups…that hair needs some serious work too. I did what I could for tonight, but good heavens.” He put a hand on his chest. “We can even throw in lover-boy for a special duet. Two nights a week, V.I.P access only. Everyone will be dying to hear you sing.”

“What kind of twisted game are you playing here?” You mocked him with a laugh. “The glam, the fame, the music, the spotlight. Is that your lousy way of riling people in?” You stood in front of the boys. “No! You just want more people to praise you. Love you, yet you’re running out of options for new attractions…I bet your sorry ass that’s why you needed the boys. I can’t really say much for me, but I didn’t want to die today!” You yelled out the rest of your pent up emotions. “I was doing pretty fine on my own. I had a job that paid decently, I was starting school, then I came by the studio and my whole world flipped. I am so angry at you.” You point your finger at Caleb.

“You chose a hard one to love, Luke.” Caleb jokes, as he looks over your shoulder to look at him.

“Oh my god, enough with all the ‘I love yous’. Luke doesn’t love me. You’re only saying that he does, which I don’t believe. I won’t believe Luke loves me until he verbally confirms he does or doesn’t, and he hasn’t said anything yet, so he doesn’t, okay. So quit saying that he does and leave us alone! And for your information, I worked hard to provide for myself ever since my parents disowned me. I didn’t have a place to live before. I busted my ass to get where I am today, and you killed me. You ruined my life and it all feels pointless now…like it was all for nothing. You took that from me, and I can’t get it back.” You let your arms fall to your sides. “I don’t know what to do anymore, and you think putting me in a dress and making me look pretty is going to make up for the pain you’ve caused me?” You chuckled darkly. You shook your head gripping at your hair-do and pulling at the roots. “I can’t do this anymore…I can’t! Just make it stop, make it stop already. The pain, the frustrations. I can’t take it all…it’s too much! Everything changed so fast!” You cried tripping over your own feet. Luke rushed forward catching you. He looked up at Caleb then cooed at you. Telling you words of reassurance, but they all went over your head. “Just make it stop.” You pleaded with the man standing before you. Caleb held in a tear. Not wanting to let you win this round. He felt something in his chest that hadn’t been there in a long time.

Perhaps it was- no that couldn’t be it, emotions were pathetic, and he wouldn’t dare feel any.

“Just make it go away. I want it to go away…” You closed your eyes, slumping back into Luke’s chest. Your breathing shuddered.

“Okay.” That was all Caleb said before he snapped his fingers, and you were gone from Luke’s arms. He looked over his lap wondering what the hell just happened.

“Where’d she go?” Luke stood up, turning in circles.

“Relax, she’s fine. In fact she’s chatting up my guest right now…” Caleb smirked motioning with his fingers over to the curtain of silver strands. Luke, Alex, and Reggie walked over with hesitant steps. Caleb pulled back the curtain with one hand to let the boys have a look for themselves. Their faces fell as they saw a change in the way you held yourself.

Luke’s heart broke at the sight of you laughing at what someone said in the chair next to you. A man he’s never seen before giving you his undivided attention. You hit the man playfully then stood up to talk amongst others. Your whole personality seemed off. It almost felt like…

“Look at the way she fits in. She’s a natural!” Caleb watched in amazement as you made friendly talk with some of the people. Some being couples, or groups, even the staff, and the band of girls. “Just look at her, she walks with grace, such poise in her movements, and oh- look at that smile. When’s that last time you’ve seen her smile, boys?”

Luke gasped. “What did you do to her?”

“I did what she asked me to…I took all the pain, all her frustrations, away. She looks happier.” Caleb gestured towards you touching peoples shoulders and asking them if they had been enjoying themselves so far.

“She looks like-” Luke couldn’t find the right word for it. “Like an angel…” Alex commented.

“Like an angel indeed, Alex.” Caleb patted his shoulder softly.

“No it looks like you put a spell on her or something. That’s not her at all!” Luke seethed. “I mean look at her, the dress, the makeup, the jewelry, the heels. She hates them with a passion by the way. T-The hair, the posture, I mean down to the-” Luke choked on his words as he realized just how revealing the dress was. “-is that a slit running down her leg?” Luke looked like a fish out of water.

“Maybe why?” Caleb nudged him playfully.

“Wow okay…” Luke stared at you for another second before he snapped out of it. “T-That’s besides the point, the point is that she’s not herself. She looks like a carbon copy of herself. Y/n isn’t poise, and graceful, she slouches and trips over her own feet. She likes rock t-shirts and ripped jeans, and combat boots, not dresses with slits, and heels.” Luke looked back at you. “That’s not her, that’s not the Y/n we know.”

“Not the Y/n you love, you mean?” Caleb raised an eyebrow at him.

“She told you to quit talking about that!” Luke clenched his jaw. Staring at the man dead in that eye.

“Yet you keep failing to deny the obvious fact that you do indeed love her.”

“Why are you so adamant for me to say that I love her?” Luke sighed. “Why do you care so much?”

“Because you won’t admit it, or at least to her you won’t.” Caleb shook his head. “I see a fire in your eye when you look at her.” Caleb walked over to Luke turning him so he was facing the crowd of people. “She’s the only thing that matters. Y/n is the only one you want to see everyday. Only one and you’d do anything for her.” Luke’s smile fell as he watched you mingle, taking a sip of a glass of wine. “She cries, you’re there to dry her eyes. She falls, well it’s obvious you’ll always catch her. She’s upset, you make her day. She’s scared, you make her feel brave.” Luke looked down at his feet. “Yet it’s when she gives up entirely, you’re upset. Why is that?”

“Because that’s not really her being her real self, don’t you get that?”

“How do you know though? I didn’t take away the parts that make her, her, Luke.” Luke perked up at this furrowing his brows in confusion. “I just took away the bad parts that made her not want to go on anymore. I didn’t entirely change her…some of this comes from her own desires.”

“What do you mean?” Luke asked.

“He means that…she wants this? That’s why she gave in….” Alex looked up at Caleb saddened by the fact he was starting to understand it all. “She actually wants to be here? She doesn’t care?”

“Indeed.” Caleb only nodded.

“She doesn’t care about us?” Reggie felt like a kicked puppy.

“Y/n cares, Reg.” Luke reassured him, but he felt Reggie didn’t fully believe him. “She’s choosing to stay because she feels like she has no choice. Caleb took away everything she was holding onto, and now she feels like she probably can’t do anything other than this, that’s gotta be it, okay.” He chuckled nervously. “She does care, she cares so much about us, and that’s why we’re not gonna let anything happen to her, okay buddy.” Luke cupped Reggie’s face.

“Why change her mind at all, look at her, she’s happy and perfect.”

“She's hopeless!. You took everything from her and now she doesn’t know what to do. That’s why she gave into you. Don’t flatter yourself.” Luke spat. “Also you were wrong to remove her bad parts. The bad parts are what make her so unique. She’s been hurt and she built herself up from all that pain she went through. Without our bad parts, we’re nothing but perfect. Being perfect and just good isn’t what defines us. People need flaws, people have flaws. Y/n has flaws and bad parts, that’s what makes her- makes me…” Luke groaned in frustration.

“Makes you love her?” Caleb breathed out a small laugh, he riled up the boy, and now they were finally getting somewhere.

“Yes I do, okay. I love her, and that’s why we’re getting out of here.” Luke’s chest rose and fell.

“We’ll see...”

“We’re not gonna play your stupid club tonight!”

“Look I know you boys aren’t my biggest fans, and an eternity at my club might seem overwhelming, but I…just put you in sweet threads so humor me this one last pitch.” The boys all looked at him. “Now for starters isn’t it nice that you’re all here together.” The boys looked at each other. “And believe me everything that you two want.” Caleb pointed to Alex and Luke. They both felt intrigued, yet felt like this was a losing game for them. “Including Willie, and Y/n, is here.” He stepped closer to them. “On my stage you don’t vanish when the music stops. You soak in the applause for as long as you want.” Caleb put his hands out to readjust Luke’s bowtie that he tugged on early. “The connection that you will feel with that audience will be like no other. I promise.” Caleb laid his hands flat on Luke’s shoulders, reassuring him that he wouldn’t be invisible to the crowds they would play in the future.

Encouraging words from the one man Luke didn’t want to trust. Caleb smirked watching something turn inside Luke’s head. He leaned in forward to whisper in the boy’s ear. “And if you decide to stay, you can have a long eternity with Y/n. You’d get to sing with her, see her in gorgeous dresses. Hell, if you’re interested I’d let you two have your very own personal, private, dressing room, all to yourselves. Imagine the magic that’d happen in there.” He chuckled, watching the boy’s mouth open agape, not knowing what to say to Caleb’s offer. Luke’s mind went somewhere that’d only stay in his thoughts. Caleb knew it too, but wanted to screw with him a little. “I mean imagine the music, the songs, duh!” Caleb shoved him. “What were you thinking?” Caleb smirked.

Just as Luke went to say something Caleb shushed him.

“Oh do you hear that? They’re waiting for you…” The boys bent over as a jolt struck them badly. They groaned as each one intensified. “That one looked like it hurt!” Caleb shrugged.

“F-Fuck off.” Luke rasped out.

“Let me remind you. You don’t know if playing the Orpheum is your unfinished business. Do you really have time to make that mistake? I suggest you take my offer because the clock is ticking.” He sing-songed as he took a sip of a martini.

“Agh.” The boys hissed out in pain again.

“Ouch.” Caleb then turned around. “You know where to find me.” He called over his shoulder. He headed out to the stage. “Ladies and gentlemen, I’m back! Now I have a special person joining me on stage tonight.” He turned his attention onto you who had been sitting next to a group of people chatting. The spot light landing on you. “Everyone please give a warm welcome to our Nightingale, Y/n Y/Ln.” You looked up surprised,but with a smile, not expecting Caleb to do this. You smiled at one of the servers who took your hand and guided you up the stairs. Caleb taking over and grabbing your hand. He twirled you once and the crowd ate it up. He leaned over to whisper in your ear. The spell he had you under to fool the boys that you wanted to stay, wore off. His smile was fake as was his personality.

“Sing or the boys get it.” Your smile faltered for a second as you looked up at the man. Calen began singing the intro. The jazzy blues rhythm taking over. “You know you wanna take a chance and be a little bit bad. Ain’t nothing quite like living on the edge, so get ready to go.” Caleb sang over to the wings of the stage where the boys stood. Then passed it off to you with a point.

“I’m chasing down a thrill and lookin’ fit to kill.” You growled as you swayed your hips. Showing off your whole outfit. “So listen to the words a wise man said…” You smirked as you placed a hand on Caleb’s shoulder.

“He said Covington, I got an offer that you can’t refuse. Ha!” Caleb laughed. The chorus then picked up in tempo. You had no idea as to how you knew the words, but you did, and it was freaking you out, but Caleb was luring you into the song just like he was doing to the boys. “You got nothing to lose boys, lose, lose, lose. You got nothing to lose boys, lose, lose, lose. You got nothing to lose. Welcome to my stage, boys…”

The second verse began, which Caleb let you take over.

You stepped up to the center swaying and moving to the beat. “You know you want a little taste.” You bit your lips letting your finger slide down your lips. Luke was about to lose his cool composure. “Life’s short, not a minute to waste. I’ll take you higher than you’ve ever been. So come over and tell me how you’d like to begin.” You motioned them over with your pointer finger to say ‘come here’. Then came the chorus. Caleb was getting the job done as the song continued to commence further into the words.

“You got nothing to lose boys, lose, lose, lose. You got nothing to lose boys, lose, lose, lose. You got nothing to lose.”

The boys could feel the music in their feet first. Luke was having a hard time making his feet stop tapping against the floor.

Alex was the first to go. His hand twirling the stick in his hand. He had looked over at it, unable to stop himself before Caleb tugged him forward. Then he was revealed to the audience as he began hitting his drumsticks.

“Alex, show me what you’ve got!”

A chorus of “go Alex!” and cheers filled the hall as Alex played his intro verse. You joined in as you heard each hit of the drums. Reggie was scared to go. Fear in his eyes as he watched the music take over Alex. Caleb saw this and dragged him in second as he was the easiest to persuade and lure in. Caleb had dragged you onto the stage with him because apart from wanting to play their instruments, you were their weaknesses.

“Reggie! Swing it, baby!” Caleb played an air bass guitar as he watched Reggie do his thing. “Oooh.”

“That’s it!” You smirked bobbing your head along to the groove of his bass. Reggie felt like everything was going to be okay as he watched you smile and dance, yet fear still struck his face.

“Now Luke, yeah!” Caleb motioned him over. Luke was last because unlike Alex and Reggie, he was stubborn-headed. Always refusing to do something he was forced into. He swung his guitar in front of him, then tried shuffling back to the wing, but Caleb only smirked and tugged him by an invisible string. Luke was pissed as his own two feet shuffled over to Caleb to be center stage alongside you. “You and me.” Caleb sang as Luke’s guitar sang to him. His riffing caused you to bite your lower lip. Caleb pushed you over to be in front of Luke as he went off on the electric.

“That’s it Lu, let me hear ya!” Your smile wide and your eyes furrowed as you focused on the way his riffs drove through you. The falls and rises of each note matched the way your face scrunched and relaxed. Luke was angry to say the least, but when it came to playing in front of you. Every bad thought would go away, just like it did now.

“How you like my new band? You got nothing to lo-do-ya-do-la-do-do-do-lo-lo.” Caleb began scatting.

“So come over here baby.” You motioned Luke over. Your backs were now pressing against each other. Your head falling on his left shoulder as you sang out. “I got what you need. Let yourself go crazy.” You shook out your hair and sang to Luke. “All bets on me, it’s electrifying. From your hat to your shoes. I feel it in the air.” You belted.

“We got nothing to lose.” You and Caleb finished off together harmonizing. The clash of Alex’s cymbals being the last to hit. “Yeah…”

The boys were left short of breath as they heard the applause of everyone, they hadn’t disappeared like the many times they did with Julie. This whole song was not fun at all. You had tried to take the boys’ attention off of Caleb and onto you, but you could only do so much on stage with a full crowd gawking at your voices and instrument playing.

“Thank you all so much! We’ll be back shortly for a special duet, so stay seated and enjoy the horderves.” Caleb announced to everyone.

You all walked off the side of the stage to catch your breaths.

“Y/n.” You finally looked up as a hand pressed itself to your cheek. You gulped as Luke’s hazel eyes met your own. “Hey you okay?” He gave you a once over.

“I’m okay, why wouldn’t I be silly.” You smiled sweetly again, like you had done to all the guests. Your giggle filed the quiet space. Luke wasn’t having it though.

“Drop the act with me, you called me Lu. You don’t have to pretend. I know.” His thumb caressed your skin. Your eyes close due to his touch. You leaned into his hand placing your own over his.

“Thank god.” You whispered. You let out a sigh. “D-Did that just happen?” You opened your eyes and scrunched your face in confusion. “Holy crap I just sang!” You said in shock.

“Wait so you’re not under his spell?” Alex extended his hand out in confusion.

“He changed you, you were acting differently.” Reggie looked at you sadly.

“Nope.” You shook your head. “Not anymore at least. Yet he couldn’t change me if he could. He just wanted to scare you guys.” You glanced down at your feet.

“So you’re still you?” Reggie played with his hands nervously.

“Still me, Reg. Well for now…” You reassured the raven haired boy. Your smile only faltered as you leaned onto one of your legs. Luke catching on to your discomfort.

“You okay?”

“Oh my god, get these off me, now!” You groaned trying to pry off the damn heels.

“Here lean on me!” Luke wrapped his arm around your waist letting you use him for support. One attempt after the other you tried taking them off but they wouldn’t budge.

“Are you fucking kidding me!” You huffed. “Are they glued on or something?” Your eyes widened.

“Trust me we’ve tried already.” Luke clenched his jaw. “These stupid suits won’t come off either.”

“You’d think magic would come with instructions or something.” You waved your hands around trying to find your balance. You almost face planted to the floor, but Luke caught you. He always caught you.

“Okay yeah, you need a break, or a chair.” He held you up.

“I just don’t want to be here.” You frowned. “J-Just take me somewhere anywhere please.” You went to grip your hair, but stopped yourself.

For that brief second, with you being in his arms, Luke remembered. He remembered how Caleb offered you a room, a dressing room for that matter. He remembered just how much you needed a minute to clear your thoughts before something big happened. You needed your time to scream into a pillow again. “Okay. Guys try and find a way out okay. I’m gonna go take her somewhere quiet.” Luke nodded to the boys before thinking of the room that was probably false, but as he let his thoughts wander to where he wanted to go. He found the room to be true as he opened them back up. The little jump you made as your feet hit the ground made you lose your balance but Luke was right there.

“What is this place?”

“Our dressing room I’m assuming.” Luke let go of you and started wandering around the room. It was better than what he thought it was gonna be. It was furnished and suitable for a Rock Star and Short Tempered girl. His expression fell as he nervously fiddled with his rings on his hands.

“We should go get the guys then-”

“No!” He cringed as he saw you flinch. “No I mean it’s not all of ours…” He furrowed his brows not knowing how to say what he needed to.

“What do you mean, you just said it’s ours?”

“Y-Yeah ours…” He motioned between the two of you. “That asshole, of course he’d give us a room like he said he would.” Luke muttered under his breath.

“Ours? Why would Caleb give us room to share that makes no sense-” Your laughter died down as you realized what was happening. “Caleb gave us our own room…” You trailed off, nodding.

“Yeah.” Luke stayed on one end of the room. “He seems to be so invested in our life.”

“Yep.” You bite your lip turning around to fiddle with the palettes of makeup laid out on the vanity that was placed in the room.

“I-I do, you know…” Luke stammered as he was finding the courage. This caught your attention. You turned around. Leaning back on your hands that laid flat on the vanity.

“Do what?” You shrugged.

“You know what.” Luke rolled his, smiling then scoffing. His cocky demeanor made its debut. He leaned back on the wall, one leg pressed against it. His hands in his slacks pockets. You could have killed for some pockets right now.

“I don’t think I do, Lu.” You smiled. He smiled back at you. You were playing coy. Yet you really wanted to hear him say it.

“You do. You do and I know you know that there is something going on here.” He gestured between the two of you.

“With, not being able to leave the club?” You jutted your lip out, as you played coy.

“You’re really gonna make me say it, huh?” He looked down at his white shoes. You crossed your hands over your chest. He looked up at you. Your brow raised as you waited. “C-Caleb ruined everything.” He pushed himself off the wall. “I was gonna tell you about it sooner, but I guess now is as good of a time as any, given the circumstances.” He nervously chuckled. “I-I had this whole plan, well it wasn’t really my plan, the boys helped too, but I- I had a plan to ask you out.” He shied away from your eyes. “I-I had a song and everything planned out, even your favorite flower.” He slowly walked over to you. Your arms uncrossing. “Maybe even then I would have taken you out on a walk through the city…It was stupid-” He shook his head.

“No!” You tilted your head to catch his eye. “No, it’s not. It’s sweet.” You pressed a kiss to his cheek. “I would’ve loved it.” You smiled.

“I’m sorry you had to die.” He whispered as he grabbed your hand to trace his thumb over it.

“Shit happens.” You shrugged. “We can’t control everything…” You trailed off.

“But I can control this.”

“What-”

“I love you!” He finally said it. “I love you, okay. So much it kills me...even though I’m already dead.” Luke laughed, his eyes gleaming over. His head pressing against yours.

“Took you long enough.” You muttered softly as you could feel his lips hover over yours. “I love you too.” You brought your hands up to play with the nape of his hair on his neck. Luke’s hands feeling over your satin dress. He pushed you back slightly. You obliged, walking backwards until you hit the edge of the vanity. Luke took the moment to bend down to lift you onto the counter. Your legs dangling over the edge. It was only then that Luke’s lips fell on yours. He took his time not wanting to rush your first kiss. Never getting the chance to have one in the 90′s, he finally had the chance to do it now. You tightened your eyes shut, running your hands up his hair. Tugging and pulling him closer. Luke moaned into your mouth as his hands ran up and down the sides of your dress that had the slit. His tender light touches caused goosebumps to create over your skin.

As sweet as the moment had been, you had been waiting for this moment. You pushed against his chest to depart from the heated feverish kiss to catch your breath.

“God I hate your suit.” You huffed, as your eyes trailed over him.

“Y-You do?” Luke began getting self conscious.

“Not entirely I just need to-” You ran your hands up to the edge of where his shoulder and sleeve met then tugged at the fabric. A tear filling the silence as you tugged harder. The entire sleeve coming off. Luke’s eyes widened as he watched you rip off his other sleeve. “That’s better.” You bite your lip. Then decided to remove his shirt and bow too. “Yeah these have to go too!” You grabbed some scissors on your far right and grabbed them. Luke didn’t even try to argue with you. Once you were done you leaned back on your hands and smirked. “God...Caleb should’ve let you show some skin, not me!” You chuckled.

“How’d you do that?”

“Scissors trump magic anytime..at least I think?” You laughed, running your hands up his arms. “How do you feel?”

Luke let his arms flex, then smirked. “Like I wanna kiss you again.”

“Nothing’s stopping you…” You smiled. Luke paused to let his eyes rake over you. For a second he thought Caleb took you from them, from him, but he didn’t. He could never take someone as amazing as you.

“God you’re beautiful.” He smiled, letting his hands caress your face.

“It’s the dress.” You shrugged, then laughed.

“That dress.” Luke’s eyes darkened as his hands fell into the slit. “I think this is the only time I will thank Caleb.” You giggled at his sweet words and pulled him in for a kiss.

Luke had tugged you closer to the edge of the counter. Your legs wrapping around his waist. Your lips smashing against each other harshly.

As he started bundling up your dress up to your waist. You grabbed onto the back of his slacks and pressed him into you. You could feel how hard he was getting. You hummed as you palmed the outline of his pants. Luke groaned moving his lips, attaching them to the side of your neck. Various love bites being left behind by the pull and sucks of his teeth and lips.

As Luke’s hands slid up the sides of your legs, his fingertips tracing over your laced undergarments….The door burst open.

“There you guys are- Oh god!” Alex exclaimed, turning around. Luke winced harshly, pulling back holding his lower lip you just bit down on.

“Alex, seriously?” Luke adjusted his slacks tugging at his legs to hide the fact he was still turned on. He stayed where he was not wanting to turn around.

“Nice timing Alex.” You nodded, then took Luke’s face into your hands. “Let me see…you’ll live, rockstar.” You leaned closer, pecking his lips sweetly.

“We’re trying to leave and you two are having sex?” Alex finally turned around.

“We were, you mean we were about to.” You corrected him.

“Okay, guys enough.” Luke butt in taking charge again. “Alex, anything?”

“No, Reggie and I tried any door we came across…” He trailed off. Something caught his eye causing him to go quiet.

“Alex? What, what is it?” Luke furrowed his brows. “H-How’d you do that?” Alex pointed to his outfit. Luke then examined his cut off sleeves.

“Y/n…” He motioned to you. “S-She ripped the sleeves off.”

Alex’s curiosity was now peaked, he looked over to Luke, then over to you, and that’s when he noticed it.

“Y-Your shoes.” Alex gasped, a smile pulling at the corner of his lips.

“What?” You held your two front hair pieces back and looked down. You gasped too seeing a pair of black converse take over your feet now.

“T-They changed!” Luke caressed your arm looking down at them too.

“Maybe we’re not stuck here?” You smiled.

“Hey guys, have you found a way to leave yet?” You all turned your heads to the door, where Reggie trolled in with his red blazer slung over his right shoulder. Your smiles widening and a scoff from Alex as he stared at the raven haired boy.

“Yeah, Reg, we did.” Luke pulled you into his side. “We got a show to play, guys.” You nodded, agreeing with Luke.

“Let’s go support our girl!” You exclaimed, hyping them up.

You all huddled together gripping onto the boys’ shirts. Then a flash of purple lit up the dressing room. They were gone, but you ended up falling back onto the ground.

You looked around the dressing room frantically trying to understand why you were still here. “Did you honestly think it’d be that easy.” You whipped your head around to meet Caleb’s eyes. “You forgot something my dear…”

“W-What?” Your voice grew small, but the scowl on your face made it known to Caleb you weren’t happy.

“Yourself.” With a snap of his fingers, your body appeared beside you.

#luke patterson #luke patterson imagines #luke patterson imagine #luke patterson x reader #luke patterson x fem!reader #my gif #writings by juls

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