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ao3komorii · 4 years

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About Time (Timeskip Dimitri/Reader)

Decided to start transferring my works over, starting with my oldest oneshot from ao3 with Dimitri! It’s technically Dimileth since I like the Dimitri pairing from Byleth’s position, but it’s fully in 2nd person and I don’t use any names for Reader or anything.

This oneshot was entirely born from having a thought of “what if Dimitri accidentally saw Byleth’s boobs and then freaked out.” Also, this one is set after Dimitri comes out of his emo phase, but before the final battle in the BL route. Just a note, there is sex at the end. Enjoy :)

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You did not find yourself in over your head much anymore these days, but you also had a talent for finding new trouble.

You had been backed into a corner by multiple soldiers, and a horrible giant beast. The beast’s jaw opened slowly, revealing its gleaming teeth, dripping with a black substance as the soldiers by its side advanced, lances drawn and all pointed towards you. The Sword of the Creator at your side was growing weary, and you knew that it would not be enough to defeat the enemies in front of you.

You knew that your former students were on the battlefield somewhere, but you couldn’t see them beyond the great beast that caged you in by the wall. Either way, this was too dangerous a situation for them anyways. You could only hope they would stay away. Use the chance to escape while this creature feasted on your flesh and gnawed on your bones. You didn’t want to die, but you would not allow yourself to be the cause of any of your students’ deaths. It would break you. If anyone had to die, it should be you.

You held up your sword, ready to fight back, but the onslaught still overwhelmed you. You were able to quickly take out a few soldiers with the last remaining swipe of your mythic sword’s power before their lances got too close to you. You had no time to bask in your small victory as your sword refused to spring into action after your first swipe, only functioning as an average sword, and a dull one at that, as it lost all its power. And with its elongation use now locked away from you, you would only be able to defend yourself from close range.

This immediately proved deadly for you, as you swerved to avoid the creature’s teeth, but found yourself on the receiving end of an enemy’s lance as it sunk in and out of your shoulder. You screamed with pain and shock as you sunk down to your knees, dropping your sword to press a hand over your wound. It hurt so badly, and you looked up as a shadow loomed over you to see the monster and remaining soldiers all radiating with the satisfaction that they were about to snuff your life out. You couldn’t even gather the strength to pick your sword back up, the pain in your shoulder was too great. Even moving your hand sent unbearable jolts of pain up and down your arm. You could do nothing but watch, eyes drawn to the lance of the soldier that had stabbed you, what must be your blood dripping off the tip and onto the ground.

You felt all hope leave your mind as the abomination’s jaw opened wide, preparing to blast you with fire. Too weary to continue looking up, you turned your head down in defeat, hoping that your death would at least come fast. You heard a loud shout, but it was not enough to keep you from falling on your side, no strength left in your body to allow you to remain up. Your eyes slid closed, and death felt imminent.

You felt like you were fading, and the sounds around you faded along with your hazy consciousness. There were sounds of screams and horrible growls, but you didn’t know what they meant, and couldn’t really rationalize anything but the extreme pain you felt. There was so much screaming and so much pain. It was hard to even think at all.

“Professor!”

A voice broke through your haze at about the same time you felt the pain lessen by a small fraction. You heard your name called, with more insistency, and you felt annoyed. You just wanted the pain to end so you could sleep. The pain was so great that in that moment you didn’t mind dying if it would end the pain.

“If she falls unconscious, we won’t be able to save her!” You heard a soft-voiced woman assert.

“Professor!” the calls of your name and title got louder, and more insistent, and your forehead felt wet as one voice rang out louder than the rest. “Please, Professor, I can’t lose you too...”

The pain lessened a little more, becoming less all-encompassing, and you allowed your eyes to open. You found your vision blurry until a warmth took over the feeling of pain in your shoulder. A call of your name focused your attention directly above you.

Dimitri was crying. It was the first thing that struck you as you gazed up at him, tears freely flowing from his uncovered eye. His eye lit up when you looked at him, and you felt the world beneath you shift.

“Dimitri!” an airy voice angrily broke the quiet. “Don’t move!”

You were confused, and moved your head, unintentionally shifting your shoulder and sending a wave of pain through it as you went limp against Dimitri’s lap, where you found yourself realizing that your head was resting in. You closed your eyes tightly in response to the return of extreme pain, much worse than you had ever felt before.

“Professor, not you too! You must not move!” the woman insisted.

Your mind felt clearer once the pain faded again to a dull ache and the warm feeling took over. You realized at once who that voice was, and you opened your eyes to look at Mercedes, who was by your injured shoulder sending healing magic into the wound. That explained the familiar feeling that you couldn’t place. She met your gaze, unable to form her usual smile as she turned back to focusing on your wound. That confused you, and you turned your head ever so slightly to look at your injury without agitating it again.

You understood Mercedes’ current urgency. Your shoulder looked horrible. There was a large rip in the shoulder of your cloak, likely ripped further by Mercedes in an effort to get better access to the wound. There was so much blood, it matted the ripped fabric around your wound to your skin, making the area feel sticky.

Most worrying was the blood nearest to the wound, if it was even your blood, was bleeding an oily black. Mercedes wiped a hand over the wound, clearing it to reveal a patch of gray skin surrounding the stab wound.

“What is that?” Came Ashe’s panicked voice.

“The enemy’s lance was poisoned, clearly,” Felix stated with a short glance behind him.

You looked beyond where you were to realize that the area behind where you lay was covered in the bodies of the enemies that had just been closing in on you. The great beast was killed with no mercy, some of its limbs meters away from its actual body. You couldn’t stand to look at what was done to the Imperial soldiers; some with deep slashes, charred, or with arrows sticking out of their heads. It looked horrible, but not unusual for the battles you regularly faced.

“But poison couldn’t work this fast!” Annette protested.

“I’ve heard of weapons being enchanted with poison before,” Ashe explained.

“Enchanted with poison...” Dimitri echoed, expression tense. “What does it look like to you, Mercedes?”

Mercedes looked up from your wound to meet Dimitri’s eyes, but quickly looked back down. “Her wound isn’t responding to my magic. If we don’t do something, I fear she may die.”

Mercedes looked sad and scared, but Dimitri’s growl brought your attention back to him in an instant.

“There has to be something we can do to save her!” His desperate gaze morphed into one of hatred, one you thought you had seen the last of after Rodrigue’s death. “Tell me who I must kill and I will do it.”

“Spoken like a boar,” Felix interjected. “You think she has the time for you to go on a murderous rampage?”

“Felix...” Ingrid protested lowly and sadly.

“Then what would you have me do, Felix?” Dimitri replied, anger clear in his voice. “She is dying, you can’t expect us to do nothing!”

“I expect you not to-” Felix started.

“Stop it!” Annette cried. “You guys need to listen to Mercie!”

Mercedes nodded toward her best friend as Felix and Dimitri reluctantly went quiet. “There is one way to save her, but we will need everyone’s help.”

“Me and Mercie came up with a plan!” Annette smiled softly at Mercedes, expression belying a reluctant confidence. “Healing magic can’t touch it, but regular magic should be able to negate its effects enough for healing to work on it again!”

“And the only magic strong enough to fend off this dark poison is Annie’s fire,” Mercedes explained. “Annie will burn off the infection, and then I will heal the wound.”

“You want to burn her?” Sylvain implored, shocked. “I know she’s tough, but...”

“We don’t have the time to think of any other solution,” Ingrid said sadly, gesturing towards you. “Grey is spreading down her arm.”

Everyone’s eyes shot over to your arm, and you lazily swept your gaze over as well to see that the grey skin tone had travelled down your arm, halfway towards your elbow. The grey patches looked rough, and unlike any affliction you had ever seen before. You wondered if the Imperial army had been exploring darker methods to kill than simple weaponry and monsters. It didn’t surprise you, but you should have seen it coming.

“What do we do...?” Ashe asked quietly, as if he wasn’t ready to hear the answer.

“You all must hold her down while Annette burns the infection away,” Mercedes answered. “It will be very painful, but if she moves, she could get hurt, so you must keep her still.”

Dimitri looked torn as he brushed some stray hairs from your face. Even through the excruciating pain, the gesture embarrassed you. Dimitri looked to be mentally weighing options as a stray tear slipped from his chin to drop on your neck. The tear was a momentary relief, a distraction, but Mercedes couldn’t keep you from feeling all the pain in your shoulder, her healing magic seemingly less and less effective by the second as the pain began to grow stronger.

“Professor,” Dimitri said, trying but failing to keep emotion out of his voice. “What do you want us to do?”

You didn’t trust your ability to talk at the moment, and so you kept eye contact with him and nodded the best you could, which ended up being two slow rises and falls of your head. You could only hope that he understood what you were trying to say. He stared at you for a few seconds before he broke eye contact.

“Dedue, Felix, take her legs,” he instructed, and the two men moved quickly towards your lower half. “Ingrid, Sylvain, take an arm each.”

The four requested students each their place at one of your limbs, and Dimitri slowly let you out of his lap, your head now resting on the ground as he made his way over to Annette and Mercedes by your injured shoulder. “I will ensure she does not move her shoulders.”

“Um...” Ashe spoke up hesitantly. “It’s not much, but I brought along a book I’ve been reading, and she might need something to bite down on, so she doesn’t bite off her tongue.”

He offered the book to Dimitri, who accepted it gratefully, and with no choice, you bit down on it when Dimitri brought it to your mouth. You would have been embarrassed if you weren’t so anxious about the somehow worse pain to come. At Dimitri’s signal, your legs and arms were restrained, ensuring that you could not move them at all. When he checked that everyone had a secure hold on you, Dimitri put one hand on your uninjured shoulder, and one on your upper chest, just above your breasts. His head was just above yours, his long hair tickling your cheeks.

“Just keep looking at me,” he whispered, voice then rising in volume. “Annette, now.”

Annette didn’t reply, but she didn’t have to. Seconds after Dimitri’s words, you felt the worst pain you have ever felt in your entire life, putting the extreme pain from before to shame. You wanted to scream, but you knew you shouldn’t, even in your haze of pain. You just bit down on the book as hard as you could to compensate. Someone held one of your hands and you squeezed their hand as hard as you could, which must have been painful, but they didn’t pull away or let go of your hand.

A whisper of your name had you looking back up to Dimitri’s face. He looked fairly upset, but the intense levels of pain you were experiencing kept you from being able to reassure him. He smiled, a clearly forced smile, but didn’t look away from you at all, which gave you no insight into how it was going with your shoulder aside from the momentous pain, which was so hot that it now felt cold. The pain was so white hot that you had to close your eyes, teeth digging into the book’s cover.

“You’ll be alright, professor,” Dimitri said quietly. “We can’t lose you.”

You knew that your students would be destroyed if you died here. You knew that they would all fall apart. So you endured the pain quietly, you had no other choice. You couldn’t leave them alone after all you had all been through. You tried to stay still, but suddenly the brutal pain increased tenfold. You screamed around the book, trying to thrash your limbs, but your students remained steadfast, restricting your movement.

“Annette!” Dimitri barked, taking his gaze from you but not his hands, which kept you pressed down.

“I’m sorry, it’s... it’s fighting against my magic! Professor, I’m so sorry!” she replied tearfully.

“We have to keep going, Annie,” Mercedes’ voice broke through the panic. “She has no chance if we don’t keep trying!”

With that, the incredible pain returned, and you once again regained the unpleasant taste of the book cover in your mouth as your teeth sank into the dents you had made previously. Everyone was so quiet while Annette and Mercedes worked that you could hear everyone’s breathing, and Dimitri sounded close to hyperventilating with how heavy his breaths sounded. You looked up at him, but he was looking over at your injury, not at you. He looked like he was about to cry again, and it being due to your strategic negligence was weighing on you at the moment.

He wouldn’t look at you and looked openly panicked. You thought he would eventually feel your eyes on him, but he didn’t. He just continued to stare at the work being done on your shoulder, which you couldn’t see yourself because Mercedes and Annette blocked your sight of it entirely. You were getting used to the horrific pain at this point, so you managed to remain still. Maybe Sothis helped with your pain tolerance, since you knew that even with the pain levels you had experienced in your life, an average person could not possibly remain as still as you were able to during this kind of a procedure.

“Mercie!” Annette cried.

At once, the burning started to fade, as the familiar feeling of Mercedes’ magic took over, engulfing your shoulder in a light so bright that you turned your head away from it and closed your eyes. There were gasps and murmured words all around you and all at once you had a range of movement in your limbs again as everyone released their tight holds on you. Dimitri, however, kept his hands where they were, and you assumed he would wait until he knew that you would be okay.

Annette and Mercedes finally backed up from your sider, allowing you a glance at your shoulder. There was nothing, not even a scratch, or the third-degree burns you were expecting from the fire magic. The grey patches of skin had receded entirely with Annette’s eradication of the strange poison magic. You were in awe of Mercedes’ magic, but you were far from the only one who was.

“Remind me not to get too far away from you on the battlefield, Mercedes!” Sylvain joked.

Sylvain’s words brought Dimitri out of his stupor and he finally released his hold on you as you reached a hand up to remove the now soggy and dented book from your mouth. You weren’t sure what to do with it since Ashe would clearly not want it back now.

You sat up as everyone else began standing up, your muscles screaming in protest. From the pain that riddled your shoulder from all that had been done to it to the soreness in your limbs from being held down by people who put all of their strength into keeping you still, you were in pain, but not deathly pain. You waved off the chorus of worried voices asking if you were okay; you were just sore, not dying!

Ignoring their protests, you slowly stood up, only for an arm to slide around your waist. Ready to scold Sylvain for choosing now of all times to flirt, you looked over to see a stubborn Dimitri gazing back at you, frowning with concern. It wasn’t like he had no caring before you were able to bring him out of his ten-year thirst for revenge, but he almost went overboard with how much he showed that everyone mattered to him now. And with that knowledge, you knew you weren’t about to win whatever argument he was about to start about your safety.

“Be careful, Professor!” he chided, refusing to let go of your waist even as were found you were able to stand properly. Not without soreness, but properly enough. “You can ride back to the monastery with me.”

You could walk just fine... probably. Your hesitation to accept must have shown on your face, because it started another bickering war.

“She’s fine without you being a mother hen,” Felix stated dryly.

“Felix!” Dimitri admonished, not removing his hold on you. “She was barely alive moments ago, and you want her to walk all the way back to the monastery?”

“In case you haven’t noticed, her shoulder is fine. Do you think she wants you to baby her when she spent months trying to get you to behave like a person and not an animal?” Felix retorted.

You would rather try to walk, to help preserve your pride, but you didn’t have the chance to speak up before the two started fighting. You weren’t sure how to break up this fight before it got worse, but luckily it was resolved for you.

“And you two think arguing about this is going to make her feel better?” Ingrid said angrily, making her way over to you. “She will ride back with me.”

Felix scoffed and turned away, while Dimitri went silent, allowing Ingrid to put your arm around her neck as she led you over to her waiting pegasus. You would have time to thank everyone for their help later. The whole experience and then the arguing had tired you out, and you just wanted to rest. So you got on the pegasus ahead of Ingrid and allowed her to take you back to the monastery, where you could get some sleep and recover.

You were pushing yourself too hard and you knew it. You were still unhappy with how you had fared in the battle with Imperial troops a week before.

And here you were, a few days later, training in the rain in the forest just outside the monastery. You had been swarmed by the students worrying about you, and your sword hand was itching to get back into practice. Nobody would agree to train with you due to your being in recovery, and Dimitri had insisted that you rest immediately, somehow even more protective of you than he had been when you were actually injured. You understood their worry, but it was getting tiring being told to rest, so you went to practice outside of the monastery to avoid everyone’s worry.

Just your luck that it was raining, but there were battles still to be fought, so you couldn’t slack on your training. You were going stir crazy, and so you found a dead tree and began practice. The dead tree was considerably more dead looking several hours later, now bearing many stabs and slashes across it. You finally took a break and sat against the tree, surrounded by bark that littered the ground around you, dislodged from your training.

You swiped a hand under your bangs with disgust. You hadn’t realized how sweaty you had gotten, but it felt nice to do some solo training the way you used to before you became a teacher. You were tired but felt assured that you were maintaining your sword skills even after sustaining such an injury. The rain was pouring even harder now, though you hadn’t noticed until you took a break. It must have been evening now, but with the harsh weather, it was hard for you to tell at all. The rain didn’t bother you, so you continued to lean against the tree, clothes totally soaked, but feeling at peace in that moment.

You knew you couldn’t stay out there forever, and so you finally sheathed your sword and stood up. Casting one last glance at the dead and beaten tree, you set back off towards the monastery. Nobody else was outside due to the awful rain, and even the merchants had temporarily closed shop. The gatekeeper, determined to do his job regardless of weather, was just under the archway and greeted you with surprise, noting your soaking wet form. You gave him a smile and reassured him that you were alright, and then continued on your way back to your room to rest for the night.

Your route back to your room took you through the entryway where you were greeted by various students and members of the church alike, who all noticed your current condition. You walked by them with a smile, brushing off their questions, until you passed by Dedue, who was just outside the dining hall. Or you tried to, as he casually stepped in your way, causing you to stop short to avoid bumping into him. You looked up at him, confused.

“Professor,” he greeted. “Are you alright?”

You nodded, not sure where this was going as you went to go into the dining hall, and he moved to block your way again. “His Highness has been looking for you.”

“...why?” you asked. You had seen Dimitri earlier, so what had happened in the past few hours that he needed you for?

“No one has been able to find you for the past eight hours,” Dedue answered. “His Highness is worried.”

Past eight hours? It had only been a few hours... at least, that was what you had thought. You had been told before that you got really focused when you trained, but you didn’t think you had taken four hours, let alone double that time!

You thanked Dedue for the information, and he only moved out of your way when you agreed that you would go meet Dimitri immediately outside your room, where Dedue told you the king had decided to wait for your return. Heaving a mental sigh, you crossed through the crowd of people getting a late dinner and made your way to your room. Just getting to the block of rooms, you noticed the broad figure with unruly blonde hair right where Dedue said he would be. Looking at his figure, you remembered your initial shock at his transformation, but it had been overpowered at the time with relief that he was still alive after five years of war. As if he could hear your footsteps over the sound of the rain, he turned his head to face you as you made your way over to him.

“Professor... where were you?” he asked, and you couldn’t think of what to reply, so he pressed onward. “You think me reckless, but you go out to train in the pouring rain when you are not yet fully recovered?”

You were surprised; how did he know? You must have looked startled because his serious expression melted away with a genuine laugh as he reached a hand out to brush along your hair, or so you thought. He brought his hand away from your hair to show you and you stared at the twig that he held in his hand, the bark of the twig rotten and dead, much like the tree it had come from.

“I can’t think of any other activities you would do in the rain with your sword at your side and end up with this twig in your hair,” he remarked. “You know, it usually is the professor that lectures their students about working too hard.”

“You haven’t been my student in a long time,” you mused.

“You may not be officially our professor, but we all rely on you for so much,” he replied thoughtfully. “You cannot expect us to not worry when our professor works herself to the point where she is liable to pass out from exhaustion in the woods without telling anyone where she has gone.”

You immediately felt sheepish. He really had you there. You wouldn’t be able to face them if you had been abducted or killed when you had told nobody where you were going or what you were doing.

“Please don’t look like that,” he implored you. “I am not mad. We just don’t want anything to happen to our favorite professor.”

It seemed like they would all keep calling you professor, even though you were all equals now. You had some really stubborn former students, you mused with a smile. Dimitri then reluctantly allowed you off the hook so you could get some rest. You both said your goodnights as you went into your room and Dimitri left for his. As you stripped yourself of your heavy, wet cloak and armor and climbed into your bed, you resolved to be a little less reckless with your training. You also wondered how long you could keep such a promise in times such as this.

It was hot. So hot. It was all that consumed your mind and body. Suddenly you realized that you had woken up. And you were only wearing a top and shorts, but you were burning up. With a groan, you assessed the situation. You felt sluggish, and so, so warm. Your throat felt sore and sitting up in your bed made you feel nauseous, so you quickly laid back down. You had to face facts; you were clearly sick.

You knew it had to be the rain. You were outside in the rain for eight hours and overexerted yourself. The combination was a bad idea, but unfortunately you did not see it like that at the time, so here you were. Sick and feeling miserable, unable to get out of bed for fear of throwing up. You didn’t even know what time it was, but you knew that being awake was doing you no favors. You didn’t feel like being awake in this state anyways, so you had only one choice. Gardening and tea parties would have to wait until you didn’t feel like you had just drank poison.

The feverish heat you felt kept you from sleeping however, which made you even more miserable. Feverish and now irritated that you couldn’t get to sleep, you decided to just remove your top and chest wrappings, your shorts taken off as well for good measure. You had never slept in just your underwear at the monastery before for fear of someone barging in your room without knocking, but at this point you didn’t care. Seteth’s lectures about propriety be damned. You just wanted to be less overwhelmingly warm, and so you laid back down in just your underwear, not bothering to put the blanket back on and curling up in the hopes that sleep would finally come.

“I’ve had that one before! Remember when we had that visiting professor at the sorcery school? I think she made these for us!” Annette exclaimed excitedly.

Mercedes nodded as she flipped the page of the new sweets book they had purchased at the market, and they both stared curiously at the next page.

“Ooh, I always wanted to make some of those!” Annette said, pointing at the colorful pastries that were illustrated on the page.

“Me too, Annie! We really should make some to share with everyone,” Mercedes replied.

Their excited chatter was interrupted as Dimitri strode by their table in the dining room for what Annette estimated was likely the fifteenth time that day. He had hardly eaten what would be considered a basic nutritional amount of dinner before he resumed his cycles around the monastery.

“Dimitri!” Annette called out to him as he was about to pass them to leave the dining hall, and he stopped in front of them. “ Mercie and I were thinking of making some sweets and having a little party with everyone!”

Dimitri seemed distracted as he responded. “Oh, Annette... that would be...”

“Are you alright, Dimitri?” Mercedes interjected. “You look like you have something on your mind.”

“Oh...” Dimitri replied stiffly, coming out of his thoughts for a moment. “Has the professor been by here?”

“No,” Mercedes shook her head. “I haven’t seen her all day.”

“Is she okay? Do you want us to help look for her?” Annette pressed, sweets book all but forgotten in worry.

“She should be fine...” Dimitri trailed off. “Sorry for bothering you both, your idea sounds wonderful.”

And before either woman could protest, Dimitri exited the dining hall in a hurry, not even glancing behind him, cape fluttering with his movement. Mercedes and Annette could only watch in a haze of confusion and concern, their questions unanswered.

If you were out training in secret again after overworking yourself in the rain the previous day... no, Dimitri dismissed the thought. He had already looked in the forest and located the tree that you had cut to ribbons the day before. You could have gone farther into the forest, but he thought that unlikely as well. You had seemed regretful when the two of you had spoken at your door the night before, and he thought it unlikely that you would immediately break a promise to him, especially after he had told you how much you and your health mattered to all of them.

It occurred to him just then that he had neglected to check your room. It should have been the first place he checked, but it had slipped his mind. He would have to go check now. You may have decided to relax in your room for the day, and then he would have been worrying for nothing. Although he knew that you had a healthy appetite, but nobody had seen you in the dining hall at all, which was very strange.

There was nobody at the dorms, or if they were, they must have been inside their rooms. Dimitri was able to arrive at your door with no hassle, but he couldn’t hear any sounds from inside. He knocked politely, but to no response at all.

“Professor?” he called out as he knocked again, louder this time.

There was still no reply, which vexed him. If you didn’t want to see anyone, you would have replied to inform him of that. Which left only one thought running wild in his mind; you must have gone out to train and been injured. Or been injured yesterday and were now in too bad or a state to even talk. Once the thought entered his mind, he was consumed with worry. Reaching out and finding the door locked, he did not spare any thought before he slammed his shoulder into the door, bursting open the lock. Without a moment to spare, he thrust open the door and rushed into your room.

“Professor-” Dimitri exclaimed, but his eye widened in shock as he took in the scene in front of him.

The room looked fairly normal , a similar state of cleanliness to what it had been the last time he had visited you here for tea. Your blanket was half draped on the end of the bed and half on the floor, but none of your sparse belongings were out of place.

Dimitri found you immediately, and his cheeks immediately felt hot. You did not appear to be injured, and he was easily able to discern this because of your lack of clothes. You were curled up on your bed... in only your smallclothes. Dimitri’s mind went blank as his focus was drawn to your bare breasts. He didn’t know what to do, and he felt like he couldn’t breathe. He knew what breasts looked like, but he couldn’t remember seeing any bare but yours at this exact moment. He was transfixed, even though every instinct of his was telling him he had to look away, to protect your modesty.

And then you moaned and brought him out of his stupor. Now that he thought about it, you did not look very well. Still unsure if he was making the right decision, he closed the door behind him before making his way over to you. He removed a glove and placed his hand on your forehead, having his suspicions confirmed. You were burning up, clearly sick from training in the rain for so long the day before. He presumed that you had not left your room the entire day, which did not seem good, considering you must have spent the entire day unconscious and fevered.

He wanted to cover you up, for the sake of his waning composure, but you didn’t have the time for that and he didn’t want to overheat you further. He would have to try to disregard his embarrassment for the moment, because you needed his help, and he didn’t know how to explain to one of the women around the monastery that he had busted down your door and found you nearly naked. And you would never forgive him if he had others see you compromised like this. It was already bad enough that he had seen you like this.

He quietly left your room, glancing around to confirm that nobody was around to see him coming and going from your room so late. It was a cold night, but it did nothing to calm him down at all. Your body was beautiful, and he couldn’t get it out of his mind as he fetched a small bucket of water and a cloth before returning to your room. He mentally braced himself before opening the door to find you in pretty much the same position you had been in, laying on your back.

Prioritizing his worry for you over his shyness, he closed the door gently behind him and walked over to your bedside. He carefully wet the cloth, wringing some of the excess water out before moving your bangs to the side and placing the cloth on your forehead. You exhaled loudly but evenly in your sleep, which he took to be a positive sign.

He ended up not getting a lot of sleep that night. He stayed in your room for quite a while into the early hours of the morning, dunking the cloth in the cold water again whenever it began to be overcome by your body temperature. He never felt his lack of sleep at all, practice, he assumed, from all of his sleepless nights spent longing for revenge. He had never slept as well as he had since he had allowed himself to be free of the burdens of his dead loved ones. Not free from his obligations to them, but now he would channel his resolve into freeing Fódlan from Edelgard’s tyranny as opposed to the mindless bloodshed that he had surrounded himself with for the majority of the past five years.

You were such a comfort to him, one he thought he had lost a long time ago. You had supported him and been by his side, and he was too consumed to appreciate it until after he lost Rodrigue. He wouldn’t make the same mistake again. Not with you and all of his former classmates and friends surrounding him. They did not want him to be consumed and lost to revenge, and now he understood that the dead did not want that either. But he was not free from the choices he knew he would have to make soon, it was something that weighed on his mind. He did not want to kill his stepsister, but as he went to wet the cloth again, he was glad you would be with him when he made that decision. He needed your support, and he resolved to support you as well as he could, especially given your recent hobby of being reckless with your own health and safety.

Feeling your forehead, he was relieved to discover that your fever had finally broken. You may not have been fully healthy again, but if you were at least a normal temperature now, then he knew that he had done his job. You were still nearly naked though, and he would likely be an unwelcome sight when you woke up, and so he took the cloth and bucket and stood up. Better that you did not know he had been here; it would spare at least you of the embarrassment. But as he quickly fixed the lock back into place before opening the door and closing it behind him, he knew it would be a difficult feat to erase the sight of your uncovered body from his mind any time soon. You were so pretty, and it was all he could think about the entire way back to his room.

You woke up slowly, eyes still closed but aware that you were now awake. Your middle of the night wakeup felt almost like a dream compared to how you felt now. You felt somewhat bad still, your throat not fully better and limbs still feeling a bit heavy, but the incredible fever you had felt earlier had all but faded. You must have really been doing poorly, because a glance outside the window told you that it was morning.

You supposed that you might as well get up; there was no way to assuage worry except going to interact with everyone. You would feel better eventually. You knew that the students would worry about you. Getting up and checking with your calendar, you discovered that you had spent an entire day and night in bed.

You slowly put your clothing back on, happy to discover that it had dried all the way, pretty much a given as it had lain in a heap for over a full day on your floor. You probably looked awful after your high fever, so you headed out of your room and towards the bathhouse to freshen yourself up. Just as you went to enter, Ingrid was leaving, her hair obviously wet, and you exchanged smiles as you passed by each other.

The bathhouse was almost completely empty, save a few women, but none of your students. It made sense that there weren’t a lot of people up this early in the morning. There had just been a big battle, and there were still more to come. Everyone worked so hard, so you felt that they more than deserved to sleep in if they wanted to. But you were more than happy to finally be free from your bed, and so you stripped down and got into the water in just your towel.

You took your time to wash your hair and body, happy to not feel gross for the first time in a while. Only after scrubbing yourself to your utmost satisfaction did you relent and get redressed, leaving the bathhouse behind and feeling fully refreshed. Stifling a yawn, you decided to head over to the dining hall as your stomach yearned for food after so long without.

“Good morning, Professor,” Mercedes greeted you as you both entered the dining hall together. “Did you also hear that they would be including sugar scones in today’s breakfast menu?”

You hadn’t heard anything about menus at all, but any food sounded good to you at this point. You couldn’t remember if you had eaten sugar scones before, but they sounded like something you would like. You and Mercedes walked up to the front of the hall together, both accepting a plate of assorted muffins and colorful scones that were sparkling with sugar.

“Oh, I just love these!” Mercedes spoke cheerily as the two of you found a free section of table and sat down across from each other. “Have you had sugar scones before, Professor?”

You shook your head no and she giggled. “Well, I would recommend spreading some Albenian berry jam on them,” she informed you happily, gesturing to the small dish of red jelly that was situated in the middle of your plate. “These are one of Annie’s favorites, so I thought she would be here by now…”

As if on cue, Annette burst through the doorway to the dining hall, almost tripping as she skidded to a stop just in time to turn and rush towards the dining hall staff for her tray of breakfast sweets. She waved happily at you and Mercedes as she passed you to get to the front. The two of you watched, amused, as Annette was scolded by the head chef for running in the dining hall. She sheepishly apologized and received her tray of sweets, which brought a smile back onto her face as she turned and made her way over to you, taking a seat next to Mercedes.

“Sorry I’m late! I thought scone day was tomorrow!” Annette explained as she took in the sight of her breakfast tray.

“You’re so forgetful, Annie,” Mercedes teased with a smile.

“Well at least I got here in time!” Annette huffed, wasting no time in smearing jam all over one of her scones and taking a big bite out of it.

“That is true,” Mercedes agreed, before turning her head to look at you. “Do you like them, Professor?”

You had tried a bite while they were talking, spreading the jam like Mercedes had suggested, and found that you did like them. You must have missed it when these had been served in the dining hall before. You had eaten an entire scone by the time Mercedes had asked the question, and you were interrupted before you could answer her.

“Mind if I join you ladies?” Sylvain asked from behind you.

“Of course, Sylvain,” Mercedes replied, and he slid in right next to you with his own plate of food that he placed down in front of himself.

“I feel like I missed seeing your pretty face around here the past few days,” Sylvain said, popping an entire scone in his mouth as he looked over at you.

“You never change, do you?” Ingrid said wearingly as she sat down on your other side. “You think that she hasn’t had enough of your behavior already?”

“Ingrid…” Sylvain groaned. “She got a hole cut out of her not that long ago, I just want to make sure she’s okay.”

“And you thought your flirting would heal her wounds?” Felix raised an eyebrow as he sat down next to Mercedes. “You delusions never end.”

“Hey, why is everyone turning on me?” Sylvain complained, and you laughed. “Not you too, Professor! You wound me!”

Now Annette and Mercedes laughed, while Felix rolled his eyes and Ingrid smiled and shook her head. You all ate your breakfast while chatting, slowly adding Ashe and Dedue to your midst. Even when Dedue didn’t appear to be coming to sit with your group, Annette called his name and beckoned him over to join your table, while Ashe was convinced as soon as he saw your group all together. It was very lively, and almost made you forget that there was a war looming over you all. But just because you would soon have to kill or be killed yet again did not mean that you couldn’t enjoy the company of your lively house members.

“Hey, shouldn’t Dimitri be up by now?” Annette wondered out loud.

“That’s true,” Ingrid agreed. “He’s never been one to sleep in.”

“I can go and check his room,” Dedue volunteered. “If he is not there, then he may-”

“No need!” Annette replied. “I see him now! Dimitri, over here!”

The tall blonde king had just walked into the dining hall, and looked your way at Annette’s call, noticing your entire group all sitting together and walking over to approach you all. Before anyone could stop him or insist that he didn’t have to, Dedue was up from his seat to grab Dimitri a plate of breakfast from the cooks at the front. Some other people stopped Dimitri to talk quickly or greet him, and so he arrived at your table just as Dedue had brought back a plate for him, which he accepted gratefully, knowing better than to try to dissuade his friend from performing errands without being asked by this point. He sat down next to Dedue, and Annette got up to bring over some tea to share with everyone. It was the most cheerful that you all had been during this time of war, and you could not recall a time when you had been happier.

You talked with Ingrid about how her pegasus was doing, and she happily invited you to come flying with her if you would like, to which Mercedes and Annette chimed in that they would love to fly with her as well. Meanwhile, Sylvain on your other side informed you that his horse was available for riding lessons as well, to which Ashe mentioned that he wanted to improve his riding skills, and Sylvain looked marginally defeated. You were having so much fun talking with everyone that you didn’t notice anything amiss with Dimitri at all.

“Are you ill, Your Highness?” Dedue said, with no intentions of being discreet with his volume management. “You have not touched your food.”

Everyone paused their conversations to stare at the king, who had been staring at his plate until Dedue had spoken up to him. He looked up at the sudden silence, surprised to see everyone’s eyes on him. He gave Dedue a small smile, assuring him that he was alright, which Dedue reluctantly accepted, but it was not good enough for Ingrid.

“You don’t look very well, Dimitri,” she insisted, leaning forward a bit to get a better look at him. “Have you been sleeping alright?”

He looked over, meeting your eyes for a very brief moment before immediately looking at Ingrid, ignoring your confused stare. “I am fine,” he said reassuringly, shaking his head with a laugh when Ingrid gave him a hard look. “Really, Ingrid. I am alright.”

“If you don’t sleep, you’re just making it easier for the enemy to cut you down,” Felix said sharply.

“I bought some tea at the market that is supposed to help with sleeping problems if you would like to try some,” Mercedes offered.

“I promise you all that I am alright,” Dimitri insisted with a smile.

Sensing that a change of mood was in order, you offered the last remaining thing on your plate, a Dagda fruit muffin, to Sylvain. You found that you did not like Dadga fruit tea, and so you figured that it would be better to give it to someone who would appreciate it more. And it didn’t hurt as a conversation swap either.

“You don’t want it, Professor?” he asked, blinking at you, surprised.

You shook your head, holding the plate a little closer to him, and he shrugged, grinning at you. “Who am I to refuse you? Thanks for the muffin.”

Sylvain ate the muffin in a few bites as Dimitri finally began to pick at his own tray. You tried again to catch his eye, but he was determined to stare down at his plate. Conversation began to pick up again as Annette started to tell a story from back when they were all students. The conversation took a nostalgic turn as everyone then began sharing stories from their school lives five years prior.

“Not to be rude, but I thought you hated us at first!” Annette told you, blushing slightly with embarrassment.

“I must confess that I felt the same at the start,” Ashe agreed, quickly adding, “but we couldn’t be where we are now without you.”

“I do remember calling you beautiful and you just stared at me... I thought you didn’t hear me for a second,” Sylvain recalled.

“How is that any different from now?” Felix sneered.

“That is true,” Mercedes agreed. “Just the other day I saw a village girl just turn around and leave without saying anything.”

“Mercedes!” Sylvain’s jaw went slack. “You saw that?”

“I see your success rate hasn’t changed,” Felix scoffed.

Sylvain really had no comeback for that, and you were far from the only one at the table to laugh at his plight. Giggling, you locked eyes with Annette, who you noticed had also finished her plate. Nodding at each other, you both got up from the table to take your empty plates back.

“I feel like I’ve got my muffin fix for a while!” she joked as you handed your empty plates to the dining hall staff.

“What are your plans for the day?” you asked her, and she smiled.

“Don’t tell Mercie, but she was talking about how she missed these sweet ginger cakes we had when we were younger, and I was going to make some to surprise her with!” she whispered excitedly.

You were glad that Annette was such an endless supply of joy and kindness. You knew how much everyone appreciated any distractions from the mounting scale of war you were faced with, and so you also would have to do your best to keep a happy demeanor about yourself. Annette’s eyes drifted from yours as you both got back to the table as she stared ahead.

“Hey, where did Dimitri go?” she asked.

You looked over to where Annette had her eyes set and noticed that your table was missing its blonde king. You both must have looked incredibly confused, because Dedue decided to put you out of your misery.

“His Highness… had something to attend to.” Even Dedue sounded puzzled.

“Yeah, he just said that he had forgotten to do something and left…” Ingrid added, her eyebrows drawn together.

“Maybe he just had a bad reaction to the muffins?” Sylvain suggested, but one look at Dimitri’s plate told you that he hadn’t eaten a single thing from his plate.

He was acting weird, but he didn’t seem to be sliding back into his darkness again. Even so, you would have to check on him later, just to make sure. You had abandoned him for five years, even if it wasn’t by choice, and you would never leave his side again until the day came when he no longer needed you. You wouldn’t lose him again, not when everyone, when Faerghus, needed him.

Dimitri walked briskly to the cathedral, taking up his usual spot in front of the rubble that had once been a proud altar. He knew that he was clearly acting off, and his friends would eventually come and make sure he was okay. And he knew that he was not doing well, but it was not the type of problem that he imagined that they thought that he was dealing with. He had never dealt with anything like this before, and he didn’t know what to do. And so, he stared at the rubble, but too lost in thoughts to take in the scenery.

He couldn’t sleep at all the night before, and he didn’t know how he would get any sleep tonight. Seeing your mostly nude body had awoken within him feelings that he had kept himself from feeling for so long. He had been so focused on revenge for the entirety of his developing years that he had never allowed himself to think of romance as more than a faraway concept. He had sheltered himself for so long, and now the reality of his situation was hitting him with the full force that it would have had he allowed himself when he was a teenager. Instead, he was an adult man who was only now realizing the depths that his feelings could reach. He loved you, and it scared him.

He knew that he couldn’t avoid you forever. You had a war to win, and he couldn’t avoid his closest ally, even if he happened to just discover his feelings for you. He wanted desperately to be near you, but even with your widening range of emotions, he had seen no indication that you had any romantic feelings towards him. And besides, you would never talk to him again if you found out that he had stayed in your room while you were not fully dressed, even if it was to help you recover from your fever. He would live with his shame and hide his feelings, and would channel his energy into the war. Although that still didn’t resolve how he was going to sleep tonight, since he knew that every time he closed his eyes that night he would see your perfect breasts or your kind smile.

He had spent the last few hours of the night after he had returned to his room staring out of his window into the night sky. He had wrestled with his longing to go back there and tell you how he felt, kiss you… but you were sick. You needed rest. And you certainly did not need to have to deal with this new revelation of his. He relied on you for so much that he would crumble without your support, and so he just had to accept that your support would never be that of a wife’s to him.

He felt like a preteen boy. He couldn’t even stand to meet eyes with you in the dining hall earlier. He was so focused on staring at his plate that he could barely hear what anyone else had said. He had met your eyes for only half a second and even that was too much for him in his current state. You had looked worried for him, worries that he didn’t feel that he could assuage. He would have to keep his distance from you until he could resolve this within himself.

He must have been lost in thought for a while because eventually, he realized that Dedue was by his side. He gave Dedue a nod and then turned back to face the rubble, but a call of his title had him looking back to his stoic friend.

“Is everything alright, Your Highness?” Dedue asked simply.

“I…” Dimitri was not sure what to say.

“When I pledged myself to you, I intended to ensure that no harm came to you,” Dedue explained. “If anyone has been upsetting you, or you are suffering a cursed ailment, you need only to tell me and I will scourge whoever dared to curse you.”

Dimitri could never have a normal conversation with him during this war, could he? There were so many threats to his life, he was willing to admit, but Dedue never ceased to worry, even when everything was stable for the moment. He knew that Dedue cared about him, but he always thought the worst of things when it concerned his king.

“I have no injuries or curses, my friend,” he told Dedue who looked entirely unconvinced.

“If it is something that you feel that you cannot tell the others…” Dedue’s offer was implied. He was concerned, that much Dimitri could tell easily.

“For now, it is something that I must handle on my own,” Dimitri said, not meeting his friend’s eyes.

It took some convincing, but Dedue finally relented in his insistence that he walk the king back to his room, despite the fact that they were on entirely different floors. He also rebuffed Dedue’s offer to stand guard outside his room the entire night to defend him from attackers. Dedue had finally, reluctantly relented and allowed Dimitri to finally return to his room alone. He was careful to check that he hadn’t been followed; Dedue had done it before, after all. But he saw no signs of anyone following him and arrived on the second floor of the dormitories, not meeting anyone on the way down the hall and to his room.

It was early in the night, he discovered as he returned to his room. It was earlier than he usually went to sleep, but being awake for closing in on thirty or so hours was wearing on him. With getting some rest potentially in sight, he sat on his bed and began the painstaking process of removing his armor. He let out a tired sigh as his leg armor came off, and he carefully placed it aside before repeating the process on his upper armor, removing his cape and furs as well when he had taken his armor off. He was left in just his long black undershirt and black pants, which was all he wore when he slept these days. Although he did recall that he had previously pushed himself to the point of collapse when in his full armor before, and waking up from that had never felt pleasant on his body. But given his state of mind at the time, he simply got up and continued to do the work he felt needed to be done; being sore never kept him from the slaughter. But as he was now, he appreciated that he could take his armor off at the end of the day and rest. He never knew how nice it would feel to let down his last layer of defense and truly be himself around his friends with nothing to hide. Well, he thought, nothing to hide but his attraction to you that refused to wane.

He would try to sleep; at least now he was in his room, where he was not likely to run into you. His onset affection for you was so strong that he didn’t think it would go away, and he did not know if that was a good thing or not. He took off his shoes, setting them down before laying down on his bed and closing his eyes in the hope that sleep would find him.

You had spent your day talking to the other occupants of the monastery, doing your best to confirm that everyone was doing alright. You knew that this war weighed on everyone’s souls, and if you could do anything to help, you would. And so, you did some light training with Felix, went to the marketplace with Ashe, and ended up helping Annette do some baking for Mercedes, which did not result in any kitchen disasters for once, which was a relief. You had seen Dimitri in the cathedral earlier, in that same place he had always gone before he had broken free of his darkness. You decided to give him some space, but when you passed by the cathedral again later in the evening, he was no longer in his usual spot in front of the rubble.

Whatever was wrong with him, you wanted to give him time. You really did. But if he was sinking back into his inner darkness, then you couldn’t stand by and let it happen again. You walked around the monastery grounds but were unable to find him. As a last ditch effort, you decided to head to the second floor of the dormitories to check and see if he was in his room. You passed various people as they headed to their own rooms to retire for the night, smiling as Flayn excitedly wished you a good night as you passed by her. Finally, you arrived at what you recalled to be Dimitri’s bedroom door.

You raised a hand and lightly knocked on the door. No answer. Maybe he had gone for a late night walk and you had just missed him on your walk around the monastery. You knocked one more time, slightly louder, but still got no response. You couldn’t hear any sounds from at all from the other side of the door. Having no choice, you reluctantly decided to leave and head back to your own room. You could talk with Dimitri the next time you saw him, you reassured yourself. And so, you began to retreat the way that you had come, off to get some sleep and hopefully wake up fully free from your sickness.

“Professor…”

It was so quiet that you almost didn’t detect it, but you supposed your sensitivity on the battlefield allowed you to pick up the muted whisper of your old title. You turned your head back, not sure what to expect, but found Dimitri in only pants and a long-sleeved shirt, both in black, staring at you from just outside his room. He met your gaze with a look of surprise on his face, almost as if he had not expected you to hear him or turn back to look. You made your way back over to him, and he opened his door wider and gestured for you to accompany him inside.

He walked all the way to his window before turning only his head back to face you. His expression was unreadable, but yours certainly wasn’t, and he immediately saw the worry on your face.

“Are you okay?” you asked quietly. You knew that you couldn’t make him talk if he didn’t want to but you needed him to know that you were here for him.

“You never let up, do you?” he asked, and you vaguely recalled him saying something like that to you in the past. Before you could reply, he continued. “I could not be who I am today without your help.”

Why was he saying that now, and then why did he look so troubled? You didn’t understand where he was going with this, and were about to tell him so.

“I could not stand to lose you,” he spoke slowly, finally turning around fully and stepping slightly closer to you. “But I fear that I may if I tell you what is on my mind.”

“That is not possible,” you countered, staring him down sternly.

Dimitri only grew a small sad smile at your words. He looked to be waging a mental war on himself, but you bridged the gap that was still between you and forced him to look at you in the eyes. You looked at him with all the seriousness you could manage in an attempt to convey to him that you would listen to anything that he had to say. He broke eye contact with you almost immediately, staring at the floor as he spoke quietly.

“You had a fever,” he explained. “Nobody had seen you the day after you were out in the rain. I went to check on you, and you were not answering your door and I…”

Your eyes went wide in surprise. That night, you were…

“I am so sorry, Professor!” he spoke, sounding upset as he hung his head in shame. “I saw you in a state that only your husband should see you in and I-”

His rambling cut off and you looked at him, trying desperately to have him meet your eyes, but he continued to look at the floor, so you took a second to reevaluate these new revelations. Dimitri had not fully explained, but from what you had pieced together, he had been worried about you and came into your room, which must have been after you had stripped down to only your underwear, based on Dimitri’s odd husband comment. You felt a rush of embarrassment that he had seen you like that, but you found that you were more bothered that he had seen you looking so weak rather than the fact that he had seen you nearly naked. But you also found that you didn’t really mind that it was him that had seen you that way.

“I… I did not leave you be. I could not. I stayed with you and kept a cold cloth on your forehead until your fever broke. I should have left, but I could not just leave you like that,” Dimitri spoke up again.

He was so earnest that it was cute. Apologizing for seeing you nearly nude was one thing, but you stifled a laugh as he was for some reason apologizing for staying with you and taking care of you while you were sick. He was fiercely intelligent, brave in the face of the hardships of war, but looking at him now, he looked like an awkward teenager trapped in the body of a grown man. You could no longer help yourself, and you let out a quiet giggle.

“Professor?” Dimitri uttered as he looked at you in shock and you laughed at his expression.

“You’re so cute,” you told him, and watched as your words sent a pink flush to his cheeks as he stared at you in disbelief.

You knew that you should do something to put him out of his misery, but you weren’t sure what. You reached a hand up to cup one of his cheeks, and he looked at you unsteadily, closing his eye as he leaned into your touch. You weren’t sure why you had decided to reach out for him physically, but staring at his handsome face, so close to your own, you felt the most comfortable and safe you had ever felt. You closed your eyes too to bask in the moment, but then he said your name, not your title, but your actual name. You opened your eyes again and the two of you stared at each other and he raised his own hand to cover yours that was still on his cheek. He had an urgency in his eyes that you could not place.

“I need to kiss you,” he said, not breaking eye contact, unwavering under your surprised look.

You really shouldn’t have been as surprised as you were, given how physically close the two of you were now, and how emotionally close you had been to each other for so long, but you hadn’t had the time to think that this was even a possibility. Overpowering all of your mind was the sense that this was all that you wanted in this moment. He was different than he had been when you had reunited with him, but he had broken free of his darkness, and had become the kind, strong leader that his people needed. That you all needed. He was your dearest friend, but right now you wanted him to kiss you more than anything, and so you nodded.

He didn’t waste any more than a few seconds before bending down and connecting your lips as your eyes slid closed as the same time. You adjusted your chin so you would be better locked together as your other hand weakly grasped at the material of his shirt, just above his chest. The kiss felt so effortless, as you both adjusted to the other’s rhythm and Dimitri’s other hand came up to rest on the back of your head, keeping you close together.

The kiss stayed simple, but it was making you feel lightheaded with the intensity that you were both putting into it. You pulled away, not confident in your ability to breathe at the moment and he followed, gently steering you back until the back of your knees hit his bed and you allowed him to push you back down onto it.

You found yourself laying on your back as Dimitri hovered over you, his legs on either side of you. He was upright with his knees pressed against your upper thighs, looking at you with want but unsure of how to proceed. While he sat there in a daze, you shrugged your coat off and gently removed your gauntlets, letting it all fall down in a heap by the bedside, and as you did, you noticed a pile of Dimitri’s own clothing and armor only a few feet away.

When you looked back up, you noticed that Dimitri had been following you with his gaze, but he still looked unsure. You had no idea what was going on in his head or what had happened to his confidence, but you decided that you would have to make it abundantly clear that you would like this to continue. And so, you lifted your torso up from the bed and wriggled out of your shirt, throwing everything that covered your upper body onto the floor and watching Dimitri’s eye widen and cheeks turned red as he once again took in the sight of your bare breasts. You were just happy that you were conscious this time so you could enjoy his very honest reaction.

He was still staring, this time he had switched back to look you in the eyes and you couldn’t help but tease him. “Dimitri, your shirt…”

He finally relaxed a bit and smiled so sweetly down at you. “I suppose I should make it even.”

You had never seen him shirtless before, but the scars on his body told you what he could never bring himself to about what had happened to him over the past ten years. He gave you no explanation, and did not give you the time to fully examine all of his scars as he lowered his head down and kissed you again, feeding in your boldness as he supported himself with one hand, bringing his other hand up to feel one breast. The shock of his sudden movements had you moaning in surprise, and the kiss transitioned further as you both allowed your tongues to meet as well.

You cradled his head in your hands, bringing one hand through his hair, so much longer than it had been five years earlier. Finding yourself wanting to be even closer to him, you brought one leg out from under him and wrapped it around his hip. The position allowed you to grind up against him, and he met your hips excitedly as you kissed and you felt a shiver go down your spine as you realized how much he wanted this, your hips so close together that you could not miss how hard he had become in such little time. The friction was exactly where you wanted it, but it began to not feel like anywhere close to enough.

He pulled back from you by a few centimeters, nose still touching yours, and his hand that was not supporting his weight drifted from your breast to brush a hand through your hair. “I love you,” he said sincerely, chuckling as you looked up at him in shock. “You did not think I loved you?”

He seemed amused by your lack of response, and in truth you did not know, you had been so happy to be like this with him that you hadn’t even considered the feelings that were obviously involved. But you could not deny how happy those words made you, and he leaned down to kiss you again as a smile lit up your face. He gave you a few short kisses before he disengaged himself from you, sitting at the side of the bed, and you hastened to join him. He looked over as you hesitantly placed your head on his shoulder, and he readily accepted the contact.

“I did not think that I would ever feel like this… that I deserved to feel this way with you. I escaped the darkness that I had been trapped in, but I know there are those who will never forgive me for the sins I have committed. But you stuck by my side when I treated you so poorly. I don’t deserve you… any of you,” he said, staring at the wall but wrapping an arm around your naked back.

“You are indispensable to me,” he said as he leaned over to kiss your hair. “I knew that I would not be here without you, but I did not realize my feelings until that night.”

You knew which night he meant, but you had taken even longer than him to discover your own feelings, but you knew now. You loved him, and there was no going back now, even if you wanted to. Which, sitting side by side in this moment, you knew that you only wanted to experience even more with this man who was so dear to you.

“I wanted to wait until after the war, until we had peace. But after that night, I could not look back at you without seeing your bare form. It is shameful, but I cannot hold back any longer, especially now that I know it is mutual,” he explained, adjusting the both of you so that you were facing each other. “I want to be with you.”

He was looking at you expectantly, but kindly. You realized that he needed you to also affirm that this was real, that you loved him as well. He believed in you, but you knew that you should put the poor boy out of his misery. You leaned in to kiss him and he reciprocated happily, pulling back after a few seconds, eyes fluttering open to look at Dimitri, who looked so content in that moment.

“I love you,” you told him, truly meaning it. “I want to be with you.”

Dimitri looked so happy, but with a glance downwards, you saw that he was no less hard. It looked rather painful, and couldn’t be comfortable for him. You were not as subtle as you thought you had been, and he caught your glance downwards on his form.

“I… it is okay, I would never pressure you. You do not have to worry about me,” he said quickly, face flushing pink.

He was about to get up and put some distance between you, but you would not let that happen. You stood up with him and spoke his name softly as you slipped your hands into the sides of your shorts, pulling them down along with your tights and slipping out of them and your boots. It was not a particularly graceful or sexy stripping of your last articles of clothing, but it got the job done. You crossed the room to where he was standing and he allowed you to begin the process of removing the clothes covering his lower half.

“If this is what you really want,” his growled words sent your cheeks aflame. “I will not hold back, my love.”

He helped you by kicking his pants and underwear off, and as soon as you were both fully naked, he picked you up, his hands grasping your thighs to support you. You hastily wrapped your legs and arms around him so you wouldn’t fall, and he grinned at you as he placed you down on the bed, following you down so he could kiss you again. Dimitri kissed you for only a moment longer as you desperately tried to keep up with his pace. You were so ready for what was to come, and you pulled back from the kiss and gazed up at him with longing.

Dimitri swallowed as he looked down at you, and you spread your legs as he reached down to his achingly hard cock. You were embarrassed to discover that you were easily wet enough from just kisses and simple groping that Dimitri was able to rub himself against you before he began to slide himself inside with ease. You let out a breathy moan as you tried not to squirm at the foreign feeling. Dimitri’s eyes closed as he dropped down to rest his head on your shoulder, his deep groan right by your ear as he pushed further inside you. Finally, your hips fully met as he was seated fully within you, and you knew that you had never felt anything like this before. You knew what sex was, your father had been too awkward to give you the talk himself and had a female village chief explain to it to you after you had saved their village, so you knew the basics. But no explanation could match up with how good it felt to be so intimate with the man you loved.

You felt his breath tickle your ear as he pulled himself back up, his eyes half lidded. “You feel so good… forgive me, but it is hard for me to focus on anything else.”

You felt the same way, but you didn’t have the patience for him to wait and adjust to this feeling, so you decided to force the issue by squeezing your inner muscles and watching as he shuddered, eye fluttering closed for a moment with a groan. He opened his eye to glare halfheartedly at you, obviously too pleased at the moment for you to believe that he was actually angry with you.

“You are so impatient,” he teased, but complied with your wishes as he pulled ever so slightly out of you before canting his hips back into yours.

He didn’t waste a second in continuing the movement, and his gentle rocking was driving you crazy. You were completely naked, and it had been a cold month, but you were so, so warm. There was a pleasant burn that was slowly ebbing away to just feel good in a way that you had never felt before. Evidently this was new to Dimitri as well, because he was in no better of a state than you were, panting against your skin as he leaned down to kiss at your neck. You were content to lay like that, your arms around his neck and feeling his hair tickle your face, but a well-timed thrust had you unexpectedly crying out with the sudden spike of pleasure.

Dimitri couldn’t suppress his own groan as he was able to reach deeper within you. And when you rolled your hips up to meet him, he almost stopped his momentum to bask in how good it felt. He once again palmed your breasts and stifled your moan as he kissed you again. He closed his eye as he kissed you because he feared that if he was to keep it open and take in the way you looked right now, this would end far sooner than he wanted. You were so beautiful like this, and his heart stuttered with every sound that left your mouth.

He wanted this to last, but he could no longer be satisfied with the current pace. He began to pull out more swiftly and push back in with a new speed and intensity. He felt pride surge up in him as you squirmed and broke the kiss to let out another cute cry. Your next cry was of his name, which set his pace on fire as you both rapidly tried to meet your ends as you both connected in a desperate clashing of tongues, both groping at any inch of the other’s skin that you could reach.

“I fear this will not last much longer, beloved,” Dimitri panted. “But we have so much more time ahead of us.”

You weren’t fully sure what he meant by that, but at this point you were so close to reaching your peak that you could do no more than moan and grasp weakly onto his neck and back, tangling one hand in his hair. You closed your eyes tightly as Dimitri held you as close to him as he could, his chest brushing against yours in tandem with his thrusting. It only took a bit more of his harsh, fast pace before you lost yourself in pleasure. Dimitri continued to move, prolonging your orgasm as you moaned and squeezed around him. He could only hold out for so long and he was finally pushed over the edge with a strained groan of your name. The two of you stayed joined for a moment before Dimitri gently moved off of you, giving you a shy smile. You went to get up with him, but he stopped you with a hand on your arm and you obeyed, laying back down, but looked at him quizzically.

“You may not want to get up. We have made quite a mess,” Dimitri said reluctantly.

He wasn’t making eye contact anymore, and you followed his gaze downwards on your body. Oh. Without the feeling to distract you, you realized just how gross you were feeling… down there. You closed your legs tightly in embarrassment, and in the hopes that you wouldn’t ruin Dimitri’s sheets. Feeling an onset of bashfulness, you also brought an arm up to cover as much of your chest as you could; despite what you had just done with him, the reality of the situation was catching up to you.

Dimitri laughed at your sudden shyness. “I will go fetch something to clean you up with,” he explained, beginning to dress himself to his first layer of clothing, foregoing his armor.

He bent down to kiss one of your flushed cheeks, and then he was gone out the door. Once the door had been closed and you were alone, you felt all of your remaining composure slip away. You and Dimitri had… you had no idea how he was so much more composed than you were, easily leaving the room to bring back something to clean you up. You felt too embarrassed to leave this room for a month, let alone right after you had been so intimate for the first time. You did not even know what to say to Dimitri when he got back, but you would dare to hope he had meant what he said, implying that he wanted to do this again. That he loved you. But for now, all you could do was wait for him to return.

Dimitri kept a relatively quick pace to fetch a cloth, although for a much different reason than the previous time. He still had a hard time believing that had just happened, that you and he were… he loved you, and he would not deny it even if being open about it was so new for him. Smiling to himself, he wistfully hoped that you would agree to spend the night in his room. He would not force you, but he could not deny that the idea of waking up and seeing your beautiful face first thing in the morning set his heart aflutter.

Dimitri had gotten to the middle of the hallway before he noticed someone waving at him just past his room, standing at the end of the hallway. Sylvain grinned at him as Dimitri walked past his own room to meet his friend just outside the redhead’s room.

“Late night walk, Your Highness?” Sylvain quipped, eyes briefly darting down to the towel in Dimitri’s grasp.

Dimitri was silent for a moment too long, wondering what to respond, and Sylvain laughed awkwardly, running a hand through his hair. “Just one thing though, you might want to noise-proof your room.”

“Sylvain!” Dimitri admonished, shocked.

“Hey!” Sylvain waved his hands in a defensive manner. “It wasn’t me! But, uh, Felix was just here complaining that you and the Professor were interrupting his sleep…”

Dimitri was not sure what to say to that, and immediately felt bad because he was sure that you would be embarrassed if you knew that you two had been heard. Dimitri turned a hard gaze to Sylvain; his childhood friend had not been known to be the most trustworthy with gossip, but Sylvain immediately knew what Dimitri was thinking, and what he was likely about to say.

“I wasn’t going to tell anyone, relax!” Sylvain stated quickly. “Just be careful, ladies don’t really like having an audience.”

Dimitri scoffed, but smiled at his friend. “I will keep that in mind, Sylvain.”

Relieved that Dimitri was not mad at him, he clasped one of his friend’s shoulders. “I won’t keep you from her, but I just wanted to say that I’m happy for you. You deserve to be happy, Dimitri. Just don’t let her get away!” he joked.

Both men having said their piece, turned to go to their respective rooms. Dimitri could only hope that you hadn’t heard any of their conversation. The last thing he wanted to do was scare you away or make you uncomfortable. But as he opened the door, he found you still on his bed, shutting the door behind him without looking back because he could not stand to look away from the smile you gave him upon seeing him return.

It hadn’t been long, but you felt happiness surge up in you at the sight of him. He briskly made his way over to you and handed you the towel he had brought, to your great relief. It would be too embarrassing to have him clean you, and so you accepted the towel gratefully, cleaning yourself as he turned his back to give you some privacy. You made quick work of cleaning yourself, feeling less of a mess immediately, other than your hair still being slightly matted to your forehead with sweat. You wanted to savor this moment, but you also wanted to know if he had really meant what he had said earlier.

Dimitri, not noticing the shift in your mood, leaned down onto the bed just as you sat up so he could give you a light kiss. He looked so happy when he pulled away from you, his smile unwavering. It was only then that he noticed how strained your small smile was. “My love…?”

“…you said we would have more time,” you said quietly, and his brows drew together in confusion, before nodding affirmatively.

“You have not figured it out yet?” Dimitri teased, reaching down to hold your hand. “I would hope that this was not the only time we would be together like this.”

You were still confused, and he noticed immediately. “I do not mean only in a carnal sense. This is a rather unusual setting, but I have no regrets. I want to marry you.”

Oh... You stared at him in shock. You weren’t sure what you were expecting him to say, only just nervous that he would tell you to leave, that this was a one-time thing. But he had gone in the farthest direction possible from what you had feared. You found that you really wanted this, you wanted to marry him, wanted to stay by his side forever. None of your thoughts made it to your face, your expression blank as you stared at him. Dimitri didn’t seem to understand what you were thinking, and got a little anxious himself.

“If you do not want to, of course…” he muttered. “I do not have a ring, yet I decided to ask this of you. I understand if you do not want this with me.”

He had seemingly already decided his fate, and you smiled softly at him. “I accept.”

“You… you do?” he sounded surprised, and you weren’t quite sure why. He was a wonderful man, and you loved him so much. He was a fool to think anything otherwise. Especially after what you had just done together, and all you both had been through.

He had finally seemed to get the message, and practically lunged towards you, connecting your lips together in a rough kiss. This war would end, you knew, and then the two of you could build a peaceful world together. You looked forward to that, but you knew that you would have Dimitri at your side for anything that came your way, and that gave you all the confidence you could ever need.

#reader insert #xreader #fire emblem #fire emblem 3h #fire emblem three houses #dimileth #dimitri x reader #fe3h x reader #fire emblem three houses x reader #dimitri alexandre blaiddyd #smut at the end #smut

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jcisthebestfightme · 4 years

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BJYX Song #8: Brother and Sister

BJYX Song Series List

Disclaimer: My own speculations only.

So after two very sweet songs from gg, we’re back to dd. Dd, why are all your song so sad? Even though we see dd very happy with gg all the time, the songs he chose all reflect his insecurities, especially with age and gender.

The song I want to talk about today is “Brother and Sister” by Easen Chen, one of dd’s favorite artist that he listen to since he was young. Even though the title says “brother” and “sister”, which implies a guy and a girl, on Baidu Baike (Chinese Wikipedia), it says that this song describe a love so pure, it even exceeds gender. It says “它甚至可以是同性的爱情” which translate to “it can even be love between two people of the same gender.” The lyrics is written by a man that’s famous in the Chinese music world for his sexuality and writing songs that speaks about unrequited love in homosexual relationships.

This song was listed on the top of his song list when it was displayed during the ttxs episode that gg was there for. Since the events of Bombology, we know that dd tried really hard to get gg on the show and was mad at him for almost not coming. This allow people to speculate that dd is showing gg this song list, which was full of sad love songs, in order to convey to him his feelings of sadness and insecurities in their relationship. I think that they may be songs dd listen to when ggdd had a period of separation after the filming of CQL when gg wanted to get out of character and figure out how they can be together in the future. I think dd is using this as an opportunity to let gg know how much pain he was in back then. You obviously wouldn’t go up to the person you’re dating now and be like “hey listen to these songs I listen to when we were on a break.” And since he was already pissed from gg’s almost in-attendance, he may be using this to get some attention. We know from gg’d reaction that this is the first time he saw this song list or songs similar to this style from dd. When the list was first shown, he was like “What? This is your song list?” And then later, he asked again, “Is this really your song list? I feel like it’s wrong.” (summarizing) Dd then responded that he has many different song lists. So gg was surprise to see this side of dd. Dd likes to act proud and strong so he probably rarely show his vulnerable side to gg, especially when it’s about their relationship.

youtube

The backstory of the song already tells us that we can interpret “brother” and “sister” to also be between two “brothers.” If anything, I think this is the song that directly refute anyone that likes to say ggdd’s relationship is friendly, just like brothers. If you watch the music video of this song, it’s actually about the homosexual relationship between two girls.

對我好　對我好　好到無路可退 ([You’re] nice to me, nice to me, to a point of no return)

可是我也很想　有個人陪 (But I also really want, to have someone to accompany me)

才不願把你得罪 (So I’m unwilling to upset you)

The first line uses repetition to emphasize how “nice” the other person is over and over again. We can see that gg also treats dd this way, creating a safe space to allow dd to be himself and not getting mad at dd when he’s being stubborn. I’ve analyze before in “If I were a song” that this is the way gg show love to dd and this is the way he thinks he can best love dd. However, I never thought about how dd feels about this. This first line tells us that maybe dd can misinterpret it? He knows gg is being nice and loving to him but it actually makes him feel insecure. Is gg being nice because he treats me like a child? Just like family? Is he just a nice person?

The line “to a point of no return” tells us that dd is completely head over heels for gg, which most of us can see with our own eyes. Here, we learn he know so himself. He knows gg is nice to him and he knows he likes gg. But wants more than that. He was gg to “accompany” him. “Accompany” here means someone to spend eternity with. Dd is saying he desire to never let go of gg. If we assume that he’s speaking about the period where they were on a break in late 2018, then dd is super insecure about where his future with gg is. They spent an entire summer being in an ambiguous flirtatious stage, that may or may have developed into an early relationship. But then gg left him and he feels really hurt. He want to hold gg close forever but he can’t because he loves him too much. That’s why he’s “unwilling to upset” gg. We can see from their interactions and the song “Nan Hai” that dd is actually the one that’s more self-abased and less confident in the relationship. He’s so afraid of not being to provide for gg.

於是那麼迂迴 (So we walk in circles)

一時進　一時退　保持安全範圍 (Sometimes we move forward, sometimes we move back, we stay in the safe zone)

This part of the song talks about how ggdd was during that ambiguous state. They push and pull, testing each other to see how far they can take their relationship. The word “進 (forward)” and “退 (backwards)” before? Yes, they were the same motifs as in “If I were young.” In “If I were young,” knowing when to move forward and backwards show maturity. But here, it’s telling us that even though knowing these limits show maturity, it’s also very painful to be stuck in the ambiguity. For someone as young and straightforward as dd, he must be in a lot of agony. But because of his gender and age, I think dd feels like he must endure this because he can’t be as straightforward as a more socially acceptable romantic pursuit.

這個陰謀讓我　好慚愧 (This scheme makes me ashamed)

享受被愛滋味　卻不讓你想入非非 (Enjoying the feeling of being loved, but won’t let you get what you want)

We can feel dd’s agony in this stage. But instead of making himself the victim, he’s actually blaming himself for “enjoying the feeling of being loved” too much. It’s almost as if he feels like he doesn’t deserve this love he has with gg so every moment he has with him, it’s godsent. This explains why dd is so self-abased in this relationship. He feels “ashamed” for wanting more from the relationship so he’s unwilling to let go and allow gg to “do whatever he wants” because he’s scared that maybe what gg wants is just friendship or brotherhood.

就讓我們虛偽 (Let’s be fake)

The word “fake” here has many layers. Because CQL is a BL drama, many people often accuse ggdd as being fake in their relationship as a form of queer-baiting for promoting the show and gaining popularity. So I think the “let’s be fake” can hit too close home for dd because he doesn’t want to have to sell out his relationship with gg but at the same time, if he can use this excuse to be close to gg, should he? This goes the same for their roles as WWX and LWJ. They could use their “fake” persona who are two lovers as an excuse to be lovey-dovey with each other without ever revealing their feelings. We know from all the interviews how much dd wants to separate himself from LWJ but gg during filming sees himself as WWX so dd also struggles with using LWJ as an excuse to get close gg.

有感情　別浪費 (Have feelings, shouldn’t be wasted)

This line is basically giving in to his desire. Dd knows that true “feelings” exist between them and for someone as ambitious as he is, he won’t let any opportunity “go to waste”. We can see from how determined he is about dancing, motorcycle, skateboard, etc. that he would not let anything go. This is also true about his feelings for gg, at least that’s what he wants. However, there is a lot more insecurity when it comes to love and so while dd wants to grab on like he does with his hobbies, part of him is also afraid to move forward.

不能相愛的一對 (Two people that can’t love each other)

親愛像兩兄妹 (Emotionally close like brother and sister)

This goes back to the theme in all of dd’s songs that talks about not being able to be together because of gender and age. Here, even though we’ve established previously that genuine feelings exist, they “can’t” love each other and have to settle for being “brothers.” I think the label of “brothers” is also particularly agonizing for dd because that’s how homophobia in China like to wash homosexual relationship, for example saying that Wangxian’s relationship is just brotherly. So if ggdd can’t be lovers, being “brothers” would be socially acceptable relationship for them.

愛讓我們虛偽 (Love allow us to be fake/hypocritical)

The relationship feels fake because it’s not exactly what dd genuinely wants. They use their roles as actors and Wangxian’s relationship to cover up a lot of their feelings for each other.

我得到　於事無補的安慰 (What I gain is useless comfort)

你也得到模仿愛上一個人的機會 (What you gain is the chance to imitate falling in love with someone)

This echos the first line of the song that gg gives dd a lot of care. But the “comfort” is “useless” because no matter how much gg gives, if they’re not honest about their relationship, dd’s heart will always have a gaping hole that the comfort can never fill. Since dd is uncertain of what gg feels, all he sees is gg acting like he’s liking someone so that’s why it feels like gg is just “imitating” the act of falling in love. We know now that gg does love him but when you’re in a fog of ambiguous relationship, you can never be sure if the other person is in love with love or in love with you.

殘忍也不失慈悲 (It’s brutal but still have mercy)

這樣的關係你說　多完美 (This kind of relationship, won’t you say it’s wonderful?)

These two lines have a tone of mockery. The oxymoron of “brutal” and “mercy” paints the push and pull relationship they were in during filming and the up and down dd must have felt when they were on a break. We know dd is a very blunt person and doesn’t like to beat around the bush. So for him to be in this state, it must be agonizing, painful, and “brutal” so the word “wonderful” is definitely mockery.

眼看你　看著我　看得那麼曖昧 (Look at you, looking at me, looking so “ai mei”)

被愛愛人原來一樣可悲 (Being loved and loving someone apparently is equally pitiful)

I purposefully didn’t translate “ai mei” because to me, there is no good English word for it. It describe an ambiguous state before dating when you’re flirty yet uncertain. When we watch the CQL bts, “ai mei” is the pink flurry bubbles we see between ggdd. Here, the song perfectly describes that state during filming. It also uses “eyes” and “looking” to describe this “ai mei” between ggdd because the most obvious sign of ggdd liking each other in my opinion is the way they look at each other, whether as Wangxian or as themselves. But the next line tells us that while it seems pink and fluffy from outsiders, it’s actually “pitiful” that that’s all they can have, for both parties. I think here dd thinks the’s the one that is “loving someone” and gg is the one that’s “being loved”, establishing an unequal position between them. But I think that they love each other equally and that dd was just too in a mist to see it.

為什麼竟然防備　別人給我獻媚 (Why guard? The flattery others give me)

不能推　不能要　要了怕你誤會 (Can’t deny, can’t want, I worry if I want you will misunderstand)

讓我想起曾經　愛過誰　我所要的她不給 (Let me be reminded of a person I used to love, and she didn’t love me back)

好像小偷一樣卑微 (I was just as pitiful as a thief)

The “can’t deny, can’t want” echos the beating around the bush feeling. You can feel the ambiguous tension in this verse. The song talks about another girl that the singer used to love that didn’t love them back. Here, I’m going to assume that dd just empathize with the feeling and not take it literally. The line “as pitiful as a thief” really breaks my heart. Dd must have felt like the love he was receiving didn’t really belong to him and that every moment he was bask in it, he was being greedy.

The actual plot of the whole song is about a girl liking the singer and the singer didn’t like her back but still enjoy the ambiguous situation they were in. My own head cannon for this song is that for dd, he empathize more with the pain of the push and pull described in the song more than the plot. He’s unsure where his relationship with gg stand. If he listen to this song during late 2018 when they barely contact, he must’ve been using this ambiguous pain to describe the relationship they had during summer 2018. It may’ve been sweet but dd was always in a state of fear of loss. And since he wasn’t in contact with gg, he is also afraid that gg will come back and say they should just be “brothers.” “Brotherhood” must be one of the most painful definition for ggdd because during their interviews in summer 2019, they always refer to each other as “friends” (or “like friends”) and rarely ever use “brothers” because “friends” can imply “best friends” and “boyfriend” but “brothers” can only ever be platonic.

This song was as agonizing to analyze as it was to listen to. But it’s such a beautiful piece. It’s actually really hard not to let my own emotion get to my analysis haha. I will pick something happier for my next one, probably gg’s view again.

Also, happy birthday, dd! This is the 8th song to represent you. The music video also have them celebrating a cake. I hope you have move away from pain and are celebrating with loved ones <3

#bjyx #yizhan

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mimik-u · 4 years

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Flower Child (Chapter 13): Blue (III)

Goodness, I'm nearly a year and a half late, but here we are—Chapter 13 of "Flower Child." First of all, I want to give my sincerest apologies for the delay... I mentioned this at the start of my fic "Facets," but the simplest and truest story is that my muse for writing Steven Universe and, well, writing in general petered out for a long time and has only recently returned. But, because it has recently returned, I wanted to begin to make good on a promise I made to you guys so many months ago—that one day, I would finish this story. So let's do this. <3 I'm ready now.

(1) I read through the previous twelve chapters, lmao, and half-loved and half-hated my writing, but the point of that exercise, beyond getting acquainted with the plot of "FC" again, was to also do some quick grammar and flow revisions, so a few of the previous chapters should read just a little better than maybe they had before.

(2) Fun fact! Chapter 13 is pretty interesting because some portions of it were actually written over a year ago; it was an incredible challenge for me to work with what I had as a 2019 writer versus what I've learned as a 2020 writer.

(4) Someone asked on Tumblr a long time ago if there was a playlist I worked with in writing this story...

(5) And finally, and most importantly, this chapter is incredibly heavy, dealing with themes of suicidal ideation and extreme depression.

Please be cautious while reading if these are topics that are triggering to you!

The shiny, black town car eased to a stop at the pull-through entrance of the hospital, drawing the gazes of passerby on the sidewalk. An older lady in a wheelchair, a group of what appeared to be college kids in scrubs, a scraggly-looking patient who’d obviously escaped the confines of his room to light a cigarette—they all stopped and stared as the back door of the overtly fancy car was pried open from the inside out, as a metal cane preceded a woman who quite looked like she needed it.

Blue Diamond unfolded into the light of day, trembling.

Because it was hard.

It was so hard.

To be here.

(To be.)

She wanted to collapse where she stood, dissemble and dissolve away one piece of herself at a time; she leaned heavily on the head of her cane and lit upon the sole pair of eyes that weren’t looking at her—or, really, her Lincoln. The man named Greg Universe stood next to the automatic doors with his hands shoved deep into his pockets, staring at the ground, all but boring a hole into it. When the sliding doors opened and closed at his backside, they appeared to be ripping into him, piece by miserable piece.

“I’ll call when I’m ready,” Blue murmured to her valet before shutting the door and slowly hobbling over to Greg.

Clank.

The onlookers glanced away as the town car drove off, resumed their lives and cared not for yet another broken person in their midst. The hospital was full of them as it was. Perhaps they were even broken themselves—very probably they were.

Blue Diamond did not care to know.

Clank.

I’m betraying her, she thought, she was always thinking. I’m leaving her behind. I’m betraying her. I’m—

Clank.

The clanking did the trick, catching Greg’s attention and only half-holding it. He lifted his head slowly and mustered a smile that must have been agony. It wobbled on his lips and very nearly disappeared in his bushy beard. It pulled at him—all over. He looked like a Picasso gone wrong, an abstraction of a man stretched too far.

“Hey, just in time.” He gave a shaky little laugh that rather sounded like a sob and then somehow kept talking, his entire physiognomy alive with his nerves. “Steven’s so excited to see you again. He hasn’t stopped talking about ya since this morning, which is kinda nuts because he was so tired yesterday, but this is a good thing, and so we should really go up and see him now because—”

She cut across him; it was a quiet act, a merciful one. “Greg.”

It was just his name, a singular syllable, a sound, but even that was enough.

Mr. Universe’s face fell into geometric disarray.

“No use hiding it, huh?” He half-wept, half-laughed again, scrubbing a hand over his face and bringing up his shirt to soak up what was left.

“No,” Blue Diamond whispered, her hands tightening on the head of her cane. “It’s scrawled all over you, I’m afraid.”

“Figures,” he said hoarsely. “I’m a mess.”

“No more than I am.” She pried one of her hands away from the other and gestured loosely at her entire body with a wry smile. “If you’re a mess, then I am a dereliction.”

It wasn’t a contest; it was the truth.

Four years of grieving had wasted her.

Blue Diamond was skeletal.

Broken.

Greg took this in and considered; his smile that really wasn’t a smile resolved itself into a quiet, aching sort of frown. It tugged his face downwards; it tugged at the hollows of her chest. She’d seen him only a little over a week ago, and yet today, he looked as though he’d aged a hundred years in the span of eight days. There were bags under his eyes and sunken dunes in his cheeks.

There was a little boy in a hospital bed.

There was a disease.

It was killing them both.

“How do I do this?” He asked the ground. “How did you—” But he stopped short; his breath hitched.

It was a highly personal question after all.

It was no short wonder that Blue’s cane didn’t snap beneath her grip.

“How did I do it?” She returned softly all the same. The slight breeze stirred the strands of hair poking out of her silvery braid.

Greg nodded mutely, the desperation in his face tangible. She could reach out if she wanted and touch his hurt, the very heart of it, and all of its dimensions. (She didn’t want to.)

“To be entirely truthful,” she murmured, “I’m not sure that I ever did.”

ii.

It was nearly one o’clock in the afternoon, and it was also 2:38AM, the very moment when a police officer had the audacity to come to their door and tell two mothers that their daughter was dead, gone, and never coming back. His expression was a gathering bruise, and his words were like bullets, striking right between the ribs.

Blue Diamond couldn’t breathe.

In the darkness, she sat on the edge of Pink’s bed and dragged every mouthful of air inwards like it was painful; her chest heaved with the awfulness of it, the punctured horror of leaking lungs.

Her child was dead.

Oh, God.

Her child was gone.

Why, oh, why, oh, God, my God?

And she was never coming back.

Goddammit.

In the coagulated darkness, Blue clutched her daughter’s favorite sweatshirt close to her chest; it was black and ratty, full of holes and little tears. A small alien logo perched on the chest, grinning up at her from depthless eyes.

They used to fight over this particular number.

Constantly.

“You’re a multibillion dollar heiress.” Blue would pinch the bridge of her nose and try not to raise her voice above an acerbic whisper. “Would it inconvenience you to buy some nicer clothes?”

Pink was unsparing in her retorts, wicked and witty, face upturned in a haughtiness to match her mother’s own.

“Would it inconvenience you to get off my ass, Mother? It’s just a sweatshirt.”

“Pink!”

And on and on.

The fabric was cold between Blue’s long fingers, still scented with Pink’s favorite perfume.

They were going to bury her today, mere hours from now.

Last week, they’d been fighting over this shirt.

On and on and never again.

The funeral… mere hours from now… less than three… but how could that also be true when it was only 1:52AM and Pink Diamond was coughing her last, strangled breath on a dirty pavement outside a bar on 9th Avenue?

Blue Diamond hadn’t been there, but she forced the words on the detective’s report to come to life in the theatre of her mind’s eye anyway. By the time the paramedics had arrived, Pink was all but gone; she gasped, and she coughed, and her brown eyes marbled in one final supernova of emotion. They tried to resuscitate her, but the damage was too extensive.

She’d fought back, the officer had said. (He thought it was a consolation to them.)

The proof was caked in her nails and scratched all over her arms, but it’d been three against one.

She was a lion, and they were men; she was a twenty-one year old girl, and they were men.

In the darkness, unraveling, Blue Diamond’s face dripped onto the sweatshirt, onto the alien smiling up at her with a black sliver of a mocking grin. She did not register—she did not care to register—the slow creaking of the door opening inwards.

Amber light strained from the hallway to find and reach and touch her but didn’t quite make it.

Yellow Diamond was a shadowy figure in the doorway.

“You shouldn’t be in here,” she scolded, and yet, she moved into the room anyway—the hypocrite—her sharp heels muffled in the carpet. Stiff and forbidding, she came to stand in front of Blue, arms crossed over her chest, a frown crossed over her face. “It’s not healthy for you, Bl—“

But Blue cut across her. It was not a kind act; it was a precise incision—cold and surgical—three inches long and just as deep. “Our daughter is dead, Yellow.”

The shadowy figure recoiled but did not bite.

Even now, Yellow couldn’t bear to be seen as vulnerable, couldn’t bear to give one damn inch.

“I know that, dammit,” she muttered to the wall. “Dammit—do you not think I know that?”

But Blue had no pity for her, no shred of any emotion left except for the vicious tangle of grief; it tangled in her fingers, which sunk deep into Pink’s shirt, and it tangled in her cold eyes, leaking down her pale face and salting her anemic lips.

“Then act like it,” she hissed.

The exhortation bruised the air.

It demanded a reaction.

On its hands and knees, it begged for a response.

And yet, the shadowy figure said nothing. She didn't move her clenched fists.

She could not face Blue in the eyes.

Coward.

Hypocrite.

(Mourner.)

(Mourning.)

She simply left, staggering out of the room on precariously high heels, and Blue simply stayed, conflating the hours and the days and the minutes.

Later that day, they buried their daughter in a mausoleum, a gazebo—in a cemetery slathered in golden sun.

iii.

Greg explained the details as best as he could on the way up to Steven’s room. It was hard to find him a kidney because his blood type was O negative, which meant that he would only be able to receive a kidney from a Type O donor. And though he’d been on the waiting list for months now, and though he’d recently been moved to the top of the list given his worsening condition, it was still anyone’s guess as to when a kidney would become available.

(“If,” he could barely choke out, “we can even get one at all.”)

After slowly making their way across an expansive skywalk, they finally arrived at a pair of double doors labeled Truman Ward. The sun pierced through the tall glass windows and lit upon Blue’s sunken face, and Greg’s red eyes, and her metallic cane, and his wobbling lips—as though it was doing them a favor by doing so.

Greg reached behind her and pressed a button on the wall, alerting someone on the other side to their arrival.

“Listen”—he ran his hand along the back of his neck as the doors slowly parted open in welcome—“I’m going to go back to the room for a bit and see if I can get some paperwork done. Feel free to stay as long as ya’d like. Visiting hours don’t end ’til eight.”

Blue stared at him.

Every moment—every hour, minute, and second with this child was precious nowadays, and here Greg was, lending her time out of his own.

She felt the gift of what he was offering deeply.

(She could have never found it in herself to be so generous with Pink.)

“Thank you.” She swept a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “I… I appreciate you allowing me to visit him.”

But he only shook his head and urged her through the doors with a pinched smile.

“If he’s happy that you’re here,” he shrugged, “then I am, too.”

And with that, he waved a last goodbye, and the doors folded to a close again with her on the other side of them.

Room 11037.

Walking became a monumental task as the clinically white hallway stretched out before her, lengthened by her mind, twisted and contorted into an obstacle she had to surmount.

It should have been just a hall.

Clank.

The memory of Pink burned bright behind her eyelids, stained there permanently by principle but stamped in starkly with assistance from the harsh fluorescents overhead. She was laughing, always laughing, in these flashbulb reminiscences, her freckles coalescing and then expanding across the bridge of her nose like the bellows of an accordion.

Clank.

But it wasn’t just Pink, though it always would be.

Clank.

It was Steven now.

Clank.

A ghost she chased, as opposed to the one who perpetually haunted her (who mercifully, who cruelly stayed.)

Clank.

But he wasn’t a ghost just yet, right? He was still here and still fighting—did that not count for something? Didn't his heartbeat, the very state of its continued existence, teach her to hope?

Clank.

But hope was such an awful word—so empty, brimming with meaningless sensationalism.

Clank.

(Maybe it was the vestiges of her long dead religion, but she wanted to hope anyway.)

Clank.

Hope was such an awful word.

Clank.

Room 11037.

The door was decisively closed.

A tall woman with bicolored eyes leaned against it, her dark lips corkscrewed into a frown.

Blue Diamond vaguely remembered her from the cemetery but couldn’t quite place a name. She could place an expression, though, and was surprised to name the one on this stranger’s face as disdain. Disdain rolled off this mysterious woman in waves, from the resolute clench of her jaw to the iron way that her arms were folded across her chest. It burned in her eyes. It seemed to languish inside of her, seething just under a facade of smooth skin.

She was a monolith of quiet loathing.

Blue squared her rounded shoulders in a manner she thought to be composed; her hands trembled on her cane nonetheless.

“You don’t like me very much, do you?” She asked it quite politely, even as the walls were harsh and white around them. She used to command rooms by the authoritative nature of her voice alone, and now she struggled to keep it together long enough to face a singular woman in front of a singular door.

“It’s not you specifically,” the woman replied, impressively put together, admirably composed. If her electric blue eye was cold, the brown one simply burned. Both were bruised underneath with tired shadows. “It’s what you stand for. It’s about the morals that Diamond Electric doesn’t have.”

“You’re an activist,” Blue surmised quickly, almost flippantly. Activists were challenging DE all of the time, and activists were always losing. Before Pink… she’d largely assumed that these sorts of protesters simply had no logical case. After Pink, she had had much more consuming thoughts on her mind than petty lawsuits against their multibillion dollar company.

“A Crystal Gem,” she corrected tersely, “but that’s not what I want to talk to you about.” Her gaze slid subtly to the doorway behind her, and Blue understood her at once.

“Steven,” she whispered.

The woman nodded.

“Steven,” she agreed, and her voice cracked as she said it, splintering into thousands of little pieces and struggling to regroup. When she swallowed to compose herself, it was almost as though she was swallowing the shards. “He likes you, and I can’t… I won’t begrudge him that.”

In the way that she said it, it was almost like she was convincing herself most of all.

“There is an implicit but there,” Blue parried softly. “You won’t begrudge him that, but.”

Again, the woman nodded, the gesture slow and measured, as though she was working something out in the tiny motion. When her squared chin came up again, her mismatched eyes were bright, intense with quiet pain.

“But don’t hurt him.”

It was a reasonable demand, but the implication behind it stung immediately and anyway.

She inhaled sharply and scrambled to defend herself, to salvage the punctured wound, but the damage was already done. Her voice came out more broken than it did cold.

“I wouldn’t dare.”

“Maybe not intentionally,” the Crystal Gem said, shaking her head. “Most people never really intend to hurt someone… but it happens. We get caught up in our emotions. We get selfish. We get distant. And then we hurt people.”

It struck Blue Diamond at that very moment that she hadn’t even deigned to ask the woman’s name.

“So, all I’m saying is don’t hurt him.” She unfolded herself from the door and stepped aside. “He likes you.”

iv.

Two days after the first anniversary of Pink Diamond’s death, a doctor shined a light in Blue Diamond’s glassy eyes and waited for a pupillary response. When he received one—an involuntary but nonetheless reactive blink—he unceremoniously clicked off his pen light and straightened up into the unfriendly darkness once more.

In the sparse incandescence bleeding in from the hallway, Yellow Diamond cut a shadowy figure by his side, her usually tidy hair rumpled from all the times her fingers had become ensnared in it that day.

Her tie was loose, and lines had already begun to etch themselves beneath those hawklike eyes of hers.

Soon, they would become permanent fixtures, marked there by time and age and grief.

For now, though, they were only suggestions.

Hints of what was to come.

(So many sleepless nights.)

(How many haunted days?)

“Well?” Though the CEO tried hard to strangle her voice into a whisper, the sharpness of the syllable was still the loudest sound in the room. Subtlety had never quite been this woman’s strong suit; she wielded her words as though they were gavels to proclaim on the heads of all who dared to cross her path.

“Catatonic depression,” the doctor replied, just as succinctly, replacing his pen in the pocket of his lab coat. “The staring, the lack of movement, the loss of appetite, the elective mutism. All textbook symptoms that point to the fact that your wife is still grieving, Mrs. Diamond. Frankly, I’m worried for her health.”

The shadow on his left scowled at this diagnosis, and she fidgeted, and it was apparent by these two idiosyncrasies alone that she was scrounging deep for some incisive rebuttal against the truth that laid like a breathing corpse directly below her.

“Then what, pray tell, do you intend to do about it?” Her voice exceeded its former intentions of quietness. “That’s the problem. Now what’s the solution?”

“Well, I admit her to the hospital and start her on an intravenous Lorazepam treatment. It’s a sedative. It’ll assuage some of her anxiety and relax her muscles to prevent spasming.”

“Yes, and then?”

They were talking about her as though she wasn’t even there.

It was a fair enough assessment.

“And then what, Mrs. Diamond?” The doctor stared at her incredulously, shoving both of his hands in his pockets. “With all due respect, I can treat your wife’s physical symptoms from sunup to sundown, but that’s not touching the heart of what is truly debilitating her. She’s grieving, ma’am, and she needs psychiatric treatment beyond what I can provide as a private doctor and you can provide as her spouse. We discussed this the last time I was here.”

“And the time before that—yes, I know,” Yellow Diamond laughed humorlessly, the sound half-mad in her constricted throat. “Because you stand there, like an imbecile, and tell me that there’s no underlying medical cause to this?!”

She jabbed an accusing hand at Blue Diamond, whose oceanic eyes were wide open and unseeing, silent tears slipping from the corners of them and falling sideways across her face. There was an untouched tray of food on her nightstand. There was a lankness in her unwashed hair. There were pill bottles accumulating like a grotesque collection next to the alarm clock.

And there was an air, an atmosphere, an oppression of silent decay.

The funereality of it was undeniable.

An uncomfortable wooden chair stood next to the bed where Yellow Diamond had been sitting vigil for the past two nights since they had visited the cemetery on the day of the anniversary.

Blue Diamond’s keening sobs had sliced the autumnal air.

Her daughter was dead.

Gone.

Never coming back.

She stared at nothing, it seemed to Yellow and the doctor; she languished in the visions of Pink that seized across her mind with every dripping second of consciousness.

“Depression is an underlying medical cause, Mrs. Diamond.”

The doctor’s voice softened.

Minimally.

For the first time since the house call had begun, his lanky silhouette jerked a little, as though he wanted to place a hand on the CEO’s shoulder, but thought better of it upon seeing something forbidding in the other’s expression.

“And she’s tired, ma’am. You both are.” Look at you, his rust colored eyes seemed to say. You’re both historical wrecks to a long dead ghost. “You can’t take care of her alone… moreover, you shouldn’t have to.”

But the doctor had finally overstepped one prying comment too far, and he must have known it immediately, because he took a step back from the golden eyes glowering at him in the darkness of that dusty bedroom.

Yellow Diamond’s entire face transformed, twisting itself into facets of shattered rage.

She was feral.

(Wounded.)

Apoplectic with fury.

(Grieving, she was inconsolable.)

Dangerous.

Goddammit, she was on fire.

“Do not ever deign to tell me what I can and can’t do when it comes to my wife,” she snarled, all pretense of quietness long gone, devoured in the hurricane of emotion. “Get out! OUT!”

“Mrs. Diamond, please—“

“I SAID OUT! OUT!” She shrieked, harshly shoving his shoulder with the flats of her palms. “GET THE HELL OUT!”

The doctor did not need telling again; he fled the room as the force of Yellow Diamond’s dismissal stoned his back.

Blue blinked slowly as a shaking hand suddenly clasped her arm in the wake of the carnage, the imprint of a steel wedding band carving itself into her flesh.

That hurts, Yellow.

She blinked again, the words swelling on her tongue and dying there unrestfully.

That hurts.

The warnings of Steven’s guardian standing sentinel on top of her frantically beating heart, Blue Diamond turned the knob to Room 11037 and pushed inwards until the door reluctantly gave way to a sight she had forgotten to steel herself for in-between the guilt of moving on and the agonizing action of doing so.

Steven himself.

Dwarfed in a hospital bed.

A mere wisp of the boy who had sat with her on the balcony only three days ago and stuffed his face with little chocolate cakes.

Her prodigious mind working far ahead of her paralyzed body, she frantically tried to recall his text from yesterday, what it had said about his condition, if it had indicated anything about his current state at all. But he had only told her that he had passed out and ended up in the hospital again. The boy had said nothing about the extensive tubing and the wires that ribboned and scissored his entire body in streaming colors. Lines crisscrossed each other and tumbled over and under and around his blankets.

She saw the bottom of an empty catheter bag at the edge of the bed.

And the bruises like angry embers pulsing up his arms.

Somehow, amongst all the other things she was absorbing at precisely the same time, she noticed that next to a vase of elegantly arranged sunflowers, there was an inelegantly arranged tray of hospital food.

Untouched.

He had texted not a word about the yellow pallor of his skin.

He had used exclamation points—exclamation points!—to indicate his excitement.

Blue Diamond could not shake the notion, the very absurd idea, that he had lied to her somehow, had drawn her here under false pretenses.

(This was not the truth. She had estimated at what she was getting herself into and crossed the line into getting herself into it anyway.)

“Hi,” Steven Universe said sheepishly, his cheeks flushing darkly. He was caught, and he knew it. “It’s good to see you again, Blue.”

The seconds dripped between them.

The heart monitor on the wall counted them out.

One…

Blue’s plump lips parted slightly.

Two…

Her hand shivered on the head of her cane until the sound of it rattled the clinically quiet room.

Three…

She couldn’t do this again.

She wouldn’t grieve for another dead child.

One had been too much—one had almost killed her.

Four…

God, and there were still days where she wondered if it still would.

Without thinking, desperate for relief, Blue turned away and braced her free hand on the door, drawing in harsh, ragged breaths that scratched at her beaten lungs, that bled them anew until they were leaking.

Who was she to believe that she wasn’t falling apart at her seams? How delusional was she to hope that a boy with a flower would be the difference between her saving grace and her inevitable dissolution? Was she so naïve to overlook the contours of his illness and think that his determination would be enough to save him from the eternal truth of this world? Was she so weak?

Death didn't discriminate between the old and the young, the sinner and the saint.

Pink Diamond was only twenty-one years old.

Steven Universe was a child.

“Blue!” Steven pleaded. “Wait, please don’t go. I—”

“I cannot look at you, Steven Universe," she cut across him, her voice low and fractured. Hot tears stood in her eyes, suddenly blurring her hand against the smooth door. “I’m sorry, but I cannot bear to see…”

“Can’t bear to see that I’m dying?”

He didn’t just refuse to mince the word; he stabbed it into her back so remorselessly that she gasped sharply. She glanced down at her chest and half-expected to see it lodged there, poking out, her beating heart speared on its tip.

“People can skirt around the word all they want,” Steven laughed bitterly, “but there’s no other word for it… without a kidney, I’m gonna die soon, Blue Diamond. I’m dying right now. I think I’ve been dying all this time. And everyone… all they wanna do… is look away from me. Pearl, Garnet, my dad…”

He sniffed.

“They keep looking away, and I’m so tired of it… I-I’m exhausted.”

The door felt cold against her palm.

Icy.

On the balcony, two days ago, she accused Yellow Diamond of shoving their daughter away in a drawer with the rest of her useless items.

In an arctic hospital room, Blue Diamond was ready to consign a boy to the same grave her daughter was buried in…

… but dead children couldn’t talk.

Dead children couldn’t be tired.

They were simply dead.

“So, please, Blue Diamond… please don’t look away.”

The seconds dripped between them.

The heart monitor on the wall counted them out.

One…

Her eyes were wide with the horror of everything, of it all, the senselessness, the depravity, the nihilistic revolutions of this awful, uncaring world.

“I had a daughter once,” she whispered to the door. “Her name was Pink Diamond, and she was… she is… my everything. She had a smile wider than this planet could ever hope to contain… and she very much liked to laugh.”

She had never talked about Pink to anyone other than Yellow before.

Even evoking her name felt like blasphemy.

Two…

A second passed, and no lightning fell from the sky to strike her dead; she supposed her own self-flagellation was the punishment and the eternal damnation alike.

“I looked away. Yellow and I both did. She wanted more from life, and we wanted to contain her life into… into a little box that could fit on the shelf with all our other trophies. She was our accomplishment, you see, our legacy.”

Three…

Blue Diamond’s hand fell away from the door, so she could bring it up to her mouth in a futile attempt to dam the sobs that racked her shoulders.

Four…

“We looked away. The night that she… she—” She couldn’t bring herself to say the word aloud. She wasn’t brave like Steven. “We thought she was in her room, and I didn’t tell her that I loved her that night because we had argued… I thought I’d get the chance the next day or the day after that because we argued all the time. It was normal for us.”

On and on and never again.

When was the last time Blue Diamond had said those three words to her daughter?

These past four years, she had scoured her brain for the answer, but the answer was as elusive as the phrase was from her mouth.

For the simple truth of the matter was that she hadn’t said it very often.

In all her vast intellect, she had always assumed that it was assumed.

Implied.

Understood.

You’ll never let me grow up, will you?

I love you, she could have said.

You’ll never let me grow up, will you?

I didn’t want you to, she would have replied then. I wanted you to collect dust with all the rest of our awards and certificates. I wanted you safe, where I could see you. I wanted to quantify the entirety of your life and itemize the particulars. I wanted you to always be mine.

I love you.

I looked away.

An oxymoron.

A tragedy.

Five…

“So if I look at you, Steven Universe,” she murmured, screwing her eyes closed tightly against the pain, “really look at you, then I have to face that truth again—that I loved someone once… and I looked away… and now she’s… gone.”

And that was the immutable truth of the matter, the conclusion she circled around to no matter how many times the Earth continued to revolve away from the day since Pink Diamond had last existed on this world.

Four thousand revolutions later, and this would still be what it came down to in the end.

Her daughter’s blood was on her hands, staining them crimson, veining her lifelines with the guilt and the awfulness and the unbearable, crucifying shame.

And her daughter’s blood cried out, You’ll never let me grow up, will you?

And every time she so much as looked at her own palms, that was the only echo she saw written across their hollows.

Those last words.

Unanswered.

Unfinished.

Undoing and undone.

Six…

“But… I’m not gone yet,” Steven argued softly. His voice fought to be heard over all the machinery keeping him alive. “I’m here.”

He must have moved because blankets shifted somewhere behind her.

Dead children didn’t move.

Dead children weren’t here.

They were simply—

Seven…

Eight…

Nine…

Ten…

Do it, she commanded herself.

Look at him.

But Blue Diamond was frozen, and she was statuesque; she was a calcification barely anchored on the foundation of her cane. One false move and she would crumble entirely.

The safest bet on her own survival was to limp away and dare not look behind her lest she turn to salt and dust.

Someone else could clean up the carnage.

That woman who stood at the door—she’d do it—Greg Universe and the boy’s other guardians, too.

Don’t hurt him, that same woman had also said. He likes you.

Eleven…

Twelve…

Thirteen...

vi.

It was wash day.

For nearly a year and half after Pink Diamond died, Yellow would force Blue out of bed every few days for a bath or a shower—usually a shower because it was becoming increasingly hard for the CEO to lift her wife in and out of the tub.

Today was a tub sort of occasion, though.

Date night with the Diamonds.

The presence of death was always with them, though, an intrusive third wheel.

With a slight groan, Yellow lowered herself into the warm water behind Blue, steam rising around their naked skin like curling smoke. Once upon a time, this used to be a favorite pastime of theirs, a chance to reacquaint themselves with each other and their bodies… but now the gesture was simply hygienic in purpose, asexual and quiet.

It was always quiet in the Diamonds’ penthouse suite these days.

Silent.

“Is it too hot?” Yellow asked, her voice as gentle as she could wrangle it. Somehow, at the same time, it was still edged with the trappings of harshness. “I can add some cold water?"

She waited briefly for a reply that would never come.

Blue stared limply at her knees, pulled up awkwardly as they were to her chest. Her sensitive skin had already reddened in a couple of places where it was touching the water. There were pink fingerprints wrapped around her armpits where she’d been handled into the tub.

“I think it’s too hot. You’re getting a rash.” A well-manicured hand flashed out from behind her ear and knobbed the far left tap. There was a quick murmur and then the steady hiss of cold water.

“There,” she humphed satisfactorily. “This’ll feel better.”

The running stream answered its assent.

Blue Diamond did not say a word.

She hadn’t in days now, maybe even weeks; time was irrelevant to her, and the words would not come.

There was only a dullness in her head, numb and numbing, like an icy compress coiled tightly around her thoughts.

Yellow didn’t think so, but this was better than the alternative; this was the far superior solution to the problem, the pain, and the pervasiveness of the ghost who was their daughter Pink Diamond.

Because when the analgesic of her own catatonia faded, and some of the feeling tried to seep through, her chest would unfailingly tighten, a vice squeezing hard upon her weary heart.

She couldn’t breathe.

Her child was dead.

“I…”

The sound came from behind her, guttural and choked, as though the speaker was fighting hard against the noise and losing the war.

“I’m so tired, Blue.”

It was an admission, and it was a copout.

Both of them knew that Blue Diamond wasn’t registering a single word.

She heard them—yes, this was true.

But they came to her—they landed softly—like distant echoes; she did not feel the pain of them, the visceral agony; at the present moment, she did not even feel her own pain, the grief and the scalding water and the grief.

Because it was always the grief she was trying to repress.

Everything else was just ancillary.

“You don’t know, goddammit, you can’t know, how exhausted I am.” Yellow Diamond’s voice shattered in the tub.

And her entire body hitched.

As though to keep that from breaking, too.

“You exhaust me, Blue Diamond. You exhaust me every single day. And you don’t even know it, goddammit. Who are you? What the hell have you become?”

The question was delivered to her backside, where it slipped down her tall, curving spine and into the water, splashing there with the delivery of the tap. With a violence that was almost cruel, Yellow reached from behind her again and flung it back into an off position.

There was quietness then.

It was so still, that it was disquiet.

It was always quiet in the Diamonds’ penthouse suite these days.

Silent.

Blue continued to stare blankly at her knees.

There were red patches on her skin.

Her child was dead.

After a moment’s hesitation, her breath heavy on the back of Blue’s long, slender neck, Yellow Diamond gathered her silvery hair gently in one hand and grabbed the comb on the side of the tub with another.

She was careful as she maneuvered its teeth through damp, lank strands.

She always was.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry, Blue.”

That was what Blue Diamond’s note would say merely a few months later.

I’m sorry and I’m sorry and I’m sorry.

Love always, Blue.

But that was the crucial thing, wasn’t it?

Sorry was not enough; love was not enough.

Because if love had been enough, Pink Diamond would still be alive.

vii.

In a hospital room pierced through with golden sun, Blue Diamond turned around and faced the light of day, her heavy braid swinging along with the slow, deliberate motion.

She wasn’t looking away, Steven Universe.

She was staring straight at him—at his sunken face and his tubing and at the catheter bag and at the sunflowers.

The boy was dying, but he was not yet dead.

It wasn’t much.

At the very least, though, it was something.

He was not gone, even if he was going.

He was here.

In this moment, in this very ephemeral second.

The heart monitor on the wall attested to that; it counted his heartbeats; it pleaded with her to have hope.

(Hope was such an awful word.)

“Those are beautiful flowers,” she whispered. Her cane clinked against the tiled floor as she carefully drew closer to observe them better.

Their petals were tall and spiky, assaulting the air with attentiveness and regal magnitude.

They vaguely reminded her of Yellow.

With a light finger, she tried to prop up one that was beginning to droop beneath the weight of all its brethren, but the moment she withdrew her touch, it fell again, sighing listlessly.

Poor thing.

“But not quite as pretty as that hibiscus you bequeathed me.”

Steven’s eyes, edged with the trace remnant of his tears, were wide and dark, full of velvet and silvery stars.

“You don’t still have it, do you?” He asked, incredulous and rather pleased.

He played a little with his hands on top of his blankets.

He tried to tamp down his hope for an affirmative with an unconvincing casualness.

Blue Diamond’s smile bruised her lips.

“I placed it on my nightstand, sweet boy, so I could look at it everyday.”

It took a second, but the irony of that word choice was not lost on either of them.

viii.

Yellow Diamond placed the failed suicide note on her nightstand for Blue to see and know that she saw. They didn’t talk about it afterwards.

How could they?

What was there to say?

It remained there for a few days afterwards, shriveled and guilty-looking next to the alarm clock; every time she opened her eyes, she would see it and feel its quiet condemnation. She would close her eyes against its glare and wait for sleep or numbness one to wrestle her into the dark.

One day, she woke up, and the paper was gone again.

The realization drew a frown across her wrinkled face.

When she thought about getting up to search for it, and mustered the appropriate will to get out of bed, apparently, many days had passed in the interim.

A month.

She only recognized this upon surveying her bathroom on her way to the toilet; she couldn't find her shaving razor anywhere.

One night—the day, the month, the year undetermined in the abscessed haze of her mind—a dull ache throbbed through Blue’s hip, growing in intensity and sharpness with each passing second that she laid on the wounded area.

There was a part of her, not entirely inconsequential, that invited the pain. For after all, suffering was the only victory the woman had left in the entire world; she wrestled with it nightly, and she embraced it. She made it her new lover and exchanged an oath that only death would do them part. She didn’t shoot herself, or cut herself, or swallow a handful of pills that would surely do the trick.

She laid on her bad hip and convinced herself that she deserved it.

But that night—whatever night that it was—the agony was unbearable, pulling at her all over.

With a groan that wasn’t voluntary, Blue wrested herself into some semblance of a sitting position and looked for her phone so that she could call Livia for an ice pack, but it wasn’t on the bedside table as it usually was… and since it wasn’t in its usual position, she had no clue where she had last left it.

If she wanted relief, she would have to brave the kitchen herself.

She wanted relief, and the guilt of it half-immobilized her.

So she sat there for a couple more minutes still and endured the stabbing ache before finally coaxing herself upwards into the dark night of the bedroom.

Assuming her cane in one hand, Blue crept silently towards the door and out of it, where the hallway stretched out before her like a cavernous tunnel, all the lights extinguished.

Even the telltale glow of lamp warmth that usually emitted from the study across the hall was gone out, which meant that Yellow had likely succumbed to sleep on the couch within.

A twinge of something bothered Blue’s sternum at the thought.

She limped forward anyway and all the same, lifting her cane off the floor to keep from making noise; the wall was her guide in its stead, the pads of her long fingers moving along its smooth planes until she reached the end of the archway, where she immediately intuited that she wasn’t alone.

In the moonlight that wept into the living room through the tall windowpanes, Yellow Diamond was a stark figure sitting on the edge of the couch, leached of all her color. Her blonde hair, her silky pajamas, the leathery musculature of her corded neck—all of it was leveled by blinding whiteness.

Illuminated.

Vulnerable.

Exposed.

When her wife swallowed, she could see every line in her powerful jaw working through the peristaltic motion.

In the shadowed hallway, Blue Diamond stood still, even though the sharp pain in her hip demanded attention.

For this moment, this night, this moonlit haunting did not belong to her—even though most of them usually did.

She understood, somewhere in the mire of her own head, that to disturb this scene would be sacrilege. So she watched, and she waited.

Yellow Diamond was holding something between her sharp, angular hands.

With a jolt, she realized that it was Spinel, a stuffed pink cat who had been Pink’s favorite companion once upon a time. Her left ear was still stained from the tea Yellow had once accidentally dripped on it during a princess tea party.

Washed it though they had—several times over—the spot was stubborn; Spinel had been permanently marked.

“S’okay, Momma,” Pink had only said, grinning up at them both from gapped teeth. She had hugged the toy to her chest. The affected ear brushed against the side of her freckled neck. “That just means she’s one of a kind."

Yellow’s fingers were wrapped around the cat’s plush stomach tenderly; she stared at it from depthless, ancient eyes.

It struck Blue Diamond—then and there—that she wanted something more from this vignette; she wanted Yellow to say something. Selfishly, she desired a confirmation for what she had already so trenchantly inferred.

She wanted, she desired, she longed, she needed to know that her wife was broken, too.

It was a horrible hunger, an itch that felt terrible to scratch.

But Blue Diamond was voracious.

Sometimes, maybe even oftentimes, she could be cruel.

After a long while, though, Yellow Diamond only placed the cat down on the coffee table and stared out into the irradiated night with her hands templed below her sharp chin, lost in silent thought.

She looked older than she ever had in all of their collected years together.

She was only fifty-four.

ix.

They talked—for a long while—as the sun slipped away from the sky, sunset coming in fragments through the slats in the window blinds.

Blue Diamond held Steven’s hand, the one that didn’t have so many IVs in it, and rubbed smooth circles against his wrist.

“Pearl does that, too,” he smiled at her softly through hooded eyes when she began. “It’s nice.”

They talked about everything, and they talked about nothing.

He told her about his favorite show, which seemed to be about morose breakfast items from what she could vaguely surmise, and he talked to her, very quietly, about his disease.

It was rapidly progressing, far more quickly than his nephrologist had anticipated.

“Those chocolate cakes we shared on your balcony,” he admitted with the air of a child waiting to be scolded, “I may have accidentally puked them up in your toilet. Sorry..."

“It’s of no consequence,” she returned with a small, sad smile.

And this was very well true.

She wasn’t the one who had to clean it after all.

They talked about everything, and they talked about nothing.

Blue told him about the sunrise yesterday, how all the colors had seeped together in a swirl of delicious color, and she talked to him, very quietly, about Pink.

“In the best of possible ways,” she mumbled, the sound caught in the column of her throat, “you remind me of her sometimes. She smiled at everything, even when there wasn’t exactly something to be smiled about.”

“That’s a very pretty way to put it.” Steven wriggled a thumb from beneath her palm to stay it against the side of her hand.

“Yes,” she nodded gently, “I suppose so.”

When it was time for her to leave—a team of nurses had come in to administer Steven’s evening medicines and check his vitals—she pressed a kiss against his forehead.

Very light and very soft.

“You didn’t look away,” he whispered against her cheek as she withdrew. His breath was sickly sweet with disease. “Thank you, Blue.”

She froze, meeting his eyes.

There was hesitancy, and there was consuming grief.

The scribble of guilt.

Scrawled all over her face.

“I wanted to, though,” she breathed. “If we're being technical... if we're being fair... I think the impulse counts against me.”

“But you didn’t.”

Steven’s chapped lips tilted into the beginnings of a smile.

“And that’s what matters, right?”

She brushed a stray curl off of his clammy forehead and thought about Pink and Yellow and all the things she did and didn’t do.

She loved them.

She looked away.

“Yes,” she told Steven Universe.

Yes.

Alone, Blue Diamond slowly crossed the skywalk, her silvery hair crowned in all the colors of the sunset, a phone pressed against her ear.

Her cane struck the tiled floor with each shuffled step forward.

Clank.

The dial tone droned rhythmically—bzzt and bzzt and bzzt.

Clank.

She felt her heart work its way up her throat, clambering up its fleshy rungs. The immensity of what she was doing transformed her nervous system into a network of beating, pulsing neuroses.

She was ready for this, and she was not.

She could do this; she half-hoped that she wouldn't receive an answer.

Clank.

And then—

“Blue?” Yellow Diamond’s low voice threw its instinctive panic across the line. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

Because this was new.

And yet, achingly familiar.

So many years of having not sought Yellow out—all those weeks, days, and months—were well-established patterns that were not easily overturned and undone.

All those collective hurts—hundreds of them, thousands.

Four years of misery sat between them like four hundred thousand miles.

Blue Diamond swallowed thickly, stopping dead in her tracks as the spillage of people continued to swarm all around her like a package freed of its contents: doctors and patients and sundry other visitors. She was the eye of their storm, and yet, she was just another broken person in the midst of so many other broken people. She was separate from them, and yet, she was their intimate kin. The contradiction seemed untenable, unworkable like all the rest.

Her fingers tightened on the head of her cane.

“I’m… I’m fine, Yellow,” she began. “Please don’t worry. I just had to… I wanted to tell you something. Are you busy?”

On the other end of the line, somewhere in a giant, yellow skyscraper at the edge of Empire City, there was the sharp intake of breath.

And the hesitant beginnings of a fearful reply.

It was a start, though.

And that was what mattered, right?

Yes, Blue Diamond thought to herself.

Yes.

#bellow diamond #blue diamond #yellow diamond #steven universe #garnet #greg universe #s: steven universe #mimik-u #flower child #holy shit - i can't believe i wrote this

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the-tactician-magician · 5 years

Text

What if characters from FE3H played Splatoon?

AKA the headcanons no one asked for. Also feel free to add.

Black Eagles Strike Force (BESF)

Edelgard (FlameEmpr) (leader)

Favorite weapon: Kensa Dynamo Roller

Favorite mode: Splat Zones

Highest rank: X

Hardcore competative player, plays very frequently and won several competitions

Prefers weapons that do a lot of damage, doesn’t mind the heaviness

Very picky about who gets to be on her team

Hubert (Grimoire)

Favorite weapon: Ballpoint Splatling Nouveau

Favorite mode: Splat Zones

Highest rank: S+

Only plays with Edelgard

But is surprisingly good with how little he actually plays

Part of the datamining community

Always wears black

Ferdinand (vonAegir)

Favorite weapon: L-3 Nozzlenose D

Favorite mode: Rainmaker

Highest rank: S+

Competitive against Edelgard, always trying to one-up her

Picks whatever weapon is meta in order to beat her

A fair and honorable fighter, feels bad whenever an opponent disconnects, etc

Petra (kanaloa)

Favorite weapon: Dark Tetra Dualies

Favorite mode: Rainmaker

Highest rank: S+

Her username comes from a spirit in Brigid that takes the form of a squid

Empathizes with the Octolings and their broken English

Fast on her feet and hard to hit

Krakenslayers

Caspar (CHADspar) (leader)

Favorite weapon: Octobrush

Favorite mode: Clam Blitz

Highest rank: B+

He came up with the team name and won’t accept any substitutes

Always super jumping into danger, despite warnings

Super aggressive player but somehow does ok

Linhardt (zzz)

Favorite weapon: Bloblobber

Favorite mode: Splat Zones

Highest rank: A

Just press ZR and hope for the best

Takes quick naps between matches

Probably can rank higher if he’s more interested

Dorothea (☆DIVA☆)

Favorite weapon: Splattershot

Favorite mode: Splatfest

Highest rank: B

Not great at this game

But loves the idols and the music (Callie is her favorite)

Is also super salty that Callie lost the final splatfest in S1

Plays a lot less once Splatfests ended

Bernadetta (bbear)

Favorite weapon: E-liter 4k scope

Favorite mode: Splat Zones

Highest rank: A

Screams whenever an enemy approaches

A good shot, but panics in bad situations

She somehow does better when her team is losing

Blue Lionfish (BL)

Dimitri (Areadbhar) (leader)

Favorite weapon: Kensa Splattershot Pro (with gratuitous MPU)

Favorite mode: Rainmaker

Highest rank: X

Hardcore competative player like Edelgard, also won several competitions

Adept with any shooter type weapons

Gets angry easily and has broken several controllers

Has a terrible fashion sense and uses whatever gear he needs to

Was going to name the team ‘Blue Lions’, but Sylvain said to use ‘Blue Lionfish’ for the pun

Dedue (Pavise)

Favorite weapon: Tenta Brella

Favorite mode: Splat Zones

Highest rank: A+

Is fixated on Dimitri whenever they play together

A defensive player, doesn’t like charging in

He does his best but he’s sadly the worst of the team

Ingrid (Whitewing)

Favorite weapon: Clear Dapple Dualies

Favorite mode: Clam Blitz

Highest rank: X

Expert duelist, can win most 1v1

Whatever weapon she chooses, she gotta go fast

Constantly yelling at Sylvain, blames him for everything

Sylvain (tentaXXX)

Favorite weapon: Kensa Sloshing Machine

Favorite mode: Clam Blitz

Highest rank: S+

Would have a more inappropriate name if it weren’t for Ingrid

A deceptively good player that masks his skills with an easygoing attitude

Could probably get into X rank if he cared more

Is a chronic squidbagger

くコ:彡 (Team Squid Emoticon)

Annette ( (´･ω･`) ) (leader)

Favorite weapon: Soda Slosher

Favorite mode: Splat Zones

Highest rank: A+

A cheerleader, always encouraging her friends to do their best!

Overuses bombs

She’s only the team leader because Felix hates leadership

Likes the songs and often makes up lyrics to go along with them

Always booyahs

Mercedes (mercie ♥)

Favorite weapon: Aerospray MG

Favorite mode: Turf War

Highest rank: B-

Not good at this game at all…

Only knows how to spray and claim turf

Still, she loves playing with Annette

Always booyahs back

Felix (L0NE_W0LF)

Favorite weapon: Kensa Splat Dualies

Favorite mode: Tower Control

Highest rank: X

Only on this team because he refuses to play with Dimitri after Dimitri broke his controller once

And because Annette is his girlfriend

Always charges in by himself, luckily has the skills to back up such tactics

Will coach the others when he’s feeling nice

Still plays with Ingrid and Sylvain whenever Dimitri isn’t around

Ashe (Decidueye)

Favorite weapon: Firefin Splatter Charger

Favorite mode: Tower Control

Highest rank: S+

A good shot and a helpful player

Constantly checking the map

Gets nervous in competitions

Got recruited to this team by Felix because Felix can’t stand being the only good player here

Cod-Splattering Stars (CSS)

Claude (insertmeme) (leader)

Favorite weapon: Bamboozler 14 Mk I (with MPU)

Favorite mode: Clam Blitz

Highest rank: S+

Always doing things for teh lulz

Would rather troll people than actually play well

Could probably get into X rank if he stopped memeing

Picks the male octoling with the afro because the hair is funny but secretly empathizes with the octolings for being outsiders

Also grinds out weird gear (like the masks) just for the shock value

Was going to name the team ‘I wish squids were real’ but Leonie and Lys wanted a serious name and Hilda didn’t get the joke

Hilda (pnkprncess)

Favorite weapon: Splat Roller

Favorite mode: Tower Control

Highest rank: A

Doesn’t like others depending on her

Yet if everyone’s splatted but her, she will do her damndest to hold the line

Is actually pretty good but tries not to show off

Constantly complaining and whining about stuff

Adores dressing up her inkling

Lysithea (Miasma Δ)

Favorite weapon: Explosher

Favorite mode: Splat Zones

Highest rank: X

A really good player, has a good sense of spacing and timing to make her weapons deadly

Always goes for the big, explosive weapons

Call her a little kid and she’ll punch you

Leonie (BladeBrkr2)

Favorite weapon: Custom Dualie Squelchers

Favorite mode: Tower Control

Highest rank: S+

Only got into Splatoon because it’s Jeralt’s favorite game

And is surprisingly good at it

Replaced Lorenz because she was better and he was getting on Claude’s nerves

A little nervous to be the only commoner on the team but that just motivates her more

Inkblooms

Lorenz (GLOUCESTER) (leader)

Favorite weapon: Foil Squeezer

Favorite mode: Rainmaker

Highest rank: S

Was on Claude’s team, then got kicked out for Leonie which he’s still bitter about

Still, he tries to make this team work

A boastful winner but takes losing well

Only wears the most fashionable gear

Ignatz (ᴄʜαʀᴛʀεᴜsε)

Favorite weapon: Inkbrush

Favorite mode: Salmon Run

Highest rank: A

Also does well with snipers, but has the most fun with the inkbrush

Spams splat bombs and runs away

Also gets nervous in competitions

Raphael (RAPHROX!)

Favorite weapon: Clash Blaster

Favorite mode: Tower Control

Highest rank: B

Can’t aim

A very loud player

Likes playing with Ignatz

Still uses sticks

Marianne (dorte)

Favorite weapon: Splattershot Jr.

Favorite mode: Turf War

Highest rank: B-

Not good at this game because of self-esteem issues

Freezes up and dies whenever she’s confronted

Lorenz is trying his best to coach her

Jeralt’s Mercs

Jeralt (Jeralt) (leader)

Favorite weapon: Tentatek Splattershot

Favorite mode: Splat Zones

Highest rank: X

A prominent streamer and e-celeb

Played a lot of Splatoon 1 and although he likes Splatoon 2, always complains about ‘back in the day’ like a boomer

Used to be really competitive back in the day but nowadays just plays with family and friends

His username used to be ‘BladeBrkr’

Thinking of passing the torch to Byleth soon

Leonie used to be a sub for his team until she joined Claude’s team

Byleth (AshenDemon)

Favorite weapon: Enperry Splat Dualies

Favorite mode: Rainmaker

Highest rank: X

Jeralt’s kid

Rarely talks or expresses emotions, which kinda creeps people out

Can dunk people like nobody’s business

Secretly has a fondness for the Judds

Alois (10tickles)

Favorite weapon: Heavy Splatling

Favorite mode: Tower Control

Highest rank: S

An old friend of Jeralt

Used to run with the Knights of Seiros until they got too competitive for his liking

Appreciates all the fish puns in this game

Sometimes acts like a boomer with Jeralt, but takes the boomer memes in stride

Sothis (fell star☆)

Favorite weapon: Tri-Slosher

Favorite mode: Rainmaker

Highest rank: X

Who is she??? No one knows. A friend of Byleth apparently

Temperamental and emotional but a very good player

Somehow managed to pick the winning team in all the Splatfests

Knights of Seiros

Catherine (thundrcath) (leader)

Favorite weapon: Carbon Roller

Favorite mode: Rainmaker

Highest rank: X

Loud, confident, always takes the opponent head-on

Likes the feel of rollers but can pick other weapons as long as they do lots of damage

Trash talks opponents a lot

Shamir (Raven)

Favorite weapon: Kensa Splatterscope

Favorite mode: Tower Control

Highest rank: X

Complete opposite of Catherine, rarely talks during matches

Can see you coming from a mile away

Makes it her mission to protect Catherine when she’s running into danger

Flayn (cethleann!)

Favorite weapon: Neo Splash-o-matic

Favorite mode: Salmon Run

Highest rank: A-

Likes the fish and the fish puns

Not super great at this game but she has a lot of fun

The team mascot

Cyril (pointblank)

Favorite weapon: Kensa Glooga Dualies

Favorite mode: Clam Blitz

Highest rank: A+

Used to be pretty bad until Shamir coached him, now he can hold his own weight

Doesn’t use the ‘ouch’ button when he dies, even though he should

Has mastered the art of splatting foes when he rolls

Seteth (Cichol)

Favorite weapon: Rapid Blaster Pro Deco

Favorite mode: Splat Zones

Highest rank: S+

Way too busy to play Splatoon now, only a sub for this team

But he is good at this game

Used to be in X until he fell out due to not playing much

Always makes time to play with Flayn

(Hanneman and Manuela don’t play Splatoon because they’re not interested.)

(Rhea supposedly plays but no one knows her username or has even seen her play. She could probably curb stomp everyone at Garreg Mach though.)

#fire emblem #Fire Emblem Three Houses #fe3h #fe16 #splatoon #splatoon 2 #I spent way too much time thinking about this #fics

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kendrixtermina · 5 years

Text

Someone finally uploaded a Kingdom Route run with everyone recruited!

So imma be doing a bit of reacting

Kingdom!Ignatz works a bit like Empire!Felix - He wanted to go his own way unlike what his parents said and is thus following Byleth. In this case it’s of course somewhat less angsty ‘cause the Victors have the means to flee if necessary, unlike Rodrigue who was a prominent leader of the kingdom side of things

In an interesting parallel to how half the cast abandons the kingdom cause it’s a sinking shipload of kamikaze, on the other routes, Raphael complains about the instability and confusing politics of the alliance and how she should probably grab Maya and his grandfather and get them to Garreg Magh. I suppose a lot of people without connections or political accumen must feel this way. the monastery IS light javelin proof, so yeah...Raphael isn’t salty toward Claude himself tho. Then again he has little capacity for salt and in his paralogue it’s kinda shown that he makes a deliberate choice to live a low-salt lifestyle its not just obliviousness, he actively doesnt want grudges or awkwardness in his life

Leonie is also here to babysit Byleth and tells them not to let Dimitri push them around

Hilda: “The Monastery is a mess. So is Dimitri. I’m only here because Byleth is competent and Holst is annoying“

Dorothea and Bernie have so far gotten identical dialogues to the church route

Lysithea is interesting and kinda morally ambiguous. She says outright that she cares nothing for the kingdom or anything other than a peaceful life for her parents. She wants to get at the slitherers for her own revenge and they’re in the empire so she finds Dimitri’s revenge obsession convenient. Also very ironic cause, are she and Edelgard gonna fight each other because they both want to get at Thales? Very interesting bc vanilla BL doesn’t adress the slitherers that much - of course Lysithea says she has beef with “the empire” and doesn’t elaborate. At the same time Lysithea is MUCH more logical and self aware than most of the kingdom crew bar Sylvain so yeah

actually, Lysithea, like Felix, has TONS of route specific dialogue. I guess the devs expected those two to get recruited a lot since they are just flat out the strongest students apart from the house leaders.

The Kingdom is arguably just as infiltrated but Lysithea doesn’t know... and at this point Cornelia’s cooperating with the Empire anyways

General trend of the Alliance recruitees not being all that attached to the Alliance as they hardly knew each other at the start and half of them had nothing to do with politics

Nothing to do with the recruitees, but so THATS what happens if you propose to go to Fhirdiad first. Dimitri is like “You’re supposed to lead the church! Go rescue Rhea!” ...he doesn’t know the whole thing with Byleth being experimented on by Rhea (neither does Byleth at this point) but it is kinda low. Mitya you have no leg to stand on here indeed the main reason I was sympathetic to you last playthrough is that you never ASKED Gilbert & co to put you on the throne and made clear that you’re not interested in that... so following you was on them to an extent. but you don’t get to say “Do your Bishop job” (that Byleth never asked for) if you’re not doing your job cause you’re too busy doing your kamikaze raid. Then again he’s probably too emotional and just plain done with everything rn to see the contradiction/look at this with perspective he’s probably physically incapable of chilling out rn

It just ends with Byleth doing a pointed sadface. daamn Mitya don’t be mean to By-By she still believes in you dude : ( Though it makes sense he’s big on obligation he’s doing this revenge trip because he feels he must. So it’s more a distortion than it really is a contradiction, as far as he’s concerned he IS doing his duty...to the fallen. I guess if you can’t handle him at his “Go be a bishop or something” you don’t deserve him at his “my beloved~”

Still hurts a bit tho. Especially when Claude, though not without his own agenda, was distinctly a good friend on the topic, “Teach you’re in charge now be more confident~ the church doesnt run you, you run the church”

Before Aillel Dorothea says something about the Kingdom people also looking undecided of where to march, but she also wonders if some fighting/ victory will quell uncertainty

Also she and mercie are standing next to each other! Ive said before that it’s weird how they don’t rly have a support though they are the two most popular extroverted ppl on the campus... they GOTTA know each other at least on a smalltalk basis

Alois is like “These kingdom ppl dont seem to know what they want... but hey this allow YOU to shine as a leader”... so basically Byleth is running this show but for all that they’re a good field commander and decisive when it comes to immadiate practical problems, as far as big picture direction goes, well, Sothis’ “boulder” quote comes to mind. They just never had big attachments on convictions, the Felix support chain is also salient here. They kinda just did whatever job they were given until they found a bigger cause/purpose after throwing in their lot with one of the lords or the remaining saints.

I wondered how this would play out as the Kingdom route is very kingdom-specific, whereas Claude, Edelgard and the church all have an universal cause for people to get behind. I guess how this plays out is that before Dimitri’s turnaroud there’s the kingdom faction and the Byleth faction and Byleth is kinda trying to run the show as they think Dimitri would if he were at his best

Caspar is still on the more unphazed side but also substantially more phazed than on the church or GD routes, he wasn’t particularly close to Randolph but he’s not unaffected by Dimitri going a tad over the top here - he also has the takeaway that Dimitri probably never trusted him much since he was born in the empire.

Sylvain actually alledges something about Dimitri not socializing much with any Adrestians even back in the academy days if you recruit him on CF so this does not come out of nowhere. Also kinda makes me wish they had a support - theyre both naturals at smashing things but they have very different attitudes towards it. then again i suppose it would go alot like the raphael one

Ferdie recognizes Myrrdin is a strategically better location but as Aegir territory is closeby he wishes we could have invaded through there so he could take it back... Would the citizens want him back tho? After the war its a no-brainer cause he helped end it, the peasants arent going to complain about too much peace and prosperity nor are they gonna feel nostalgic about anyone who started a war with their tax money and then lost it, but if he waltzed into an area that had thus far been far from the frontlines, following his fathers’s exploitative management and 5 years of semi equal rights under edelgard? he might have been welcomed with pitchforks, through no fault of his own.

He says something implying hed like to come rescue his relatives implying that some of them are still alive. of course the pm deserves all Edelgard threw at him and then some, but id be curious about Ferdie’s other relatives. His mom probably looks just like him, because he sure didnt get the looks from his dad... or anything else really, apart from the crest and hair color. - though i think the a support with bernadetta implies that shes no longer around

Lorenz bitterly remarking that of course Claude and his dad eventually made peace since they both only serve their own interests. (”So long as their interests are in allignment they will continue to cooperate”) Says the guy we just rescued from his endeavors in turncoatery. Lorenz you’re pretty opportunistic too, and as for your redeeming features Claude has those too - but of course you’ll never find out in this one. Still, it shows that he’s painfully aware that his father - whom he would have died protecting if we hadn’t spared him - is a villain and a hack

Claude isn’t super trusting and knows that he gets percieved as shifty so he promises people to get them theirs so that they support him out of self interest. No need to take a chace. Of course by the end of this route he WILL take big chance on Dimitri

That says Lorenz is not SO biased that he can’t tell that Claude might be interested in working with the kingdom army

Lysithea (who surprisingly has TONS of unique dialogue here, and I like that it’s a complex mature plot) is having her doubts and not trusting Dimitri for all that she finds him an useful idiot. By and large you get the sense that many consider Byleth the leader of this operation, she’s glad that Byleth is there to issue sensible orders. She tells Byleth not to tell anyone and worries about what will happen once the empire’s vanquished. No faith in team Kingdom... at all. Understandable of course

Hilda’s dialogue is largely the same as in the church route and at times kinda the same in all routes but I like how she’s like “Claude might’ve looked like a lazy bum but he’s smart! If he says he’s on our side he will defs help!” before the gronder fiasco

A lot of NPCs stir the suspicion here so it stands out how much she totally trusts him like hes any other friend

As with the other routes with the recruitees you get an idea of what’s going on in the other territories such as Lysithea deducing that Judith must be backing Claude in his gambit

One moment you think Lorenz is going to add some somber insightful commentary to the sincerity of Claude’s offer but then he’s like, “Granted Dimitri is much improved. He must be asking us for help cause he trusts ME” XD Like... no friend. You’re almost right but if there’s anyone here he was faith in its Byleth. And then he’s even like, “Well no choice but to save poor Claudesy” On the one hand it shows that there not just pure hate there on the other... lulz.

apparently one of the first things Dimitri did after getting his act together post gronder is profusely apologize to Caspar for that ugly business with Randolph. Thats a worthwhile detail and i want fanfic of it. Caspar being Caspar he wasnt really keeping a grudge, they’re a warrior clan and they were at war

They had to move out so quickly that Hilda had no time to go shopping in Fhirdiad #Priorities XD

Meanwhile Ignatz, like a normal person, hopes his folks will be safe

hilda does eventually remember to maybe save her folks and claude but only after making Byleth promise to go on a shopping trip with her. Someone should probably write that fanfic

Someone told me that Ferdinand had some prominent critical lines but it was really just one, and it’s as I suspected actually just a variant of the same “a king can’t be emotional” line he gets in all the routes, this time with the addendum that if he turned around and decided to go rescue the capital, he might be capable of reason/being a decent leader after all. granted I guess compared to how most of the Kingdom people go along with everything it comes off critical? IDK.

Lysithea misses Rodrigue :(

Lorenz and Ignatz standing next to each other was a nice touch they have a fairly wholesome friendship

Leonie’s just glad that ol’ Mitya is “back to normal” especially since she’s pretty sure that they don’t have enough soldiers to get to Fort Merceus let alone Enbarr

For obvious reasons, Petra is pretty sympathetic about the whole “retaking Fhirdiad” thing

Seeing Seteth and Catherine so certain that Rhea would want them to save the people of Fhirdiad first when you know that she wouldn’t hesitate to set the place on fire is just...OUCH. Though it does show the goodness in Seteth and Catherine themselves.

Manuela wishes she could’ve moved her informary to gronder and save a few more peeps :(

It seems like to Leonie, Dimitri will always be just “Dimitri”, King or not. Figures she aaaaalmost adressed even Byleth by name XD You really DO get the sense that he interacted alot with the recruitees

All the house leaders shouldve had more supports.

If you grabbed hanneman he’ll give you some extra backstory on Cornelia - apparently she was originally from the empire and an eminent scholar whose great work Hanneman was vaguely aware of. I would assume that was still the real cornelia. Judging by the timing it sounds like she might’ve smuggled Patricia out of Adrestia. Assuming both were still original at this point this might present a possibility for why she trusted/vouched for cornelia without being complicit / lend itself to a “she was duped” reading

But it’s still suspicious that she would end up courting the second most powerful man in the land right after number one.

Some had suggested that Cornelia caused the plague in the first place but the thing is there was a perfectly credible “mundane” explanation for it (the city’s sewers not being up to date technologically) that theres no reason to doubt

Assuming that all the replacements occurred 14 years before part one when Arundel stopped his donations/ thins being about the time when Cornelia’s personality was noted to have changed completely, that would mean both the “fixing the severs” thing and the soppy story about how Edelgards’ parents met would be real

AAAA everything to do with patricia is just so ambiguous - if they were longtime friends wouldn’t she have noticed something “off”? Same with her brother actually. Lambert had his own country so its not like there was no one to protect her.

Ahhh THIS is how lorenz gets iinto the midset for that prissy, hes pissed that Claude dissolved the Alliance and misses it XD

you DO get to call him out for being a turncoat himself tho. particularly hilarious since Byleth just blinks and asks a casual question there

He immediately changes his tune

oh lorenz dear, i love you but you, sir, are WEAK xD

Lysithea as always calls everything and notes how suspicious arundel was alluding to the hrym nightmare also mentioned in her paralogue

She also mentions that he was said to be good and just at one point suggesting that there was a real Volkhard von Arundel at some point.

if the replacement took place when those donations ceased then Edelgard and Dimitri were 3, 14 years before part 1. Early enough that this could be around the time Patricia left enbarr, if this is when it happened then the romantic tower story might be real assuming that the Arundels were replaced at the same time - whatever arrived in Faerghus recomended patricia for a job so it probably had already happened by then

Its all so ambiguos tho we can only speculate there are so many possibilities

Ignatz marvels at how Claude managed to minimize damage to Alliance lands throughout the war, as in CF only Deirdru itself got particularly thrashed. Ignatz’ folks are safe and sound! Leave it to him to wonder where Claude might have absconded to. He was always one of the insightful ones but not in the same way as the other clever ones. More intuitive I guess. Cant remember if it was indentical to what you get if you spare Claude on CF (Cue the lets player remarking that Claude is probably stuck in a washing machine somewhere... he hadn’t cleared the Alliance route at that point)

Lol HILDA “And then the whole Alliance descended into chaos...” or actually she is surprised that that DIDNT happen and how orderly Claude managed the dissolution. “But I Guess we’re screwed if Dimitri turns out to be a crazed despot... he’s not gonna go crazy again is he?” You of little faith XD But she says all this in her usual cheery nonserious voice like

this chapter has a lot of unique dialogue actually

Linhardt impressed that anyone would have the guts to attack Fort Merceus directly and suggests looking for weak spots in the old walls

He shows up guarding it in SS and Vw doesn’t he? Guess he was visiting Caspar or something - or would have been familiar with the place from visiting the Bergliez clan in the past.

Ferdinand is wowed by Claude bowing out giving him kudos for caring about the peoples wishes. He thinks Edelgard ought to quit at this point and he’s alot harsher on her here than in any of the other routes. (”Not reveryone with noble blood has noble ideals” - Coming from Ferdinand that’s an accusation ) Interestingly at this point hes sticking with Dimitri cause post character developement, lots of ordinary ppl support him at this point and hes popular with the crowds. He’s wholly on the Savior King bandwagon, and maybe that’s why he’s harsher. He’s partial. Says something about him actually, largely good things when you think about it. Dimitri is probably the closest to what Ferdinand’s (and Lorenz’) own beliefs were. He likes the existing order and living in a fancy palace but he thinks the rulers should serve the people.

Its kinda ironic and sad because in ALL the other routes he clearly thinks Dimitri is an idiot and a bad ruler, and says he should be more composed and objective. But Dimitri wasnt at his best there now was he?

now ill be sad everytime I get to those “Ferdinand disses Dimitri” lines. They couldve been buds!

but i dont see this happening in any other route. According to something Sylvain says in cf Dimitri avoided ppl from the empire at the academy so they wouldnt have cozied up pre-timeskip, and its only the version of Dimitri who has his shit together which appeals to Ferdie as a leader.

really torn here on the one hand its a nice synergy to see lorenz and especially Ferdinand (who is waaay less arroganz than lorenz) sort of getting to win on their own terms with a ruler that jives with them and their Lawful Good fantasy classic thing. It’s not just a status quo thing its a protectors of the people thing. It’s heroic. On the other hand it feels like they’re stagnating when they could have had growth. This is basically the same Lorenz and the same Ferdinand we first met except slightly more mature. Notably lorenz is the same in the church route whereas Ferdie isnt as he still ends up rebelling fleeing and fighting against the empire. It helps that he practically winds up leading the remaining Eagles, albeit under Byleth and Seteth.

He still gets that line about being kinda sad to see the empire go though he knows there must be an end to the chaos, i think a few lines are different, so, not wholly without doubt

Shamir muses about hoe the three countries were once one and the same, but wonders that even if we put fodlan togethere theres no guarantee that it wouldnt come apart again. i mean there isnt, and wether thats a bad thing would depend a lot on the circumstances but its also possible that theyll get used to being one and forget they wrere ever separate. no one controls the far future... and should they? After all its always possible that someone in the future will have unforseeable circumstances or better ideas

Caspar sighs with relief that they didn’t have to fight his dad, last second worry about him turning up in the capital nonwithstanding... right does he get to live in this? Carpar wonders what’ll happen to him if they win, but he’s not holding down Faerghus so he might not have died the way he did in Silver Snow and Verdant Wind. It’s at least possible that he was captured alive and pardoned somehow.

Marianne’s adoptive dad sure smelled which way the wind was blowing; He was supporting Claude’s strategy to get the Cloucesters back under controll but sent Marianne to curry favor with the kingdom. Make friends with whoever wins I suppose. Ambitious politician indeed.

When she doesnt her from him in a while she wonders if he forgot about her but says she wouldnt mind that much because at least she wouldnt have to do any more politics? I distinctly recall that in gd there was something about how they got along better after the timeskip. Sigh.

she is real glad that Dimitri and claude ended up cooperating in the end

So does Dorothea but then she makes herself sad wishing that Edelgard was also there :( Me too friend, me too. I think thats the one unique line she gets this route. I like how it’s consistent in the church route she’s also the one who feels the most sad about betraying her, they were pretty close pre timrskip

as far as leonies concerned Dimitri is still just Dimitri even after taking back his kingdom. i like to think hed appreciate that. its also very typical of leonie. as with the “Caspar gets an apology” thing plenty of the recruitees get lines hinting that theres been more personal interaction between them and dimitri, kinda goes with how ppl in his own house follow him more out of personal loyalty than because they follow his plans like with the other two. hes kinda a very approachable sort of leader, makes the decisions with the group or follows whatever gilbert and Byleth decide, in the other routes theres always a distinct inner circle. Its cool how they incorporated the recruitees into that dynamic.

Petra is dissapointed that they DIDNT do a sneak attack on fort Merceus contrasting her usual line about how she likes sneak attacks. Dimitri naps both that an Enbarr head on doesn’t he? The Church has a smaller Army full of peeps who would rather not destroy Enbarr, and Claude agrees with Petra on the sneak attack thing and then Edelgard did that sorta shady but largely very gutsy thing where she didn’t sound the evacuation to restrict Claude’s movements knowing that there was zero danger that he would plow through the civilians (they don’t do this here cause last time they met Dimitri he was not feeling merciful indeed judging by huberts welcome lines and engage quotes he doesnt buy the turnaround), the AM ending narration also suggests that Enbarr wasn’t rebuilt, though Dimitri gave distinct “No pillaging!” orders, so they probably just couldn’t avoid wrecking the buildings and relocated the citizens.

Ashe also speculates where Claude went. That’s one of the things i like about Ashe he consistently averts out of sight out of mind I particularly always loved how he consistently worried about Dedue. Someone ought to.

Ingrid interestingly changed her tune here / kinda speaks positively of claude here - in CF she was like “I always though he was creepy”

Then again that was before fighting him I don’t recall If those two dont get the same lines if you spare Claude, have to go back and check

id like to mention that the lets player put lorenz in the pyjamas/loungewear the whole time as “punishment” for being late to the reunion and poked fun at him throughout.

#fe3h #fire emblem: three houses #fire emblem three houses

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poetryofchrist · 4 years

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Psalms 9-10

Psalms 9 and 10 are one psalm, and are treated as such by the Septuagint. So all Greek and Hebrew Bible psalm numbering is off by one for several psalms. (Here's a reconciliation of Psalms numbering by a fellow Biblical Studies blogger and carnival host.)

This psalm is a broken alphabetic game. Whether it is broken because it is old and has been left in a disordered room and pieces were lost under the bed or under the dresser, or whether it is deliberately broken as if the child does not want to play, we don't know. What we do know is that an editor or an author can decide to drop a verse, as the Masoretes dropped the Nun verse of Psalms 145, or deliberately reverse the normal sequence of letters as Lamentations reverses peh and ayin.

This is the longest analysis of the music we have yet undertaken. Psalms 9 begins on the third of the scale, tifcha, g, the mediant. According to my thesis, this shows its connection to the prior psalm. The first acrostics of book 5 (111, 112) also begin on a note other than the tonic. The remaining acrostic poems all begin on the tonic.

thlim 't Psalms 9 Fn Min Max Syll a lmnxk yl-mut lbn mzmor ldvid 1 For the leader on death of the son. A psalm of David. g 3e 3g 13 b aodh ihvh bcl-libi asprh cl-nplaotiç 2 I will thank Yahweh with all my heart. I will recount all your wonders. 3e 4B 8 9 g awmkh vaylxh bç azmrh wmç ylion 3 I will be glad and I will be elated in you. I will sing a psalm to your name Most High. 3e 4B 8 7 d bwub-aoibii akor iicwlu viabdu mpniç 4 But when my enemies turn back, let them stumble and perish from your presence. 3e 4A 6 10 h ci-ywit mwp'ti vdini iwbt lcisa wop't xdq 5 For you have made my judgment and my case. You sit enthroned judging right. 3e 4B 9 10 v gyrt goiim aibdt rwy wmm mkit lyolm vyd 6 God, you rebuked the nations. You made wickedness perish. You have erased their name forever and ever. 3e 4B 10 10 z haoib tmu korbot lnxk vyrim ntwt abd zcrm hmh 7 Here O enemy, completed are ruins in perpetuity, and cities you have blotted out. Perished is their memory of them. 3e 4B 11 6 6 k vihvh lyolm iiwb conn lmwp't cisao 8 Verily, Yahweh forever sits. He has established his throne for judgment. g 3e 4B 7 7 't vhua iwpo't-tbl bxdq idin laumim bmiwrim 9 And he himself will judge the world in righteousness. He will make the case for the tribes in uprightness. 3e 4A 9 9 i vihi ihvh mwgb ldç mwgb lyitot bxrh 10 And Yahweh will be a retreat for the crushed, a retreat in times of trouble. ~ 3e 4C 8 8 ia vib'tku bç iodyi wmç ci la-yzbt dorwiç ihvh 11 And they will trust in you knowing your name, for you Yahweh do not forsake those searching for you. 3e 4C 11 9 ib zmru lihvh iowb xion hgidu bymim ylilotiv 12 Zion in Zion where Yahweh sits, let all sing a psalm. Evident among the peoples is his prodigality. 3e 4B 8 10 ig ci-dorw dmim aotm zcr la-wck xyqt ynvvim 13 Because searching out blood, he remembers them. He does not forget the outcry of the afflicted. 3e 4B 8 8 id konnni ihvh rah yonii mwonaii mrommi mwyri mvvt 14 Have mercy, be gracious to me Yahweh. See my impoverishment from those hating me, you who lift me high from the gates of death, 3e 4B 12 9 'tv lmyn asprh cl-thiltç bwyri bt-xion agilh biwuytç 15 so that I will recount all your praises in the gates of the daughter of Zion. I will rejoice in your salvation. 3e 4A 12 7 8 'tz 'tbyu goiim bwkt ywu brwt-zu 'tmnu nlcdh rglm 16 The nations sink in the destruction they made. In this net that they buried, their foot is caught. 3e 4B 9 12 iz nody ihvh mwp't ywh bpoyl cpiv noqw rwy higion slh 17 Yahweh is known, Judgment he makes. In the work of his palms he lays a trap for the wicked. Meditation. Selah. C 3d 4C 8 9 5 ik iwubu rwyim lwaolh cl-goiim wcki alohim 18 Into their grave the wicked will turn, all nations that forget God. 3e 4B 9 9 i't ci la lnxk iiwck abion tqvvt yniim tabd lyd 19 Causes of the needy will not always be forgotten. The expectation of the poor will not perish for ever. C 3e 4C 10 9 c qumh ihvh al-iyoz anow iiwp'tu goiim yl-pniç 20 arise Yahweh, let a mortal not be strong. Let the nations be judged in your presence. 3e 4B 9 9 ca with ihvh morh lhm iidyu goiim anow hmh slh 21 Impose, Yahweh. Fear to them. let the nations know their mortality. Selah. ~ 3e 4C 8 4 6 thlim i Psalms 10 Fn Min Max Syll a lmh ihvh tymod brkoq tylim lyitot bxrh 1 LORD why do you stand in the distance, obscure in times of trouble? 3e 4B 10 8 b bgavvt rwy idlq yni iitpwu bmzimot zu kwbu 2 In pride criminal hotly pursues poor. Let them be arrested in those schemes they have devised. 3e 4B 10 10 g ci-hill rwy yl-tavvt npwo uboxy birç niax ihvh 3 For criminal boasted over its own desire, and blessed extortion, spurning Yahweh. 3e 4B 10 10 d rwy cgobh apo bl-idrow ain alohim cl-mzimotiv 4 Criminal looks down its un-searching nose. There is no God in all its multifarious schemes. 3e 4B 10 9 h ikilu drciv bcl-yt mrom mwp'tiç mngdo cl-xorriv ipik bhm 5 Its ways are twisted. In all times, high is your judgment, out of its sight. All its troubles, It snorts at them. ~ 3e 4C 18 8 v amr blibo bl-amo't ldor vdor awr la-bry 6 It said in its heart, I will not be moved, from generation to generation, in which there is no evil. 3e 4B 8 9 z alh pihu mla umrmot vtoç tkt lwono yml vavvn 7 Pucker full of imprecation and deceit and fraud, under its tongue toil and mischief, 3e 4C 11 10 k iiwb bmarb kxrim bmstrim ihrog nqi yiniv lklch ixponu 8 it sits in the lurking places of the villages. In hidden places it slays the innocent, its eyes treasuring the hapless. 3e 4C 17 8 't iarob bmstr carih bsuco iarob lk'tof yni ik'tof yni bmowco brwto 9 It lies in wait in its hiding place like lion in lair. It lies in wait to seize the poor. It seizes the poor. It draws him away in Its net. 3e 4B 20 10 i idch iwok vnpl byxumiv kil caim 10 It crushes. It presses down, and hapless falls by its sheer numbers. 3e 4B 5 10 ia amr blibo wck al hstir pniv bl-rah lnxk 11 It said in its heart, God has forgotten. He hides his face. He will never see. 3e 4B 8 10 ib qumh ihvh al nwa idç al-twck ynvvim 12 Quickly arise! Yahweh God. Lift up your hand. Do not forget the afflicted. 3e 4C 10 6 ig yl-mh niax rwy alohim amr blibo la tdrow 13 Since when does criminal spurn God? It said in its heart, He will not search. 3e 4C 9 8 id rait ci-ath yml vcys tbi't ltt bidç yliç iyzob klch itom ath hiit yozr 14 Regard you will, for you yourself take note of toil and grief to give by your hand. To you the hapless defer. The orphan you yourself will help. 3d 4C 18 9 9 'tv wbor zroy rwy vry tdrow-rwyo bl-tmxa 15 Shatter the arm of criminal, and for an evil one, search out its crimes till none is found. g 3e 4B 7 9 'tz ihvh mlç yolm vyd abdu goiim marxo 16 Yahweh is king now and for ever. Perished are the nations from his land. 3e 4B 8 7 iz tavvt ynvvim wmyt ihvh tcin libm tqwib aoznç 17 The desire of the afflicted you have heard Yahweh. Establish their heart. You will make your ear attend, 3e 4B 11 9 ik lwpo't itom vdç bl-iosif yod lyrox anow mn-harx 18 to judge orphan and crushed. Adding no longer, to ruthlessness is mortal from the earth. 3e 4A 6 4 9

I have bolded the acrostic letters and a few selected recurring words to see if they help define strophes. I have generally considered acrostics to be less amenable than other poems to structural analysis.

Here's the music.

What if we abstract the musical shapes by verse. We could substitute the accent names, but the letters are briefer. The three-character abbreviations below are for ornaments (supra-lineal signs). This is easier than talking about accent sequences, but much harder than reading and hearing the music. There are no available performances.

incipit g f# rev,f# e - no higher than an f#

2 e B g ^A ger-rev,e - first half matches 10:6, second half revia mugrash occurs 30 times, 9 times on ^A - this is an extended recit on the rest note, can be significant in word / mood painting. 3 e B B ^A g B e - first half matches 18 4 e f# ^A f# ger-rev,e - first half matches 10:6 and final approach of 9 and 16, second half ger-rev occurs 19 times on an f# - 7 full matches for this return to the tonic 5 e g B ^A f# ger-rev,f# e unique approach to ^A - 21 return to the tonic via f#, 8 full matches for v5 6 e B g B ^A f# ger-rev,f# e - first half, nine matches, 6, 11, 13, 16, 20 and 10:1-3 and 16

7 e pas,f# rev,ole,f# f# ^A g B e - tricolon - note 6 occurrences of pashta (=qadma) 8 g B ^A g B e - first half matches 10:15 + 18 final approach partial matches 9 e rev,e f# ^A f# ger-rev,e - 13 return to the tonic directly after the common ornament. 10 zar,C B B ^A ger-rev,f# e The first of three verses to begin with a zarqa 11 e B g B ^A C e g B e - middle verse music is unique both in approach and return 12 e rev,g B ^A f# ger-rev,e 13 e B g B ^A e ger-rev,f# e - ger-rev on the tonic

14 e ill,rev,B g ^A ger-rev,f# e - seven illuy, 6 in the next psalm 15 e f# rev,e ole,f# e f# ^A ger-rev,e - tricolon 16 e B g B ^A e f# ger-rev,f# e 17 C pas,zar,d ole,f# B g B ^A f# e - tricolon 18 e B B ^A ger-rev,f# e 19 C B g B ^A f# ger-rev,f# e

20 e B g B ^A f# ger-rev,e 21 zar,C pas,rev,ole,f# f# ^A g B e- tricolon

1 e B g B ^A ger-rev,f# e 2 e B g B ^A shl,g B e - unique shalshelet in this verse. 3 e B g B ^A f# ger-rev,zar,f# e 4 e rev,B g ^A f# ger-rev,e 5 zar,C pas,rev,B g ^A ger-rev,f# e

6 e B g ^A f# ger-rev,B e return to the tonic matches 10 and 13 following 7 e C B g B ^A f# ger-rev,f# e 8 e C ill,rev,g B ^A ger-rev,e f# e 9 e ill,pas,ill,rev,g B ^A f# ger-rev,f# e 10 e f# ^A f# ger-rev,B e 11 e B g B e ^A f# ger-rev,f# e

12 e C rev,g B ^A f# e 13 e C g f# ^A f# ger-rev,B e 14 e paz,e C zar,C pas,zar,d ole,f# g B ^A ger-rev,C ill,e - tricolon 15 g B ^A ger-rev,e f# e 16 e B g B ^A f# ger-rev,e 17 e ill,B B ^A f# ger-rev,f# e 18 e f# rev,ole,f# f# ^A f# ger-rev,e - tricolon

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xenosgirlvents · 7 years

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Fracture of Biel-tan problems

I decided, for myself, to codify what I found to be the problems which undermined Fracture of Biel-tan in my opinion. I didn’t list them in any particular order, just how they came to me;

1) The Antagonist: Fracture lacks a clear central Antagonist as compared to Fall of Cadia (Abaddon) or Rise of the Primarch (Magnus) which is partly because Fracture attempts to more be a ‘Journey Adventure’ in which the cast zoom from one locale to another and deal with each problem as it arises. However, as the story is about the birth of Ynnead itself, finally, its somewhat diminishing to the narrative that no major antagonist is ever involved in this supposedly monumental endeavour. Most acutely felt is that Slaanesh’s involvement largely is over by Act 1 and the Masque is the only real Character to represent Slaanesh, and she’s hardly significant. Of course part of the problem for this is that Slaanesh is the most neglected of the Chaos Gods, having the least Characters to call upon, and with no Fulgrim Miniature made yet, there wasn‘t a particularly new or potent Slaanesh Character to stick in the photo sections (unlike Thousand Sons who’d recently recieved their revamp around that time). Still it is a bit baffling that not even Lucius or the Emperor’s Children were involved, Slaanesh being Ynnead‘s primary opponent, not Tzeentch. This lack of a central Antagonist certainly made Ynnead’s birth feel much less auspicious or important in the Aeldari’s dynamic with Slaanesh.

2) The Actual Fracture: The Fracture of Biel-tan itself is only the starting step, with most of the book not dealing with it or its ramifications for Biel-tan. This feels a bit odd, surely it would have been better to just call it the ‘Birth of Ynnead‘ book then? Having the Fracture, and Awakening, also not as the climax does, again, rob the climax of a lot of punch. By contrast the Climax of Fall of Cadia sees the entire Cadian Planet destroyed in a rain of debris and the Climax of Rise of Primarch sees Roboute manage to seal Magnus into the Webway, but in Fracture the Climax is...Yvraine gets her ass kicked, tricks Ahriman into showing her mercy, and then suck punches him. For a book about the arising of Ynnead it feels very anticlimatic and, in all honesty, disappointing. I’d have thought saving the Fracture, and Yncarne’s birth, for a large ‘Big Damn Heroes‘ moment at the climax of the story would have worked better, and also served to hype Ynnead and the Yncarne more, seeing as the Yncarne’s ended up being a rather underwhelming figure so far, for the Avatar of a God intended to face off against one of the Big Four personally.

3) Faith: This is a big one in the characterization and, at least partly, this is because Yvraine wasn’t built up in novels before we met her (something I really think would have made Fracture run smoother). Ynnead and his plotline is VERY different to the stock Space Marine Plotlines that make up 90% of the setting as, in a surprising reversal for 40k and its main protagonists, the character is not meant to be secular, but rather is meant to be finding faith in a new God. As Space Marines and Primarchs dominate the narrative to such an extent to make almost everyone else irrelevant, and all the good ones are secular too, there isn’t much in the way of a positive representation of faith, since almost all the major good guys disparage it. However, Yvraine is a chance to do something different; here is a cynical woman, one who was faithless, finding faith. That’s interesting, that can be a fascinating character study. Sadly though she converts so quickly, and with such little internal monologue, that it almost smacks more of Ynnead brainwashing her than an actual internal change. I would have loved if Yvraine resisted the Call, gradually over the story she resists her ‘Chosen One’ destiny and only bit-by-bit does she change. open, come to embrace Ynnead for a climatic full conversion. I’d also have loved a ‘Knight of Infinite Faith’/‘Knight of Infinite Resignation‘ type Soren dynamic to go down, where the climatic moment for Yvraine requires a Leap of Faith, a trust which she cannot have any guarantee will be rewarded, but which she has faith will and this pays off in the awakening of Ynnead.

4) Numbers: A constant headache with 40k but, in particular, with Craftworlds. How strong, or weak most of the time honestly, Craftworlds really are is high inconsistent. Biel-tan could defeat ten Chapters and two Battlefleets, yet the Daemon Army which nearly destroys it is never specified as even being that particularly large, Fabius Bile thinks Lugganath is so powerful that even the Emperor’s Children in their Heyday with Fulgrim couldn’t take it, but an understrength Invaders Chapter curbstomped Idharae. Some attention to how weak/powerful the forces involved actually are, giving me a better idea of their capacity relative to the rest of the Galaxy would help. For example must I then assume that the Daemonic Army which invaded Biel-tan could defeat 10 Chapters 2 Battefleets? Must I assume the Nurgle Hulks coming after Iyanden are stronger than any of the numerous foes Iyanden’s faced recently (seriously its become ridiculously cliche to invade Iyanden). What of Ahriman’s force at the end? How small, or big, compared to a Craftworld Warhost was Yvraine’s group? How big, compared to a Space Marine Chapter, was Ahriman’s force? Without this knowledge of context its hard to know the relative power dynamics.

5) Ahriman casually beating Yvraine/Visarch/Yncarne: This part was awful, just awful. Not only does it continue GW/BL’s fetish for makign Humans and Space Marines simply look wholly superior to all others, but it also in the book they are introduced undercuts and undermines the Ynnari themselves awfully, making the Yncarne look so pathetically weak it can’t even stand up to Ahriman.

6) The Visarch: He needed to do more. He really did. I actually very much enjoy his characterization in Gav Thorpe’s novels, but in the actual Fracture book he feels completely exogenous and with no real connection to Ynnead at all.

7) The Pace: This was always going to be a bit of a problem with the intense ‘Journey Adventure’ Aspect to the story, with Yvraine zooming around from hotspot to hotspot. The result can be a somewhat jarring and abrupt story, the brief stop on Iyanden, revelation that the Twilight Spear was a Crone Sword, then being gone being the best example. Ultimately I think Fracture spent a bit to much time focusing on other Aeldari subgroups’ own subplots, and a tighter, neater, focus just on Yvraine would have worked better.

8) The Croneswords: Why did they make them find all but one? Now we know every single mission to get a Cronesword is going to be a failure, removing completely the ability for the Ynnari to have major successes! Ah! Its like GW/BL hates the Aeldari! Why not make them find one, or two, so that they can actually have big triumphs in future where they find more?

9) Death: I think 40k should kill characters off in big plot changes. I understand that might be unpopular but I think its good. I like that Aun’va died, I like that Kell died (I think in both cases the Characters should have been given more triumphs and achievements, particularly in the run up to their deaths, but I suppose only Space Marines get to do that) and I think a death would pack a punch. It doesn’t have to be someone with a Miniature, but a character with some established place in the lore dying would help drive in the stakes of a larger moment in the narrative; Kelmon? Iyanna? Sunspear? Illic (lets be honest he never does anything but fail)?

#warhammer #warhammer 40k #aeldari #eldar #ynnari

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dove-annarchie · 7 years

Text

A Slow Damage headcanon theory compilation by Ann

It’s late and I’m supposed to write short stories instead of a long rant about a game that’s not even out. But after watching the Slow Damage PV another hundred times and seeing that the N+C fandom is kinda dead. I decided to add my little, possibly going to remain unseen theories/headcanons/speculations/guesses etc. for the fans waiting for something new.

Note that nothing of what I’ve written is to be taken at face-value, it’s just my speculation and feel free to correct me on anything or share your theories with me. Anything to make this agonizing period of waiting a bit less agonizing!

First, these guesses wouldn’t be as strong without @shinocchidesu’s text decode on the PV and the inverted sketches @bara-mink (sorry, for some reason i couldn’t tag you :C) made to get a new perspective on the images, and they look clearer!. Kudos to them!

To start this trip, I may warn you this is gonna be long as heck. Be prepared.

We’ve got to start with the ambience. N+C has something like a track record regarding crapsack worlds, dramatical murder and maybe false alkanet being the exceptions (and even then, Dmmd was dark as fuck despite the cheery, colorful world it was in). Togainu no Chi was a post-war dystopia, Lamento was a story in a world that was slowly dying, and sweet pool’s world was fairly ordinary but the darkness on the plot was the product of the characters’ doing.

Slow damage seems to be the game where both the characters and the world around them are grimdark as hell.

Taking the PV at face value, the characters seemed suspicious, the music and effects were unsettling and the background left an impression (at least in me) that nothing was fine. Looked kind of like a decadent city, or a red-light district, just an urban zone full of crime. If I had to compare it to explain myself better, think of Dragon Palace in Omerta Chinmoku no Okite (another BL, mafia themed VN).

(what looks like an urban environment in the pv):

(omerta’s dragon palace, for comparison):

A crime-filled ambience is an ideal place for a dark plot with troubled characters.

Moving along with the characters, we see 4 of them (at least if there’s not a hidden twin, clone or doppelganger). None of them look 100% sane to me. The flashing visuals and slightly off-key music and sounds are likely to hint that at us, or maybe it’s the kanji, for the Japanese-speaking people? They’re either very involved with crime, or their hands aren’t clean enough to disprove any guilt. At least for me, since these are my deductions.

Moving on, I’m going to talk about the people we see in the PV. Starting with:

My thoughts about him? When there’s crime, there should be cops. He looks like a detective or cop to me. He also seems to be middle aged, or older than the MC at the very least. Old enough to have been a father? Who knows. But he reminds me of Motomi (TnC) and Kiryuu (Omerta) for some reason. I’ll call him Kiryu for now.

The words deciphered by shinocchidesu in their post read:

Sins, guilt, depression, self-loathing, to hide something, mask.

If I tie this to his assumed position in the law, Kiryu must have committed a crime himself and/or gotten someone killed. It was either an accident or intentional, whether in a moment of weakness or fully aware of what was going to unfold. In any case. It seems like Kiryu desperately wants to hide it, or forget it. Or the disgust he felt with himself after doing it.

Affection, mercy, silence, determination to be…

What if his route is like a healing process, maybe not just for Kiryu, but also for whatever the MC went through before? Maybe by taking his route, if he has one, we can make him move on or remind him that the past is in the past, and that he can still find worthy things in his life (Like the MC?). he’s going to feel more positive with the MC around him, he may quickly take a liking to him. Maybe because he reminds Kiryu of someone from his past? Is being romanced by the MC like a chance to symbolically or internally fix everything that went wrong?

Next is…

My thoughts about him? Looks like the typical pretty boy every anime media must have. Longish hair? Check. More delicate face structure? Check. Mischievous smile? Check. He also seems to have piercings, or maybe it’s the rough lines of the sketches. I’m going to call him Shi for now, read the explanation ahead.

The deciphered words read:

Unrestrained, unstoppable pleasure, blood, bone, flesh, violence.

This doesn’t spell good.

I’m going to stretch my deductions a lot and state that maybe Shi was (or is) a cannibal, or a serial killer. I see him as a hedonistic fuck who doesn’t care about other people’s wellbeing as long as he’s having a blast. Maybe he was under the influence of drugs. All of this spells that Shi was an outright criminal, the kind of pleasure-seeking person who will go to the extreme just to feel new sensations, even if they’re morally wrong. Shi wants to feel thrilled, he has no barriers or chains. He’s a free man and not even the police can keep him from having his way. He’s sassy, brash, carefree and confident. Has a joyful and fun façade to hide his bloodthirstiness and the misery it caused him.

Or we can take the other side and imply he was being forced to be like this. Maybe he was part of a cult or a very toxic group who indulged in killing and intoxication. He’s used to this, even if he doesn’t want to be. Maybe the MC can help him withdraw from his passions or push him deeper into it while joining him. I still don’t have this clear.

Self-denial, build and rebuild, hidden aesthetic.

Shi lives very frugally. Because of his criminal status he has to constantly relocate, but it’s not like he has important things to leave behind. Much like Nine told Aoba in dmmd re:connect, Shi can build and destroy his (outer) world whenever he wants or needs to and he doesn’t lose much by that. The build and rebuild part can also apply to his possible murderous intents, since he destroys lives in order to build up his pleasure. Possibly being with the MC may inspire a desire to settle down, despite the risk, and having legitimate reasons to do the opposite. A possible bad end might be joining in the bloody debauchery and being dominated by Shi?

Next one…

My thoughts about him? A classic character; the kichiku megane. Other than Ugajin (also from Omerta) and the yaoi manga with that name, I cannot make any comparisons due the fact I haven’t seen many examples of this archetype. Unless he turns out to be a caring, if amoral sweetheart, I’m betting my cat’s life that he’s going to follow the trope to a T. Stoic, sadistic, cruel and uncaring, but smart, sophisticated, desirable and maybe hiding a very tiny good heart. He looks like a high-ranking criminal, or yakuza or mafia or I dunno, he looks not like a lowlife thug, but more like an evil hidden-in-plain-sight kind of criminal. He can afford to look elegantly amoral. It took me a while to give him a decent placeholder name, so I’m just calling him Kenji for now.

Let’s analyze his phrases.

To put on, not being himself, inerasable past, acted out truth, hatred towards their own.

This one’s a little more complicated to me even if it seems to be explicitly spelled out. Kenji’s self-hatred must stem from a typical traumatic experience. Maybe his family/race/clan/group did something awful and he was one of the few who regretted letting it happen? And that’s why he’s involved with crime? Because he sees himself as nothing but another apple that rot far away from the tree and he can’t do better than commit more crimes?. A little part of himself knows that while he’s scum, or at least related with the real scum, he didn’t commit atrocities like his kind so he can afford to be a little bit better. He desperately tries to distance himself from his clan, erasing his past and not wanting the horrible truth to be discovered. He doesn’t need to have a higher moral ground, he’s content with not doing horrible things directly. And he clings to that.

Cruel, thorough confrontation, continuous obsession.

Rule of three dictated these might refer to Kenji’s relationship with the MC. While MC doesn’t look like a career criminal, he’s still at the very bottom of the barrel, living in the crime-ridden urban settlement on a filthy studio (assuming he’s an artist). While Kenji can flaunt of being sophisticated and respected. If the kichiku megane aspect is played straight, Kenji won’t limit his cruelty with the MC, maybe seeing him as just another ruffian undeserving of even mere eye contact, much like he sees the people working for him. MC will keep clashing with Kenji, causing the yakuza to become enticed and attracted to the young (?) smoker. As if he’s “deserving” of him. I don’t have much else, sorry.

And finally…

Now let’s go with the hooded person, who I’m assuming it’s the MC, and if he isn’t and turned out to be the main antagonist or some shit like that, welp, then screech in my ear and call me Rachel.

I’m basing my guesses from the teaser images rather than the kanji.

The first one is simplistic. We see a person in a hoodie sporting a macabre smile, standing in the middle of a street with distorted figures which must be buildings. The colors are limited, classical red, black and white, aiding the macabre aesthetic of the picture. The black figures seem to sink onto the ground and lose consistency. As seen on the N+C website, the title of the game is written twice; once in white and then in black, right over the white katakana in an irregular way that may be meant to add to the “instability” of the image.

I don’t see much symbolism other that this being N+C’s way of saying “yo, we gon fuck your mind up but you gotta wait for it ;) also if you don’t speak Japanese then you’re doubly screwed fam”

The second one is more complex and gives us a very good look at the aspects and symbolism. We see the hooded person in much clearer detail. Looks definitely masculine (it’s a yaoi game, duh). He’s sitting on a stool, in a crooked posture, looking depressed and defeated, smoking while avoiding eye contact with the camera. Smoking was believed to reduce stress, but that was debunked a while ago, so he has pent up a ton of anxiety added to the usual problems with his already underprivileged lifestyle. Behind him there are numerous canvases (assuming he’s an artist, or at least a hobbyist) with a huge black one right behind his back, they show no images other than empty whiteness and some shadows, their meanings being that either he gave up, those easels are representing emptiness and gloom, he became disillusioned and he’s reflecting on stuff, or that there are multiple problems in his life that are unimportant or self-inflicted and thus cause him small amounts of misery but not to an extreme extent, and this one big black canvas right behind his back represents factor that started, prolonged or keeps fueling his bitterness and internal struggle.

I want you to save me./Do you want to be saved?

In a world of crime, a young man has the chance to make things right. Anything he could do may make things better or worse. Is he talking to himself? Is someone else asking him that? All the above?

By who? By me?

He’s doubtful and depressed. He started at the bottom and he’s still in the bottom (that was unintentional). But can he push his frustrations aside and face the music?

That concludes my analysis and helped quench my impatience a little bit. I should repeat that this is not to be taken at face value nor I’m saying this is 100% canon official information. It’s just another guessing game to see if I can give you an idea of what to expect. I dunno, I just wrote this for fun C: thanks for reading!

#slow damage #my posts #n+c #hooo boy that was long

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terrifyingrenegadelibrary · 7 years

Text

Volume 2, Chapter 6

Breaking Out is Hard to Do

Morgan: …Quinn?

Quinn: Who were you expecting, anyway?

Morgan: Quinn! You’re okay, I’m so glad you’re okay!

-and she hugs Quinn tightly and cries-

Quinn: It’s good to see you again too.

-she blushes faintly-

Quinn: I’d give your mourning for me a…7 out of 10? Could have used more tears. But I guess you were busy trying to save the world. On the other hand, you did punch Evan for me, so maybe I should bump you up a notch…

Morgan: Well, my concerns about a Spirit masquerading as you have been dispelled.

Quinn: Nice.

-Morgan blinks a couple times-

Morgan: …Nalis?

Quinn: Um, yeah.

Morgan: Why?

Quinn: Maybe we can get to that later?

Morgan: Uh…

Quinn: I was working for Nalis before you were working for Zaresi, though. But because of his rules, I wasn’t about to tell anyone. I was sort of hoping you weren’t ever going to get mixed up in magic. It’s a little bit of why I was okay with starting a band…

Morgan: You were, like, the least interested of all of us. Which is kind of impressive because I’m including Jacob in this.

Quinn: I was hoping you’d just end up a band Magician. You wouldn’t have to deal with anything serious, you’d be left out of the fights in the town…

Morgan: Well, that didn’t work.

Quinn: It did not. After what happened with your sister… I was pretty sure you’d been picked up by someone. And then the cloud showed up at school, and… well, you know Nalis gave us a ritual we could use to block mind-wiping, too.

Morgan: …Oh.

Quinn: Evan is a dick.

Morgan: You’re telling me.

Quinn: I wasn’t sure what to do. I talked to Nalis, who told me to just sit back and watch.

Morgan: You didn’t know he was having one of his Magicians follow me?

Quinn: I didn’t know anything about his plans. He didn’t tell anyone anything, he didn’t even tell us what he was up to or about his other Magicians.

Morgan: That doesn’t seem like good planning.

Quinn: It certainly didn’t work out for him.

Morgan: …Yeah.

Quinn: I didn’t know he was going to try and take over like everyone else. I thought he was pretty minor; he just had me and a Nymph or two on tap. When it turned out he was trying a major ritual, I went to go find you to make sure you were okay.

-Morgan blinks-

Morgan: …Thanks.

Quinn: Unfortunately, Taylor found me on the way to the graveyard. He was basically our Evan.

Morgan: Yikes.

Quinn: Yeah. He wanted my help catching the tulpa you guys made—

Morgan: Did everyone but me know it wasn’t a Fae?

Quinn: …Is that what they told you? I don’t think there’s any such thing as the fae.

Morgan: …Oh. Wow.

-Quinn looks sheepish-

Quinn: Anyway, the tulpa split us up in the forest, and I happened to find Evan graffiti-ing some walls. I thought he was just…you know, being Evan, but after he left I took a closer look at the sigils he was putting up. Turned out he was trying to amplify his kill ritual.

Morgan: How do you know about that? You weren’t there when he was—

-she pauses-

Morgan: Wait.

Quinn: Yeah?

Morgan: When I was fighting Nicholas, there was some Love magic that came out of nowhere and stopped him from killing me. At the time everyone thought Nalis helped out for a bit, but—

-Quinn flickers a little, and looks away-

Quinn: I wasn’t about to just let him kill you. Nalis told me not to interfere with Nicholas, since if Nicholas took the rest of the town’s Magicians, Nalis would be the only god left with any power. I was okay with not fighting him, but…no.

Morgan: …Thanks again, then.

-Quinn nods-

Quinn: Anyway, when I realized what Evan was about to do, I had…about five minutes to come up with a countermeasure, find Nalis, and protect the town.

Morgan: …

Quinn: I’d gotten through step one by the time the ritual went off. And…

-she gestures at herself-

Quinn: Not that well.

-Morgan looks down-

Quinn: Whatever Evan’s ritual is, it cuts past almost every line of defense Magicians use. Shields, diverting the flow of magic, even just dodging the spell. It’s uncanny. Considering his usual level of ability, it’s honestly astonishing he could have come up with it. But…he did, and even when I set up a defense specifically designed to counteract it, it took so much magic to maintain that…well. You see how that worked out.

Morgan: …Yeah.

Quinn: …Hey! Look on the bright side!

Morgan: The bright side.

Quinn: Yeah, I can do this now.

-there’s a flicker, and her facial features turn into Evan’s-

Evan!Quinn: Woo, woo! I’m a gigantic dick!

-and back to herself-

Quinn: Can you imagine how cool a party trick that’s going to be?

Morgan: …That was the most horrifying thing I’ve ever seen. And that’s a staggeringly high bar.

Quinn: It did feel kind of weird. I think I prefer being my regular shape.

Morgan: Your regular shape is perfectly nice.

Quinn: Well, thank you.

Morgan: So you can just look like yourself now?

Quinn: Yeah, it’s not even draining. See? It’ll be fine.

-Morgan stares at Quinn-

Quinn: What?

Morgan: Okay, then. Here’s what you need to do. The bars here are tight, but you can just, like…dissolve into a cloud of smoke and slip through them. This building is probably ventilated, so you can get out like that.

Quinn: What about you?

Morgan: What about me?

Quinn: Morgan. They’re going to execute you. Soon. I’m not ditching you.

Morgan: I can take care of myself.

Quinn: …Can you really?

Morgan: I—

Quinn: Let’s take a look at the facts, okay? We just got the crap kicked out of us by Zaresi, and that was when we had Novju backing us up. Now we’ve got no god, no magic, and no friends. And you still want to fight? No. If I just wanted to escape on my own, I could have done it whenever. Either we get out together, or we go out together.

Morgan: That doesn’t work. After…

-she sucks in a breath-

Morgan: Holly’s dead. Novju’s dead. Everyone else is dead… but you’re alive. I can’t let you die for me too.

Quinn: So that’s your plan, huh?

Morgan: Yep.

Quinn: I’ve said it before, but you really suck at those.

Morgan: Hey!

Quinn: If we want anything that we’ve sacrificed to be worth it, we need to get out of here first. We can be sad later.

Morgan: …Fine. But we can’t get out of here. There are guards everywhere, and anyway I’m going to be executed in…

-she looks at a clock-

Morgan: About five minutes.

Quinn: That’s plenty of time to come up with something. How many people are in this cell right now?

Morgan: Two.

Quinn: And how many people does everyone else think are in this cell?

Morgan: …

Quinn: Bet you ten dollars we’ll be out in less than a day.

-a short while later, a Reaper floats up to the door. Quinn has once again hidden in Morgan’s jacket-

Reaper: Hi again.

Morgan: Again? Who are y—Iggy?

-Iggy sighs-

Iggy: Even in the new world order, I still get no respect.

Morgan: (quietly) I almost feel bad about this.

Iggy: Feel bad about what?

Morgan: Nothing. Never mind.

Iggy: Don’t feel bad about being dead. It’s not so bad. Look at me.

Morgan: Aren’t Spirits not really dead?

Iggy: No, no, I’m very alive. I’m just saying, it could be worse.

Morgan: I guess you’re right.

Iggy: Are you going to stand up? I’m not going to leave if you don’t, you know.

Morgan: I’m not really feeling it.

Iggy: Of course. Why should anyone make things more convenient for me?

Morgan: Oh, shush, Iggy.

Iggy: You’re a prisoner, you know. You should be a little more polite.

Morgan: Why? Not like you can kill me any more than you’re already planning to.

Iggy: I guess. I’m just saying, it would be nice of you.

Morgan: I’m not exactly feeling very nice right now.

Iggy: Of course you aren’t. Why should anyone be nice to me?

Morgan: I think you’re being a little pitiful, honestly. I’m the one who’s about to die.

-Iggy sighs-

Iggy: I suppose…

-he drifts into the cell-

Iggy: Something something, prepare to see the glory of Zaresi’s new world, blah blah bl—

-Quinn, in the form of a cloud of smoke, drifts behind Iggy and sucker punches him-

Iggy: Ow! Evan, was that you?

-he conjures up a longsword, and spins around, only for Morgan to grab the blade-

Morgan: Ow ow ow ow ow!

Iggy: Hey! Return that at—

-and she stabs him with it-

Iggy: …Oh.

Morgan: …

Iggy: …Yeah, I guess I should have seen that one coming.

-and he dissipates-

Morgan: …I think that may well have been a mercy.

Quinn: I don’t remember anyone ever being able to just take my spells like that…

Morgan: …Yeah.

Quinn: …Yeah…

Morgan: Still felt better than it probably should have.

Quinn: That’s an issue for later. Time for phase 2.

Morgan: That doesn’t sound cool.

Quinn: It sounded better in my head.

Morgan: Doesn’t work.

Quinn: I tried.

-she flickers, and is replaced by Iggy-

Quinn: This is a very handy party trick.

Morgan: It’s also incredibly creepy.

Quinn: Yeah…it feels weird. I think it’s better for me to just look like myself.

Morgan: Let’s get out of here quickly, then.

Quinn: Yeah.

-Quinn takes Morgan’s hands and marches her down a hallway. They pass a Reaper-

Reaper: Oh, there’s the guest of honor. Excited to be dead?

Morgan: Is that a real question?

Reaper: Don’t be such a baby. Dying isn’t that bad. Look at me. Although I guess you’re not really going to be coming back. So…never mind. Don’t look at me, then.

Morgan: Weirdly, you’re not the first person to tell me that today.

Reaper: Well, you wouldn’t want to take an example from Iggy.

-the Reaper slaps Quinn on the back-

Quinn: (in a passable reproduction of Iggy’s voice) Yeah, yeah…

Reaper: Oh, hush, Iggy. Get her to the gallows.

Quinn: …Gallows! Right! And that would be…

Reaper: Jeez, you’d forget your own head if you had one. Thataway.

Quinn: Right, right…

-Quinn pushes Morgan in the indicated direction, exhaling as the Reaper passes-

Quinn: That was close.

Morgan: Do you really need to breathe still?

Quinn: …It just sort of feels right. Now come on. There isn’t exactly a map printed, but I was exploring this place while I was still recovering. I think I know a way out that doesn’t go past the…well, you know.

Morgan: Gallows?

Quinn: Yeah, that.

-as they keep moving, more and more Reapers start gathering around them-

Morgan: Uh, Qu—Iggy…

-Quinn doesn’t respond-

Morgan: Iggy?

Quinn: Oh, yeah. Because Iggy is the person I am. Why I would want to be Iggy, I have no idea, because frankly that is kind of a terrible person to be…but such is my life.

Reaper: Classic Iggy.

Quinn: Anyway, if you could excuse me for a bit? Mo—Uh, the prisoner needs to freshen up a bit. Can’t be executed not looking your best, right?

-the Reapers look between themselves-

Reaper: …I dunno. Etiquette on the subject is kind of lacking.

Reaper #2: We could write to Miss Manners?

Reaper #3: She won’t take our mail anymore. Something about “Not having any respect for small-minded dictators.” Same for Dear Abby.

Reaper #2: Oh…

Reaper #3: Unfortunately, we seem to be left in the position of trusting Iggy. Go ahead, take her wherever.

Quinn: Much apprec—

Reaper #1: Hush, Iggy.

-Quinn leads Morgan away-

Quinn: Wow, Iggy really does not get any respect, does he?

Morgan: Like I said, I think killing him might have been the most merciful option.

-they keep moving-

Quinn: Okay, so. That way leads to outside, so if we follow this hallway—

Evan: There you are!

-and he strolls up, heading in the direction the other Reapers were. Morgan’s face goes tight with rage-

Evan: Hey, Morgan. Hi, faceless mook.

Quinn: Um, it’s—

Evan: Quiet, Iggy.

Quinn: …If you know my name, why would you call me—

Evan: Do you hear that, Iggy?

-Evan puts a hand to his ear-

Evan: It’s the sound of you screaming pointlessly into the void in search of respect that you will never find.

Morgan: I see you’ve gotten even nicer.

Evan: Oh my goodness, you’re still talking. I sort of assumed you’d just give up on that after we locked you up alone for a week.

-he giggles-

Evan: So. Excited to be dead?

Morgan: Why does everyone keep asking me that?

Evan: I mean, some of the Reapers might be genuinely curious. I just sort of like rubbing it in.

-Morgan glares-

Evan: Anyway, Ho—Oh, wait, sorry, sorry. I get so confused, because normally I can tell you two apart because one of you is dead or about to be, but now, uh…

-he shrugs and grins apologetically-

-Morgan lunges at him, and is only barely restrained by Quinn. Evan steps out of range, laughing-

Evan: Man, you should have seen the look on your face.

-he takes out his phone and snaps a quick photo-

Evan: Fortunately for you, I’m in a good enough mood not to care about your little tantrum there. It’s not every day I get to perform an execution, and let me tell you, I am psyched. I mean, killing you a week ago would have been fun too, but nothing quite beats ending your life in front of a crowd of Reapers cheering for your blood. Right? Riiiight?

Quinn: Is this really necessary?

-Evan stifles a giggle with his hand, which is suddenly holding his knife-

Evan: I think all present know how I feel about that question.

-without warning, he flips the knife around, pointing it at Quinn and Morgan. Quinn takes a step back, pulling Morgan with her-

Evan: So. Hand her over.

-Morgan’s eyes widen-

Quinn: Oh, um…my orders were to take her directly to the…um, gallows.

Evan: Really? Well, I’m giving you another order, which is to hand her over since you’re going the wrong way.

Quinn: Um—

Evan: Um? Is there someone to whom my orders are secondary of whom I have not been informed?

Quinn: Zaresi?

-Evan pauses-

Evan: …Zaresi told you to take her directly?

Quinn: …Yes.

Evan: Weird. Can’t imagine her taking time out of her day to talk to a lowly Reaper.

Quinn: I have a name…

Evan: Yeah, but nobody cares. I’ve already forgotten it.

Quinn: You used it earlier.

Evan: Must be pretty unimportant then if I already forgot it, huh?

Quinn: …Well, I’ll see you at the gallows?

Evan: One second, actually. I’m a little confused as to how Zaresi gave you orders when she was just talking with me.

-he cocks his head to the side, and leans in-

Evan: Any words on that?

-the two stare at each other for a long time-

Morgan: Okay, change of plans. How distracted would you say you are right now?

Evan: What do you—

-she slams a knee between his legs, and he doubles over-

-Quinn, meanwhile, slams him into a wall, and he collapses to the ground in a heap-

Morgan: That felt exactly as good as it definitely should have.

Quinn: Less catharsis, more getting out of here.

-as they run, Evan looks up-

Evan: You’re going nowhere.

-he draws his knife-

Quinn: Looks like a really good reason to keep moving!

-which they do-

-meanwhile, the phone picks up-

Laura: What do you want, Evan?

Evan: Laura! Iggy’s betrayed us!

Laura: Is that really surprising?

Evan: And he’s taking your ex with him!

Laura: …Crap.

-cut back to Morgan and Quinn running. As they do, they hear steps from around a corner-

Quinn: Eep!

-and they duck into a convenient alcove as Laura comes around the corner, Death magic flickering off her hands-

-Morgan blanches. Quinn grabs her shoulder-

Laura: Morgan? Are you there?

-she walks down the hallway, looking back and forth-

Laura: If you give up and come out, it’ll…well, you’re still going to die.

-she sighs-

Laura: I’m sorry, I tried to talk Zaresi out of it, but Evan’s a whole lot better at talking her into it. But it’ll be painless. Promise.

-Morgan makes a move to try and get out of the alcove. Quinn clamps a hand over her mouth-

Morgan: Mmph!

Quinn: Stay there! I have an idea!

-Laura’s head snaps in the direction of the sound-

Laura: Who’s there?

-and Quinn pops out of the alcove, once again wearing the shape of a Reaper-

Quinn: Hi!

Laura: Oh. Iggy, is that you?

Quinn: God no.

Laura: Makes sense. I didn’t feel any urge to interrupt you. Have you seen him? Or Morgan?

Quinn: That way.

-she points the way she and Morgan came-

Laura: Thanks.

-Laura sighs again, and keeps going-

Quinn: Someone’s a failure of the employee morale system.

-she goes to collect Morgan-

Quinn: What’s with her?

Morgan: Don’t know. Don’t really care at this point.

Quinn: Huh.

-she shrugs-

Quinn: Well, at least it wasn’t Liz. Did you see that time we fought her? She’s scary. Dee, Andrew and I all fought her and she still won. I don’t think she was even trying…

-Morgan’s eyes widen-

Morgan: Andrew and Dee! Where are they?

Quinn: All part of the plan. They’re on the way.

Morgan: Oh. Good.

Quinn: You look so shocked.

Morgan: I’m having a little trouble reconciling my best friend who helps me make bad decisions and someone with, like, actual planning skills.

Quinn: Well, one of us had to develop them.

Morgan: Ouch.

Quinn: You know I’m right.

Morgan: Well, yeah. Obviously.

-as they move, they find another cell, this one containing Andrew and Dee-

Morgan: Hey, you too.

Andrew: Oh. Hi.

Quinn: Is that any way to say hi to the people who are rescuing you?

Dee: Are you rescuing us?

Morgan: We’re not just going to leave you here.

Andrew: Um, who’s the girl?

Morgan: We’re both girls, but I assume you mean the one who’s not me?

Andrew: …Yes.

-Quinn flickers, returning to the Poltergeist shape-

Quinn: More familiar?

Dee: I’d say you look better with a face.

-Quinn returns to her normal appearance-

Quinn: Much appreciated.

-and she yanks the lock off the cell door-

Quinn: That was cool.

Dee: I didn’t say that.

Quinn: Right, so someone had to. Let’s blow this popsicle stand.

Dee: That makes you sound old.

Quinn: We should still probably do it.

-and they do, finally slipping out of the building, into Zaresi-controlled London-

-it’s a bleak scene, not only because of the general fog. The streets are completely devoid of people, with what are almost certainly zombies shuffling around-

Morgan: …What.

Dee: It is pretty late. Didn’t you hear about the curfew Zaresi’s been imposing?

Morgan: Are you serious?

Dee: Dead serious.

Andrew: (quietly) Was that a pun?

Quinn: Dude.

Dee: She’s been using zombies to maintain order.

Quinn: How did you find out about that?

Dee: Overheard a few Reapers.

Quinn: Nice.

-she turns to Morgan-

Quinn: So not to put too fine a point on it, you owe me ten do—

-Morgan is gone-

Quinn: …Oh no.

Dee: You should probably go do something about that.

Quinn: Yeah.

-Quinn rushes back towards the tower, tackling Morgan-

Quinn: No!

-Quinn grabs Morgan, attempting to pull her back, but begins to dissolve-

Quinn: Morgan, you can’t!

Morgan: They killed everyone, Quinn! Tell me you don’t want them as dead as I do!

Quinn: Of course I do! But right now, the only people who are going to end up dead are us!

Morgan: I’ll think of something! I usually do, right?

Quinn: You don’t think of—ARGH – good things!

-suddenly, Quinn’s arms dissolve. Morgan tumbles free-

Morgan: Thank you. Now let’s—Quinn?

-she turns back to see Quinn mid-dissolution-

Morgan: Quinn! What—

Quinn: Um. Maybe I shouldn’t be exerting myself right now.

-with an effort of will, she resolidifies. Morgan gasps in relief, and pulls her close-

Quinn: Oh, man, I do not want to do that again…

Morgan: Oh, thank god.

Quinn: Maybe not the best turn of phrase right now.

Morgan: Point.

Quinn: So. Now do you believe me when I say we need to run?

Morgan: …Yeah.

Quinn: Come on. We should get off the streets.

Morgan: Yeah…

-Quinn gently leads Morgan away, walking by Dee and Andrew. Dee gently holds her back-

Dee: That was smart.

Quinn: What was?

Dee: Pretending to dissolve like that.

-Quinn’s eyes widen-

Quinn: Hey!

Dee: I’m not going to say anything.

Quinn: Okay, okay.

Dee: I’m not being sarcastic. You haven’t reached that point yet, I think, but if we actually had to fight, you’d wink out pretty quickly without anything backing you.

Quinn: …Uh, okay.

-Dee smiles at Quinn and strolls by-

-Quinn stares after her, looking very concerned, and then goes to catch up with Morgan-

Quinn: Hey, Morgan, is it just me, or are Dee and Andrew acting kind of—

-she interrupted by Morgan flinging a hand out in front of her-

Quinn: What?

-Morgan points at a handful of zombies in front of them-

Quinn: …Oh, are you serious?

Morgan: Are you really surprised at this point in our lives?

Quinn: I guess not.

Dee: Shouldn’t we be running?

-the zombies take notice of the four-

Zombies: Please return to your homes. The curfew is in effect.

Morgan: …Yes. Yes we should.

-and they do-

Morgan: Quinn, do you know anywhere we can go?

Quinn: No, why would I?

Morgan: I don’t know, I’m just sort of hoping someone does!

Dee: Try the Underground?

Andrew: …That’s surprisingly clever.

Dee: What’s that supposed to mean?

Morgan: Enough talking let’s do it please.

Quinn: Right!

-they disappear down some stairs into a station-

-the zombies stop at the entrance-

Quinn: That was surprisingly fortunate.

Morgan: Um…was it really?

Andrew: Oh no…

-indeed, there are more zombies patrolling the station-

Morgan: Dee.

Dee: …How was I supposed to know they had patrols here too?

Morgan: Don’t you know everything?

Dee: That’s a clever illusion perpetuated by the fact that I have a good memory and talk a lot!

Morgan: That would have been nice to know earlier!

Dee: In what possible world would I know everything?

Morgan: I don’t think things through that carefully! We established this!

-Dee tilts her head at Morgan as the zombies approach. Morgan, meanwhile, backs in front of Quinn as the zombies approach-

Zombies: Please return to your homes. The curfew is in effect.

Dee: (aside) I see several problems with this…

Morgan: Any ideas, anyone?

???: Oh! I have one!

-and a stream of hearts hits the zombies, forcing them back-

Morgan: …What.

Dee: What.

Andrew: What.

Quinn: …That’s convenient.

Morgan: Since when do excitable people out of nowhere help us? They’re usually Evan.

Quinn: That didn’t sound like Evan.

Morgan: It did not.

-two people, a boy and a girl, run up, still spraying hearts at the zombies-

Boy: Hey! Come with us if you want to live!

-he stifles a giggle-

Boy: I always wanted to say that.

-the girl nudges him-

Girl: Come on! We don’t have a lot of time!

-she gestures to Morgan and co-

Girl: Are you with us or not?

Morgan: Odds it’s a trap?

Dee: Pretty slim, actually. That’s Love magic; I can’t imagine Zaresi would let a god work for her if they hadn’t sworn to her first.

Morgan: I’m just saying, I don’t know how much I trust Love Magicians either.

Quinn: Hey!

Morgan: …Okay, we’ll go with them.

-they follow the two into the underground-

Dee: This isn’t sketchy at all.

Girl: It’s not far.

-everyone arrives at a car-

Morgan: This looks intensely abandoned.

Girl: Aha.

-Love magic flickers from her fingers, and the train hums to life-

Quinn: Huh. How’s that work?

Girl: Oh, we’ve been practicing. Cam’s garbage at it—

-she gestures at the boy, who looks embarrassed-

Girl: But since Zaresi took over, it’s useful to be able to move the trains.

Quinn: With…Love magic.

Girl: You can see it? Are you a Magician too?

Morgan: We all are, actually. Well, I’m never really sure about Andrew.

Andrew: Hey now.

Girl: Well, pleasure to meet you. I’m Cam.

Dee: I thought you said he was Cam.

Girl: We’re both Cam. I’m Cam B, he’s Cam C.

Dee: ...Well, I’m Dee, but my name’s not Cam anything.

-Cam B bursts out laughing. Cam C rolls his eyes-

Cam C: If you’re all Magicians, are you willing to fight?

Morgan: Yes.

Quinn: Um.

-Andrew and Dee, meanwhile, look between each other-

Cam B: No?

Dee: …I’ve sort of seen enough fighting for a while.

Andrew: Yeah.

Cam B: …That’s perfectly alright. You’re still welcome to stay with us.

-Morgan raises a hand-

Morgan: Who’s “us”? You and other Ca- uh, Cam C?

Cam C: Yeah, no. We’d be very dead if it were just us.

Cam B: We’ll be at the end of the line in a few hours. Relax a bit.

-everyone sits down. Andrew and Dee sit by each other, as do Morgan and Quinn-

Quinn: Is it just me, or is this very surreal?

Morgan: A year ago, we were in a band together. Now you’re made of energy, we’re in London, my old boss just took over the world, and we’re running from zombies.

Quinn: So…

Morgan: Very much so, yes.

Quinn: At least it’s not just me.

-Quinn leans her head on Morgan’s shoulder. Morgan wraps an arm around her-

Morgan: See? You do need sleep.

Quinn: Oh, shush…

-and the two fall asleep-

-shortly thereafter, however, they’re awoken-

Cam B: Hey! We need your talents!

-Quinn and Morgan wake up, notice that they’re leaning on each other, and both blush-

Cam C: Quit flirting! You two are Magicians, right?

Morgan: Yes?

Cam C: Then get your Contract-making faces on! We’re under attack!

Dee: Here? Really?

Cam B: You and the guy stay in the car! We’ll deal with this!

-the Cams, Morgan, and Quinn all run out of the car, and enter straight into a battle-

-a pair of Magicians are fighting a group of zombies, but are clearly outmatched. They’re spraying vague pink sparks that simply skate off of fields of Death magic around the zombies-

Cam B: Ugh, since when are zombies this tough?

Morgan: I’ve seen zombies like this before. They’re basically impossible to kill.

Quinn: …No, they’re not.

Morgan: What are you talking about?

Quinn: I have an idea. Where’s your god?

Cam C: In the back.

-he points at a young woman outlined in pink, who is currently watching the battle in mild terror-

Quinn: Hey! You! I need magic!

Goddess: …Is that really how you want to ask?

Quinn: Do you really have that many options?

Goddess: Fair enough.

-light flows between the goddess and Quinn, and Quinn bursts into pink light-

Morgan: Love magic? What good is that against a zombie?

Quinn: Let me demonstrate.

-she sprints in between the other Magicians and the zombies, and suddenly an artfully constructed bow appears in her hands-

-and a half dozen more appear floating behind her-

Dee: Arrows. Not bad.

Quinn: Watch and learn, everyone!

-and she fires. Each arrow pierces through one of the zombies, pulling the magic out of them in blobs of shadow. The zombies, the sources of their power now pinned to the far wall, collapse to the ground as the magic animating them dissolves-

Morgan: …That was unbelievably cool.

-Quinn winks-

Quinn: It’s not my first time fighting the undead.

-everyone, meanwhile, is staring at Quinn-

Quinn: …What?

Cam C: How did you do that?!

Cam B: Yeah, none of us have been able to do anything to them. We’ve just been running any time they get close.

Quinn: How long have you been Love Magicians?

-one of the other Magicians speaks up-

Magician: Only a week or so. My old god got killed when Zaresi took over everything, so I hid underground and found these guys.

Quinn: …Yeah, I’ve got a lot to teach you.

Cam C: It’s only going to go so far. You’re probably the most powerful Magician we have now.

Quinn: Wait, really?

Cam B: We’ve been pretty strapped. The more powerful Magicians either signed on to work for Zaresi or got…well.

-she makes the throat-cutting gesture-

Cam C: The rest of us went underground. Literally.

Magician: Then we found Wilthe, and we’ve sort of been working from there.

Quinn: Are there more of you?

-the goddess floats forwards a bit-

Wilthe: Around the world? Sure.

Quinn: But here?

Wilthe: There are other branches. But it’s hard getting in touch. And nobody has anyone who could do what you just did.

Quinn: Well, you’re in luck. Morgan’s way stronger than I am. And Dee and Andrew aren’t so bad either.

-the two wave-

Wilthe: We’re certainly in no position to deny anyone who offers to help. Welcome to the resistance.

-there’s a beat-

Dee: …Wow, we’re screwed.

#This Show Sponsored by Death!#writing

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adhdyosafire · 8 years

Photo

it took a fuckin while to draw these but alas here she is. i would have put her basic info DRAWN there 2 but the PAIN of lacking a pentab & using nothing but MOUSE is terrible but u kno ,,,, nya! both canon & variant verse will be explained below B”) just 4give my poor ass drawing skills

basically her full name is kyana fletcher d.(aiki) mellington. she’s a british-japanese ( though she’s lived more in england rather than japan , thus was more used to their culture and language. she has visited her mother’s hometown several times though , but not as often. her accent is ever so slightly similar to bl/izzard’s tra/cer ) . she’s about 23 y/o born on 05/26/19XX , about 6′5″ in height though originally 6′2″. her heels made her taller. fluent in japanese and knows a little bit of french. she’s an IT engineer at mu/rkoff , yet also a web developer/designer and was responsible for several unsolved crimes. she uses a golden revolver to commit these crimes.

she has undiagnosed psychopathy mainly because she rarely gave a shit about her mental health ( and highly doubts that she is sick in the first place , even believes in the contrary that she sees better than anyone else. smth like that. ) .

her character , basically , is the villain in most stories who’s aware that they’re the villain and even lives up to it. think lor/d dom’s i’m the bad guy or sa/l just being the little shit he is. maybe less worse. or worse. you decide. she’s an antagonist and isn’t exactly the nicest girl around.

PRE/BACKSTORY

kyana grew up in a rather wealthy family with parents that loved her so. she’s a spoiled brat to say at the least , since her parents always gave her what she wanted and tried to make reason to her incorrect behavior . in school , she was typically a ‘’queen bee’’ but rarely had any friends despite her intimidating personality. it’s not like she cared too much though , what more she liked being an intimidating figure. needless to say , she grew up in a life that was near to ‘ perfect ‘ but shit hit the fan eventually .

her parents weren’t too young when they gave birth , thus they died of old age when kyana was around her teens. this distressed her , of course , but unlike most was quick to move on. her parents’ wealth was promised to be given to her when she was 18 but was first given to the hands of her aunt whom she moved in with. her aunt didn’t necessarily pay attention to her too much unlike her parents , and kyana wasn’t used to such treatment. she felt neglected for this state of her childhood but tried to not let it bother her too much . she had to move schools too eventually , and therefore lost her ‘popularity’ . she always got into several arguments and refused to be proven wrong even with evidence that she in fact was. her pride was something she never gave up . she eventually learned to become manipulative and put up a personality that was liked by many so her popularity once again increased and just like before , she was loved by many. but she uses this to her advantage to bully/bring down those who’ve disliked her at first , up to the point where they’ve chosen to leave the school / other terrible stuff. she never felt remorse for this however , only pure satisfaction. basically the same shit until she grew up to have a job. college was where she learned to toy with other’s hearts/feelings just for the sake of her amusement/sexual satisfaction for both men and women . her charms/good looks became a heavy advantage for her on this , along with her ability to flirt wisely though all deceived. ‘ falling in love ‘ was never a state kyana felt in her life because she couldn’t care less for romance .

another thing about her personality as she grew up was she despised rules. she did not see the point in them , be it the commandments or laws in general. she has her own belief in where rules always rendered useless because ‘ life’s short , so ‘m gonna do whatever the fuck i wanna do ‘ . she finds it boring to follow such commands like robots being obliged to do tasks they’re programmed to do. this leads her to do some crimes for , again , the sake of her amusement or needs. be it greed for money or wrath / wanting revenge on some prick who’s pissed her off. she’s that petty. she was very power hungry too , which lead her to abandon her catholicism and worship herself instead.

CANON

kyana was still her ever so bitchy self in mount m/assive. of course she fucked with the other employees in more ways than one , and made sure she had a likable figure there as well. though she was aware of how terrible the shit they do in her workplace , it’s not like she could care less because��‘’ helping them nor pitying them would not be my benefit. perhaps , if i did , i’d achieve ‘justice’ as most would say , but it’s still an equivalence to golden rings to me. they’re both useless to me , hun. ‘’ so she continues on with her work. the variants always piqued her interest though , and so ‘’playing’’ with them didn’t seem bad aka she wouldn’t really mind taking a trip inside the asylum herself ( AND BOY OH BOY WAS SHE WRONG )

another thing she liked doing though was purely teasing with everyone else. think constantly bullying wa/ylon despite his size/timidness/reluctance to go ‘’rebel’’ with her ( and truthfully she does pity those who liked to follow rules , saying that they’re missing one hell of a life and just hopelessly becoming slaves to some dumb text printed on some paper ) . she would literally cross the boundaries and even tease her boss as well since she didn’t enjoy being ‘bossed’ around or having someone more dominant/powerful than she is. ( lit tho she’d place a gun against his head n threaten him all she was n 5 seconds later lol bitch it’s a watergun i cant BELIEVE u peed urself!! )

VARIANT

in which her dream becomes true. this one’s still pretty much a huge wip but she generally takes the same path as wa/ylon , except she was either thrown in there w/o having to go to the morphogenic engine for either 1) angering jere/my and him just wantin 2 get petty revenge idk 2) kyana wasn’t mentally healthy in the first place and her little ‘gun’ incident made them throw her there , god im so unsure or 3) her just. getting in. bc why not. ( i was supposed 2 add abt her following after way’s paths but that’s a WHOLE DIFF STORY OOPS )

she unfortunately gets in unarmed though and loses her gun in the process. though she’s (thicc) physically capable of handling herself , her combat skills were not as great w/o the usage of weapons. thus in the path of meeting fra/nk she unfortunately gets her left breast cut off ( bc it was ‘’’meaty’’’ and thus more delicious yum YUM ) and manages to escape him . she’s slightly TERRIFIED at this point but not as much. the other variants didn’t matter to her nor did they have a large effect on her , what more they annoyed her with their stares/w/e im too lazy to explain it at this moment it’d be pretty obvious since she was a female wandering in the male ward

much like both protagonists , traveling around the asylum made her sanity DROP further than it already was originally. it’s basically the same or at least ALMOST the same torture as wa/ylon went through ( in which i’ll talk about in a more detailed way #soon(tm) ) . the gown , obviously , came from ed/die in attempts of making her into one of his brides ( and since she was presumbably the first female he’s come across with he’d be glad to finally found someone who was already PHYSICALLY acceptable for him so all he did was shove her in that damn dress ) but at this point she’s already snapped . she’d play for a while , but moments later had fought back and eventually killing the other inmate in the process , but not without saying ‘ thanks for the dress though , darlin~ ‘ in the process of murder. much like her previous criminal acts , she found slaughter amusing and p much did it to the other variants she’d come across w/ and called it an act of ‘mercy’ since it was so much better to die than let murkoff use them for experiments. think chris’ except his intentions were more linked to the wal/rider , in where kyana talked about the entire asylum in general.

the guts were a faux flowercrown . since she still had to look pretty even in a godforsaken place , which should hint/show her VERY obvious narcissism .

she has either stayed in the asylum as a wandering female variant in the male ward or if we’re following/making her path in the whistl/eblower story , she’d end up killing even jerem/y rather than miles’ wa/lrider doing it. same w/ waylo/n but AGAIN , that’s a different story(tm) that i’ll post abt soon

ONCE AGAIN NON FILTER FOR PROPER COLORS...

#outlast oc #kyana #blood /#gore /#THIS TOOK A WHILE IM TIRED #i'll edit it soon if i see any mistakes jfc #long post /#my art #death /#idk what else to tag this ahh !!#she's problematic af that's it

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bleached-bones · 8 years

Note

❎🍒?

Cherri Cola and Korse

OOOOO

So we know that Cherri was in the wars, but what if Korse was too?

They were both younger, more naïve, full of false hope for a world that was crumbling at their feet. Cherri was on one side of a raging, cruel war, and Korse was on the other.

It was routine to bring in the rebels for extermination or re-education. BL/i was and still is pretty stingy, and if they didn’t want to risk killing a rebel in the field who might have some potential.

Cherri, wild and brash, ended up captured.

Hands tied, blinded, Cherri and a group of about 7 other rebels were shepherded into the back of a truck.

After a long and bumpy trip, the truck screeched to a halt. Two loud bangs against the rear door of the vehicle indicated it was time to go. The soldiers ripped off the blindfolds, the light of the next room stinging Cherri’s eyes. With their foot soldiers watching, the rebels marched off of the filthy truck, forming a line across a white floor. As Cherri moved, his clothes shifted, and shed dust onto the pristine white tiling.

The other rebels in the line were crying. Defeated. They knew this was the end They might be more afraid if they had heard the horror stories of the survivors, but there were no survivors. Ever.

Cherri looked around, there wasn’t much in the bleak room expect for the Scarecrows behind them, armed with weapons none of them had seen. They were rumored not to shoot bullets, but a white-hot lazer beam. There was a door on their left, heavy and bolted. To the right was the truck they had just came off of, but that door too was bolted.

The sound of whimpers and quiet pleas was cut through by a large, metallic whirring. The door on the left slid open, and in walked two people.

One of them was tall and slender, an asian woman with a dark and sleek bob. The other was shorter, his hair buzzed back, and dressed in what Cherri recognized as a standard BL/i student uniform, but his was a bright white, as opposed to the usual gray. Cherri guessed he was about his age, the woman maybe 5-10 years older. The woman moved with a swift grace, heels clicking loudly against the tile beneath them. It was clear the boy at her side was trying to imitate her, but without her sharp precision, looked kind of silly.

The pair approached the rebel on the far side first, slowly pivoting to face her.

Cherri knew her, if only a little bit. She had offered him some of her ration in a camp, once. He recognized her hair.

The woman in front of the kneeling rebel looked her up and down, then turned to her student.

“Korse?”

His attention broke from the details of the rebels outfit, head snapping to attention.

“Yes?”

“Why don’t you analyze this set, too? The last one was a bit too easy, this bunch looks more challenging.”

The student responded with a curt nod, turning back to face the rebels.

Cherri’s heart fell in his stomach. This was it. It finally hit him that he was going to die. There was no hope. Who knew what the needed to “evaluate” him for?! Why not just give the poor bastard a quick and easy death!

Korse inhaled, and with a cold tone, stated “Extermination.”

The rebel girl burst into tears, at which one of the scarecrows behind her stood up, and escorted her out of the room. She didn’t fight back.

Korse and the taller woman moved on to the next rebel.

This went on and on, Cherri’s heart beating faster and faster and faster. Cherri looked up and down the line, he was second to last. He needed a plan.

Korse moved on, the woman’s high heels a sharp slice through the room as a reminder of it.

Cherri was panicking. He was holding himself down, knowing not to run. That would just get him killed on the spot.

A few more clicks on the floor. The pair were now hovering above the rebel on his right.

think think think think!

“Exterminate.”

They moved forward, standing above Cherri. This was it, this was the end.

Cherri lifted his head, shifting his gaze onto the student, meeting his eyes. Praying to destroya that there be mercy left.

“Re-Educate.”

Cherri felt a hot tear roll down his face. So relieved. He didn’t even know what that meant, but it sure as hell wasn’t extermination, and that was good news to him.

—

A scarecrow swept him into a waiting room of sorts. Maybe more of a holding room.

After minutes of antagonizing waiting, Korse walked in, motioning for the scarecrow to leave.

“Stand up.”

Cherri practically jumped to his feet, adrenaline kicking in again. Cherri was a good bit taller than him, and Korse had to tilt his head up to keep eye contact.

“I felt something. This must be the intuition the Director is always saying I’ll develop.”

Cherri nodded, despite having literally no idea what he was talking about.

“You can speak.”

“Uh-Ok”

“What is your name?” Korse interrogated, his eyes drifting away, seemingly bored.

“Cherri Cola”

Korse sighed, and Cherri swore he saw an eyeroll

“No, like your REAL name.”

Cherri paused for a second before responding. cautiously, slowly, he said again.

“Cherri. Cola.”

Korse stood, something growing in his eye. Fear? No, he was too cold for that.

“Very well, Cherri Cola, I can see you may be less set for re-education than I thought.”

Cherri scoffed, a bubble of confidence growing.

“Ya know, whatever that is, I don’t think I’m up for it, either.” Cherri agreed.

“Why are you acting like this? Would you RATHER be killed?” Korse seemed genuinely taken aback.

“Nah, I just don’t think either option ’s a good one for me.”

Korse furrowed his brow, or rather his brow muscles. Up this close, Cherri noted that he had almost to eye brows to speak of.

“What would /you/ suggest, then?”

“Let me go!”

If it’s possible to snicker without any hint of emotion, that’s what Korse did.

“N’ I’m serious! I could..” Cherri ran through his mind, thinking of things he could bargain off, “I could spy! Yeah, like report back, y'know?”

Korse looked at him as thought he were crazy, then paused.

Could this actually fucking work?

—-

Years later, Cherri obviously went back on his word and never told Korse anything. But he did get an inside look at BL-i, and played a big hand in helping the rebellion before it collapsed.

Korse has a death wish for Cherri, hoping he never says anything that would tarnish his title, and Cherri lords it over everyone that he did that.

sorry this got so long I had a burst of inspiration idk

#answered #long post #woah sorry #kinda dropped off at the end there #cherri cola #korse #this could have been condense but #(งツ)ว

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thechasefiles · 5 years

Text

The Chase Files Daily Newscap 8/22/2019

Good Morning #realdreamchasers. Here is your daily news cap for Thursday, August 22nd, 2019. There is a lot to read and digest so take your time. Remember you can read full articles via Barbados Today (BT), or by purchasing a Daily Nation Newspaper (DN).

RIPPED OFF BY UTILITIES, SAYS SENATOR – Opposition Senator Caswell Franklyn is comparing the Barbados Light & Power (BL&P) to the “mafia”. Making his contribution to the Electric Light and Power (Amendment) Bill, 2019, which was passed in the Senate today, he thanked the Barbados Labour Party (BLP) administration for bringing the Act, which would govern the generation and transmission of electricity, to protect Barbadians from what he described as “this monster call BL&P”. He went as far as to say that there was a need for a commission of inquiry to investigate the utility company. “BL&P for all of its existence enjoyed a monopoly on producing power in this country, and they have been ripping us off for years. You imagine, they had a rate increase in 2010, the one before that was 26 years before, you imagine producing a product and the price of that product was able to sustain you and your lifestyle for 26 years? “That product would have to be sold at such a high price, that over all the years of increases, and they were still being able to make a profit, they have been ripping this country off. They were ripping us off left, right and centre, and I am glad now that they are going to be in check,” Franklyn said. The senator, who said that some Barbadians have gotten permission to generate their own electricity from the sun, said they did not fully benefit since they still depended on Light & Power for electricity at nights. He said this was why people still opted to stay on the grid. “But Light & Power charges you 55 cents per unit, but they buy it from you for 41.6 cents. But you are not selling them the excess you know, the one that you don’t want, you have to sell them all, and then buy back. So you sell all at 41.6 cents and then buy back from them for 55 cents. They are ripping you off again. They can’t help it. “They have been ripping off Bajans for so long they can’t help what they are doing. It is part of their DNA right now, they are more like a mafia. So what will happen is if you come off the grid completely, you will force the people who are still on the grid to pay more,” he said. Giving an insight into his own personal experience with the utility company, Franklyn claimed that he travelled for two weeks in December 2018, “and for those two weeks with only my fridge on in the house, they charged me more electricity than I had anytime the rest of the year”. “It seems to be a problem with utility companies you know, because Water Authority does it too, hit you for a lot of money, but we seem not to be able to get rid of them. I see people talking about how nice they are. “But they are not nice, they are like any other company looking to generate a profit. But they have been taking advantage of a government and people who were too trusting. I challenge them to deny anything that I said. They probably will, but they can’t deny it with figures,” Franklyn said. The opposition senator said if Government’s initiative was handled correctly, the country would not have to spend foreign exchange on purchasing oil from overseas markets. According to him a significant part of the renewable energy sector should be reserved for Barbadians. He said he did not think there was a need for overseas investors since renewable energy was not rocket science. Franklyn suggested that the capital sitting on the banks be mobilised and invested in the island’s future, including the energy sector.“You import these systems and give people duty-free concessions, let more people generate their own electricity. As a matter of fact, one of the conditions of building these new mansions and stuff they are building now should be a component where you have to produce some of your own electricity if not all. We have been getting away by buying power from Light & Power and we have been allowing lots of opportunities for generating power to go,” he said. (BT)

SENATORS WELCOME AMENDMENTS TO ELECTRIC LIGHT AND POWER ACT –The amendments to the Electric Light and Power Act should be the catalyst Barbados needs to achieve its goal of becoming fossil fuel free by 2030. Speaking during debate on the bill in the Senate this afternoon, Opposition Senator Crystal Drakes, said, “At present we are using 10,000 barrels of oil a day, 9,000 of which are imported, so we have a problem as it relates to our foreign exchange and being able to afford fuel coming in, and we are at the mercy of the international market in terms of the cost of oil and energy generation. Our import bill was $2.9 billion, and 25 per cent of that went to fuel alone. This bill gives us an opportunity to save foreign exchange and the inflation volatility caused by the movement of oil prices worldwide.” She stated that Barbados has a lot of work to do to achieve its renewable energy targets by the specified dates. “Barbados currently has a 20-year energy policy covering the years 2017 to 2037. That policy states that one of the goals is to reach 34 per cent in renewable energy generation by 2022. Now if we are at less than five percent in 2019, and want to increase to 34 per cent by 2022, and to become carbon neutral by 2030, we have a lot of work to do. So why has there not been a greater uptake in this? Cost is a factor, because a lot of people cannot make that upfront investmnt, so Government should be creative in how they incentivise people to get interested in renewable energy.” In her contribution to the debate Senator Alphea Wiggins expanded on the incentive aspect, stating that the education process should also include commercial banks and other financial institutions, whom she stated did not quite understand the benefits such systems brought. “It is important that we let the banks know how much people can save by using these panels to generate electricity vis a vis fossil fuel driven energy, so they will be more willing to lend money to homeowners who want to do this type of upgrade.” Senator Rawdon Adams, who commended Senator Drakes on her presentation, noted the bill was a “work in progress” as the different aspects of it would develop over time. He said Government should maintain its interest in the Barbados Light and Power Company. “It is a work in progress because it gives us options in some areas, such as licences for transmission, distribution, dispatch, generation, and storage; some of those things we will learn as we go along. I believe it is also important we retain a good relationship with the Barbados Light and Power Company, because when it was sold to Emera, the National Insurance Scheme had owned 30 per cent of it, and at the time I was puzzled as to why a pension fund would want to sell an asset that was stable, paying a six per cent dividend a year, when there was no alternative option available.” In explaining that point, he noted that Norway had invested in an oil field that had proven very lucrative, and has invested the funds generated into its social security scheme, as well as one per cent of it in every company listed on the world’s stock exchanges. Deputy President of the Senate, Senator Rudolph Greenidge, in supporting the bill, spoke of the contributions of pioneers like James Husbands of Solar Dynamics and the late Professor Oliver Headley in the solar energy sector. He also paid tribute to former Senator and UWI lecturer Wendell McClean, who fought to ensure that utility companies with monopolies did not use their position to exploit consumers. “He believed that every monopoly vested with power is apt to abuse it, and he always emphasised the point that the only way to prevent that was to prevent the inclination towards it by putting the necessary legislation in place. He did not live long enough to see it, but he would have been pleased to see Government moving towards the breaking down of monopolies in the public utilities sector.” (BT)

SMALL BUSINESSES NEED ENERGY FUND –Government Senator Lynette Holder wants micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) to get a piece of the second Energy Smart Fund which will soon come on stream. She noted that under the first fund, small businesses could not afford the grants and low interest loans which were placed at a minimum of $150 000. She therefore suggested that provisions be put in place to allow small businesses to borrow as little as $25 000 this time around to retrofit their operations. “Let us learn from this exercise and recognize that we may very well need to tweak, we may very well need to improve the overall programme if we want to see the uptake from our micro, small and medium enterprises,” Holder said in her contribution to debate on the Electric Light and Power (Amendment) Bill, 2019, which was passed in the Senate today. “The minimum amount accessed by an individual applicant is $150 000. Yes, the interest rate was attractive enough, but $150 000 [was high] and therefore there was not the level of uptake that we wanted to see. I want to suggest that we consider lowering that amount to smaller chunks.” Senator Holder noted that in an effort to move towards establishing a renewable energy society, the Government in collaboration with the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) and the European Union (EU) would establish the Energy Smart Fund 2 which is intended to help Barbados achieve the goal of becoming a fossil free country by 2030. It will look at retrofitting public buildings using performance-based contracts and also improving efficiency in renewable energy through a lending scheme to be administered by the Enterprise Growth Fund. Holder, who is also the chief executive officer of the Small Business Association, suggested that a combination of grants be introduced to allow firms to access the resources to conduct energy audits. “We boast, Mr President, of being the first country in this hemisphere to have developed this technology but we only use it in our homes, we only use it to warm our water. We need to be able to move to the stage where those types of businesses can move to the point where they literally retrofit their operations so as to move away from the fossil fuel, but also to bring down their energy costs. And as you are able to bring your energy costs down, then the inputs into your operations are reduced and ultimately it makes your product a lot cheaper, it makes your product a lot more competitive, especially if you are looking to export,” Holder said. (BT)

NO MORE ED FORMS – The days of airline passengers having to fill out immigration/customs forms, also known as ED forms, on arrival at the Grantley Adams International Airport will soon be a thing of the past. From next month, there will be a full transition to the use of the 48 kiosks at the airport, Minister of Home Affairs Edmund Hinkson revealed this morning. He explained that the kiosk system has been tested for almost a year and has been fine-tuned to ensure that the passenger information gathering system meets all the markers for Customs, Immigration and the Statistical Services. “We have eliminated the ED cards from September 1. Cabinet made that decision at last Thursdays’ meeting. We have 48 kiosks now; there were 16 and we got another 32 and they were installed last month and are working effectively. I am not going to tell Barbadians that there will be perfection and that the systems will never break down, but we have backup facilities, redundancies in other computer equipment, in terms of saving the information,” said Hinkson, who was speaking to reporters at Parliament, the first stop in his annual outing for Class Four students from schools in his St James North constituency. “We see this as a key plank in terms of facilitating entry into Barbados. This is the first point of entry for both citizens and non-citizens and first impressions count. It is incumbent on us to make it as easy as possible to get out of the airport.” Hinkson told reporters that Government has also covered its bases with the key tourism marketing agencies that depend on the information gathered from the landing forms to market the country’s tourism product overseas. “Cabinet also decided that we will put in some more questions in the system….Right now, on the ED card, persons are asked to put in their address, length of stay in Barbados, type of accommodation, zip code. We are going to add some questions to the kiosks that will still allow for the acquisition of that information,” he pointed out. The Minister revealed that while speed of the process may vary based on the size of a travelling party as well as an individual’s technical proficiencies, the digital systems have significantly cut down the length of time it takes for passengers to get through the airport. “Right now, the questions in there take an average of a minute to a minute and a half. Obviously, it depends on how technically challenged you are. Also, a single person would take a shorter…time than a couple or a family of four. But everyone who has used it has said that it is tremendous and that it has made life much easier for entering Barbados,” he said. However, Hinkson stressed that while Government was focused on improving efficiency and ease getting into the country, measures were being taken to ensure that national security was not compromised. He pointed out that Government has reserved the right to add more questions if international or local developments demand it. “If there is a global outbreak of Ebola, for example, any reasonable person would understand that if you have been to ‘X’ or ‘Y’ country in the last few months, then it should be indicated. We have to protect our public health and ensure our national security is preserved. So we intend to monitor the system and make updates where necessary,” the Home Affairs Minister explained.(BT)

CREDIT UNION OFFICIAL SAYS TO EXPECT MORE MERGERS –A top credit union official says that as regulations in the industry continue to tighten there could be several mergers within the sector. This assessment has come from General Manager of the Barbados Co-operative and Credit Union League Ltd. Anthony Pilgrim, who pointed out that the number of local credit unions has been on the decline. In fact, speaking Tuesday at a discussion hosted by the Central Bank of Barbados and the Financial Services Commission on the findings of the recently released Financial Stability Report 2018, he said some credit unions were currently exploring amalgamation. “We have currently about [33] credit unions still operating actively. I can say to you that I am aware that there are at least five credit unions that are actively looking at some form of amalgamation option, as I speak,” said Pilgrim, who opted not to name the institutions or go into further detail. Saying that a final decision would have to be made by the members of those entities as well as the regulator, he pointed to several factors that would contribute to such a move in that direction. “As the environment becomes more challenging, the regulatory requirements are more stringent; also the accounting standards. These become more of a challenge for small institutions with limited management capacity. So those are some of the things that tend to drive consolidation in the sector,” he said. Pilgrim said that over the years there has been “a lot” of consolidation in the credit union sector and he expected that trend to continue. “Back in the 1990s, we had in excess of 50 credit unions, so really the movement has shrunk by about 40 per cent or so. We expect going forward to see further consolidation in the sector and this is a regional and global trend where . . . practically in every jurisdiction there is consolidation,” he said.Of the more than 30 credit unions in Barbados, the concentration is among the three relatively larger ones – the Barbados Public Workers Co-operative Credit Union with a membership of more than 95,000 and assets exceeding $1.3 billion; the City of Bridgetown Co-operative Credit Union Ltd with assets of more than $515 million and a membership base of over 64,300; and the BWU Co-operative Credit Union Limited, which has a membership base of over 24,300 and assets over $170.7 million.(BT)

NO RAIN, NO GAIN – Ongoing drought conditions in Barbados are threatening to dry up the struggling dairy industry.While the Barbados Water Authority (BWA) has said it is doing what it can to help ease farmers who face periodic water shortages, officials of the Barbados Beef and Dairy Producers Association fear the quality of their product could fall if drought conditions do not end soon.“The Barbados Water Authority has been very kind. They have not done anything in particular to affect us, so we do not suffer extended shortage. So that is not a problem for us, but the drought is a problem in the forage and the grass,” said association president Annette Beckett.“Without the water to wet the grass, preferably rain water, you have a severe problem with forage. It is not good because it is not fertilized properly and this can lead to an impact on the production of the milk and the solids, because the solids are an important factor in the milk for us.”The island has been experiencing bouts of drought conditions since the start of the year, and despite entering the rainy season about three months ago the amount of rainfall between June and October is expected to be lower than normal and could further negatively impact the island.Beckett explained that one cow required at least 30 gallons of water per day, along with quality feed in order to produce equally good quality milk.She said the lack of adequate rainwater was having a negative impact on production levels.“So if you do the maths, you see how much water is required to run a farm. So the drought situation is already a problem. Most of the farms already water harvest. Unless the rain is falling you cannot water harvest,” Beckett said.Meanwhile, vice president of the association Brian Allan expressed concern that already struggling farmers could suffer a further drop in business if the situation did not improve soon.The industry has dwindled from about 39 dairy farmers up to six years ago, to only about 16 at present. One farmer went out of business at the end of last year.“We have to check but there has definitely been a drop [in production] on most of the farms because of the lack of forage. Also affecting our milk check is the low solids. If you don’t have proper forage the solids in the milk drop and we are paid by the solids. So we would get a deduction every month because of the low forage,” Allan explained.He said the Garbage and Sewage Contribution (GSC) levy was not making it any easier for the farmers who were already faced with high operating costs.“So that combined with the increased water price has put a very tenuous situation with the diary farmers’ finances. You have to put more feed to make up for the lack of forage. You are getting quality deductions because of lower quality milk and then on top of that you have a huge water bill. So it is really a perfect storm for the dairy farmers at the moment,” Allan said.Despite the challenges, he said farmers were doing what they could to maintain production levels.“The farmers work together. Everything affects every farmer the same way,” said the 31-year industry operator.(BT)

WEAR TO EASE FARMERS: Some relief could be coming to dairy farmers. Although there will be no overnight fix, Minister of Agriculture Indar Weir said his ministry was consulting with farmers who are part of a group reviewing the Cess On Milk Act. “We have agreed in principle that we will bring back the legislation, to address the issues where there will be an arrangement for products that fall under the milk category to carry the same cess or duty . . . . That legislation that had lagged for such a long time and I do not intend to let it lag anymore,” Weir said. He made these comments yesterday while touring Pine Hill Dairy with officials, including its parent company’s Banks Holdings Limited’s country manager Jose Infante, and technical operations manager Janelle Worrell. (DN)

DAIRY CONTINUES TO INVEST IN PLANT AND STAFF - Officials of this island’s largest beverage manufacturer is giving the local economy a vote of confidence as the company continues to invest despite some challenges. Jose Infante, Country Manager of the Pine Hill Dairy (PHD), a subsidiary of the Banks Holdings Group (BHL), said while the local economy continues to face a number of challenges it was still holding its own. BHL has further delayed the publication of its audited financial statements and annual report for the year ending December 31, 2018 as a result of the company “requiring additional time to complete its audit”. The information should be published by November. However, following a tour of The Pine, St Michael facility on Thursday, Infante said he was pleased with last year’s performance despite continued stiff competition from imported items. “We are seeing a bright future in our performance. We are looking at ways to increase our export [and] we are looking at ways that we can get more innovations in the market. So we see a bright future. We are really pleased with the performance [last year] and we are hoping for a much better performance in 2019 and 2020,” he told journalists. The tour of the PHD facility formed part of a wider outreach programme by the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security in an effort to gather information and come up with solutions to various issues facing the agriculture sector. Infante said the business climate remained challenging but that was not stopping the company from pumping roughly US$1 million into the economy through various upgrades and innovation in an effort to further improve operations and the skillsets of staff. “I think that we are facing the challenges that we are seeing worldwide, but we believe a lot in Barbados, we believe a lot in the talent that we have locally and we believe a lot in the investments that we are doing,” said Infante. “So we are seeing just a bright future. We are pleased with our performance now and we are looking forward to having an even better performance going forward, while pointing out that so far close to US$700,000 has been invested in the Pine Hill facility. “We are expecting to invest up to the end of the year another US$300,000 or $400,000,” he added. PHD is the manufacturer of a number of pasteurized, evaporated, reconstituted and flavoured milk, condensed milk, juices and juice drinks. This portfolio represents about 50 per cent of the BHL Group’s sales revenue. The juices represent 57 per cent of the volume in PHD, while milk products make up the remaining 43 per cent. Infante said about 25 per cent of the volume produced is exported with juices taking up the bulk of exports. He said while the company exported to a number of CARICOM nations and the US, the main export market for the PHD products was St Lucia, which gets roughly 50 per cent, followed by Antigua and Barbuda and Guyana. Following the tour of the PHD facility, Minister of Agriculture and Food Security Indar Weir said he was “impressed”, as he pointed to the company’s modern equipment and adherence to high safety standards. Describing the PHD as a “benchmark for manufacturing in Barbados”, Weir said: “I would certainly hope you will share with other manufacturers in Barbados how they can reach these standards.” (BT)

NO LEGAL SPOT TO STAND ON – Squatters at Rock Hall, St. Philip are at the mercy of Prime Minister Mia Mottley’s Government and have no legal right to the land they currently occupy, a well known attorney has warned. Robert Bobby Clarke, who is also a social activist, was responding to reports that some squatters were opposed to moving off the land as well as suggestions that some residents may be entitled to remain after years of illegal occupation.In addition, Clarke has contended that if the squatters, situated just a stone’s throw from the country’s airport are injured due to an aviation accident, Government could be held liable. As such, the attorney has suggested squatters request a sitting with members of the Mottley administration to negotiate a “humanistic” solution. In his opinion, a provision of the Tenantries Freehold Purchase Act, which entitles people occupying land for over seven years to purchase the land, would not obtain in the case of the Rock Hall squatters. “Time [is not a factor] … don’t fight it in terms of land because you can’t win,” advised Clarke. “They cannot do that against the Crown, because the Crown has overall ownership of the land even if they have been squatting for ten years, they cannot claim it. That is their major problem and the advice being given by some people is incorrect.” According to Clarke, the courts would likely also consider the security threat posed by the squatters. “Anytime an airplane overshoots the runway, it could end up in their houses. That piece of land is an essential piece of land and is no ordinary piece of land. Any plane overrunning the runway will end up in their houses and then the Government will have to pay for any injuries to them and will have to buy houses for them.” Clarke, who has worked tirelessly representing citizens in the dispute surrounding the compulsory acquisition of land at Emmerton in The city, said he was on the side of the squatters. “Both DLP and BLP Governments for years were not giving any kind of decent response [to housing problems], so they [squatters] pulled out money to improve their living standards, which is understandable and I expect Government to understand their problem and find a solution. But in law, they have no case,” said the activist. As such, he praised Government’s $25,000 grant offer, to assist their relocation. “The offer of $25,000 is just a humanistic gesture. So I think they should really have a non-aggressive view. Sit down with the PM and explain their personal problems, not their legal problems, because they are no legal solutions. There are only humanistic solutions to it,” he suggested. “The houses will have to be rebuilt. Most of them are made of wood, but the ones that are wall cannot be reused. I am on their side and I understand that they need assistance, but they are in the wrong area and that in itself is crucial,” the attorney concluded. Earlier this week, squatters told Barbados TODAY they settled there in a last ditch effort to accommodate their families. In addition, parliamentary representative for St. Philip South, Indar Weir, in whose constituency the squatters are situated, said many of them have housing applications languishing in Government departments. Concern has also been raised about a constant flow of people who have started setting up houses smack in the middle of a former dump on the Rock Hall site.(BT)

COP HITS BACK – The hierarchy of the police force has rushed to the defence of police officers after a Magistrate took prosecutors to task for failing to produce completed court files delaying the progress of cases and forcing courts to dismiss others. Commissioner of Police Tyrone Griffith says it is not all the fault of the police, as there are other branches of the system who are not innocent in the state of affairs. His response today came after Magistrate Douglas Frederick on Tuesday said incomplete files left him with no option but to dismiss three cases, one dating as far back as 2012. In an interview with Barbados TODAY this afternoon, Griffith, who is currently overseas, suggested that while the force was not blameless, it was unfair to single out the police for finger-pointing in these long-running matters before the court, as there was plenty of blame to go around in the justice system. “When I return, I will give a full report on this matter. I will only say that it is not only the police that have come up short in this regard. There is blame in every area of the justice system… There are also hundreds of matters where the files have been fully completed by investigators and yet these matters are going nowhere,” he pointed out. The Commissioner noted that the Royal Barbados Police Force had limited resources and that its officers were often stretched, as the criminal element is prone to habitually re-offend. Manpower shortages through sick leave and retirements, he noted, have also taken their toll on the force. “The reality is though, that officers are attending to reports over and over. We have finite resources and we have persons involved in crime that re-offend over and over. Shortages also exacerbate the situation,” he added. However, Griffith gave the assurance that the force was doing all in its power to ensure that incidents, where fingers can be pointed directly at the police department, are reduced to a minimum. “We have appointed an Assistant Commissioner of Police to look closely into this matter. I expect that given time there will be improvements,” he revealed, noting that the three matters dismissed by Frederick on Tuesday will be looked at to determine if there was “blatant neglect”. One of the cases Frederick dismissed on Tuesday for want of prosecution, was against Shaneka Crystal Kyesha Nicholls, of Rose Hill, Kendal Hill, Christ Church. She was 24 years and had been on $5,000 bail, charged with wounding Renita Blackett on April 9, 2016 with intent to maim, disfigure or disable her or to do some serious bodily harm to her. In that case, the prosecution told the magistrate that the file had not yet been completed and gave the assurance that it would be “sorted” in a month. “This is a serious thing,” said the magistrate who went on to say that such a hold up was impacting all parties concerned. “You have to tell the investigators this. They are working, getting a salary,” Frederick said. The magistrate charged that “half-baked” matters were being brought before the court. The Nicholls matter was dismissed along with a matter against Bertram Fabian Quintyne, of Passage Road, St Michael which was dismissed earlier in the day. Quintyne had been accused of causing serious bodily harm to Terry Welch. Julian Roland Holder, of Roberts Gap, Halls Road, St Michael and Junior Christopher Lowe, of no fixed place of abode, also walked out of the court free of a 2012 burglary charge. (BT)

UPDATE: SHOOTING IN BLACK ROCK – Aman wearing a pink shirt and long brown pants is said to be responsible for the shooting incident which took place at 1st Avenue Greaves Land, Black Rock, St Michael, yesterday and left a 22-year-old male nursing injuries. He is about 5 feet 8 inches tall and thickly built, with a light brown complexion. Around 4 p.m., Rashawn Savion Tudor of #2 Well Gap, Lodge Hill, St Michael, was shot in the lower abdomen and right thigh.When lawmen arrived at the scene, Tudor was lying on the ground.He had been riding his motorcycle through the area. He stopped in front of a house and an unknown man approached him from the opposite direction while he was parking the cycle.The man, who was carrying a firearm, pointed it at Tudor and fired two shots – both of which struck him in the body – before running off.Tudor fell and was subsequently taken to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital for medical attention.Anyone who can provide any information that can assist with these investigations is asked to contact the Black Rock Police Station at 1 (246) 417-7500/417-7505, Police Emergency 211, Crime Stoppers at 1-800 (TIPS) 8477 or any police station. (DN)

CANNABIS SEIZED, NO ONE ARRESTED – No one was arrested during a police operation at Branchbury, St Joseph, where more than 1 400 cannabis plants were seized. Lawmen seized 1 432 cannabis plants ranging from seedlings to about four feet in height.Members of the Suppressing Criminal Activity Threatening Society “S.C.A.T.S.” Unit conducted the operation yesterday in areas suspected to be locations for the cultivation of cannabis.(DN)

MOM PLACED ON PROBATION – A 35-year-old mother of four who back in June flung a hot iron at her six-year-old son will undergo psychological and parenting counseling and return to the District ‘A’ Magistrates’ Court on October 15 for an update.Magistrate Kristie Cuffy-Sargeant also placed Melissa Oneilia Griffith, of Mason Hall Street, St Michael on probation for a year.The mother, who was represented by Queen’s Counsel Michael Lashley, earlier this year pleaded guilty to willfully assaulting the child in a manner likely to cause him unnecessary suffering and injury to his health.The electrical appliance struck the child on the chest, burning that part of his body as well as his left arm.Griffith was pressing clothes at the time of the incident, police constable Victoria Taitt had told the court in relaying the facts back then.(BT)

$40, 000 FINE – Think about the consequences before you get into this foolishness, Magistrate Frederick Douglas advised a 35-year-old man convicted of drug charges.Korie Orlando Gale-Forde, of Gall Hill, Christ Church had been on remand after pleading guilty to possession, possession with intent traffic, possession with intent to supply and importation of 17.9 kilogrammes or $71, 600 worth of cannabis on July 2.When he appeared before the No. 1 District ‘A’ Court magistrate recently his attorney Mohia Ma’at mitigated on his behalf and pointed to the plumber’s early guilty plea, his remorse, the time spent on remand and challenges currently facing his family.“He should have thought about his family’s situation before the illegal activity,” Magistrate Douglas told the lawyer.The judicial officer then took into account the mitigating factors and fined Gale-Forde $40,000 which must be paid in 12 months. If the amount is left unpaid he will spend two years in prison. The fine was imposed on the importation charge and he was convicted, reprimanded and discharged on the other offences.Gale-Forde was granted bail in the sum of $40,000 with one surety. He also had to surrender his passport to the court and was told that he could not apply for other travel documents while the payment was pending. The convicted man must also report to the Oistins Police Station every Wednesday before 10 a.m.(BT)

‘TREE SURGEON’ ADMITS TO COCAINE PROBLEM – A 49-year-old who cuts trees for a living, admitted to having a drug addiction and will spend the next three weeks at the Psychiatric Hospital being assessed for suitability for Verdun House’s treatment programme . “I need some help please, Verdun House or something so,” Ricardo Vincent Antonio Corbin, of Date Tree Hill, St Peter told Magistrate Douglas Frederick earlier today. He made the comment after pleading guilty to having possession of cocaine apparatus on August 19. At first Corbin told the magistrate he had a problem with cannabis and not cocaine. “I am not using cocaine. I smoke weed, I don’t smoke cocaine. I need help because I need help,” he said adding “I am a tree surgeon. I cut trees for a living.” However, when questioned on whether he wanted the help in a bid to avoid a prison sentence Corbin replied, “I got a problem. I have a problem with cannabis and cocaine”. The magistrate told him, “Don’t play games with me!” Corbin apologised. He was then remanded to the Black Rock institution until September 11. (BT)

ST GEORGE MAN DENIES THEFT CHARGES –An unemployed man from Mayfield, St George has been released on bail after being accused of stealing over $15, 000. Fifty-year-old Shawn Ricardo Thompson elected for a summary trial before Magistrate Douglas Frederick earlier today on charges of stealing $5,500 belonging to Akanni McCollin between June 18, 2018 and March 29, 2019 as well as $10,300 belonging to the same person between March 23 and 29 this year. Thompson entered not guilty pleas on both charges. The prosecution did not object and the court granted Thompson $7,000 bail, ordering him to report to the Glebe Police Station every Wednesday before 10 a.m. with valid identification. The accused, who had Kevin Miller as his defence attorney, has also been warned to stay away from the complainant and his property and to return to the No.1 District ‘A’ Magistrates’ Court on December 11. (BT)

DOVER DECAY –A number of sea-bathers and business people are lamenting that drug pushers and those aggressively confronting tourists to sell them jewellery and other items, have taken over Dover Beach in Christ Church. So much so, they lament, that the landscape of the once popular beach has changed, in many ways for the worse. One long-time visitor to Barbados, who called in the DAILY NATION but requested anonymity, said he had watched Dover degrade over the years.“I have been coming to Dover since I was 17. I live in Stockholm, Sweden now, but I come back frequently and I’m concerned about how this area has deteriorated,” said the man who is now in his 70s.(DN)

FISH VENDORS HAPPY WITH OISTINS UPGRADE –The Berinda Cox Fish Market in Oistins, Christ Church, is in the middle of a facelift, with vendors generally happy about the repairs. Most of the market has already been transformed but there is still a section under construction, which means the vendors are all housed in another section, which can get cramped. While some of the vendors are making the most of it, a small group sitting under a nearby tree complained they were being forced to sell from outside the market. “The work is a good thing, but there are some vendors who block off their stalls even though they aren’t selling anything, so people like we can’t use them,” said one.(DN)

PM MOTTLEY TO RECEIVE DIAMOND BALL AWARD AT RIHANNA’S FIFTH DIAMOND BALL- Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley and civil rights activist Shaun King will receive this year’s Diamond Ball Award at Rihanna’s fifth annual Diamond Ball, which will also feature performances from Pharrell and DJ Khaled. “I can’t imagine a better night than this year’s Clara Lionel Foundation event with Seth Meyers, Pharrell and DJ Khaled,” said Rihanna. “I am particularly honored to present Prime Minister Mottley and Shaun King with this year’s Diamond Ball Awards for their groundbreaking work. We are so thankful to them for joining us and making the night better than ever.” The previous two Diamond Balls featured rousing performances from Kendrick Lamar and Childish Gambino. The Barbados Prime Minister’s carries the reputation of a trailblazer in politics. After becoming the first woman elected to lead the Barbados Labour Party, Mottley went on to serve as the first female Attorney General and Deputy Prime Minister of Barbados. Her career is also recognized for her work in spearheading progressive programs such as the Education Sector Enhancement Program, which aims to increase the amount of young people contributing to the social and economic development of the country through school facility and technology rehabilitation along with teacher training and curriculum reform. King, widely recognized for his social media use to highlight civil rights issues, will accept the award alongside Mottley. A graduate of Morehouse, he’s known for relaunching the Frederick Douglass publication “The North Star.” Additionally, King co-founded social justice lobbyist organization Real Justice PAC which looks to elect prosecutors of all levels who support criminal justice reform. The formal event hosted by comedian Seth Myers, will benefit the Clara Lionel Foundation, an organization created by the singer to fund education and emergency response programs throughout the globe. In addition to its Clara Lionel Foundation Global Scholarship Program and its current programs in Malawi, Senegal, and the Caribbean, the CLF recently announced a new partnership with International Planned Parenthood Federation/Western Hemisphere Region and Engineers Without Borders USA to build reproductive health facilities in the Caribbean. Currently up for bid items at this year’s Diamond Ball auction include Jonas Brothers VIP experience, CC Sabathia signed jersey, Paper Planes Outfits for a year, a signed Danny Green NBA finals jersey, fishing with Peter Miller, event coordination services with SO events, a workout with Rihanna’s trainer, and a Savage X Fenty 2020 Fashion Show Experience. (BT)

That’s all for today folks there are 132 days left in the year Shalom! #thechasefiles #dailynewscaps Follow us on Twitter, Facebook & Instagram for your daily news. #bajannewscaps #newsca psbystephaniefchase

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