#like in snow or mud or on really bad train tracks

[shitpissboi]

It is my birthdayyyyy tomorrow :) I got a CAR and I’m very excited about it 🎉🎉🎉🎉

Wait no way happy early birthday dude!!!! 🎊🎊🎊🎊🖤🖤🎁🎁🎁🎁That is so exciting holy shit I’m so happy for you! I remember when I got my first car and it truly is a whole new sort of freedom, you’re gonna love it dude, do you know what kind your getting yet??

[thebluelemontree]

Hi there, I have two questions regarding the following scene from Jon XII, ADWD:

“The skinchanger stopped ten yards away. His monster pawed at the mud, snuffling. A light powdering of snow covered the boar's humped black back. He gave a snort and lowered his head, and for half a heartbeat Jon thought he was about to charge. To either side of him, his men lowered their spears.

"Brother," Borroq said.

"You'd best go on. We are about to close the gate."

“You do that," Borroq said. "You close it good and tight. They're coming, crow." He smiled as ugly a smile as Jon had ever seen and made his way to the gate. The boar stalked after him. The falling snow covered up their tracks behind them.”

Firstly, do you think Greenseers and/or those who experience green dreams (E.g. Jojen Reed and Bran Stark) are considered part of the sort of loose brotherhood of Wargs and Skinchangers, in Wildling cultures beyond the Wall, as depicted here between Jon Snow and Borroq? Secondly, what exactly is Borroq smiling about in this scene?

Our first introduction to Borroq is from a gathering of skinchangers and wargs recounted in Varamyr's memory. Why they have meetings and what they discuss is not really clear. But it does seem like those born in that one-in-a-thousand chance are in the club. In First Men cultures that are less impacted by the Faith/southern culture, skinchanging, green dreams, green seeing, and magic are simply understood to be a thing and the gifted are both feared and honored. Being occasionally hunted and killed out of superstitious fears is probably a reason why they do network from time to time, maybe to keep tabs on each other, even if there can be bad blood among individuals or even if they disagree on some fundamentals. As we can see in Varamyr's POV, not every skinchanger plays by the rules Haggon lays out. Most seem to do their own thing.

Any kinship that extends to people with other gifts seems to be looser still, but they do intersect with each other occasionally. Jojen was visited by a three-eyed crow as he lay near death from greywater fever and was given the gift of green dreams. After Jojen tells his father, Howland Reed (who is described as an adept mage, but does not have prophetic visions), about his green dreams, HR sends his children to Winterfell to guide Bran as much as they can as his powers awaken. They are able to offer Bran some general knowledge about green magic/skin changing like you can't get sustenance by eating in Summer's body; however, they still must deliver Bran to an actual greenseer that can train him in the gifts they don't have. And we expect HR to reveal himself in the third act to do whatever it is he's going to do. High chance a mage that went to Isle of Faces University doesn't just exist to deliver paternity info.

As for Borroq himself, we simply don't know enough about him to really know what his deal is, but we might be able to infer some things to speculate. Tormund obviously has some contempt for him. Maybe not as much as he had for Varamyr, but seems he would rather not keep his company. Boars were among the animals Haggon warned Varamyr not to skinchange into because of how they can change a person. With that said, Borroq's boar is absolutely massive ("twice the size of Ghost") with sword-like tusks as long as a man's arm, indicating this is a fully mature boar that's been well-fed for many a season. It also hasn't had any predators or habitat constraints to stop it from growing so abnormally large. A normal-sized boar can fuck you up. This one is practically a forest god and it could probably mow through its enemies like a combine harvester. So it's safe to say Borroq himself might be as dangerous as his boar.

Why Haggon mistrusts keeping boars is only a guess. He could be absorbing some of his own wolf, Greyskin's, instincts toward other animals. Wolves do hunt smaller boars but may be mortally wounded trying to take on a larger one. Ghost is certainly going a little crazy with the scent of a prey animal nearby. Jon orders them separated or else a bloody fight could break out, one Ghost may not survive. But Haggon may have other reasons. Not only are boars so strong and fierce they've been known to kill many an experienced hunter, but they are also highly adaptable omnivores, and they can eat small animals, even carrion.

Okay, bear with me here while I indulge in a bit of speculation, and I promise I am making my way toward answering your question. Take this next part with a HEFTY amount of salt. Does Borroq's boar, or maybe Borroq himself, have a taste for carrion?

Until such time, Borroq had taken up residence in one of the ancient tombs beside the castle lichyard. The company of men long dead seemed to suit him better than that of the living, and his boar seemed happy rooting amongst the graves, well away from other animals. -- Jon XIII, ADWD.

Resorting to eating decaying flesh (sometimes even human) isn't unheard of in the harsh wilderness when the only choice is that or starve; however, boars are natural survivors because they can eat practically anything. The boar is shown to be rooting around the graves, which could be an attraction to the scent of decay. Bran relished eating bloody deer meat in Summer's skin, so I don't think the urge to eat whatever the animal naturally wants would be any different. If a skinchanger has eaten carrion often enough while inhabiting a boar, maybe when the circumstances are not quite that dire, it could change the man in ways others might find ghastly and disturbing, even if the flesh is animal and not human. Lots of hardened wildlings are inured by death, but Borroq gives off these morbidly cozy, comfy vibes being around the dead. Major goth edgelord shit there.

I'm not suggesting Borroq does the actual butchering of any people himself for the purpose of eating them, but being an occasional carrion-eater or nibbling on the recently deceased (instead of immediately burning them as custom strictly dictates) would certainly be enough to earn someone a bit of a ghoulish reputation, hence Tormund's reaction to his presence. Haggon makes this clear that if a skinchanger crosses the line into eating humans, he wouldn't be just gross, but fucking cursed. "Men may eat the flesh of beasts and beasts the flesh of men, but the man who eats the flesh of man is an abomination." I could be way off and being too literal here with the lichyard bit. There could be a multitude of reasons why Tormund dislikes Borroq. Spitting on the ground might just be a display of general contempt, but it is also commonly believed in many real-world cultures that spitting on the ground is an effective way to ward off The Evil Eye. GRRM could be borrowing that signifier. Like there's bad juju surrounding this guy. Wildlings do believe certain people are cursed for violating taboos like Craster is considered cursed for his blatant offense to the gods. So, I don't know. We'll see. Borroq does feel like a minor character that managed to distinguish himself when given the spotlight, and I suspect he'll be fleshed out more in TWOW.

Regardless, in the literary sense, he's aligned with death in this scene. He's like the specter of the Stranger, who is sometimes depicted as half-man, half-beast, just nonchalantly loitering around the tombs and graves. His boar is busy digging up a fresh hole in the ground like someone(s) is due to croak very soon... Oh yeah. This is Jon XIII: the mutiny chapter. This would not be the first time in this series a very large boar was associated with an assassination and sudden regime change. It's also not the first time an agitated direwolf has been chained up (for everyone's safety ha!) while its warg got assassinated by men sworn to them. If Borroq and his boar are a portent of death, hidden in plain sight, then Jon is blind to it. Jon can only think "the last thing I need right now is Ghost savaging that boar," at a time when it would have been wiser to keep his direwolf close. In superstitious thinking, the howling of restless dogs is said to be a sign that trouble is near; Ghost is mute, however, but is still definitely flipping out. He's pacing around his confinement, bristling, bearing his teeth, and snapping at Jon. Even Mormont's raven is calling his name over and over like they are trying to get his attention. Yes, it's on account of that boar, but not the literal boar. The boar that means he's about to get the ol' heave-ho via knife. Repeated misunderstanding of this communication speaks to Jon being unable to read the signs orbiting around him. He's had a case of tunnel vision and has taken some things for granted like the continued obedience of the mutineers, who will decide new leadership is in order. He doesn't fully appreciate the extent to which his soon-to-be-assassins feel he has betrayed them and the mission of the Watch. But back to Borroq. There's a dark ironic humor to Borroq calling Jon "brother." Jon is both a brother skinchanger and a black brother. Just a short time ago they were all still mortal enemies. Necessity has forced them all to the same side. Now wildlings are pledged to help defend the Wall against the Others, making them de facto brothers of the Night's Watch. The world's gone topsy-turvy. Those old hatreds do not get put aside so easily, and there is growing discontent within the NW over Jon's executive decisions. On second reading, his ugly smile and the "yup, close that gate up good and tight cause they're coming tee hee" feel like GRRM taking a bit of wicked glee in teasing what is about to happen. In many ways, Jon has invited the Stranger in through the front door, completely unaware he's sealed himself up inside with the more immediate threat.

In fact, it's Borroq's question that stirs up the controversial announcement that will drive the assassins into action only moments later. "And where will you be, crow?" Borroq thundered. "Hiding here in Castle Black with your white dog?"

"No. I ride south." Then Jon read them the letter Ramsay Snow had written. [Jon makes his plans clear and asks for volunteers to ride with him]

...

I have my swords, thought Jon Snow, and we are coming for you, Bastard.

Yarwyck and Marsh were slipping out, he saw, and all their men behind them. It made no matter. He did not need them now. He did not want them. No man can ever say I made my brothers break their vows. If this is oathbreaking, the crime is mine and mine alone.

And that's all we really see or know about Borroq, which is not much. We don't know anything about his backstory or what his motivations might be or what he will do in the wake of the mutiny. He certainly is a character that makes an impression. I do hope we get to see that boar go feral on a bunch of wights XD

[hermannsthumb]

Could you please write #43 grandparents/neighbors one?

43. we’re having our family meal at my grandparents’ house this year so fingers crossed your parents still live next door and you grew up to be even hotter

from winter writing prompts here

oh god this one got so long. sorry everyone! thank you to @k-sci-janitor for the alien bit because it was so fucking funny

------------

Holidays have gotten a little weird to manage since Newt transformed into a fully-fledged adult with an apartment and a job and stuff, so while he hasn’t made it to the big Geiszler celebration in Germany every December since starting college out of elementary school, he still tries to make a point of dropping by his dad’s for dinner and a movie or something to fill his holiday quota. It’s fine by him; he loves his family, but they’re definitely overwhelming, and trying to submit final grades and work on syllabuses for the next semester all while distant relatives ruffle his hair and ask him when he’s going to hit his growth spurt is not his idea of a relaxing time. It’s a constant point of contention between him and his dad. This year more than most, apparently.

“Your grandmother misses you!” he tells Newt sadly over their Chinese takeout. “She calls me every week to ask how you are, and why you never visit with them. Every week.” He waves a fork at Newt. “You’re breaking her heart.”

“I’m in the lab, like, twenty-four-seven, dad,” Newt sighs. It’s a well-rehearsed conversation at this point, but it doesn’t get any less tiresome. Especially because he knows his dad is lying about the phone call thing—Newt is a great grandson and texts his grandmother plenty, thank you very much, he would know if he was breaking her heart. “I’m working straight through winter break this year. Seriously.”

“That’s what you did last year,” Newt’s dad says. “And the year before that…” Newt turns the volume up on the TV to cut his dad off before he can segue into the next part of his argument, which is (usually) that Newt needs to work on his personal life, maybe settle down, produce some grandkids of his own. Or at least adopt a cat. Also well-rehearsed.

He’s not sure why he says what he does next—maybe in a desperate attempt to distract his dad further. Maybe because of the sudden onslaught of childhood memories the mention of his grandparents’ house brought on. “Hey, do you remember that boy who used to live next door to grandma?” he says. “He had the weird haircut and always dressed kind of funny?” Old-fashioned, and a little too formal for the sort of things that little kids tend to do, climbing trees or playing in the mud—sweatervests and polished loafers and starched-white knee-highs.

Newt’s dad blinks at him. Newt half expects him to declare that Newt is nuts, and that he has no idea what he’s talking about, like this is one of those horror stories where the childhood friend turns out to be some ghost who died fifty years prior. The clothing would match up, he guesses. But he smiles in recognition a moment later. “You mean the Gottlieb boy?” he says.

“Gottlieb,” Newt echoes. It sounds familiar enough. “Hermann, I think. When I’d stay with grandma for the summer we would play together every day. I wonder what he’s doing now.” Hermann was a smart guy, a real geek like Newt; he used to carry a graphing calculator around in his pocket and build the most goddamn pristine model spacecrafts Newt had ever seen. Hermann’s dad shipped him off to a prestigious boarding school the last summer Newt spent there, when they were around twelve or so. Newt started at MIT not long after. “Dude’s probably designing rocket ships by now or something.”

“You could ask him yourself if you came with me,” Newt’s dad laughs. “The Gottliebs never moved away, and their children actually visit. I’m sure your Hermann visits, too.”

“Ha,” Newt says. “Yeah.”

It’s snowing by the time Newt and his dad finish their movie, and Newt (fearing his dad’s driving even in ideal conditions) declines the offer of a lift home to trudge his way through it to his T stop instead. It’s nice to have the chance to be alone with his thoughts, anyway, because he can’t seem to get funny little Hermann Gottlieb out of his head. What is he doing now?

A quick Facebook search on the train produces a few Hermann Gottliebs, but none of them promising—none of them have the brown eyes or strangely angular face (devoid of any baby fat even that young) Newt remembers, none of them are from the right German countryside, none of them went to a preppy English boarding school. Google (utilizing the information Newt does have) is a little more rewarding, and by the time Newt presses the button to request his stop, he’s scrounged up a decent amount of info: Hermann Gottlieb has a doctorate in astrophysics, Hermann Gottlieb publishes papers at a slightly terrifying rate, and Hermann Gottlieb turned out kinda hot.

As Newt stares down at a slightly grainy current photograph of his old friend—haircut and clothing unchanged, a cane in hand, some round librarian glasses perched on the end of his nose, wide mouth twisted into a scowl—he suddenly recalls another thing about Hermann Gottlieb: the summer Hermann was sent away to boarding school was the summer that Hermann kissed Newt goodbye, shyly and tearfully, under the shade of the tall maple tree in his yard. It was the last time Newt ever saw Hermann. It was Newt’s first kiss.

“Oh, boy,” Newt says.

He texts his dad when he gets back to his apartment. When do we leave?

Newt feels like the belle of the fucking ball when he steps into his grandparents’ house a week later, snow dusting his shoulders, small suitcase clenched in his hand. His cheeks are kissed; his scarf and hat and leather jacket are brushed off and tossed onto a coat rack; his hair is in parts smoothed down (too messy!) and ruffled (too flat!); he’s hugged more times than he has been in the entire last year, probably. “Still playing around with bugs in the dirt, eh, Newt?” his grandfather booms, tucking Newt into the crook of his arm with enough force to knock Newt’s glasses off.

“Actually,” Newt squeaks, scrambling for both what he remembers of his very rusty German, and his glasses before they can hit the ground, “entomology isn’t really my main focus at—”

“Newt’s studying jellyfish now,” Newt’s dad declares proudly. “He went on a diving expedition this July.”

“Diving? How exciting,” Newt’s grandmother says.

“Yeah,” Newt says. He pushes his glasses back on. “Yeah, it was fascinating, I was lucky to get the funding for it. You wouldn’t believe the sorts of—”

“Isn’t that dangerous?” Newt’s cousin says.

“My little Newt’s a daredevil!” Newt’s dad says.

“It’s not that dangerous,” Newt says. “As long as you’re—”

“What happened to that nice man your father said you were dating?” Newt’s grandfather says. “With the, the what was it, the poetry? The poet? We thought you’d bring him!”

Newt flushes. Trust his dad to talk up some random guy Newt dated in March like it was a long-term affair and not an elongated one-night stand that fizzled out after three weeks. Though maybe that one’s on Newt—it’s not like he mentioned the one-night stand part to his dad, after all. He definitely didn’t mention that the guy ended it with a poem, too. “We broke up,” he says, weakly. He wriggles out from the throng of the crowd. “Look, it’s so great seeing you all, but I’m actually, like, really tired, soooooo…?”

“Oh, of course you are,” Newt’s grandmother says. She pats his head. “What a long flight you must have had! We’ll send someone up for you for dinner—you can have your old guest room.”

“Cool,” Newt says.

He scurries up the stairs.

The guest room he slept in during those summers is almost exactly the way he remembers it, but a little dustier—the floral quilt on the bed, his grandma’s sewing table crammed into the corner, the bookcase stocked with a weird combination of kid’s books and illustrated encyclopedias that Newt used to pore over for hours as a kid, often with Hermann. Newt draws back the embroidered curtains and peers out the window at the Gottliebs’ snow-capped house next door. Hermann’s window was directly across from his. It still is, technically, though the curtains (these navy blue and embroidered with little constellations) are pulled tight, and Newt has a feeling that Hermann hasn’t set foot in his old room in well over a decade. Two decades, probably.

He remembers the one summer he showed Hermann how to make a soup can telephone, and they managed to string it all the way across between their windows before discovering it kinda didn’t work as well as Newt said it would. He remembers when Hermann’s dad banned him from the Gottlieb house for tracking water all over their front hallway after he and Hermann went wading in the creek, but it was really Hermann who did it, because he forgot to take his shoes off and they got soaked, and Newt just took the fall for it so Hermann wouldn’t get in trouble. And when Hermann asked Newt to play astronaut with him, and Newt insisted on being an alien and mimed the chestburster scene from Alien, and Hermann freaked out so bad he fell in a mud puddle and got grounded for ruining his clothing, and Newt got grounded for that and for watching Alien when he wasn’t supposed to, and they spent the following few days staring sadly out across at each other before Newt’s grandma finally got tired of his moping and sent him to work weeding the garden. He remembers knotting a little friendship bracelet for Hermann out of embroidery thread he found in his grandmother’s sewing basket and Hermann vowing to keep it until he died.

Newt’s half of the soup can phone is still on the windowsill, though the string snapped and crumbled apart years ago. He picks at the peeling Chicken Noodle label, so distracted that he almost doesn’t notice the light suddenly seeping through at the edges of Hermann’s curtains, or the way they’re pushed open—almost.

Hermann—real, live, adult Hermann, botched haircut and round glasses and all—stares out at Newt with a shocked expression on his face. Newt drops the can with a clatter.

Then he waves.

“Hey, Grandma?” Newt says, poking his head into the kitchen. Tonight’s dinner is a massive pot of soup boiling away on the stovetop, dessert a mountain of cookies and tiny pastries on serving platters on the counters. Newt hasn’t had food that looked this good since he moved out, to be honest. The intersection of Newt’s sad lack of cooking skills and his attempts at vegetarianism means he eats a lot of boxed mac-and-cheese and frozen Vegetable Lovers’ pizzas. “Are you—?"

“Oh, Newt!” Newt’s grandmother says. She sets down her wooden spoon. “Are you feeling rested, then?”

“Yeah,” Newt says. “Grandma, I was wondering, could I—uh—maybe run some food over to the Gottliebs? To be…neighborly? We just have so much, and—”

“That’s a wonderful idea,” Newt’s grandmother says. “They keep to themselves, mostly, but I can’t imagine they’d turn it down. You might even see your little friend again! What was his name? You were so fond of him.”

“Hermann,” Newt says, quickly shoving cookies into a red-lid plastic container. “Thanks, Grandma.”

He tucks the tupperware under his arm and nearly wipes out on the icy front path he runs to the Gottliebs’ so fast. Before he can so much as catch his breath and knock, their door swings open; Hermann, dressed in a tacky Hannukah sweater, arches an eyebrow at him. “I saw you sprint over here like a bloody madman,” he says, in blessed English. He must’ve remembered how shitty Newt’s German was when they were kids. “Hello, Newton. What’s so terribly important?”

His voice got deeper—expected—and he swapped out his German accent for an English one somewhere along the way. Probably at his stuffy boarding school. He also got taller—he’s got a few inches on Newt now, but Newt admits that’s not exactly hard. God, he’s even hotter in person. “Uh,” Newt says. Why is he here? Oh, right. He thrusts out the tupperware. “I brought some cookies over for you?”

Hermann peers down at the offering over his glasses. His forehead wrinkles. “How considerate,” he says. He pulls an olive-green parka on and steps out onto the porch, tugging the door shut behind him. He taps at a peeling porch swing with the end of his cane. “Just leave them there. Would you like to take a walk?”

It’s freezing, and snowing, but for some reason, a walk sounds like the best idea in the world right now. “Yes, please,” Newt says, and chucks the cookies onto the swing.

“I must say,” Hermann says, after their meandering walk around the Gottliebs’ yard takes them to the old maple tree. The branches are bare, but thick, and shield them from most of the falling snow. Hermann’s breath puffs out white in front of his angular face. The last time I stood here, Newt thinks, he kissed me. “I really did not expect to see you.”

“I didn’t expect to see you, either,” Newt admits. “From what I remember, you and your family weren’t—uh—well, very close. I didn’t think you’d be coming back to share in the holiday cheer with them, is what I mean.”

The corner of Hermann’s mouth twitches up. “That’s certainly one way of describing it. Yes, I suppose you’re right—my father is a bit of a bastard, isn’t he?” Newt laughs awkwardly, unsure whether to agree or attempt to weakly the defend a guy who openly hated him for being a bad influence on Hermann most of his childhood; he’s grateful when Hermann continues and saves him the choice. “This is the first year I’ve come home in a long while. My brother’s just had a daughter, you see, and I thought I should start getting used to playing uncle.”

“Oh, congrats,” Newt says. Hermann shrugs, and Newt has the distinct feeling that this is Hermann’s older brother, who used to dissemble Hermann’s telescope and hide the pieces around the house when Hermann annoyed him, and tattled on Newt and Hermann to Hermann’s parents the one time Newt snuck in to see Hermann after he got banned. He always made Newt thankful that he was an only child. “Same here, actually. Not the uncle thing—I mean I haven’t visited since I was in college. Too busy.”

“I know,” Hermann says, and then adds teasingly (in a way that makes color flood Newt’s cheeks and his heart beat just a little faster), “I’ve looked you up online. Er—quite a bit recently, in fact. I was curious. You’ve made quite the name for yourself, haven’t you, Dr. Geiszler?”

“I,” Newt squeaks, and then coughs. “I mean, I guess? I like…science.”

“I oughtn’t be surprised,” Hermann says. “You were always giving me bugs, and salamanders, and funny little frogs—”

Newt liked bugs, and salamanders, and frogs, but he liked Hermann more, and the gifts had a lot more to do with the latter than the former, because what kid wouldn’t want bugs or salamanders or frogs, right? Not that Hermann ever appreciated them—especially not the worms Newt would pluck from the sidewalks after rainstorms. He thinks he got grounded for that one, too, because his grandma wouldn’t believe that he really wasn’t trying to terrorize the poor Gottlieb boy. “And what about you?” Newt says. He pokes his elbow into Hermann’s side. “Dr. Gottlieb? Guess those model rockets paid off.”

(“No, Newton,” Hermann would snap at him on the rare occasions he would allow Newt to watch him piece one together, “the glue hasn’t dried yet. You have to be patient, or else it’ll fall apart.”)

“Not yet,” Hermann says, “but I hope soon.”

Hermann smiles at him. A snowflake catches in his eyelashes—his long, pretty, dark eyelashes. “Do you remember when you kissed me here?” Newt blurts out.

“It’s hardly the sort of thing I’d forget,” Hermann says. He reaches out and tucks a piece of Newt’s hair up into his hat. “I like your tattoos—I saw the photographs on your social media accounts. They suit you.” Newt wonders if this means Hermann saw the shirtless selfie he posted on Instagram. “I’m also pleased to see you’ve gotten your braces removed. It wasn’t a very pleasant experience last time.”

Then he leans in and kisses Newt. Again, technically. It’s so light and brief Newt hardly believes it even happened. Their glasses clack together, and when Hermann pulls away, he straightens out Newt’s.

“I confess,” Hermann says, “that I’m wholly pleased to see how you’ve turned out. I hope that wasn’t too forward of me. I’ve been thinking about doing it all night.”

“Jeez, dude,” Newt says, blinking at him, his head swimming just a little. Hermann looks smug. “Not, uh, not too forward. So. Uh. You wanna get dinner or something this week and catch up?”

Hermann snorts, and nods.

[mcfanely]

The Ice Emperor and the Earth Dragon

It was one thing to be trapped in a foreign realm with bleak and barely present hope of being saved; but being locked up in a cell, chained down with no idea where he even is or where his waylaid brother might be - for Cole, that was a whole new level of lost.

Chapter 09 - Barriers, 3382 words

When Cole came to it was to the sensation of bitter cold seeping harshly into his skin. Number one rule of sleeping outdoors, never sleep directly on the ground. It acted as a suction for warmth. Anything there was, any minor sensation of heat, the ground would swallow it in an instance and then still search for more. It was the entire reason he and Zane slept on the chest plates of the mech. They were off the ground, and sure the metal was cold and it was far from comfortable, but it was better than sleeping on the floor. Anything was. 

This didn't explain that when Cole felt the surface beneath his hands, he found cold and solid stone. Or why it was hard to even drag his eyes open from their last dregs of sleep, his body seemingly trying to pull him back under into the embrace of unconsciousness. 

He was more than willing to just fall under its pull, to let his head rest back down onto the floor and allow his eyes to close fully. It was only when he tried to shift and get more comfortable did he notice that something was awry. First, it was the sudden and sharp stab of pain that ran up his side. The way the sensation arched over his ribs, near enough through the bone and the surrounding muscle. It was like he'd broken something. He must have. The feeling stole his breath away, and any air that did make its way in caught and dragged in his lungs like shards of stone. 

Cole snapped his eyes open, gritting his teeth. 

All that met him was overall darkness and as his eyes adjusted, the blurriness fading away from his vision and the light filtering in that bit more; he saw he was most certainly not the mech's cavern. 

No, the room was far too small. Too closed in. He could see all four walls from where he was situated on the floor, each one solid stone and just as formidable as the last. He let his eyes scan over the surface, where bits of moss and mould grew, and the odd fine film of ice which seemed to be a staple of this realm no matter where he ended up. 

Then there was the door, right in front of him. With a small window looking out into a faintly lit hallway, and iron bars cascading down the opening. 

So he was in a jail cell…

He'd woken up in a cell.

What had..? 

Zane. 

That thought snapped Cole back to reality. 

He sat up quickly, letting out a sharp breath as he did. Memories came crashing in like a freight train, unstoppable. 

Everything that had happened. The fight, he'd fought Zane. His brother who had welded the staff at him without a second thought, his brother who had fought back with every intent to injure; of which the bruises now most certainly littered Cole's body. 

His brother who'd had his memories messed with and his mind swayed and manipulated by that… That Vex. 

Cole's body moved on autopilot in a second. The thought of that man, of the very idea that Zane had felt safe enough and assured that if he ran the diagnostic he would come out the other side no different than he went in. He was offline for less than two minutes. 

Two minutes. 

He wasn't sure what he was going to do, how he was going to get out the cell he'd found himself in, but as soon as he did he was going to track that liar down. 

He was going to- he would-

Cole's body met resistance. 

He had his legs beneath him, his feet, whilst aching, were flat against the floor. He just couldn't stand to full height. 

Honestly, he wasn't so sure how he hadn't noticed earlier. 

Maybe it was the present cold, the fact that his skin was close to numb and prickling. Or that, because he'd moved so quickly, the overwhelming feedback that came from the assortment of injuries he'd sustained was enough to distract anyone from noticing the details of the situation. 

The details being the cuffs that sat tight around both of Cole's wrists. They were cold in themselves, and the longer he stared, the more he realised why. They were crafted from solid ice, as were the chains which trailed down to the floor and to the far side of the room to a secure bolt in the floor. 

He was chained down. 

In some unknown room, in some unknown building. 

His brother was out there somewhere, with a manipulative creature of a man guiding and twisting his thoughts. He was out there, making Zane work against his programming, making him cause undue pain and suffering. All in the effort of what? Ensuring he had the staff? That this corruptive piece of Ninjagoan history was in none one else's hands but Zane's. 

He was out there, alone, and Cole was chained down to the floor with frozen cuffs. The cool temperature biting at his bare skin, and the sound that the chain links were making just seemed so delicate for something that held so fast. 

He hadn't even given the chains a tentative pull, Cole went straight for a solid tank. If the chains wouldn't break then he'd drag the deadbolt out the floor himself. He'd pull himself free and open the door, he'd find his friend, he'd get him to put the scroll down if he was still holding it. 

He'd-- He'd…

He let out a frustrated shout as he pulled on the chains. The links were taut, and his feet beneath him acted as leverage, as well as him placing his entire weight on the phantom and unwanted limbs. 

He yanked again. Listening to the clang of the chains, feeling the cuff pulling on his wrist, digging into the skin there. 

Still, he tried again. The chains pulled tight, the ache in Cole's arms and shoulders grew into a more paramount pain and still the cuffs didn't give. 

And again. This time, the ice drew a little blood, the red rivulet drawing a line down his skin before it dropped onto the stone floor. 

"Come on, please." Cole swallowed hard, screwing his eyes shut. "Please just break, please, please, please."

He grit his teeth, let out a deep growl and pulled again.

Stopping only came after a minute or so, when he realised what he was doing was getting him nowhere, other than causing further injuries. His wrists were red, and the areas where the skin had been penetrated were between stinging and all around hurting. 

The chains were still in prime condition, glimmering and glinting in the weak light of the hallway. 

Cole was out of breath. He dropped down to his knees and lent forwards, his arms resting flat against the floor as to rest his now aching muscles. The blood was already slowing gradually, but the cuts ached. Still, it didn't distract him from the situation. 

A lump was forming in his throat, and his chest was tightening a little. He hadn't realised tears were dripping free from his eyes until the sound of them pinging off the floor echoed pristinely around the room. He moved one hand up to his mouth in order to keep himself quiet, to hold the sobs in. He wasn't sad, he wasn't in severe emotional distress. 

He was just on his own, chained down in some random place with an iron door just to his side and light filtering in, being broken apart by the thick metal bars that stretched over the single window connecting him to the rest of the building. It was the notion that where he was, he wasn't going to be found by someone. Securely chained to the floor, lost in a foreign realm with no clear hope of rescue and his one friend and companion who-even-knew where? 

Cole wiped harshly at his eyes to force the tears to stop, then he moved to the far side of the cell; sitting with his back to the wall right next to the deadbolt on the floor, facing directly towards the door. 

Zane was out there. He was on the other side of the door, he had to be. Maybe he was in a cell nearby? If… If that Vex had used him and was now finished with him, for all Cole knew his brother was in as good a shape as he was. 

Battered, bruised; with the way his breathing and moving caused pain to sharply climb up his side and hum under his skin, burning. Agony. It meant what was probably a broken rib, or at the very least severely bruised. 

His gi was torn, stained with mud and snow and his own blood. 

Cole felt himself go still as he rested his head back against the wall, waiting for the hum of pain to abate. 

Only after five minutes, when he felt like he wasn't going to heave up his stomach contents by moving too quickly, he stood. Slowly walking towards the door with unsteady feet, he wasn't surprised when the chain became a taut and unyielding force. Even with his arms straight until he couldn't bare to pull further, even precariously stretching one foot as far as he could go, the toe of his shoe didn't even come close to scraping the metal. 

This was bad. 

Cole moved back over to the far side of the cell with his options exhausted. Not that he had too many to begin with, really. Which left him with nothing else to do but check over the injuries he'd sustained. Properly, this time, only he wouldn't exactly be able to deal with anything. Either way, it would probably be better to know if he was extensively bleeding from somewhere than not knowing, but the fact that the cell floor wasn't slick with blood boded well at least. 

He started with what he could see. His hands were first, touching each of his fingers together to check for coordination before flexing the joints and rotating the wrist. The cold made it hard to know for sure if something was wrong, but the fact that Cole didn't experience sharp sensations of agony at any point only meant good things. Yet they weren't unscathed. Skin was red and blistered in places due to frostbite, his knuckles were scraped and he was sure he was missing a couple fingerprints. 

Next came arms, then legs and feet. Each check passing without much fanfare. There was bruising, which meant that he'd at least been unconscious for a day or two for them to develop into the dark smears of purple and blue they were now. There was his head, and the fact that he'd sustained another injury to it. A brand new welt after he'd gotten rid of the first one he'd sustained after being thrown into the realm. The black eye, though, discovered after carefully pressing over his cheeks wasn't a welcome development. 

Though Cole knew there would be worse to come as he readied himself to check his torso. It was like ripping off a bandaid; untying his belt and setting it to the side, peeling back the material, he sucked in a heavy and immediately regretted breath. 

There was an assortment of injuries, minor lacerations to near black bruising that stretched all the way up his left side and protested severely with every intake of oxygen. Purple marks stretched over and outlined the muscles there, moving over his skin and around to his back. Cole tried to look over his shoulder and see the extent of the damage but now the pain was ratcheted up. Something about seeing an injury always made it worse, and when it was already bad… 

He just stayed sat on the floor, eventually pulling his legs up so he could tilt his forehead forwards and rest it on his knees. How had he even got up..? Moved around, been so active?

There were still a couple more checks, and Cole could already feel the sting of pained tears edging from his eyes at the sheer notion of what he was going to do.

It needed to be done, he had to give himself the all-clear. 

He carefully threaded a hand under the fabric, keeping contact to a minimum. The skin underneath radiated heat, even in the frigid environment. It was burning. It was only going to get worse. 

Cole took his belt in a spur of the moment idea, balled the fabric up with one hand and wedged it between his teeth. Then without giving himself time to think too much, he started pressing against his ribs. 

The shock of agony made his vision white out for a terrifying second, and when he came around everything was still blurred and dancing with cloudy colours that precursored the possibility of passing out. When the first rib didn't give way under his touch, Cole moved up to the next. 

Each one, a brand new and increasing fire of pain pulsed through his body. It made tears flow freely, teeth clench tightly against his belt to stem any sounds from coming out. In all honesty, it didn't help much. Tortured noises slipped free, muffled grunts and shrill keens ricocheting around the room as he went, one rib after another, until he was done; drenched in a rapidly cooling sweat, his skin nearing on a grey and sickly tone once the affliction had concluded. But it was over. 

Cole had to force himself to lean back instead of slumping over to the side. He tentatively pulled the gi back over his ruined side as if that thin layer would provide any form of protection, but it was a subconscious action. Out of sight, out of mind. 

If something had been broken… 

He forced himself to shake his head which simply gave him swimming vision. 

Positive thoughts, positive thoughts. No broken bones, severe bruising but nothing broken. That was the main thing. 

That was the only thing, really. 

He spat his belt out off to his side and left it there, there was no way he was putting it back on at that moment. He needed to rest, catch his breath. Cole needed a break. 

Everything had been going so well, so well. Granted, they were trapped in a different realm, but they had everything sorted out. They might have not had a plan much past getting a source of constant warmth that didn't include wasting the limited fuel from the blow torch or relying on the sodden pieces of wood Cole had spent hours bringing into their shelter; or collecting enough food should the storm get too bad for anyone to leave the cave safely. They went day by day, but they kept on moving forwards. Him and Zane, together, working as a well oiled machine. 

Everything had been fine…

Cole clenched his hands tightly and let his eyes slip closed. 

How had it taken one man to bring everything down? 

He should have been there. He should have known.

"Idiot…" He whispered, to no one but himself. 

There was part of him that told him that there had been no way to foretell what was going to happen. That there was no way he could have known to stay behind. 

He had one job, to keep his friends safe, protect his family. He'd failed at that. 

"You're an idiot."

Had Vex been planning it? Or had that whole plan been a spur of the moment decision? Neither option made Cole feel better. In fact, if at all possible, he felt worse. 

The notion that Vex may have been watching them for days on end, it made his stomach curl in sickness. Observing, invading their privacy. Doing so, all unnoticed. Then at the absolute worst moment, when Cole hadn't been there and Zane couldn't have been more vulnerable, he'd made his move. 

Then Zane had attacked him. Cole felt his breath hitch. 

Zane had attacked him, full force. He hadn't held back, and whilst Cole liked to think he gave as much as he got, he knew that was a lie. 

How could he fight his brother, knowing that he was confused and lost, under the sway of a horrible man? 

And that he'd defended the staff so resolutely, even without his memories. He'd held it, felt the power, and a mere few words from an unknown man and Zane had attacked him under the idea that Cole, this stranger, was there for the staff. 

Struck him so hard he'd bruised his side. 

Almost made him hypothermic. 

Not held back. 

But that wasn't Zane, and Cole knew that. Anything that had happened, it was all Vex. Everything. Every inch of pain he felt, the situation he was in, it was Vex. 

Zane using the staff, that was Vex. 

Zane… 

Cole quickly came out of his thoughts and brought a hand to his chest, cold fingers making him flinch lightly. Still, he kept contact, steered clear of the bruise, but felt over the smooth and unblemished skin at the centre of his chest. In the exact place he remembered taking a direct hit from the Scroll of Forbidden Spinjitzu. 

The hit that had made his power collapse in on itself, that had disintegrated his elemental dragon in less than a second and shut down any possible use of his powers promptly afterwards. The hit had hurt, like inhaling glass shards, unexplainable and terrifying. 

He'd tried to fight against it, the feeling of everything spiralling from his control. The way his powers had thrashed wildly, almost physically beneath his skin; against the foreign force. But that had just made everything so much worse. Then his power had bounced back, near enough exploded out against Cole's wishes… 

He blew a slow breath out his nose, feeling as his chest moved lightly under his palm, the thrum of his racing heart permeating into his head. Adrenaline was rushing at the sheer memory of what had happened. 

The pain. The power taking over. 

Cole didn't realise what he was doing until he'd started. One hand was placed flat against the floor, fingers splayed out, the other stayed on his chest. He was trying to focus his power, though whether he could use it or not was a different question. 

Whether it would act the same as before… He didn't know. 

Only, there was absolutely no feedback. 

There was no sensation in response to his focus, no warmth blooming, no nothing. Even when he'd been caged in vengestone, or experiencing the absence of his powers due to Lloyd being incapacitated, there was always still something inside. 

The tiniest spark, warmth, a feeling. There was always something. 

Always. 

Cole swallowed hard and screwed his eyes shut, pouring everything into just looking for a sign of his elemental abilities. 

What if..- That hit from the scroll-- Cole's thoughts ground to a halt. 

The scroll had done something. 

He could feel his skin crawl at the memory, almost enough for him to abandon his current task to try and scratch the sensation away. 

Vex had called him a dragon, he'd looked at him with awe, and barely hidden curiosity. He could still see the man's face, clear as day. The unbidden glee. 

Cole swallowed down bile and searched further, deeper. 

For anything. 

Vex had said dragon. He'd stared at Cole, and called him a dragon. He'd felt it too, the shift in power. The blast from the scroll, the pain, it had all faded into the background as he felt it shift and fluctuate into a new thing, how he briefly remembered standing impossibly high over the snowy ground, his body feeling absent and wrong. 

Then it had all ended just as the blast had. 

Cole had been himself again. He'd thought it had ended there. 

However, his powers weren't responding, they weren't even there. There was nothing in response to his searching, not a single sensation which indicated that there was anything left inside him anymore. 

He felt normal, other than in pain and exhausted beyond measure, he felt so inexplicably normal. Like when Chen had removed his powers. 

There was nothing inside to find.

-

From the beginning

Ch 08 > Ch 09 > Ch 10

AO3

[csykora]

[A newspaper photo of Sergei (front, tits out) and other members of the Soviet national team running on an outdoor track around their training compound.]

[A newspaper photo of the players taking a quick break, skates and socks on. Tretiak is standing over them and Sergei is seated in the middle, smiling at someone out of frame.]

“Camp” was literal. For nine to eleven months of the year, the players lived in compound inside 12-foot wrought iron walls in the woods of Arkhangelskoye, which had once been the country getaway spot for Moscow elite.

Coach Tikhonov viewed physical development as the first, last, and only priority. He took notes on everyone’s progress, or failure, constantly, in little notebooks. For lack of any other mental stimulation, Igor started to take notes, too. While Coach catalogued them, Igor watched him.

On the first floor were Coach’s office and rooms for certain ‘staff’, who never did much of anything but went everywhere with the team. Everyone knew who was KGB. Upstairs, players bunked with a roommate. “Each room is big enough for the two beds, a night table, a lamp, and not much more.” Eighteen rooms per floor. “Toilets? Of course: two per floor. Telephones? A private one for the coaches and trainers, and two more—one per floor, at the end of the hall, for the 70 soccer and hockey players.” The phones were available for an hour a day--for everyone. One of the players’ phones would be out of order for the next nine years.

They woke up by 7:15 AM. At 7:30 they started a daily program of weights, carrying cement blocks or each other, and running, lap after lap in the bare grass and mud around the walled compound in the high summer sun or snow. Breakfast at 9. Then more weights and skating until they were released at 7PM for dinner, and then they were really free to race each other to the shared phone. Back to bed at 11PM. “Goodnight, Igor. Tomorrow you can do it all over again.”

[Krutov and Fetisov performing bodyweight sit-ups in the field outside CSKA's practice facility]

Sometimes they mixed it up. In the short summers they had less ice time, more weights, and more running. Before tournaments they ran less and skated more. “Variety,” Igor notes, “is the spice of life.” Depending on the season, you were supposed to be rationed a day off to drive home every ten days—as long as you were back by 7:30 the next morning. 

Unlike Americans and Canadians in the NHL, the Soviet players were all officially amateurs. That was how they were allowed to compete in the Olympics and World Championships when professional NHLers were banned. During the season they received the equivalent of $60 US a month as a stipend for food and housing, with a bonus of about $16 dollars if they won.

In the season Igor waffled since the initial offer, Tikhonov had almost changed his mind: he wanted to put Igor between his second line wingers, but those two turned out to play better apart. “That left him with a problem: he had me. Now what was he to do with me? Put me between Makarov and Krutov on the first line, or on another line he was in the process of forming?”

“There are still doubts,” Tikhonov told everyone, “about this Voskresensk boy.” 

The doubts weren’t about Igor’s play—at least according to Igor. Weirdly enough if you’ve got a Russian dictionary and you look up “balls-to-the-wall confidence,” it’s just a picture of Igor Larionov. It’s cross-indexed with “death wish.” The doubts were about Igor’s body, and Coach’s judgement drew attention. 

Always short, he admits he was almost skeletal, nothing like the other boys. He hated weight training, and when he arrived he rarely ate meat, afraid that bulking up at all would ruin his fine skating. Zhluktov poked and teased him about it, which only cemented Igor’s desire to crush him and beat everyone else to the top line.

“Partners! Partners! The boys who with their skill and character would compliment each other and me, to help me rise to full height. I needed partners like I needed oxygen.”

Before arriving in Arkhangel for training camp Igor had reassured himself, “I knew I had one friend waiting for me, one comrade-in-arms….I would need help, support in word and deed. Instinctively, I probably waited for his supportive shoulder.” But Vova had learned enough in the last year to be more cautious than Igor in drawing attention or changing the dynamics of the room. At first he “was warm, but nothing more.” 

Still, Igor reassured himself, “I knew—and I was not ever wrong—that when I truly needed him, he would be there.”

Sergei, an unfamiliar star, preoccupied Igor even more. Still charming in every photo from that time, his hair is perfect and he poses with arms Igor could only envy around his teammates. But Sergei struck Igor as if he was holding some things back. It had been only days since Kharlamov’s death, though Igor had no way of knowing how much that meant.

Lyosha was big and gentle, with easy advice. He treated Igor like a bit of “an ugly duckling,” unlikely to make the first line—unless he could listen, learn fast, and fit into Coach's plan. Coach had found Igor and the rest of them when no one else would, after all. 

Slava seemed to be watching him across the room. As Igor began to prove himself in practice, he had the feeling Slava’s expression changed, that maybe, Slava was silently rooting for him.  

At the end of the summer the three boys were given a try together. Igor, Sergei, and Vova were such similar skaters that they were able to pull into tight formation, a literal line, almost on top of each other, the two wingers escorting Igor so closely his legs were sometimes sliding between the others’ and he could bounce the puck up and down between the three of them. Then, all five. He and Slava were similar thinkers, staying out on the ice long after the others. Like music, he wrote that he didn’t have to look behind him because he wouldn’t ever mistake the rhythm of Vova’s skates for Sergei’s, Slava’s or Lyosha’s. Igor was finally issued a green practice sweater to match theirs.

"Our line could never be evaluated according to primative arithmetic addition: the innovation and steadfastness of Fetisov, plus the reliability and self-sacrifice of Kasatonov, plus the elegance and refinement of Makarov, plus the fearlessness and pressure of Krutov, plus the [center] position of Larionov.

No, no, as long as we were together and we had the same intentions, the line was transformed into a force far stronger that which you would get by adding up our merits and abilities.

It was a joyful, undeniable fact: the Greens were made for each other."

The five of them found they could play, or talk, for hours. But they never planned or replayed mistakes off the ice, and promised not to ever blame each other after. That was the only way they could take the risks they did. They fought sometimes, more and more like a little family: Slava and Lyosha always took each others’ side if one of the forwards fucked up a play in practice. The other two forwards would leap in on his side, but then one of them would forget which friend he was favoring and flop sides, so by the time practice was over every argument ended just as easily.

 Soon they were doing everything together, including pickup soccer and volleyball against the second-best unit of players from Dynamo. They won, because Igor was bad at soccer but liked winning everything all the time, and the others indulged him. 

[Sergei playing soccer in a field outside the barracks in his underwear. I’m not picking ones of Sergei on purpose, he’s just the one who has the most dedicated fan pages. You can see the rest of them topless in a minute.]

Only sleeping separated them. Igor was jealous of Sergei and Vova’s respective roommates. He wished the three of them could be like Slava and Lyosha, who got to room together, and talked long after lights out.

“As a nice girl dreams of a handsome fiancé, so do hockey players cherish the dream that at some time they will fall into the company of such fellows, with whom they will know how to forge together THE squad, a deserving squad, in which everyone on the line will blossom.”

[My artistic interpretation of what Igor just said. An old newsprint photo of him kneeling on the ice with Sergei and Vova on either side, with the text “ferda booooys” in very large pink font.]

In September 1981, the national team headed to Canada with its newest member and its silent escort to avenge Coach Tikhonov’s Olympic loss. The Soviets hadn’t cared too much about the first Canada Cup invitational tournament five years earlier, but after 1980, this one was a gift. When active NHLers didn’t play in the Olympics or World Championships, the idea of the Cup was to bring together all the very best players in the world--in Canada, of course. Alan Eagleson, then head of the NHLPA, masterminded the tournament (also a lot of fraud).

The Swedes landed in Canada feeling smug about their almost-entirely NHLer roster, and thought they were the favorites. The Americans had beaten the Soviets last year, and were sure they’d do it again. And of course Canada thought they could win it all with a “Dream Line” built around their own new weapon.

The Green Unit debuted on the international stage eight weeks after meeting each other, and they crushed it. 

The final was a showdown between Canada and the Soviets. Coach Scotty Bowman told his players, “We really are favorites in the final. Nobody in this country will tolerate a loss."

Coach Tikhonov told his, "Today you’ve got to play so well that the entire Canadian population will talk about you afterwards and remember you for a long time. Play so well that the Canadian fans, when they will leave the Forum, will wait for you when you get on the bus after the game and admire you."

This is the one time I’ll say Coach Tikhonov was right. I guess you can call him hockey’s biggest fan.

Main

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[hockeysweetheart]

When I was in need of Help you were there 

When You left I cried Tears 

When You said you couldn’t hold on you did 

When  You speak in front of a crowd everyone listens 

When You almost died I knew I couldn’t let go 

When You  gave your blessing to move on I couldn’t without you. 

When I needed someone to hold on to you where there 

When I wake up in the night from horriable dreams your arms to comfort are close by. 

When You see me fall you pick me back up 

When you saw me for who I am you still loved me 

When you were taken away I was broken 

When we kiss it feels like nothing us is in this world but us. 

When you smile I  smile. 

When you cry I am the shoulder you can lean on 

When I fail your always supporting me 

When I lost everything you were still there 

When you said you loved me I loved you to. 

When you bake or paint its you create something speical 

When you talk about me you make me feel like your the one

When I told you I am expecting you were overjoyed I know I said I’d never Bring Kids into this broken world but you showed me those wounds can be fixed when we have each other. I feel like if I was to bring kids into the world it would be with you no one else. 

Below are moments where Katniss Notices Peeta 

. I watch him as he makes his way toward the stage. Medium height, stocky build, ashy blond hair that falls in waves over his forehead. The shock of the moment is registering on his face, you can see his struggle to remain emotionless, but his blue eyes show the alarm I've seen so often in prey. Yet he climbs steadily onto the stage and takes his place.

The mayor finishes the dreary Treaty of Treason and motions for Peeta and me to shake hands. His are as solid and warm as those loaves of bread. Peeta looks me right in the eye and gives my hand what I think is meant to be a reassuring squeeze. Maybe it's just a nervous spasm.

But this seems an odd strategy for Peeta Mellark because he's a baker's son. All those years of having enough to eat and hauling bread trays around have made him broad-shouldered and strong. It will take an awful lot of weeping to convince anyone to overlook him. 

I don't know why, but this rubs me the wrong way. "What about you? I've seen you in the market. You can lift hundred-pound bags of flour," I snap at him. "Tell him that. That's not nothing."

"He can wrestle," I tell Haymitch. "He came in second in our school competition last year, only after his brother."

What on earth does he mean? People help me? When we were dying of starvation, no one helped me! No one except Peeta. Once I had something to barter with, things changed. I'm a tough trader. Or am I? What effect do I have? That I'm weak and needy? Is he suggesting that I got good deals because people pitied me? I try to think if this is true. Perhaps some of the merchants were a little generous in their trades, but I always attributed that to their long-standing relationship with my father. Besides, my game is first-class. No one pitied me!

It's weird, how much he's noticed me. Like the attention he's paid to my hunting. And apparently, I have not been as oblivious to him as I imagined, either. The flour. The wrestling. I have kept track of the boy with the bread.

"Thanks for keeping hold of me. I was getting a little shaky there," says Peeta. "It didn't show," I tell him.

Finally, I fill a plate with rolls and sit at the table, breaking oil bits and dipping them into hot chocolate, the way Peeta did on the train.

  Peeta looks striking in a black suit with flame accents. While we look well together, it's a relief not to be dressed identically.

  Peeta takes off his jacket and wraps it around my shoulders. I start to take a step back, but then I let him, deciding for a moment to accept both his jacket and his kindness. A friend would do that, right?

"I do the cakes," he admits to me. "The cakes?" I ask. I've been preoccupied with watching the boy from District 2 send a spear through a dummy's heart from fifteen yards. "What cakes?" "At home. The iced ones, for the bakery," he says. He means the ones they display in the windows. Fancy cakes with flowers and pretty things painted in frosting. They're for birthdays and New Year's Day. When we're in the square, Prim always drags me over to admire them, although we'd never be able to afford one. There's little enough beauty in District 12, though, so I can hardly deny her this.

"Peeta?" I whisper. "Where are you?" There's no answer. Could I just have imagined it? No, I'm certain it was real and very close at hand, too. "Peeta?" I creep along the bank. "Well, don't step on me." I jump back. His voice was right under my feet. Still there's nothing. Then his eyes open, unmistakably blue in the brown mud and green leaves. I gasp and am rewarded with a hint of white teeth as he laughs. It's the final word in camouflage. Forget chucking weights around. Peeta should have gone into his private session with the Gamemakers and painted himself into a tree. Or a boulder. Or a muddy bank full of weeds. 

Oh, right, the whole romance thing. I reach out to touch his cheek and he catches my hand and presses it against his lips. I remember my father doing this very thing to my mother and I wonder where Peeta picked it up. Surely not from his father and the witch. 

I fumble. I'm not as smooth with words as Peeta. And while I was talking, the idea of actually losing Peeta hit me again and I realized how much I don't want him to die. And it's not about the sponsors. And it's not about what will happen back home. And it's not just that I don't want to be alone. It's him. I do not want to lose the boy with the bread.

I make Peeta put his jacket back on. The damp cold seems to cut right down to my bones, so he must be half frozen. I insist on taking the first watch, too, although neither of us think it's likely anyone will come in this weather. But he won't agree unless I'm in the bag, too, and I'm shivering so hard that it's pointless to object. In stark contrast to two nights ago, when I felt Peeta was a million miles away, I'm struck by his immediacy now. As we settle in, he pulls my head down to use his arm as a pillow, the other rests protectively over me even when he goes to sleep. No one has held me like this in such a long time. Since my father died and I stopped trusting my mother, no one else's arms have made me feel this safe.

I make room for him in the sleeping bag. We lean back against the cave wall, my head on his shoulder, his arms wrapped around me.

Peeta's a whiz with fires, coaxing a blaze out of the damp wood. In no time, I have the rabbits and squirrel roasting, the roots, wrapped in leaves, baking in the coals.

I also want to tell him how much I already miss him. But that wouldn't be fair on my part.

Catching Fire... 

Words. I think of words and I think of Peeta. How people embrace everything he says. He could move a crowd to action, I bet, if he chose to. Would find the things to say. But I'm sure the idea has never crossed his mind.

"So what's wrong?" he asks. I can't tell him. I pick at the clump of weeds. "Let's start with something more basic. Isn't it strange that I know you'd risk your life to save mine ... but I don't know what your favorite color is?" he says. A smile creeps onto my lips. "Green. What's yours?" "Orange," he says. "Orange? Like Effie's hair?" I say. "A bit more muted," he says. "More like ... sunset." Sunset. I can see it immediately, the rim of the descending sun, the sky streaked with soft shades of orange. Beautiful. I remember the tiger lily cookie and, now that Peeta is talking to me again, it's all I can do not to recount the whole story about President Snow. But I know Haymitch wouldn't want me to. I'd better stick to small talk. "You know, everyone's always raving about your paintings. I feel bad I haven't seen them," I say. "Well, I've got a whole train car full." He rises and offers me his hand. "Come on." It's good to feel his fingers entwined with mine again, not for show but in actual friendship. We walk back to the train hand in hand. At the door, I remember. "I've got to apologize to Effie first."

I go to my compartment and let the prep team do my hair and makeup. Cinna comes in with a pretty orange frock patterned with autumn leaves. I think how much Peeta will like the color.

Peeta, who spends much of the night roaming the train, hears me screaming as I struggle to break out of the haze of drugs that merely prolong the horrible dreams. He manages to wake me and calm me down. Then he climbs into bed to hold me until I fall back to sleep. After that, I refuse the pills. But every night I let him into my bed. We manage the darkness as we did in the arena, wrapped in each other's arms, guarding against dangers that can descend at any moment. Nothing else happens, but our arrangement quickly becomes a subject of gossip on the train.

I don't want to dance with Plutarch Heavensbee. I don't want to feel his hands, one resting against mine, one on my hip. I'm not used to being touched, except by Peeta or my family, and I rank Gamemakers somewhere below maggots in terms of creatures I want in contact with my skin. But he seems to sense this and holds me almost at arm's length as we turn on the floor.

When I open my eyes, it's early afternoon. My head rests on Peeta's arm. I don't remember him coming in last night. I turn, being careful not to disturb him, but he's already awake. "No nightmares," he says. "What?" I ask. "You didn't have any nightmares last night," he says. He's right. For the first time in ages I've slept through the night. "I had a dream, though," I say, thinking back. "I was following a mockingjay through the woods. For a long time. It was Rue, really. I mean, when it sang, it had her voice." "Where did she take you?" he says, brushing my hair off my forehead. "I don't know. We never arrived," I say. "But I felt happy." "Well, you slept like you were happy," he says. "Peeta, how come I never know when you're having a nightmare?" I say. "I don't know. I don't think I cry out or thrash around or anything. I just come to, paralyzed with terror," he says. "You should wake me," I say, thinking about how I can interrupt his sleep two or three times on a bad night. About how long it can take to calm me down. "It's not necessary. My nightmares are usually about losing you," he says. "I'm okay once I realize you're here." Ugh. Peeta makes comments like this in such an offhand way, and it's like being hit in the gut. He's only answering my question honestly. He's not pressing me to reply in kind, to make any declaration of love. But I still feel awful, as if I've been using him in some terrible way. Have I? I don't know. I only know that for the first time, I feel immoral about him being here in my bed. Which is ironic since we're officially engaged now. "Be worse when we're home and I'm sleeping alone again," he says. That's right, we're almost home. "No, I'd have told you," I say. I pull his hand up and lean my cheek against the back of it, taking in the faint scent of cinnamon and dill from the breads he must have baked today. I want to tell him about Twill and Bonnie and the uprising and the fantasy of District 13, but it's not safe to and I can feel myself slipping away, so I just get out one more sentence. "Stay with me." As the tendrils of sleep syrup pull me down, I hear him whisper a word back, but I don't quite catch it.

Peeta comes by every day to bring me cheese buns and begins to help me work on the family book. It's an old thing, made of parchment and leather. Some herbalist on my mother's side of the family started it ages ago. The book's composed of page after page of ink drawings of plants with descriptions of their medical uses. My father added a section on edible plants that was my guidebook to keeping us alive after his death. For a long time, I've wanted to record my own knowledge in it. Things I learned from experience or from Gale, and then the information I picked up when I was training for the Games. I didn't because I'm no artist and it's so crucial that the pictures are drawn in exact detail. That's where Peeta comes in. Some of the plants he knows already, others we have dried samples of, and others I have to describe. He makes sketches on scrap paper until I'm satisfied they're right, then I let him draw them in the book. After that, I carefully print all I know about the plant.

It's quiet, absorbing work that helps take my mind off my troubles. I like to watch his hands as he works, making a blank page bloom with strokes of ink, adding touches of color to our previously black and yellowish book. His face takes on a special look when he concentrates. His usual easy expression is replaced by something more intense and removed that suggests an entire world locked away inside him. I've seen flashes of this before: in the arena, or when he speaks to a crowd, or that time he shoved the Peacekeepers' guns away from me in District 11. I don't know quite what to make of it. I also become a little fixated on his eyelashes, which ordinarily you don't notice much because they're so blond. But up close, in the sunlight slanting in from the window, they're a light golden color and so long I don't see how they keep from getting all tangled up when he blinks.

One afternoon Peeta stops shading a blossom and looks up so suddenly that I start, as though I were caught spying on him, which in a strange way maybe I was. But he only says, "You know, I think this is the first time we've ever done anything normal together." "Yeah," I agree. Our whole relationship has been tainted by the Games. Normal was never a part of it. "Nice for a change." Each afternoon he carries me downstairs for a change of scenery and I unnerve everyone by turning on the television

I order warm milk, the most calming thing I can think of, from an attendant. Hearing voices from the television room, I go in and find Peeta. Beside him on the couch is the box Effie sent of tapes of the old Hunger Games. I recognize the episode in which Brutus became victor. Peeta rises and flips off the tape when he sees me. "Couldn't sleep?" "Not for long," I say. I pull the robe more securely around me as I remember the old woman transforming into the rodent. "Want to talk about it?" he asks. Sometimes that can help, but I just shake my head, feeling weak that people I haven't even fought yet already haunt me. When Peeta holds out his arms, I walk straight into them. It's the first time since they announced the Quarter Quell that he's offered me any sort of affection. He's been more like a very demanding trainer, always pushing, always insisting Haymitch and I run faster, eat more, know our enemy better. Lover? Forget about that. He abandoned any pretense of even being my friend. I wrap my arms tightly around his neck before he can order me to do push-ups or something. Instead he pulls me in close and buries his face in my hair. Warmth radiates from the spot where his lips just touch my neck, slowly spreading through the rest of me. It feels so good, so impossibly good, that I know I will not be the first to let go. And why should I? I have said good-bye to Gale. I'll never see him again, that's for certain. Nothing I do now can hurt him. He won't see it or he'll think I am acting for the cameras. That, at least, is one weight off my shoulders. The arrival of the Capitol attendant with the warm milk is what breaks us apart. He sets a tray with a steaming ceramic jug and two mugs on a table. "I brought an extra cup," he says. "Thanks," I say. "And I added a touch of honey to the milk. For sweetness. And just a pinch of spice," he adds. He looks at us like he wants to say more, then gives his head a slight shake and backs out of the room. "What's with him?" I say. "I think he feels bad for us," says Peeta. "Right," I say, pouring the milk. "I mean it. I don't think the people in the Capitol are going to be all that happy about our going back in," says Peeta. "Or the other victors. They get attached to their champions."

Peeta would lose it if he knew I was thinking any of this, so I only say, "So what should we do with our last few days?" "I just want to spend every possible minute of the rest of my life with you," Peeta replies."Come on, then," I say, pulling him into my room.It feels like such a luxury, sleeping with Peeta again. I didn't realize until now how starved I've been for human closeness. For the feel of him beside me in the darkness. I wish I hadn't wasted the last couple of nights shutting him out. I sink down into sleep, enveloped in his warmth, and when I open my eyes again, daylight's streaming through the windows."No nightmares," he says."No nightmares," I confirm. "You?""None. I'd forgotten what a real night's sleep feels like," he says.We lie there for a while, in no rush to begin the day. Tomorrow night will be the televised interview, so today Effie and Haymitch should be coaching us. More high heels and sarcastic comments, I think. But then the redheaded Avox girl comes in with a note from Effie saying that, given our recent tour, both she and Haymitch have agreed we can handle ourselves adequately in public. The coaching sessions have been canceled."Really?" says Peeta, taking the note from my hand and examining it. "Do you know what this means? We'll have the whole day to ourselves.""It's too bad we can't go somewhere," I say wistfully."Who says we can't?" he asks.The roof. We order a bunch of food, grab some blankets, and head up to the roof for a picnic. A daylong picnic in the flower garden that tinkles with wind chimes. We eat. We lie in the sun. I snap off hanging vines and use my newfound knowledge from training to practice knots and weave nets. Peeta sketches me. We make up a game with the force field that surrounds the roof - one of us throws an apple into it and the other person has to catch it.No one bothers us. By late afternoon, I lie with my head on Peeta's lap, making a crown of flowers while he fiddles with my hair, claiming he's practicing his knots. After a while, his hands go still. "What?" I ask."I wish I could freeze this moment, right here, right now, and live in it forever," he says.Usually this sort of comment, the kind that hints of his undying love for me, makes me feel guilty and awful. But I feel so warm and relaxed and beyond worrying about a future I'll never have, I just let the word slip out. "Okay."I can hear the smile in his voice. "Then you'll allow it?""I'll allow it," I say.His fingers go back to my hair and I doze off, but he rouses me to see the sunset. It's a spectacular yellow and orange blaze behind the skyline of the Capitol. "I didn't think you'd want to miss it," he says."Thanks," I say. Because I can count on my fingers the number of sunsets I have left, and I don't want to miss any of them.We don't go and join the others for dinner, and no one summons us."I'm glad. I'm tired of making everyone around me so miserable," says Peeta. "Everybody crying. Or Haymitch ..." He doesn't need to go on.We stay on the roof until bedtime and then quietly slip down to my room without encountering anyone.The next morning, we're roused by my prep team. The sight of Peeta and me sleeping together is too much for Octavia, because she bursts into tears right away. "You remember what Cinna told us," Venia says fiercely. Octavia nods and goes out sobbing.

Peeta's in an elegant tuxedo and white gloves. The sort of thing grooms wear to get married in, here in the Capitol.

We walk down the hallway. Peeta wants to stop by his room to shower off the makeup and meet me in a few minutes, but I won't let him. I'm certain that if a door shuts between us, it will lock and I'll have to spend the night without him. Besides, I have a shower in my room. I refuse to let go of his hand. Do we sleep? I don't know. We spend the night holding each other, in some halfway land between dreams and waking. Not talking. Both afraid to disturb the other in the hope that we'll be able to store up a few precious minutes of rest.

I rush over to where he lies, motionless in a web of vines. "Peeta?" There's a faint smell of singed hair. I call his name again, giving him a little shake, but he's unresponsive. My fingers fumble across his lips, where there's no warm breath although moments ago he was panting. I press my ear against his chest, to the spot where I always rest my head, where I know I will hear the strong and steady beat of his heart. Instead, I find silence.

Peeta and I sit on the damp sand, facing away from each other, my right shoulder and hip pressed against his. I watch the water as he watches the jungle, which is better for me. I'm still haunted by the voices of the jabberjays, which unfortunately the insects can't drown out. After a while I rest my head against his shoulder. Feel his hand caress my hair. "Katniss," he says softly, "it's no use pretending we don't know what the other one is trying to do." No, I guess there isn't, but it's no fun discussing it, either. Well, not for us, anyway. The Capitol viewers will be glued to their sets so they don't miss one wretched word. "I don't know what kind of deal you think you've made with Haymitch, but you should know he made me promises as well." Of course, I know this, too. He told Peeta they could keep me alive so that he wouldn't be suspicious. "So I think we can assume he was lying to one of us." This gets my attention. A double deal. A double promise. With only Haymitch knowing which one is real. I raise my head, meet Peeta's eyes. "Why are you saying this now?" "Because I don't want you forgetting how different our circumstances are. If you die, and I live, there's no life for me at all back in District Twelve. You're my whole life," he says. "I would never be happy again." I start to object but he puts a finger to my lips. "It's different for you. I'm not saying it wouldn't be hard. But there are other people who'd make your life worth living." Peeta pulls the chain with the gold disk from around his neck. He holds it in the moonlight so I can clearly see the mockingjay. Then his thumb slides along a catch I didn't notice before and the disk pops open. It's not solid, as I had thought, but a locket. And within the locket are photos. On the right side, my mother and Prim, laughing. And on the left, Gale. Actually smiling. There is nothing in the world that could break me faster at this moment than these three faces. After what I heard this afternoon ... it is the perfect weapon. "Your family needs you, Katniss," Peeta says. My family. My mother. My sister. And my pretend cousin Gale. But Peeta's intention is clear. That Gale really is my family, or will be one day, if I live. That I'll marry him. So Peeta's giving me his life and Gale at the same time. To let me know I shouldn't ever have doubts about it. Everything. That's what Peeta wants me to take from him. I wait for him to mention the baby, to play to the cameras, but he doesn't. And that's how I know that none of this is part of the Games. That he is telling me the truth about what he feels. "No one really needs me," he says, and there's no self-pity in his voice. It's true his family doesn't need him. They will mourn him, as will a handful of friends. But they will get on. Even Haymitch, with the help of a lot of white liquor, will get on. I realize only one person will be damaged beyond repair if Peeta dies. Me. "I do," I say. "I need you." He looks upset, takes a deep breath as if to begin a long argument, and that's no good, no good at all, because he'll start going on about Prim and my mother and everything and I'll just get confused. So before he can talk, I stop his lips with a kiss. I feel that thing again. The thing I only felt once before. In the cave last year, when I was trying to get Haymitch to send us food. I kissed Peeta about a thousand times during those Games and after. But there was only one kiss that made me feel something stir deep inside. Only one that made me want more. But my head wound started bleeding and he made me lie down. This time, there is nothing but us to interrupt us. And after a few attempts, Peeta gives up on talking. The sensation inside me grows warmer and spreads out from my chest, down through my body, out along my arms and legs, to the tips of my being. Instead of satisfying me, the kisses have the opposite effect, of making my need greater. I thought I was something of an expert on hunger, but this is an entirely new kind. It's the first crack of the lightning storm - the bolt hitting the tree at midnight - that brings us to our senses. It rouses Finnick as well. He sits up with a sharp cry. I see his fingers digging into the sand as he reassures himself that whatever nightmare he inhabited wasn't real. "I can't sleep anymore," he says. "One of you should rest." Only then does he seem to notice our expressions, the way we're wrapped around each other. "Or both of you. I can watch alone." Peeta won't let him, though. "It's too dangerous," he says. "I'm not tired. You lie down, Katniss." I don't object because I do need to sleep if I'm to be of any use keeping him alive. I let him lead me over to where the others are. He puts the chain with the locket around my neck, then rests his hand over the spot where our baby would be. "You're going to make a great mother, you know," he says. He kisses me one last time and goes back to Finnick. His reference to the baby signals that our time-out from the Games is over. That he knows the audience will be wondering why he hasn't used the most persuasive argument in his arsenal. That sponsors must be manipulated. But as I stretch out on the sand I wonder, could it be more? Like a reminder to me that I could still one day have kids with Gale? Well, if that was it, it was a mistake. Because for one thing, that's never been part of my plan. And for another, if only one of us can be a parent, anyone can see it should be Peeta. As I drift off, I try to imagine that world, somewhere in the future, with no Games, no Capitol. A place like the meadow in the song I sang to Rue as she died. Where Peeta's child could be safe.

push people aside until I am right in front of him, my hand resting on the screen. I search his eyes for any sign of hurt, any reflection of the agony of torture. There is nothing. Peeta looks healthy to the point of robustness. His skin is glowing, flawless, in that full-body-polish way. His manner's composed, serious. I can't reconcile this image with the battered, bleeding boy who haunts my dreams.

I'm light-headed with giddiness. What will I say? Oh, who cares what I say? Peeta will be ecstatic no matter what I do. He'll probably be kissing me anyway. I wonder if it will feel like those last kisses on the beach in the arena, the ones I haven't dared let myself consider until this moment. Peeta's awake already, sitting on the side of the bed, looking bewildered as a trio of doctors reassure him, flash lights in his eyes, check his pulse. I'm disappointed that mine was not the first face he saw when he woke, but he sees it now. His features register disbelief and something more intense that I can't quite place. Desire? Desperation? Surely both, for he sweeps the doctors aside, leaps to his feet, and moves toward me. I run to meet him, my arms extended to embrace him. His hands are reaching for me, too, to caress my face, I think.

At a few minutes before four, Peeta turns to me again. "Your favorite color...it's green?" "That's right." Then I think of something to add. "And yours is orange." "Orange?" He seems unconvinced. "Not bright orange. But soft. Like the sunset," I say. "At least, that's what you told me once." "Oh." He closes his eyes briefly, maybe trying to conjure up that sunset, then nods his head. "Thank you." But more words tumble out. "You're a painter. You're a baker. You like to sleep with the windows open. You never take sugar in your tea. And you always double-knot your shoelaces." Then I dive into my tent before I do something stupid like cry.

He looks well. Thin and covered with burn scars like me, but his eyes have lost that clouded, tortured look. He's frowning slightly, though, as he takes me in. I make a halfhearted effort to push my hair out of my eyes and realize it's matted into clumps. I feel defensive. "What are you doing?"

"You're still trying to protect me. Real or not real," he whispers. "Real," I answer. It seems to require more explanation. "Because that's what you and I do. Protect each other." After a minute or so, he drifts off to sleep.

"Leave me," he whispers. "I can't hang on." "Yes. You can!" I tell him. Peeta shakes his head. "I'm losing it. I'll go mad. Like them." Like the mutts. Like a rabid beast bent on ripping my throat out. And here, finally here in this place, in these circumstances, I will really have to kill him. And Snow will win. Hot, bitter hatred courses through me. Snow has won too much already today. It's a long shot, it's suicide maybe, but I do the only thing I can think of. I lean in and kiss Peeta full on the mouth. His whole body starts shuddering, but I keep my lips pressed to his until I have to come up for air. My hands slide up his wrists to clasp his. "Don't let him take you from me." Peeta's panting hard as he fights the nightmares raging in his head. "No. I don't want to..." I clench his hands to the point of pain. "Stay with me." His pupils contract to pinpoints, dilate again rapidly, and then return to something resembling normalcy. "Always," he murmurs.

"I think...you still have no idea. The effect you can have." He slides his cuffs up the support and pushes himself to a sitting position. "None of the people we lost were idiots. They knew what they were doing. They followed you because they believed you really could kill Snow." I don't know why his voice reaches me when no one else's can. But if he's right, and I think he is, I owe the others a debt that can only be repaid in one way.

Through the water in the glass, I see a distorted image of one of Peeta's hands. The burn marks. We are both fire mutts now. My eyes travel up to where the flames licked across his forehead, singeing away his brows but just missing his eyes. Those same blue eyes that used to meet mine and then flit away at school. Just as they do now.

I yank my head back in confusion to find myself looking into Peeta's eyes, only now they hold my gaze. Blood runs from the teeth marks on the hand he clamped over my nightlock. "Let me go!" I snarl at him, trying to wrest my arm from his grasp. "I can't," he says. As they pull me away from him, I feel the pocket ripped from my sleeve, see the deep violet pill fall to the ground, watch Cinna's last gift get crunched under a guard's boot.

Peeta and I grow back together. There are still moments when he clutches the back of a chair and hangs on until the flashbacks are over. I wake screaming from nightmares of mutts and lost children. But his arms are there to comfort me. And eventually his lips. On the night I feel that thing again, the hunger that overtook me on the beach, I know this would have happened anyway. That what I need to survive is not Gale's fire, kindled with rage and hatred. I have plenty of fire myself. What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again. And only Peeta can give me that. So after, when he whispers, "You love me. Real or not real?" I tell him, "Real."

They play in the Meadow. The dancing girl with the dark hair and blue eyes. The boy with blond curls and gray eyes, struggling to keep up with her on his chubby toddler legs. It took five, ten, fifteen years for me to agree. But Peeta wanted them so badly. When I first felt her stirring inside of me, I was consumed with a terror that felt as old as life itself. Only the joy of holding her in my arms could tame it. Carrying him was a little easier, but not much.

[krisseycrystal]

rated: t

fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist

prompt: “I’ve Got Your Fower, Babe” w/ Ed/Ling

requested by: @greecllings

my next fluff bingo prompt!!! THIS WAS SO MUCH FUN TO WRITE AH bless made me realize how much i need to write more of these two. damn they’re so fun. hope u enjoy !!

also feel free to request anything you see open on my fluff bingo! card!! 

- o - o - o -

Your Fool [Read on AO3]

Or, five times Ling held Ed’s proverbial flower while he threw himself headfirst into a fight, and one time Ed returned the favor.

- o - o - o -

The first time it happens, Ling isn’t prepared for the red jacket unceremoniously dumped in his arms. He is hardly prepared for the sight of Edward rolling his flesh shoulder, either, swearing up a storm as he strolls up to a stranger, shouting, “Hey! You wanna go? Yeah! Then let’s fucking go, bastard!”

This is why you let me be in charge, sneers the voice in his head. You clearly can’t control him.

“I don’t want to control him,” Ling confesses quietly, mesmerized as he watches Edward suplex a fellow automail wearer two or three times his size. “I wouldn’t get to see this happen.”

Whatever chaotic majesty of mud-wrestling the shit out of a random nobody this is. 

Why was Edward fighting this guy again?

Greed doesn’t answer until the brawl is nearly finished. Ling can practically hear a smug, knowing grin in his voice. Why, your highness…enjoying what you see?

Ling smiles. 

Despite what the homunculus likes to pride himself on, Greed hasn’t managed to know Ling inside and out yet if he thinks he’s going to get a rise out of him with that kind of poking-and-prodding.

“Of course I am,” he hums as he watches Ed once again drop the giant boulder of an ex-soldier into the dirt with a squelch. Ed is covered with the brown muck; it soils the golden shine of his braided hair and smears pale bronze of his sun-warm skin. It sticks the white button-up he wears close to his form. But the toothy grin the alchemist sends the prince’s way over his shoulder afterwards is still, somehow, pearly white. 

Ling’s fingers dig into the scarlet red of Ed’s jacket.

“Wow,” Greed and Ling say at the same time, but for entirely different reasons.

- o - o - o -

It’s funny to watch the ones who underestimate Edward. Sometimes, it’s the alchemist’s height that throws people off. The fools pick a fight because they think it’s an easy win. They say something uncalled for and Ed, inevitably, rises to the bait. 

Ling’s favorites are the ones that assume Ed is weak or slow because of his automail.

They are hunkering on the outside of an already-pretty-outskirt town up north that’s not north enough to be covered with snow year-round, but north enough to be hilly and craggly and with one of those neighborhoods that’s considered “historical” or some shit like that. It’s Greed and Ling’s turn for a supply run but Greed never does any actual chores so it’s Ling that sets out after guilting a sour-faced Ed to follow him as the pair of arms that will carry their bags back to camp. 

Except it’s somewhere along the way from the pharmacy to the grocery that Ling realizes he’s lost Ed and he’s not entirely sure how or why until he finds him in an alleyway between two dilapidated glasswork buildings. His flesh shoulder is pressed to the wall. Three burly men surround him.

The bag of medicine is held loosely in his hand.

“Well?” one of the idiots presses. The ringleader, if Ling had to guess.

Ling half-wonders if he should wait but then thinks what Ed would say if he knew he just stood there, so he puts a flat hand to the side of his mouth. “Yo, Ed! I’m open!”

“What?”

The muggers’ split-second of confusion ends the instant the white plastic pharmacy bag lands in Ling’s open hands and Ed’s metal fist collides with the jaw of the one pinning him to the wall. 

The fight is, rather unfortunately, over in a matter of seconds.

“Bastards.” Ed rings the wrist of his flesh hand with cool, metal fingers as he stands above them.

“H-how…?” the one now missing a tooth and eating snow to pay for it, rasps. “The hell’s a kid with automail so fast…?”

“You haven’t ever actually met someone with automail, have you?” The frown on Ed’s face is heavy and thick. Disapproving.

There’s something about the silence of the shamed privileged that Ling, who is undoubtedly yes, another privileged, will never tire of.

Ling’s chest is warm with pride. There’s a thousand and one more words he thinks he’d like to say to thumb-tack on to the end of this conversation. Something that will nail the idea into these thick knuckleheads that they are fools to have ever thought people who go through something like automail surgery are weak prey. 

But the words never make themselves out of his mouth because he must have a pretty dumb look on his face.

Ed’s giving him a weird stare. “What?”

“What?”

“Why’re you looking at me like that?”

Play it cool. Play it cool. “Like what?”

Ed’s nose scrunches up. He shakes his head. The ends of his golden tail dance against his shoulder-blades. “Whatever. We’ve got groceries to get, right?”

“Right.”

- o - o - o -

They reach the slums of Kanema and for the first time in who-knows-how-long, Edward sees his father, which is precisely when Ling prompts Greed to stick out their arm.

Ling can feel the question on Greed’s tongue that doesn’t surface. Maybe he’s already figured out the answer, because for the first time ever, the homunculus listens to him and outstretches one hand. Nearly immediately, the sleeping roll Edward had tucked under his arm flies into it as Ed flies at his father.

Oooo. Nice sucker punch. And at his old man, too. 

He’s holding back, Ling hums. 

It’s perhaps the only time Greed has ever willingly held something not his own.

- o - o - o -

For as many strengths as Edward Elric has, he has just as many weaknesses. Chief among them is his prioritization of Alphonse at the cost of anything and everything else, especially of his person. Though Ling supposes these faults are a given when said younger brother was the reason Edward had, for so many years, only one arm.

There is a period of time in between the Promised Day and when Ling ought to return to Xing that both Elrics are hospitalized as their bodies recover from their selective transformations. It is during these days that Edward, just as Ling predicts he will, doesn’t leave Alphonse’s side.

Ling, in turn, for some reason, though he tells himself over and over again it’s not because he misses the constant company of the damn voice in his head, hardly leaves Ed’s.

Riza Hawkeye convinces Ed to step away once Alphonse has gotten used to sleeping. The boy falls to slumber at odd, random moments, but he loves every minute of it. Edward, as Riza points out, can’t make water boil any faster by watching it.

So Ling oh-so-generously follows on Ed’s heels to the cafeteria because if there’s one thing Ed could be productive at while his brother is resting, it’s feeding himself and the future Emperor of Xing who really should be halfway across the desert by now but who’s keeping track.

Their trays of food are in their hands when they catch wind of a joke from a nearby table. Something about the amount of food on someone’s tray and that “twig kid” who could probably use it and oh, speaking of which, have you seen that guy? Supposed to be one of those amazing alchemists Mustang likes? He looks like something out of a horror movie--

--and Ling takes Edward’s tray out of his left hand without Ed even needing to ask.

Briefly, Ling wonders if it’s any use warning Ed he shouldn’t be using the arm still in its sling, but then he sees the look of terror on the military visitors’ faces and he doesn’t think of it again.

- o - o - o -

After months of separation and penned “I miss you’s” scribbled out to be replaced with, “How’s the winter in Creta?” Edward finally finishes his westward travels and returns home. And after he’s in Resembool for a month, or maybe it’s two, he relents to Ling’s persistent, annoying letters and agrees to visit Xing.

Alphonse warns Ling over and over again that Edward will be grumpy when he arrives. 

“He wasn’t kidding,” the young man says with earnest eyes that look so much like his brother’s, “when he said the reason he wasn’t going to travel east was because of his automail. It’s not going to be easy for him to cross that desert.”

Ling promises it will be fine. He will arrange for every comfort; Ed will want for nothing and know no pain during his journey.

Edward arrives on Ling’s palatial front doorstep with burns up his left thigh and a crick in his back and two sun-bitten ears and with a new straw hat Ling has never seen him wear before clenched tight in his hand. The instant Ed sees Ling, he launches into a train of expletives about the abysmal care that had been afforded to him and if Ling really wanted to see him so bad how come he didn’t give him a car instead of a horse and damn it he’s thirsty.

One of the horsemen handling his luggage mumbles something Ling doesn’t hear and immediately, Ed is on him.

It is second nature to grab the crumpled straw hat as it flies through the air.

Alphonse makes a strangled noise of distress, exhaustion, and maybe a little of, “I don’t know what I was expecting.” He launches himself down the steps at Edward to pull him off the attendant. “Brother!”

Ling has never seen anything more wonderful in his life. 

He plops the straw hat on his head and smiles.

- o - o - o -

It shouldn’t have to be said that an emperor does not fight.

It is assumed and understood that an emperor has trained assassins and warriors for a reason: that they handle his battles for him. He does not throw down his gauntlet or undo his robe. He is above the dirtying of his hands. He should not have to stoop to irrational, emotional displays. He is detached. His will is executed, while he can remain unchallenged.

But before he is an emperor, Ling is Ling.

And Ling is a lover.

And there comes the day he and Edward share a secret kiss behind the orchid tree in his palatial gardens and their fingers intertwine and that is the day that changes everything.

Edward has changed over the years.

So has Ling.

But Ling cannot and will not change his loyalty.

They are walking in the gardens together, again, as they have found that they like to do after they changed from two “I’s” to a together “we.” Ling idly spins an orchid they had found fallen on the stone pathway. Edward walks at his side, hands folded behind his back. Ling looks to him and smiles and thinks how badly Edward would hate to hear how much he looks like his father, now.

Then they hear the murmurings of a handful of court scholars who are also, at this early afternoon hour, taking refuge in the gardens. 

They hear Edward’s name.

It’s either “fucking ex-alchemist” or “fucking an ex-alchemist” and “for what?” in the same breath but Ling doesn’t want to nor need to hear the rest.

Edward’s dark scowl is replaced with confusion at the orchid dropped in the center of his palm. When he sees Ling’s face, however, even that melts away into a handsome, devilish smirk that Ling would hungrily press against his mouth if his hands weren't busy rolling up his robe sleeves.

“All right,” Ed says and twirls the orchid stem in between fingers that were once metal. “I’ve got your flower, babe.”

Ling does not round the hedge corner as an emperor. 

[lilacmoon83]

Finding You Always

Also on Fanfiction.net and A03

Chapter 231: Wicked Game, Pt 1

Fandral and Zorro arrived at the apartment that belonged to Hiram Flaversham and his daughter Olivia. And what they found definitely suggested foul play.

"What a mess," Zorro mentioned, as the place was in complete shambles.

"Hyde was right...it seems they have been abducted by someone," Fandral said, as he knelt down and noticed the peculiar spots of mud scattered haphazardly around the place.

"This certainly doesn't look like someone's shoes though. So who or what tracked this mud in?" Zorro wondered and a thought struck Fandral.

"Someone missing a leg…" he said.

"What? You think you know who did this?" Zorro asked.

"I think I may know who was hired to do this. He's a foul, stupid, degenerate, but he is also an efficient hand for hire," Fandral replied, as he made a call.

"Emma...it's Fandral. I believe we have a crime scene. Can you send Bashful with a forensics team to 1897 Baker Street. It's the Basil Estates apartment building, apartment 2F," Fandral said.

"Sure...I'll send him right away. Homicide?" she asked.

"Fortunately, no. It looks like an abduction. Hyde came to Rose and I and asked me to investigate the disappearance of one of his colleagues. An engineer by the name of Hiram Flaversham and his daughter Olivia. They're missing and their apartment shows definite signs of a struggle," Fandral reported.

"I'll let Bashful know and send him right away. I'll pull profiles on our victims too," she said.

"There is one other thing...a hunch, but there is a lot of mud that has been tracked in and it doesn't look like someone that has two legs, but rather one that's missing one. Maybe someone that even has a peg leg," Fandral said.

"I think I know exactly who you mean. I'll pull his file too and issue a BOLO," Emma replied.

"Thanks Emma...I'll see you soon," Fandral said, as hung up.

"So...who is this peg legged fiend?" Zorro asked, as Fandral's phone chimed and he showed him a photo of a greasy, shady looking character.

"Lester Batting...but better known as Fidget," Fandral replied.

"Cute nickname," Zorro joked.

"He earned it well during the Final Battle with the Black Fairy. He tangled with Snow and she fought him off with a dagger to his femoral artery. Since Whale, Paul, and Eva were with us, their side lacked proper medical training and his leg was amputated," Fandral said.

"Sounds like he deserved it," Zorro said.

"He did and served twenty years in prison for his seditious behavior. He was released just before Seth's curse and joined all his scummy friends on Pleasure Island," Fandral replied.

"You think that's where he took Mr. Flaversham and his daughter?" Zorro asked.

"Most likely, but we still don't know why or who hired him. Fidget is an efficient hired hand, like I said to Emma, but he's never the brains of anything," Fandral replied.

"So someone hired him to abduct an engineer and his daughter," Zorro deduced.

"Hyde said that Hiram is a very gifted engineer and there is only one man I can think of that would have use for his skills," Fandral said.

"Jekyll," they said together.

"And his little girl is insurance to make sure he does whatever Jekyll wants him to," Zorro realized.

"Exactly," Fandral said.

"Are you really thinking about going to Pleasure Island?" Zorro asked.

"Yes...but I assure you I am the perfect option to take this one on. It may be resistant to magic, but my Asgardian strength does not rely on magic," Fandral replied.

"That still doesn't mean that Jekyll won't have some monstrous way to subvert you," Zorro warned.

"I know...but if this man and his young one are in danger, then I must try to save them," he replied.

"Be that as it may, you need some backup," Zorro said.

"I cannot ask you to take such a risk," Fandral replied.

"You're not...I'm offering," Zorro said.

"And so am I…" Hyde added from the doorway.

"Well, I won't say no to the help of my right hand or someone that knows Jekyll as well as you, not to mention has strength that rivals my own," Fandral conceded.

"Then let's see if we can charter a ride on the Jolly Roger from our good Captain," Zorro said, as they headed out to the station.

~*~

The swirling portal opened and they stepped through. They weren't far from the National Mall, but had found a fairly secluded place to arrive. They arrived at the Smithsonian Museum and observed the grand event, complete with dozens of exhibits. Unfortunately, most, including the press recognized all of them and the camera flashes were already blinding them. Thankfully though, it seemed they were leery of their known power, so they kept their distance.

"I am never going to get used to that," Snow murmured to him.

"Me either...I'll be happy when all this is over and we don't have to leave home," David agreed.

"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the Smithsonian and tonight's exciting and exhilarating exhibition!" a man announced.

"I am Bruce Carlson, your host for the evening and one of the curators of this amazing collection!" he said, as he motioned to the exhibits.

"Okay...what the hell is this? This stuff is fake," David said.

"Yeah...we know that Mjolnir from our realm is in the Underworld and the one from Fandral's realm was destroyed," James replied.

"And we know that's not the real Holy Grail or Excalibur, because they are actually the same thing and in Storybrooke," Snow agreed.

"Aphrodite's Magic Girdle?" James asked curiously.

"Do I even want to know what a girdle is?" Bobby asked his nana.

"An unfortunate and uncomfortable thing women used to have to wear in the past that has thankfully long become obsolete," Regina answered.

"Very true and I can assure you that I've never owned a magic girdle," Aphrodite replied.

"Okay...so if most of this stuff is crap, then why the fuss?" David asked.

"Unless we're the real exhibit," Rumple surmised.

"And there may also be a jewel among the junk," Regina suggested.

"That could be...and that item would now be magically activated in the presence of the Chalice," Aphrodite agreed.

"Then let's find the real item and keep it out of the wrong hands," David said, as they made their way into the exhibition.

~*~

Summer stood next to JJ at the burial site. It had been a small, intimate service, as JJ was her only family. But Summer was by his side the whole time, despite her dislike for Nora. Despite that, she would have never wished this on her .

"I'm so sorry again," she offered.

"Thanks," he replied, as he tossed the flowers on her grave.

"Do you think Goldie will ever pay for what she did?" he asked.

"I know she will. My dad and my sister will bring her to justice," Summer promised.

"My parents may not be able to stop all the bad stuff, but they do stop a lot of it and right a lot of wrongs. They won't let such an injustice go unpunished, nor will they allow someone as unhinged as Goldie go free," she added. He smiled and leaned down to kiss her cheek.

"Thank you," he said, as she blushed a bit.

"Do you have to get home soon?" he asked.

"No…I was actually thinking about going to the reserve to ride Sparkle. You up for it?" she asked. He smiled.

"I'd really like that," he agreed, as he gently took her hand. She smiled and felt warm all over, as she looked up at him and they ventured back to his car.

~*~

Fandral and Zorro arrived at the station and Rose ran to them. He had called her and told her what he planned, so he shouldn't have been surprised to see her there waiting for him. She ran to him and he caught her in his arms, as he pulled her flush against him and their lips met in a passionate kiss.

"I do not like this...it's so dangerous. That monster would love to take you from me…" Rose fretted.

"I know, my angel...but with the welfare of this man and his innocent child hanging in the balance, I cannot refuse the call to help," Fandral said. She nodded and knew she could not ask him to either.

"But Hyde...he is going with you for backup?" she asked. He nodded.

"Yes...he is meeting us here. He said he had to retrieve something from his lab," he replied, as Emma approached.

"I still think I should be going with you," Emma said.

"No...your parents would have a collective aneurysm and magic cannot be relied on there. My skills as a warrior and superior strength can though. Trust me, I've been to worse places than Pleasure Island," Fandral replied. She sighed.

"Okay...still hate the idea, but since two innocent lives hang in the balance, I'm not going to stop you," Emma said, as her phone chimed and she read the message.

"You were right...Bashful just ran the prints they found at the Flaversham apartment and they matched the ones we have in the system for Lester Batting, also known as Fidget," Emma replied.

"If we can grab the greasy little character while we're there, we will," Zorro assured her.

"Just be careful. We know what Jekyll can do, but more importantly, Rodmilla has magic now that isn't impeded there and then there is Runeard as well," Emma replied. They nodded, as Hyde came into the station, carrying a long case.

"What is this?" Fandral asked, as the other man set it on the desk and opened it, revealing a brilliant looking sword.

"Something I have been working on for a while," Hyde said.

"For me?" Fandral asked in surprise.

"You are the master swordsman and this is no ordinary sword. I was inspired by your story of the crafting of weapons from the stories you told on Nidavellir and the strong metal that was found on the other earth," Hyde said.

"Hiram and I have been developing what we believe is a metal that is just as strong as that metal. I was also inspired by the story of a weapon that can return to the wielder with a thought or feeling. Much like your friend Thor or even David's chalice sword," he continued, as Fandral picked up the magnificent weapon.

"Thank you…" Rose said.

"Yours and the children's safety is still of the utmost importance to me and with this weapon, you'll have even more of an edge against Jekyll. Like the Chalice sword, only you, Rose, or someone of your bloodline can wield it and it will recall to your hand at will," Hyde said.

"I have dubbed it Storm Surge," he added.

"Thank you...truly," Fandral said, as he exchanged his current sword and replaced it in his sheath with the new one. Rose turned to him and hugged him tightly.

"Please be careful," she implored.

"I will, my angel...and I will return to you soon," he promised, as they shared another passion filled kiss. Killian was waiting in the doorway. He would be taking the three of them to Pleasure Island aboard the Jolly Roger and waiting at the Harbor to make a quick getaway once they had retrieved the abductees.

~*~

"And now that we have had a word from our sponsors, we can begin tonight's video broadcast here on the Golden Pulse with more video evidence that there is a very real and present danger posed to the world by yet another mysterious villain," Goldie revealed, as she looked to Grimm in the background. He gave her a thumbs up, ensuring that he was broadcasting on all platforms, including their accounts on the muggle versions of social media.

"A new villain, calling himself Void, can now control the weather here in the United Realms. And the only one that can seemingly stop this menace is a fourteen-year-old boy," Goldie said, as Grimm cut to the video footage of the snowstorm in Arendelle and the thunderstorm in Misthaven.

"Now these storms are not natural. This new villain has caused the elements to go haywire and once again, the Charmings are at the center of it. They have been tasked to stop this horror, but not before it buried one Kingdom in snow and flooded another," she added.

"And the fact that our fate may yet again rest upon a boy who's still navigating puberty is not lost on any of us. What are the Charmings doing about this menace, you may be asking?" she questioned, as the video cut to an image of Snow and David in Washington DC.

"That's right, Snow White and her Prince Charming are attending yet another fancy party in Washington DC. Catastrophe follows these two wherever they go so I hope you have insurance, Washington," Goldie said, as the video cut to another sponsor ad.

"Well?" Goldie asked, as she looked at him. He smirked.

"Over three thousand views already and climbing. This thing is going to go viral if we play that footage of them fixing the problem," he said.

"Do it," she said, as he streamed the video as it came back from the ad spot.

~*~

"I think...everyone needs to channel their elements into me and then I can stop this. Then we'll have to clean it all up," Bobby said.

"You're the boss in this one," Eva replied, as she put her hand on his shoulder and his eyes glowed pink.

"I just hope I don't shock us both to the moon," Leo joked, as he put his hand on his brother's back. Bobby's eyes glowed cobalt and the electricity swirling around Leo ceased. Summer was next and her little brother's eyes glowed lavender and finally Emma put her hand on his back, making his eyes glow white.

"Now Mom and Dad...your element is love and kind of the reason we can do any of this," Bobby said. Snow and David smiled at them and each other, before placing their hands on Bobby's shoulders. His eyes glowed rainbow at that point and a large pulse of pure power exited and there was a rumble beneath them, as the power traveled beneath the ground. They all watched in awe, as the power lit up the ground in a display of multi-colored light, before steam began to rise from the ground and when the billowy steam finally cleared, all the snow was melted. Elsa looked at her hands in awe, realizing that her powers were under control again too.

"One more pulse should do it on that cloud, kid," Emma said. He nodded and they produced another pulse of rainbow colored magic, this time hitting the dark, ominous cloud over Arendelle that was dispelling the cloud that was showering the Kingdom with snow.

~*~

"Yes...that was the footage of a boy and his family fixing a snowstorm. Unfortunately, when you're dealing with a villain that can not only cause storms, but suck the life out of people...that's when things get serious," Goldie said, as they cut to the footage of the two guards that Void had killed.

"I apologize for the gruesomeness of those images, but people need to know what is happening. People need to be prepared, lest they become collateral damage in this war the Charmings seem to both be fighting...and waging," she claimed, as they cut to more footage of Snow and David in Washington.

"Especially when Mommy and Daddy are away and attract as much mayhem as these two. Buckle up, Land Without Magic...because I assure that this pair is going to bring you more than just stories of true love. The insanity that surrounds them will come to you too," Goldie said, as she continued to report on the events, while the Internet went crazy with this new information.

"This video is going to go viral for sure," Grimm said.

"But that's not enough. It's time to make my debut in the Land Without Magic," she replied.

"What exactly do you have in mind?" he asked, as she produced something from her desk drawer and handed one to him.

"Press passes...I like it," he replied.

"Time for me to get an up close and personal exclusive with Snow White and her prince," she said, as she held up a bean and they prepared to take their own trip.

~*~

Snow, David, and the others endured the tour, as the curator rambled on about his fake exhibits and fake artifacts. None of it made any sense, so they were all on guard, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

"You know...the regular Smithsonian exhibits would be far more interesting than this fake stuff. Our Atlantis museum back home blows all this away," Snow mentioned to him quietly, as they were pretending to listen to Mr. Carlson tell a fake story about the Holy Grail and how it was found.

"I know what you mean," he agreed, as he stood beside her with his arm wrapped firmly around her waist.

"At least there is one treasure in this room though and she happens to be in my arms," he said, as he looked at her and kissed her cheek.

"Charming...you are too good to be true, my love," she gushed, as she leaned her head against his shoulder.

"If I am...it's because of you, my darling," he whispered to her, as they shared a passionate kiss. They were both unaware of the eyes on them from the shadows.

~*~

"It's happening...at last," the man of Asian descent said, as an object began to glow in the dark.

"Has that ever happened?" Mr. Ozman asked.

"Not in my lifetime," the man replied.

"Do you even know what's inside of this peculiar jar, Mr. Li? Not even your ancestor could open it. In fact, he was a traitor," Ms. Reeves said.

"Indeed he was. Tao Xang Li sided with the children of the sun and gave the prized power source of the Mu people over to them. And they never opened it. No one really knows what is does or what's inside," Mr. Li said.

"But that is about to change," Li assured them, as he emerged from the shadows and set his sights on the pair. The new children of the sun...or truest loves, as they preferred. He didn't care what they were called; he was just intent on using them to get what he wanted and rectify his ancestor's failure to fortify the Li legacy.

It was true...he was the descendant of the Dragon's King's trusted advisor, Tao Xang Li, the only full blooded of the Mu people to ever leave their island. But his descendant, Ichiro Suun Li, had been haunted by the prospect of possible unlimited power within his grasp, but yet no way of harnessing it. His family had become corrupted a few generations ago when the promise of such power was continually denied to them and promised to those with no blood attachment to his lineage.

Is the distraction ready?" Li asked.

"Yes…" Mr. Ozman replied.

"Excellent...it's time to proceed," he said.

~*~

"And here we come to the enchanting necklace of Harmonia," the curator said, as a bejeweled necklace sat on display behind glass.

"Fake?" James asked.

"So fake...I bet the jewels aren't even real. It's tacky costume jewelry at best," Aphrodite replied.

"Do you know where the real one is?" Snow asked.

"In my shop...it's quite a story, but that's for another time," Gold replied, as they snickered.

"I'm sorry...but my entire presentation has been met with your snickering and whispering. Do you have an issue with my magnificent collection?" Mr. Carlson questioned.

"Well, since you mentioned it, yes...yes we do," Aphrodite replied, as all eyes were suddenly on them.

"So much for keeping a low profile," David joked.

"That's not our style anyway," Snow said.

"Almost everything in this exhibit is fake," Aphrodite replied.

"And she would know, since most of it is her heritage," James added.

"There is no way the Smithsonian would ever endorse such a fraud, which means this whole thing can't be about this exhibit," David said.

"Well…I suppose you would know all about being a fraud, wouldn't you, Prince Charming?" Goldie asked, as she made her presence known, with Grimm trailing behind her.

"How the hell did you two get in here?" Regina asked, as they held up the press passes around their necks.

"We're the press and this is a public event," Goldie said.

"Did you just call my husband a fraud?" Snow asked dangerously, as she got in Goldie's face. The blonde smirked.

"Well...he is the one that posed as his brother and fooled an entire Kingdom," she replied.

"My husband proved he's a true leader and became the people's prince," Snow argued.

"True...and left his own twin brother to live in the shadow of the legendary Prince Charming," Goldie goaded.

"If you're trying to get us to turn against each other, David and I are long past any animosity," James countered.

"He's right...and I may have had humble beginnings. Probably a lot like you, but at least I decided to use my life to do good things. You're just a bitter, jealous, washed up reporter," David said. She smirked, as she stepped closer to him.

"I bet you're a real tiger in the sack, chisel chin," she leered.

"You'll never know," Snow commented.

"What I wouldn't give to wrap my hands around that pretty little neck," Goldie retorted.

"I'd love to see that fight," Grimm commented.

"No you wouldn't. My Mom would decimate her," Bobby quipped.

"Look, I'm tired of this little vendetta you have against my wife. She's not responsible for your terrible life!" David exclaimed, as the spectators were much more interested in the spectacle playing out before them then they were the exhibits.

"Enough!" a voice said, as they turned to find a man of Asian descent before them.

"Who the hell are you?" David asked.

"My name is Ichiro Suun Li and since all the artifacts before you are not to your liking, I believe I have one that will be," he replied.

"Li?" Aphrodite asked curiously.

"Yes Goddess...I am of that Li bloodline and I present to you the sacred jar of my people. The Mu…" he said, as the spectators marveled at the glowing jar.

"Don't let him fool you...he's not the good man his ancestor may have been," Patricia warned.

"I am simply a man that wants the secrets to his heritage unlocked and I believe it is within this jar. Now...the children of the sun will open it for me," he said.

"Truest loves," Snow corrected.

"And what if we don't?" David asked. He smirked.

"Then the blood of every person in this room will be on your hands…" he threatened...

~*~

The Jolly Roger docked at Pleasure Island and Killian deployed the gangplank.

"I'm sure I don't have to tell you...but be on your guard, mates. This place was rough back in the day and that was before it housed a myriad of super villains," Killian mentioned.

"Thank you, Captain. Hopefully, we'll return shortly with our abductees," Fandral said, as the warrior was flanked by his companions for this mission.

"Well...that is definitely a new attraction since we were here last," Fandral said, as they observed the extravagant castle in the distance.

"Rodmilla Tremaine is definitely at home in this place," Zorro agreed, as they approached the infamous watering hole that they knew was run by Grimm. Going in there would alert the entire island to their presence, so they quickly concealed themselves in the alleyway behind the bar.

"What if our gimpy friend decides not to frequent the bar tonight?" Zorro asked.

"Then we tear this island apart until we find them. But I don't think we're going to need to," Hyde said, as he pointed ahead of them and they noticed Fidget limping toward another man at one of the nearby kiosks.

"Poppy dust...with an injury like his, we should have guessed he was an addict," Fandral said, as they moved on once he pocketed the bag of narcotics and the greasy character nearly leapt out of his skin at the sight of Fandral.

"Scream and I crush your larynx," Hyde threatened, as he put his hand around the shifty man's throat. Zorro fished out the bag of drugs and confiscated them.

"I need those…" he pleaded.

"Yes…I imagine that your permanent injury is painful at times, but narcotics are never the solution," Fandral replied.

"Easy for you to say and what's the difference? The version prescribed in your fancy hospital are just as addictive as poppy dust," he seethed.

"Perhaps that's true…" Fandral relented.

"Or maybe you're just a scumbag," Zorro added bluntly.

"That is likely also true," Fandral agreed.

"Hey…I don't see the two of you walking around with a bum leg!" Fidget hissed.

"Yes...well, maybe you shouldn't have tried to assault Snow White and you might not be in this position," Fandral said.

"That little wench...she caused this!" he said.

"No...shoddy medical practices caused this. The Black Fairy or Yzma could have repaired your leg easily with magic, but they did not care. You were just a minion...a foot soldier. This is how they treat their help," Fandral corrected, as he produced a pair of cuffs and put them on the greasy man.

"Now...you're going back to prison, but the amount of time you do in the abduction of Hiram Flaversham and his daughter will all depend upon you telling us where Jekyll is. We know he has them," Fandral said.

"If I tell you...I'm dead meat," Fidget said.

"You're dead if you don't. Tell us and you'll have a fighting chance in prison," Hyde threatened, as he put his hand around the man's neck again.

"Okay...it's that warehouse there," he said, pointing to the large building at the end of the block.

"Walk…" Fandral urged, as they followed him and arrived at the warehouse and they rushed in when they heard screaming…

~*~

Hiram Flaversham had worked diligently through the night and the day for his impatient captor. So when Jekyll finished his daily watching of Snow White via in his intrusive spying devices, he turned his attention to Hiram.

"I do hope you have been successful. With Snow and Charming away, this would be the perfect opportunity to sneak up on young Summer and obtain her star gem...and perhaps even Eva's," he said.

"Emma and Leo would be more challenging, but with their parents and Nana gone...the youngest girl would be prime for the picking, so that glove had better work," he added, as the device was unveiled.

"Your craftsmanship is exquisite…" he complimented, as he observed a golden pair of gloves, similar to the magic wielding ones he had created for Rodmilla, though hers were black.

"They will allow you to rip hearts and seamlessly extract star gems from the hearts without damaging them," Hiram said. The look in Jekyll's eyes was one of pure derangement, as he moved to the other side of his lab and revealed another device. It looked like a staff of some sort.

"I've done what you have asked...now please release me and my daughter," Hiram requested.

"Oh, but don't you want to know what you have helped facilitate?" Jekyll asked, as he picked up the golden staff.

"Seven slots...seven star gems and control of everything will be mine," he revealed, as a cold chill went down Hiram's spine. Jekyll smirked.

"That's right...seven Charmings and all their power will be harnessed by me. Charming will be under my control and lead his children in complete destruction of subjugation of the world for me, while the lovely Snow will be by my side as my Queen," he added.

"Then you have what you want...now please let us go," Hiram pleaded.

"Oh, but we have not tested your device yet," Jekyll said, as young Olivia was led into the room by one of the guards.

"Goldilocks was very disappointed in her skills as an assistant, so she returned her, hoping that I may have better use of her," Jekyll said, with a smirk that made Hiram want to vomit.

"And I do," he said, as he raised his hand and prepared to rip the heart from the young girl.

"No...please! Test it on me!" Hiram offered.

"A nice offer...but she will be our guinea pig," Jekyll said, as his hand thrust forward and the girl winced, waiting for the pain to come. But an arm caught his before it could go through her chest and she looked up to find Hyde in between the two of them.

"Not today, doctor…" he hissed, as he shoved him away and then picked Olivia up to carry her to Hiram.

"Hyde...get them back to the Jolly Roger. We'll be right behind you," Fandral said, as he circled the doctor.

"Don't count on it, Asgardian. With these gloves...I can rip even your heart out and once I do...I will go to Rose Red and make her watch me crush it to dust!" Jekyll growled.

"Spoken like a true psychopath…" Fandral countered, as he drew his new weapon.

"A shiny new sword won't even help you against me," the doctor warned, as he slashed at him with his fire whips. Zorro and Fandral dodged the flaming extensions of his arms and he aspirated and reappeared directly in front of Zorro.

"I will have a test subject," he growled, as he prepared to take Zorro's heart. Thinking quickly, Fandral picked Fidget up by the shirt and tossed the now screaming minion in between the path of Jekyll's glove and Zorro. Fidget was speared by Jekyll's hand and the mad scientist extracted his heart, which barely glowed at all, considering it was heavily blackened, thanks to all the evil deeds he had done in his life. Jekyll growled maniacally and the heart in his hand exploded to dust in his fury, killing the crippled henchman.

"I may hate Charming the most...but you are very high on my list, Asgardian," Jekyll said.

"Sounds like something to take pride in," Fandral quipped, as the madman unleashed a fire blast in his rage, causing a chain reaction of small explosions all over the warehouse, due to all the chemicals he had around.

"This whole place is going to go up...he's insane," Zorro warned.

"Yes he is…" Fandral agreed and then cried out, as one of Jekyll's fiery whips wrapped around him.

"Time to burn…" he threatened, but the seasoned warrior maneuvered his sword and shocked the doctor, as it passed through his forearms, cutting his hands off. He cried out in raged agony, as Fandral was freed from his grip.

"You think you've won!? I am made of demon fire now! I will regrow my limbs with ease, just like last time!" he claimed, as he willed his power to the surface, but frowned when nothing happened.

"I don't think it will be so easy this time, demon. This is no ordinary blade anymore. It seems Hyde has taken a page from your book and developed a metal that can defeat you with science," Fandral boasted.

"And when he merges his technology with the magic of Snow and David's chalice into their weapons...you will not stand a ghost of chance," the warrior added, as he and Zorro slipped out of the warehouse, just as Jekyll screamed in maniacal rage and the entire building exploded. He was still alive, of course, but he had been dealt a serious defeat.

~*~

Killian saw the explosion and was about to venture to find them when he saw Hyde running toward the Harbor with a girl and the man he assumed was her father, Mr. Flaversham.

"Bloody hell...are Fandral and Zorro okay?" he asked, as he helped their rescued people aboard.

"Yes...they should be right behind us," Hyde said, as they saw the two warriors running toward them as fast as they could.

"Did you kill the bastard?" Killian asked, as they hopped on board.

"We wish...but we at least dealt him a serious defeat," Zorro replied.

"Yes...he has destroyed his own lab in his anger," Fandral said.

"At least we managed to destroy that contraption that Mr. Flaversham created," Zorro said, regarding the inventor.

"What contraption?" Killian asked.

"Gloves that will give Jekyll the ability to rip hearts and extract star gems from them," Fandral replied.

"Emma and her siblings...he's going after them," he realized.

"Yes...but thankfully those gloves and the staff he built to harness the power of them have gone up in smoke," Zorro said, as Killian set sail for the mainland.

"Unfortunately, that may not be the end of it," Hiram offered.

"What do you mean?" Fandral asked.

"I'm afraid my designs were stored in his database. He'll be able to recall the blueprints and rebuild them...without my assistance," Hiram replied.

"Then we must warn Snow and David the moment they return," Zorro said.

"We will tell Emma once we dock. If he got his hands on even one star gem, he could use them to destroy everything. All he would need to bring us all down would be if he got his hands on Emma's or Bobby's. Their magic is by far the strongest," Killian feared.

"He wants Snow and David's too. If he got his hands on the power of the chalice through Snow and David...not to mention Bobby, then the entire United Realms and beyond would be doomed," Fandral realized, giving them all a sense of pure dread.

"Do you think we can stop him, uncle?" Olivia asked, as she looked up at Hyde. He hugged her gently.

"Yes...we will stop him, young one. We must," he said, as he shared a wary look with the others.

~*~

Once the flames were put out, Jekyll emerged from the building, his body covered almost entirely in burns. Thanks to his demon powers, he would heal from those quickly, but the damage had been done to his hands. He could not regrow them and when Rodmilla arrived, even his gruesome appearance shocked her. Following closely behind were her lead guard, Rivers and her jester, Lucifer.

"Rebuild my lab…" he growled, as she watched the sickening process of him shedding the burned skin and emerging anew.

"I gave you those powers...and you will now use them to assist me. If you do not...I will roast you the same way I roasted this entire building!" he shouted, as his eyes bled with fire.

"No need for threats, Doctor…" she said, as she got a healthy dose of practice with her magical gloves and remade his lab. She noticed burnt mass on the floor though and her nose wrinkled at the absolute foul smell.

"What is that?" she asked.

"That...was Fidget. Get rid of it," he growled, as she waved her hand and disappeared the gruesome mass of ash and burnt flesh.

"What happened here?" Runeard asked.

"Fandral the Dashing happened and I fully intend to make sure he pays for everything he just did," Jekyll said.

"What is wrong with your hands?" Rodmilla asked.

"I underestimated Hyde's ingenuity, but that won't happen again," he said, as he pressed a button on his console with his elbow and a panel on the floor opened up. A box emerged from the floor and he kicked it over to Runeard.

"Open it…" he ordered.

"I am a King...I do not take orders, especially from an unhinged doctor, who is obviously an amateur," Runeard said derisively.

"You had better watch your tongue, Void...for if you think your little trick is a match for me...you'd be sadly mistaken," Jekyll said, as he grabbed the man's wrist and Runeard was shocked to see that his touch had no effect on the doctor.

"I am still a demon and there is no life to drain from me," he said, as the King hissed in pain and pulled his wrist away, finding a burn mark there.

"But I can burn you to ash. However, I find your ability intriguing and would prefer it to work for me. Make no mistake though, if you inhibit my path to the lovely Snow White, I will reduce you to smoldering embers," Jekyll warned.

Runeard reluctantly did so and took out a metal case. He placed it on the console and opened it, revealing a second pair of gloves, much like Rodmilla's.

"These will suffice until we can obtain Snow and Charming's mixed blood. With it, Grimm can give me my flesh hands back. For now, these will work and help channel my power," Jekyll said, as he was fitted with the gloves. The Doctor flexed his artificial hands.

"Now get out...I have much work to do and a revenge to craft," he hissed, as they left the psychotic doctor to do his work.

"I'd hate to be the Dashings or the Charmings when he gets done with them. I hope he lets me watch the carnage," Lucifer mentioned. Rivers smirked.

"Me too...it will be entertaining for sure," he agreed.

[gumnut-logic]

The Jock

I found fic! Literally. I watched Runaway for TAGRewatch last week and thought to myself, ‘Didn’t I write a follow up to this at some point?’ It wasn’t until today that I got around to fossicking through the fics on my iPad and found it. I don’t think I’ve published it before. I certainly haven’t archived it. So, theoretically here is new fic.

My memory isn’t the greatest, so who knows. Anyway...

Episode tag to Runaway, language, 1002 words and one pissed off Tracy.

-o-o-o-

“Scott, I need to talk to you.”

The commander looked up from his father’s desk. He was still in his uniform, the mud dry and cracking. Grandma was going to kill him for the mess all over floor, but he was too tired to do anything about it.

The expression on Virgil’s face as he stalked across the room towards him didn’t bode well at all either.

“What is it? Can it wait?”

“No, I think it has waited long enough.” Virgil stopped not far from him, his feet set firm on the hardwood, his shoulders squared and his arms crossed in front of him.

Great, Virgil was pissed at something.

Scott tried not to slump, but his shoulders shifted just slightly.

Virgil’s eyes flickered, not missing anything, but then determination flared and his stance stiffened even more.

“What?” It came out harsher than intended.

Too damned tired.

“Why do you have to be a jock?”

Huh? “What?”

“Brains is a brilliant engineer, but his physical skills aren’t his strength. His confidence in rescue situations is poor and needs encouragement, yet you are rough, inconsiderate and dismissive of his concerns. You’re a jock, Scott and acting like a dick.”

He stared at Virgil. “You’re kidding me, right?” Honestly? Really?

His brother’s eyes widened, only to narrow, his brows almost meeting in the middle. “How would you like it if Brains belittled your lack of engineering knowledge?”

“Virgil, I’m tired and I have no idea what you are referring to.”

“First there was that train in Japan.”

“That was yesterday-“

“You threw Brains off One, despite his protests, into a dangerous situation that was enough to cause a panic attack....and you thought it was funny!”

Okay, Virgil was yelling now. This was serious.

“Hey, hey, Virg, calm down. Brains was okay.”

“Was he?! Did you follow up on that? Do you know if he has any repercussions from your bullying?”

“Bullying?!”

“Yes, bullying! Little more than school yard bullying, Scott! You were a jerk and a jock! Not everyone has your physical confidence and you should respect that. Brains is good at what he does. Very good. And should not be ridiculed for when he isn’t!”

Scott was still staring as Virgil suddenly spouted off something in a foreign language that made absolutely no sense to him.

“What?”

“Exactly! You have no idea what I just said, do you? It was basic stuff, Scott. Stuff that Brains considers simple to the point of assuming everyone knows it. So now we have today. Did you hear him belittling you when you didn’t understand it? Did he scoff or laugh at your lack of knowledge? No. Yet when you felt he needed to be dangled over a ravine to reach that automated armoured car, I heard you belittling him over comms.”

Scott pushed himself slowly to his feet. “Belittling? It was a joke!”

“It wasn’t a joke! The man was terrified! It may have been nothing to you, but to Brains...I found him puking in his lab. He is a shivering wreck.”

Scott’s eyes widened. “What? Is he okay?” Genuine concern flared and he took a step around the desk towards his fuming brother.

Virgil’s glare softened just a little. “Yes. I spoke with him. He is resting.” Virgil looked away a moment, his expression uninterpretable. A sigh and his stance shifted. “Scott, I know it was unintentional.” Brown eyes turned back to him and pinned him where he stood. “But you have to understand that you cannot expect physical prowess equal to your own in everyone and you most certainly cannot ridicule another person’s fears.”

He was rendered speechless as his brain sorted through the day’s events and those from the week previous. He turned the events around and around in his head. That looming mountain as Brains was hanging off One over the railway track. Okay, to be honest, that would have disturbed him too. But humour helped, didn’t it?

“I thought he trusted me enough to know I would never let anything happen to him.”

Another sigh from his younger brother as Virgil slouched where he stood. “It is not about trust.” A pause. “Well, it is to a certain extent. I’m sure Brains trusts you. But it is more about self confidence in himself and the vagaries of fate. You need to be patient and considerate and respect his boundaries. You can’t force him into situations he is uncomfortable in.”

Scott let himself slump against the desk, one hand reaching out to catch his weight against it. “He’s alright?”

Virgil closed the distance between them. “He will be.” A hand landed on his shoulder, strength in its grip. “But please, don’t do that again.”

Something sick curdled in his stomach. Perhaps he had been impatient, but it had always worked for...his brothers. “What about you?”

Virgil blinked. “What about me?”

“I did the same to all of you. It seemed to work. You all survived.”

Brown narrowed at him. “Different skill set. Different temperament.” A swallow. “Though you might want to have a conversation with John about the snow sled in seventh grade.”

Scott stared again. “What? Why didn’t he say something?”

“He did. You ignored him.”

An open mouth, but nothing came out.

The hand on his shoulder squeezed again. “We know you mean well. We grew up with you. There isn’t a nasty bone in your body, Scott. Brains is different. You’re going to have to go slower and be more patient.” A small smile. “And maybe learn a few engineering terms yourself, or I’ll have to start laughing at you.” Another squeeze. “Talk to him?”

A sigh. “I’ll talk to him.”

“Good.” The arm wrapped around his shoulder. “But Brains is asleep right now and you need some yourself considering the energy you are going to need in the morning to defend yourself against Grandma regarding this mess.”

Scott shrugged. “It will sweep up.” But his thoughts had drifted to instances across the past that fit Virgil’s accusations.

Was he really that bad?

-o-o-o-

[vagrantblvrd]

Thinking about werebear Michael again?

(Because reasons.)

And like.

That one fantasy-ish AU where Ryan’s Some Dude wandering around? Something of a mercenary/former mercenary who just.

Wanders.

(A vagabond, if you will.)

Here and there and knows a little bit of magic - small spells that don’t account for much up against properly trained mages or other magic users but handy all the same, right?

(Can make the business of starting a campfire easier after a long day on the road when the sun starts to set and the cold comes rolling in. Keeps him from freezing when he’s in the mountains or up north. Other little tricks like that.)

And there are monsters out there too, right? Ghosties and ghoulies and he’s learned (the hard way) how to kill the ones trying to kill him. How to leave the ones going about their own business alone and so on. (And sometimes what his fellow humans call monsters are better people than they could ever hope to be and all that.)

Anyway.

Wanderer Ryan who comes to a small mountain town somewhere and realizes something is Wrong.

Comes to find out there’s a monster in the woods surrounding the town that’s been plaguing them for some time now.

The townspeople have put up a bounty for its head, hefty reward offered by the people and more than a few people who have gone there hoping to claim it.

Ryan’s not really interested because he’s still got money from recent jobs he’s taken. (And not all that keen about venturing into unfamiliar woods after some unknown beastie and all that.)

But!

He’s got this look to him, seems confident and capable and the mayor makes a convincing case.

Missing livestock and attacks that injured/maimed several townspeople. Worries that it might get bold enough to poke around town, attack the townspeople and children and so on and so forth. (Sweeten the pot with promise of more money after he supplies proof of the creature’s death. Its head or pelt or something else along those lines.)

And Ryan.

He can tell he won’t get a moment’s peace until he agrees to accept, so he does. (Can’t hurt to have a little extra coin and such.)

Ryan doesn’t go looking right away, though. For one it’s late and he’s tired when the mayor “convinces” him. For another, something is weird?

(There’s a figure in a corner of the tavern, travel cloak with the hood pulled up and he knows he’s being watched.)

Also.

The mayor was all weird about this monster in their woods?

So.

He says yes when the mayor asks if he’ll deal with the monster in their woods and then finishes his meal and dirnk and goes to bed. (Tries to ignore the feeling of eyes on his back as he heads up the stairs to the room he’s paid for for the next few nights.)

The next morning he does a little poking around town under the guise of resupplying and such.

Buys food and whatnot for his travels. Gets new shoes for his horse and chats idly with the blacksmith about things.

Man’s had similar talks with other mercenaries and the like passing through, the handful who took up the bounty Ryan’s after now. Idiots and blowhards for the most part, jumped up on their own self-importance and none of them properly kitted out to deal with whatever they might come across in the woods.

All steel and iron and not a sliver of silver among them, he says.

Ryan listens and buys a pretty little knife off the blacksmith. Delicate thing, bright and shiny and not the best when pitted against solid steel but monsters are real and there’s some truth the old stories and all that.

(Feels like a frivolous purchase, but Ryan lost a knife like it some time back. Stuck it in the heart of a monster haunting another small town and always meant to get it replaced.)

ANYWAY.

He wanders the town all day seeing to errands and such he’s meant to get to but hasn’t and chatting with the locals.

Hears a few things that don’t quite mesh with the story the mayor told him, but nothing unduly worrying.

The monster’s appearance was sudden, unexpected. Took a while before anyone noticed it had taken up residence since it seemed content to keep to itself. But as the weather grew colder and game scarcer it went after easier prey, and livestock went missing and then people went looking and things went on from there until a bounty was decided on and here Ryan is.

People are a bit furtive about it all, but not in a way that sets off alarm bells in the back of his head and Ryan decides he’ll go looking the next day. (No sense in looking for the damn thing at night, after all.)

AND.

While he’s eating his dinner that night, same quiet table in the tavern that figure in the travel cloak sits down across from him and gives him a once-over.

Nothing hostile to it, if anything the man looks curious.

Lean figure with messy hair and this faint smirk and something amused (tired) in his eyes.

Asks Ryan if he’s there for the reward, and Ryan not seeing a reason to lie, tells him it wasn’t his intent.

But.

An annoyingly insistent mayor and maybe Ryan’s an idiot for saying yes, but the children here are unbearably adorable and sweet and Ryan’s seen instances like this turn ugly if left untended, so.

Better to take up the bounty than leave things as they are and hope for the best. (Doesn’t say for who, though, because some people don’t understand.)

That gets him a look, curious, thoughtful, and the figure laughs.

Quiet thing, and wishes him luck with his little hunt as they head out.

Ryan watches them leave and sighs because something tells him that’s not the last he’ll be seeing of them and hopes things don’t turn out messily the way they tend to in his experience.

...They do, though.

(So. Much.)

When he sets out to hunt down the monster that’s been prowling the woods he finds old tracks and all that. (Strange ones mixed in. Human to monstrous and baffling and that bad feeling of his again.)

Follows them best he can and finds the places where previous encounters with the monster must have taken place.

Old bloodstains and torn up ground and greenery and other things - broken weapons beginning to rust after being left out in the elements for so long and so on.

Realizes whatever this monster the quiet little town has, it’s bigger than he thought. (They usually are, though, so. Yes.)

Sighs and forges on and after a few hours realizes the woods around him have gone quiet.

Eerily so.

No birds, small animals.

Early winter and he’s high up enough there’s a couple of inches of snow on the ground and that quiet, muffled quality to the world around him it brings.

The tracks or whatever he’s been following have led him to a clearing and the opening of a cave and this awful feeling, because there’s blood on the snow here.

Signs of something big disturbing the snow, bloody tracks and heavy whuffling breathing somewhere behind him. Crunch of snow underfoot (underpaw?) and he turns to see the quiet little town’s monster shuffling towards him.

Big old bastard, and if Ryan didn’t know better he’d think it was just some overgrown animal walking towards him and not something else. (Other.)

But he does know better, and has time to swear under his breath because of course - and then the wind shifts. Carries his scent to the monster and Ryan sees it realize he’s there, nostrils flaring as its massive head lifts and spots him.

And then the fighting starts, because of course it does.

Monster rearing back on its hind legs and roaring at him, deadly fangs and claws and Ryan is so very small in comparison. (He’s faced worse, though. Managed to survive in spite of everything.)

Strangely, oddly, the fight isn’t like the ones he’s been in before.

The monster bellows and roars, bares it teeth and swipes at him with huge paws, but Ryan manages to evade it easily enough.

Dodges and rolls and blocks with his sword. Makes his own little attacks, and watches the way it watches him,

Angry, furious, really.

Snapping and growling and knocking his sword aside but instead of rushing in to crush him with those paws before he recovers his sword or gets back to his feet...it doesn’t.

Or rather it doesn’t kill him.

(Sends him tumbling, rolling a time or two. Scratches and bruises where there should be rents and gouges and broken bone, a dead idiot blood soaking into the snow and mud.)

Forces him away from that cave with the chunred up snow and mud and blood, and that’s when Ryan sees it. (Broken off blade in its side, glint of metal peeking through bloodstained fur and flesh and careful to keep that side away from Ryan’s attacks.)

An arrow lodged in one huge shoulder and other injuries and Ryan backs up a step, two. (More.)

Waits to see what the monster will do, if it will follow him or retreat.

It does neither.

Just watches him, alert and wary and bleeding into the snow and Ryan pauses -

“I see you still haven’t learned any manners,” Ryan hears, and turns to look to the side where that odd figure in the travel cloak is standing at the edge of the clearing.

Hands on his hips and this look on their face.

Annoyed? Exasperated?

Something like that.

The monster cocks its head, makes this curious little grumbling noise that almost wants to be a growl.

And that figure, slight and fragile in the way people tend to be, rolls their eyes.

Walks right up to the monster who snarls and growls and snaps their teeth at them right up until it doesn’t.

Looks almost alarmed as that slight figure keeps coming, backs it up against cave entrance.

Whuffles and chuffs and - to Ryan’s surprise and faint amusement - looks to him like it thinks he might intervene.

He doesn’t.

Just watches as that slight figure scowls up at the monster and lectures it?

No.

Mocks it.

Affects an accent as he looks the monster over. Eyes narrowing as he sees the same injuries Ryan had, breath hissing through his teeth and -

“You stupid bastard,” he finishes, sounding tired.

Exhausted.

Hands dropping to hang by his side as his head lowers, and Ryan starts to take a step forward when the monster whines.

Makes this odd noise it sways towards the slight figure, noses at his shoulder.

Ryan stops, stares as the figure laughs - that quiet little thing of his again - and looks up at the monster.

Edge of a wry smile on his face as he looks up it, and Ryan is very confused because this is not how things like this tend to go.

(Usually there’s more screaming and blood and flashing steel and silver, not. This.)

And then that slight figure sighs, fondness and exasperation as the monster whuffs, pressing its head against his shoulder and he hugs it.

Ryan watches, because odd, and after several moments go by in which no one is horribly killed, wipes the blood off his sword and sheathes it.

Clears his throat because it’s obvious they’ve forgotten about him, and he almost - almost - laughs when they starts and look over at him.

Hides a smile at the small, silent, fight between the two of them trying to shove the other behind them in case Ryan’s a threat - honestly.

The monster is the size of a small shed and -

Well.

It’s ridiculous, really, is the thing. The sight of that slight figure trying to push the monster behind him and vice versa and Ryan realizes whatever is going on here it’s bound to be a long story.

...it is.

Dear God is it ever.

Something, something, something a warrior and a bard (or so Gavin claims to be) and a series of missteps that ended in a curse, a spell, some bit of magic and idiots being idiots.

Protective idiots, in this warrior fearing the curse would take away his human reasoning, make him no better than a wild animal - a monster - and dangerous to anyone around it. (A loved one.)

So he’d run.

A curse/spell affected by the phases of the moon and those odd tracks Ryan had found. (Human leading to monstrous and baffling.)

(And run and run and run as far as he could until he felt he was somewhere safe, somewhere he wouldn’t come across anyone else and pose a threat to others.)

But then winter has started to set in and a lean year and he’d been forced to hunt too close to a quiet little mountain town.

Drawn attention he didn’t need in the townspeople and the mercenaries they hired and on and on and on until Ryan happened along.

And all this time, all this time Gavin following what whispers and rumors he could to find his idiot. Chasing smoke, and being turned around a time or two until he ended up in a certain quiet mountain town and just.

“And you call me an idiot,” he mutters, tending to Michael’s injuries with Ryan’s assistance.

Annoyed, obviously, and worried and scared and Ryan has a feeling he’s gotten himself inolved with another troublesome incident. (There have been so many over the years, but none so bafflingly odd.)

He could, he knows, go back down the mountain to the small town and continue on his way. Tell the mayor he didn’t find a thing up here and to keep his money as he continued on his way, but.

The monster - not so much much a monster as the idiot Gavin claims him to be.

Head resting on his paws as he watches Gavin like he never thought he’d see him again. (Follows him with his eyes as Gavin moves about the cave he’s been living in for the past few weeks, months?, seeing to his wounds and such.)

Closes his eyes when Gavin pauses to lay a hand on his head, a brief moment of respite before he gets back to work.

Complaining about the hardships he’s had to endure chasing after Michael and how unbearable it was (a pun, perhaps?) and how Michael owes him and on and on and no heat to any of it.

Ryan watches the two of them and smothers a sigh because he’s the soft touch Meg always tells him he is. (Soft-hearted and stupid with it, and it’s gotten him in trouble more times than he cares to think about.)

(And then, like. Shenanigans in which Ryan falls in for Gavin and Michael, when he’s in his human form between full moons and a Quest to break the curse/reverse the spell and just.

Lots of shenanigans and Michael and Gavin being wary of him at first - because of course - but the fact he didn’t kill Michael when he had the chance and so on has them willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and like.

Shenanigans?

ALSO.

Realizing there’s no way to break the curse/reverse the spell but that’s fine, it’s okay.

Having a huge fucking werebear on your side who’s figured out how to control where/when he shifts from human to fuck-off huge bear and back is a handy thing indeed.

...:D????

[fight-surrender]

Howlin’ Forever Chapter 3: Into the Woods

Rating: Teen and Up

Word count: 2583

Read on AO3

Summary: “Dog-Simon must catch my scent because he’s instantly awake and on his feet. His head is down, hackles are up and the snarl that ensues from his mouth is most certainly lupine. His eyes are Simon’s blue, but there is no humanity or recognition in them. Only malice.”

Time for Baz to find a werewolf. 

(I did put a readmore cut in here on my desktop, I’m terribly sorry to clog your feed if it doesn’t transfer to mobile.) Thanks as always to my amazing friends, @carryonsimoncarryonbaz​, @vkelleyart​ @penpanoply​ for their unwavering support and encouragement and beta reading and omg @penpanoply​ made me this cover art which is fucking gorgeous and brilliant and perfect. <3 <3

        _________________________________________________

                                       Ch 3: Into the Woods

                                   You and me have a disease,                                   You affect me, you infect me,                                   I'm afflicted, you're addicted,                                      You and me, you and me

                                  - “Infected” by Bad Religion

 Baz:

Panting, I scramble to the window. The night seems to be holding its breath, silently waiting as a quiet splash draws my eyes to the moat. The merwolves are eerily calm, almost reverent, as they bear witness to the hulking bronze figure that cuts through the water. The creature emerges from the moat, shaking off moonlit water droplets. He howls again, sending my heart into a renewed frenzy. The wolf then turns and runs into the forest.

I wipe my hands across my face, then rake them through my hair.

What should I do? What should I do?

Should I go after him? Leave him be? Where is he going? Does he even know?

The drawbridge is closed. I’m too frazzled to manage a spell to get around it. Sleep isn’t an option tonight. My eye catches on the pile of books Malfoy sent over. At least Hogwarts still has a fully stocked library, not the Children’s Garden of Verses we have here at Watford. I take a copy of “Magical Beasts and Where to Find Them,” a bag of salt and vinegar crisps and settle onto my bed to try and focus on the pages.

***

  Sunrise turns the room pink as I realize I’ve been reading the same paragraph for half an hour. I have no idea what it says. The only information I’ve retained from this exercise is that the full moon phase can last up to about four days. The transformation seems to last longer in the newly Turned. Also, there is a potion called Wolfsbane that helps lessen the effects of the Lycanthropy.

A heavy thunk, followed by the clatter of gears indicates the drawbridge is coming down.

I snap the book shut with one hand and stand up.

Time to find a werewolf.

 ***

 It’s a good thing it’s the weekend. I certainly wouldn’t miss class to hike through the woods after this imbecile. Branches slap my face as I stomp along, following Snow’s tracks. He’s left an obvious trail of broken limbs, scratched soil and huge footprints. My vampire senses come in handy as well. His scent is different in this form. He still smells like smoke, but now there’s a wildness, a smell of petrichor and moss with hints of musk.

My mind is a swirl of thoughts, but I can’t settle on any single one. Simon, the Chosen One, Watford’s golden boy is now a monster. Technically, he’s not allowed to exist. Neither am I, for that matter, I’m well versed in keeping my secret. The question is what’s Simon going to do with this information? He’s so damned good, he could very well just turn himself in to the mage as soon as he resumes his human form. I’ll be damned to hell twice over before I let him throw his life away like that. I will stop him, even if I have to put a collar on him and chain him to the bed. (That actually sounds appealing, regardless of his reaction to his new condition.)

Simon’s scent gets stronger as I approach a dried creek bed. I slow down, treading lightly across scattered stones and debris, trying not to make a sound. An angry squirrel chitters at me from a branch above my head. If I had the time or inclination, I’d drain him out of spite. At least squirrel blood tastes better than rat.

I stop short as I come around a boulder, on the other side is the hulking form of Simon Snow. Rather, the were version of him. His breath is till heaving, but he seems to be asleep. During the frenzied events of last night, I hadn’t a chance to really get a look at him.  He’s huge, probably the size of a Shetland pony. He doesn’t exactly look wolfish, his muzzle is not so pointed, his ears flop down. He looks like, well he looks like an overgrown, shaggy, bronze-furred Golden Retriever. For snakes sake, of course Simon Snow would turn into a Golden; cheerful, loyal, lovely dogs that they are. He’s too good to even be a proper monster. Crowley. I roll my eyes and shake my head in wonder.

Dog-Simon must catch my scent because he’s instantly awake and on his feet. His head is down, hackles are up and the snarl that ensues from his mouth is most certainly lupine. His eyes are Simon’s blue, but there is no humanity or recognition in them. Only malice. Not quite so Golden-esque then.

Before I can pull my wand from my sleeve, he lunges at me, but immediately falls to the ground. He growls again and turns to bite at something behind him. I step back to a safer distance and see that the beast’s foot is caught in some kind of debris. Snow flails and thrashes, but eventually collapses, exhausted, panting.

I try to approach him, now that he’s tired, and am met once again with that malevolent, dead stare and a mouth full of giant teeth. And, I might add, horrific dog breath.  I back away into the forest to think. That thing, it is Simon. I can’t exactly leave him out here for the next three days, but how can I spell him free and somewhere safe until he goes back to human form? There are dog training spells, but what would “atta boy” do to the human part of his brain? I suppose I could spell him to sleep, but how do I get him back to our room? I don’t have the magic to transport him.

What if I could get him to trust me? Physically, he’s a giant pet dog. What’s the best way to train a dog? Positive reinforcement: Food. What’s the way to Simon Snow’s heart? Food.  

I turn and run back to Watford. It’s time to call in a favor with Cook Pritchard.

 ***

 Thank magic no one is around when I haul the giant wicker picnic basket Cook Pritchard loaded up for me across the great lawn. She gave me enough food for an army. The woman was well chuffed that I was having a picnic with “friends.” She acted as if I hadn’t any friends.  “Well that’s lovely, Basilton, so nice to see you coming out of your shell.” Cook even tucked a small bottle of dandelion wine into the basket, “to help break the ice.” She actually winked at me. I wanted to implode.

I have friends. Sure, half of them are family, but still. You only need one or two friends, anything more isn’t worth the effort.

I carry the basket through the wood. I feel like I’m on my way to a goth Victorian picnic. I stop periodically to drain a few squirrels, just for spite.  The resident dryad side eyes me as I pass her thicket. I ignore her.

“What do you seek, blood eater?” She hisses. Twirling her ridiculous umbrella. Butterflies swirl lazily around her mossy hair.

“None of your business.” I reply.

“Your pistil is a wolf.” She remarks.

“He’s not my anything.” I snarl, “And he’s not a wolf, he’s a Golden Retriever.”

“The Chosen One is an abomination,” she presses. “The children of the moon must die.”

I light a fire in my palm. “Is that so?” I drop my voice to a menace, “maybe I should take out this whole forest in the process.”

“Do what you must. The forest will regrow. He cannot live.” She calls my bluff.

“You know what? You can fuck off.” I say, frustrated.

She opens her mouth to speak, but I raise my hand. “Enough. We’re done here.” I sling the giant basket over my shoulder and stomp away.

I’ll be staked before I take advice from a woodland creature holding a parasol. Snow has as much of a right to live as I do. More so, he’s not dead. Fuck the dryad.

I finally make it back to the creek bed. Dog-Simon looks vaguely defeated, laying on his side, his back leg stretched behind him. I can see a length of rusty wire wrapped around his foot. He’s awake, wary eyes never leaving mine, a low growl rumbles in his chest.

I settle myself on the ground a safe distance away. I’m wearing my school-issue green Watford football trackie bottoms and sweatshirt. Coach Mac will probably not appreciate werewolf damage to the practice uniform. My trainers are caked with mud. I sigh. The things I do for love.

The basket creaks as I open it. The sound makes Snow get up and retreat as far as the wire around his leg will let him. His tail is down, ears back; he’s panting lightly.

I pull out the bottle of dandelion wine and take a swig, to calm my nerves. It’s bitter, with a faint floral overtone, and just enough bite to warm my chest. I take a deep breath and survey the contents of my picnic. The basket is overflowing with roast beef sandwiches, sour cherry scones, roast chicken, bacon butties, jellies, and inexplicably a layered trifle. She must have magicked it all in there.

It’s just me and the dog, and I missed breakfast, so I help myself to a roast beef sandwich. Snow’s ears tip forward and he sits down. Sniffing the air.

I toss a bit of my sandwich at him, he scrambles away with a surprised bark. Almost immediately, he cautiously noses forward, sniffing at the roast beef. He sits down again, without eating it and resumes watching me, panting. His teeth are huge.

“For fucks sake, Simon, it’s not like it’s poisoned.”

The dog’s ears perk up and he cocks his head at me. His mouth is closed, brows almost furrowed in concentration.

“Go on then lad,” I press, “roast beef is your favorite.” I remind myself to breathe.

Snow resumes panting, but lowers his nose again at the food. He nudges it, then takes an experimental bite. Apparently satisfied that the offering wasn’t going to kill him, the great dog swallows the rest. Licking his lips, he retreats to his original position, as far away from Baz as he can get.

I toss half a sandwich into his orbit.

“There you go Snow, I know you can’t walk away from half a sandwich.”

Once again Dog-Simon sits, cocks his head and looks at me. I’m probably imagining it, but his eyelids almost seem to squeeze a bit, in concentration. He cautiously walks my way, never taking his eyes off me, and eats the sandwich half in one bite. This time he doesn’t shy away, he sits, panting again and watches me.

I toss him the other half of the sandwich, which he catches in the air and eats with more gusto. He’s watching me again, this time I get a weak tail wag.

I unwrap the roast chicken and throw the whole thing at him. It lands with an unceremonious plop, a leg breaking free. Simon stands and practically inhales the whole thing. His tail is wagging faster now.

We go on like this for the duration of the afternoon. I’m slowly inching closer, I can almost touch his muzzle now. He seems more relaxed, the panting has stopped. His ears are forward, tail wagging freely. His eyes have gone softer, from ice to sky.

I reach into the basket for a sour cherry scone, I’ve been saving these for this moment. I scoot even closer, holding it in my hand this time. He’s so close, he could easily rip my throat out. It’s not often I have to worry about someone ripping out my throat. It’s refreshing, really. I suppose there are worse ways to die.

“Simon, we’re going to have to work together to figure this mess out. If there is any part of you that can hear me, let me help you. I mean, I know you don’t have any reason to trust me, but…” My voice tapers off. Why would he trust me? Crowley, I’ve done nothing but torment him for the last 6 years.

A gentle breeze ruffles the golden leaves above me. “We be of one blood, ye and I.” I murmur. A warm rush of surprise washes over me. Where the fuck did that even come from? Kipling was a powerful magician, but is that even a spell? Leave it to me to channel my favorite childhood book in times of duress.

I take a breath and hold out the scone. Simon noses forward, sniffs, and carefully takes the scone from my hand. He doesn’t move away. I keep my eyes on him as I slowly reach for the basket and remove another scone. I hold it in my hand, when he takes it, I reach out with my other hand and run it behind his ear, rubbing along his jaw. He stiffens, but continues to eat the scone. “These are your favourite,” I whisper, scratching behind his ear, rubbing slowly along his neck and shoulder. Eventually, I find myself out of scones and scratching his stomach, while his tongue lolls and he scratches his back leg lazily.

I take a break because my hands are cramping from all the petting. I really hope he doesn’t remember any of this. I shake my hands and look at the grime under my nails. I’m going to need a manicure.

Simon stands and gives a mighty shake from his nose to his feathered, rudder-like tail. He utters a sharp bark, like he’s decided something, then proceeds to try and climb into my lap, his huge pink tongue lapping my face.

“Merlin and Morgana, you giant thumping git, get off. I push him away, but not too far. He knocks me to the ground and licks my whole face. For snakes sake, you’re disgusting, I get to my feet wiping saliva off my chin and trying not to smile. Simon’s tail is wagging so hard his whole body is wiggling and he’s rubbing along my side, trying to get me to scratch his back. I oblige for a moment.

“Snow, stop, let’s get your leg untangled.”  He stands so quietly as I extricate his leg from the wire, that I can’t help but wonder if he understood me.

Once freed, Simon plants his giant paws on my shoulders and smears the side of my face with his tongue once more. “Blimey, Snow.” I step back and the great dog’s feet once more hit the ground. He zooms away, coming to a skidding stop, returns to my side and bows his front legs down, rear up, tail wagging madly.

I lean down and take his huge face in my hands, scratching gently below his jaw. “Come along, you delightful moron, let’s go home.”

I turn and make my way through the forest. The late afternoon sun dappling the trail with rich golden light. Dust motes dancing in the beams. Simon scampers ahead, darting back every few minutes to make sure I’m still following.

I breathe in the rich loamy scent of these ancient woods and let it out slowly. For once, my mind is quiet. Simon is back at my side, nosing at my hand. I absentmindedly rub his velvet ear. I stop and let this foreign emotion wash over me. I let myself relax, for just this moment, I am content.

[amandabe11man]

a VERY LONG post about Hell on Wheels

YEAH i forgot about this post in my drafts... it’s been like a year since i finished the show now and i feel i’ve barfed everything out into this post (that i can think of), so here it goes (you’ll have to shield your eyes after the spoiler warning if you don’t wanna be spoiled btw. i can’t seem to be able to add a read more-link...) :

SO... i finished watching “hell on wheels” at last, pm half a year since i started. it’s funny because i was under the impression that i’d sOMEHOW be able to binge all five seasons within just one month (reason: i wanted to watch it before my free trial on HBO’s website went out). honestly, that wouldn’t have been possible because it was a LOT more emotionally draining than you’d think at first glance... after being gutpunched three times in a row in season 4, any reasonable human would need a little break.

anyway, it feels-- weird. i’ve never been big on following tv-shows so i haven’t been able to relate to that feeling ppl describe once they’ve finished a show they’ve become so attached to, except NOW i can relate. the show’s not groundbreaking, it’s not perfect, but i’ve had a lot of fun. what a ride it’s been...

looking back, i’d say HOW’s biggest weakness is its tendency to forget or ignore certain plot points. i guess that’s not too weird, with such an arsenal of characters, but still, i find that’s what bugged me the most, if anything bugged me at all. for example--

[SPOILERS for those who might wanna watch it after seeing me go on abt it, idk]:

first off, what REALLY grinds my gears is how ezra dutson’s plotline was handled. it was set up perfectly in the beginning; having him escape from the swede (who promised him that, and i quote: “i’ll find you, ezra! i always do”), the original plan was obviously for ezra and the swede to “reunite” some time in the future so that ezra could tell everyone that the swede killed his parents, thus tying up loose ends and giving some closure to that whole arc. some might say this would’ve been too predictable, but i would rather have that predictable storyline than having it just end unceremoniously like it did, with ezra dying ACCIDENTALLY and off-screen by sidney snow’s hand, simply as a way to further bohannon’s pain and set the stage for ruth’s final arc. this might’ve been fine, if the writers had made it so that ezra actually, y’know, TOLD SOMEONE WHY HE’S AN ORPHAN TO BEGIN WITH. but they didn’t even give the viewer that form of closure, instead just deciding to use him as a plot device for the other characters’ increased angst... bohannon and the others were never even made aware of ezra’s last name, and this is all what bugs the everliving SHIT outta me: the only ones who know, or will EVER know, ezra’s full story is the swede and the viewer, tho after season 4′s end, ezra is never mentioned or acknowledged again-- not by bohannon, and not even by the swede. ezra went from convenient character with a PURPOSE to “nameless” orphan forgotten by history. thanks, writers...

then there’s the whole deal with campbell coming to town to reinforce The Law™, which wasn’t a bad arc, mind you-- campbell and his goons were the most infuriating little shits for a while there-- but the thing is; didn’t campbell LIE to his men about the president giving him the position as governor? i might’ve misunderstood it, but i’m PRETTY sure the president didn’t give him THAT much of an upstanding role, but that campbell just went ahead and took that position anyway? if that was indeed the case, then that’s another plot hole, cause nobody finds out about campbell’s possible trickery to become the governor. nobody rats him out, despite literally no one in “his” town liking him all that much, so they’d have no reason to protect his “secret”. (correct me if i’m wrong on this one though. i might be misremembering things)

then there’s the other pretty infuriating issue of bad guys never getting called out for doing bad shit (unless it’s the swede, who gets all the blame, all the time), for example:

major dick bongbendix(???idk he had a silly name like that) is presented VERY MUCH as a bad guy in the beginning. y’know, just casually beheading natives on all his missions and collecting those heads and taking them to the bar like a fucking nutcase-- those little details. he also seemed to believe in racial biology, so yeah, definitely not a good guy. but by the end, he’s been watered down into some quirky guy who’s ALMOST on friendly terms with the main characters. yeah, uh-- seems everyone (writers included) collectively forgot the whole public display of cut-off heads he had going on...

aaron hatch: started off as a guy too proud for his- or his family’s own good when he shot the police officer, BLAMED IT ON HIS FUCKING SON and then just kinda let bohannon hang the kid even though it was pretty obvious hatch was just shifting the blame away from himself. THEN he reappears with some other mormons and causes a full-on shootout in the town (probably getting some people killed, i don’t remember), TAKES EZRA (also a mormon) HOSTAGE SO THAT BOHANNON WILL COME WITH THEM WILLINGLY and passive aggressively forces bohannon to marry his daughter who bohannon knocked up. somewhere along the line, hatch’s bad side is just thrown to the wind, and bohannon at one point describes him as “a good man”. yeah, ABOUT THAT--

sean and mickey mcginnes: unlike the ones mentioned above, these two started out as seemingly decent dudes, but ended up pm as secondary villains in the end. however, like the ones mentioned above, they hardly face any consequences for whatever crap it was they did in boston, OR the fact that they killed and fucking mutilated/dismembered a man in cold blood (a man who WAS gonna kill them, yes, but HE did it because he thought they had killed his friend, which wasn’t a farfetched idea since mickey DID brag about killing the dude even though he didn’t actually do it). sure, they face their OWN demons as time goes on, they get ostracized, and they start losing faith in each other as well, which ends up with mickey killing sean before the latter can confess(?) his/their crimes. so, while sean was spineless and a creep, at least he thought about finally owning up to what he’d done in the end, whereas mickey lives on to keep doing shady shit, killing people, and getting increasingly more corrupt. he does end up pursuing new goals in the end, but it’s obvious he’s not happy about it anymore. that’s-- really all the comeuppance he ever gets, and the only one who knows about his shady businesses are pm just bohannon, durant and eva (also, personal gripe here-- they seemed to not settle for “just” tarring and feathering the swede and publicly humiliating him, but i’m pretty sure i recall mickey telling bohannon they were thinking about having the swede killed too. keep in mind, this was BEFORE the swede truly lost it and started killing people left and right. apparently, being kind of a douche about taxes is bad enough to warrant being tortured and cast out by the entire community... i’m obviously biased here, but still-- the mcginnes bros’ double standards are amazing to behold)

now that i’ve aired some of that out-- here are some highlights, according to me:

unexpected friendships, like that between eva and durant. i’d say the swede finding that stray dog and fawning all over him qualifies into this category too

durant and campbell fighting in the mud before finally coming to an agreement -- just- durant and his competitors being petty as fuck, honestly. it’s hilarious

bohannon trying to get through to elam by reminiscing about their friendship, especially since bohannon isn’t one to show his feelings often OR get sappy -- in fact, EVERY time bohannon loses his stoic facade is a good moment. when he was gonna bury elam and he just broke down completely for the first time since we were introduced to him... that shit had me in tears as well, but man was it a great scene

jimmy two-squaws

every time the swede opens his mouth (yes, even when he’s spouting some lies and bullshit like that)

ruth’s character development. i admit i didn’t like her at all in the beginning, idk something just felt off about her, but man did she ever grow on me. just-- how everyone kinda relied on her eventually, even though she’s only like in her 20′s or something... she still became a pillar of the community. bless ya, ruth :’ı -- also, her essentially adopting ezra was Pure as heck. I Lov it

the fact that this was the 1800′s and the only backlash the (openly) LGBT characters faced for it was pm just “yeah they’re a bit confused maybe but they’re not hurting anyone”. maybe that’s not very realistic but WHO GIVES A SHIT AMIRITE

mr tao just being a sweet old man

chang’s sunglasses, straight out of Django Unchained

mr toole’s complete heel-turn from racist POS to someone who sticks by his word to turn himself around. that shit was impressive coming from him, tbh

bohannon just calmly running into a buffalo by the train tracks

mei posing as a grown man instead of a boy (which is what she looks and sounds like, oml)

another thing i realized is that bohannon is a classic gary stu. there’s just no getting around that fact after seeing him being revered by most everyone he meets, how he’s somehow the only person able to build the railroad(s) fast and efficiently, and even wooing the literal PRESIDENT and becoming close friends with him-- all this despite his Bold and Brash personality. of course, there’s more to bohannon than these gary stu-symptoms, but i felt someone should bring it up, for the lulz

[thesunsingsforthem]

//Did I write a thing because of one INGRID ( @wasscared ) even though I have no confidence/experience writing Hank and had no idea what I was doing?  //You’re damn right I did. Sorry not sorry!

God Damn it, how had he been the first one on the scene? Hank grimaced as he slammed his door shut, glancing around one last time to check for anyone else. At least no other cops meant no reporters had come snooping around yet. He had been told he was the closest to the scene but this was just ridiculous. He wrapped his jacket a little closer around him and started towards the door, breath coming out in annoyed puffs in the air. Maybe if he secured the scene, did some preliminary work, they’d let him go early. Before he could get to the door, it opened, startling both him and the man boy who had opened it; Hank had his pistol out and trained on the person’s chest before he had even realized his age, and the boy quickly put up his hands in a peaceful gesture. “I-I’m Connor! I’m the person who called this in, I just.. waited inside because it was too cold to stand out here. They told me it would be a while before anyone could get here.” The boy quickly explained, edging to the side so that Hank could see past him into the main room that… was definitely the crime scene. After a pause, Hank sighed and holstered his gun, muttering a few choice curses under his breath. Connor’s body language said he was telling the truth, at least for now, and frankly, he looked like he was going to fall over at the slightest breeze.

“Didn’t anyone ever teach you not to startle a cop?” He asked gruffly, pushing just past him into the entry way so that he could get a better look at where the mess started, as well as inspect Connor a bit more closely. To his credit, Connor didn’t seem interested in running away, merely standing still out of the way for the moment, arms around themselves to keep warm? as he glanced between Hank and the crime scene. “This isn’t your house right? How’d you get in here? Why?” Hank questioned, turning to face him directly, somewhat surprised when Connor faced him in response. He wasn’t hiding, wasn’t trying to run, didn’t seem agitated at the dead body right there, so what was going on? “I… needed to get somewhere warm, out of the cold. I didn’t break anything! And I was going to leave once it was morning but..” Connor stopped and nodded to the scene. “When I saw that, I knew I had to call the police, and.. It was the right thing to do.” Hank tilted his head back slightly as he apprised Connor, watching both his body language and word choices. This kid had thought of all that? Risked serious charges and easily admitted to lesser ones, just to what? Do the right thing? He’d love if that was the truth, but he doubted humanity was capable of that sort of GOODNESS anymore. “Alright, what did you touch?” Hank asked then, deciding he was going to get this kid’s story at least. Maybe… maybe it would match up, and he really was just trying to stay out of the cold. If that was the case… Connor pointed towards another room, and after a pause, began slowly walking that way. “I had noticed this back window was unlocked, so I opened it and climbed in.” He lead the two of them to a small dining room just off the entry way, and pointed out the window in question. Hank could see a small puddle of water, likely melted snow, just under it, and where a chair sat off center as compared to the others at the table, likely where Connor had sat for a bit. “At first I just wanted to warm up, so I didn’t go anywhere, but the uh… smell eventually made me check out the next room. Thankfully, the house phone worked.” Hank ‘hmmed’ under his breath, standing in the doorway between Connor and the crime scene, getting an idea of just what Connor would have first seen. “Also, uh, sir, there looked like tracks leading up stairs, but I didn’t want to investigate on my own.” Hank’s head whipped around towards the staircase, pistol back out in his hand without a thought. “Damnit kid, you could have thought to tell me that first!” He hissed, trying to gauge whether the tracks in question looked like mud or something decidedly more crimson. “I don’t think there’s anyone here. I didn’t see any lights on, and… the phone call made quite a bit of noise. I just wanted to point out that I saw it, in case it helped.” Connor responded quickly, crossing his arms a little tighter, looking… eager? Like a puppy hoping to be rewarded for doing a good job. Hank tilted his head, frowning at Connor, before looking back to the stairs. “Well, we can’t take that chance, and I can’t leave you alone where you can scamper off somewhere or make a mess of the crime scene, so you stick right behind me, while I clear the house.” Hank grumbled, taking a glance around the dining room they stood in to make sure there were no other adjoining doors, before starting out back to the main room. “G-got it!” Connor responded, finally unfolding his arms as he jogged after Hank to catch up. At least the kid looked like he was cooperative. After a sweep of the house, Hank felt much better about replacing his gun in the holster, and sighed again, looking around at the last room they stood in, where the tracks had led to. It looked like whomever had left the tracks had gone out the upper window, and managed to make their way down the side of the house to the ground. “Hey, does this track look a little wide to you?” Connor asked suddenly, crouching by the last few steps before the window. “Hey, hey, hey! What are you doing?! Don’t touch shit!” Hank responded quickly, moving over to make sure the kid wasn’t doing anything fishy, but Connor quickly looked up at Hank with something between surprise and fear? and quickly nodded and stood before Hank had to even touch him. Well now Hank just felt bad. To try and smoothe over the situation, he glanced down at the tracks. “Whaddyou mean, ‘wide’?” He asked finally, examining the steps himself. There was definitely something off, and he thought he knew what as well, but he was curious what Connor would say. This wasn’t something any normal kid would just notice. “Well..” Connor started, hesitating a moment as if to make sure Hank was really asking for his thoughts, then turned so that he was facing the same direction as the window, shifting his feet so that they matched the stance the person had to have been in in order to make those tracks. “Whoever it was, they must have shifted to the side, like this, or else that last footprint doesn’t make sense, see? It looks almost like they were reaching for something off to the side here, near that.” He pointed towards a small closet. It looked untouched, undisturbed, but, Hank thought with interest and a little pride, the kid was right. That’s what he was thinking too. But he might not have noticed at all if Connor hadn’t pointed out the final few footprints in the first place. How had he noticed? Just who was this kid? Distantly, Hank noticed sirens, and it broke him out of his train of thought. “Jesus christ, finally.” He muttered, waving Connor to follow him back carefully downstairs. “What’s going to happen to me?” Connor asked suddenly, only breaking the silence when the pair had reached the front entrance. Hank raised an eyebrow and looked the kid over. “Once the perimeter’s set up, you’re coming with me back to the station. We’ll get your official statement… then send you home to wait till we’re sure you’ve got nothing to do with all this.” Hank noticed the shift in Connor, when he said the word ‘home’. Fear? Anger? Something combined, not that it was any of his business, but… Shit, he guessed it was his business now. Still, he wasn’t about to ask about that at the moment, and instead fished for something else to focus on till he could get a file on this kid’s family. “You’ll probably get a meal too, might have to stay the night just so we can make sure everything’s alright. Since you did break in and all.” A flicker of.. hope, maybe, crossed Connor’s expression before he nodded quickly, glancing out towards the street where the flashing lights of other cop cars could be seen off in the distance. Hank was going to get that file first thing when they got back to the station, he decided. “Of course, anything to help.” the kid responded, a little too cheery for Hank’s taste, but he much preferred this to him trying to run or cause trouble.

[scentedbygunpowder]

❄

❄ Our muses huddle together to stay warm. @canisfuria

Of all the rotten luck. Riza mentally cursed the situation in her head, although she knew that it wasn’t going to any good to do it out loud. This was not the way that this was supposed to go, but they didn’t really have a choice. Northern Command had requested Fuery for some upgrades and repairs. Riza had been ordered to go with him. Normally it would have been one of the other men that went, but Havoc was back home with a family emergency, Falman was in the middle of an assignment with Investigations, and Breda was down for the count with a sprained knee. Mustang himself couldn’t just pick up and go, and so that left Riza to go with him.

They had taken a train part of the way, but the tracks had been damaged in some recent floods, and were being repaired. The pair had signed out a military vehicle, and had been steadily making their way north. The wind had picked up, though, and the clouds that had rolled in hadn’t looked good at all. It had started to snow a bit, and Riza had just hoped that they could make it to Northern Command before the weather turned bad.

Of course there was no such luck. The temperature had plummeted, the snow had picked up and the roads had frozen from the earlier rains. Ice formed over the roads, mud freezing over and the car had gone sliding. Riza had done her best to keep the car on the road and from tipping over, but they had still gone off the road and into the treeline. Fortunately, neither were seriously injured, although they hadn’t come off scott-free, with some minor injuries here and there. Riza had been out looking at the car while Kain tried to see if he could get the radio working to call for help. By the time she got back in the car she was freezing cold, shivering, and covered in snow.

“It’s no good,” she said. “The rim is bent, and the radiator has a hole in it. And I can’t even begin to make heads or tails of that mess that the engine is in.” She shivered and briskly moved her hands up and down on her arms. “It’s getting dark too. We might have to stay the night here, and hope that Northern Command comes looking for us...” She glanced at him. “I hope you don’t mind huddling for warmth, Fuery. It’s looking like our best bet to stay warm.”

[lindoig4]

Across Canada

I will try to post a little more text today, but the internet service here is pretty poor so I will leave posting of any more photos until we get home.  We leave the US this evening and arrive back in Melbourne before dawn on Wednesday, having missed an entire day along the way.

We took a cab to Union Station to catch the VIA Rail across the country.  We have usually paid cab fares by card, but Heather used cash this time.  The cabbie gave her a few coins as change and when Heather said that there should have been some notes, he said he was keeping that as his tip - about 50% of the fare.  Heather argued, but he bullied her and insisted that he was keeping it.  Had I been closer instead of getting our bags out of the boot, he may not have been so demanding, but it left a sour taste in our mouths as it was.

The train is by no means luxurious, obviously oldish, but it is quite functional and we are comfy enough in our little cabin.  One good thing is that the bunks are bigger and much more comfortable than on the ship or the other trains we have used.  We have both slept well.

On the other hand, there is no WiFi at all, only an occasional phone signal and although there are 110-volt power outlets, they won’t charge my PC - so once again, the technology has failed us.  Maybe I am naive, but we are now in the 21st century and I reckon basic power and signal issues should have been sorted out years ago.  As it is, the battery in my PC is flat and there is no way I can use it until we reach Vancouver at best.  That means I can’t look at my photos or do much with my blog other than draft bits on my iPad.

Canada is exquisitely beautiful.  It is an absolute picture postcard, full to bursting with trees and lakes.  The overwhelming colour is green, with literally billions of tall skinny pointy trees.  Actually, they are not that tall. We have seen very few trees more than 8-10 metres tall, but there are zillions of them, mostly densely packed with both understory and overstory.  In some places, it is a bit more open, but still usually gloomy and mysterious, inviting us to explore - if only we were out there in the bush.  Aspen, larch, spruce, alder, birch, pines and firs, conifers of every description, millions of stark white trunks, black trunks, all sorts, drowning in a thousand shades of green, leaves shimmering in the breeze, gleaming in the sun, with just a smattering of autumn tones starting to appear here and there.

Then there are the thousands of lakes.  We must have traversed 1000 kilometres of marshy land with water shimmering through the low vegetation as far as we could see.  But there are thousands of open lakes as well, from just a hectare or two to those speeding past the train for kilometre after kilometre.  Did I say picture postcard?  We have seen them all. The little ones that look like they came out of a cutesy 50s or 60s movie, with the summer camp atmosphere - a few canoes tied up to a little landing, a pontoon and shallow diving board, a short rowing course, maybe a pathetic little waterski-jump and a collection of quaint little huts that are probably family holiday shacks.  Then there are the more remote ones, some with a tiny island or two with just 2 or 3 perfectly conical fir trees on them and a kayak tied up to a partly-submerged drowning landing that defies imagination about how one might access it - not even a hiking track, much less a road, in sight.  Then we have the larger ones with a couple of small tinnies out there, each with a fisherman or two, sound asleep with their rods dangling limp over the side, or perhaps the ten deserted sheds, some literally falling down, and only a tiny Cessna anchored to the shore to suggest that anyone might occasionally visit them.  We are not talking upscale Hillbilly country.  This is magically picturesque country that should warrant criminal charges if anyone but us invades it.  Add your own superlatives, but for me, I have run out.  Simply stupendously glorious!

Later.  We have just crossed the border from massive Ontario into Manitoba - after more than 20 hours heading west.  Slowly, the trees and lakes seem to be getting slightly larger, the terrain is a little more open, the trees a little lighter green and the wildflowers more profuse and colourful - mainly white, yellow and mauve/purple.

For the entire trip, there has been a line of telegraph posts and cables beside the train: around 20 cables, but obviously long defunct.  Thousands of the posts have simply sunk into the boggy earth or fallen over or submerged into the lakes, and many of the cables are broken or hanging limp and tangled.  I am amazed that nobody has attempted to salvage the hundreds of thousands of dollars of copper out there.

As we went west, it became a little hillier and we even went through a couple of short tunnels.  We also went through many cuttings where the rock had been blasted away for the track.  There was a lot of red in the rocks and it is likely that some sort of algae was growing on it to make it that colour.

It was getting dark when we rolled into Winnipeg, but we had an hour and a bit stopover, so we went into the station and used the WiFi to download our email - alas, mostly more bills to pay!  I had prepared a few emails to send, but they were all on my PC and inaccessible due to the flat battery!

It was a very rocky night, but we were up early for showers.  I raised the blind just a centimetre or two in our cabin and could see everything there was to see.  The landscape was entirely in landscape.  Flat, flat, flat - all the way to the horizon. Everything looked manicured as if the farmers had risen early and swept or ironed their paddocks to welcome us.  A bit later, we saw patches of forest and lots of neat (or sometimes sprawling) farmhouses, often with 2 or 3 little cottages and a barn or two, and mostly at least a field-bin or ten (or 30) and a tractor parked nearby.  Many farms also have a machinery graveyard, usually at a distance from the house, with rows of rusty tractors, trucks, cars, pick-ups, ploughs, harvesters, caravans, campers and who knows what, all lined up in their final resting places, slowly sinking into the landscape.  The houses all have pitched rooves, presumably to avoid too much snow collecting on them in the winter.

The paddocks are mainly cropped with wheat, barley, oats and canola, but there is also a lot of uncropped land, mostly looking too boggy to crop.  Quite a bit of the uncropped land is still productive though, with miles of road and rail verges being harvested and baled for silage.  It is obviously harvest time over here with quite a lot of crop already cut, but with plenty more still to go.  We haven’t seen much actually being harvested, but plenty of hay bales in neatly shorn paddocks.  There are a few cattle but no big herds.  Also a few horses, half a dozen goats, a donkey, a young deer standing beside the track staring at me - and at least one fox scampering across the prairie with four magpies harassing it.  It was nearly two days later before we saw any sheep: about 20 near one house and 3 at another – then none through to Vancouver.

There have been a few shallow lakes, mainly fairly small and at last, a few birds.  We crossed one wide river, very shallow with flat mud islands and hundreds of birds: all gulls and Canada Geese as far as I could see.  It is very frustrating not having any internet because I can’t identify the birds conclusively without my favourite Merlin app, but I am taking photos and making notes and hope I will be able to tie some of them down later.  It is even more frustrating that Heather can sit there posting to Facebook and her blog almost any time when the SIM we purchased for me doesn’t work in either my phone or my iPad!

There were a few places along the rivers and nearby lakes where I suspect beavers were at work.  A couple of creeks appeared to be dammed and there was an area near one suspected lodge where a whole lot of smallish trees had been felled – all with pencil-sharpener bases.  And I saw a few flat conical structures a metre or so above the water level – again with a collection of pick-up-sticks pencil-ended logs embedded in the structure.  I could be just imagining it, but the indications seemed to be there that beavers could have created the dams and underwater pyramids.

It is strange that we rocketed through the night, speeding along much faster than anywhere to date, making for a very bumpy ride - then arriving in Saskatoon where they said we were way ahead of our timetable so there would be a two hour stopover to get back on schedule.  Go figure!  The track we are on is apparently owned by a freight company and freight trains always have priority.  This means that we frequently need to stop at sidings or on branch lines, often for half an hour or more until a freight train passes.  The freight trains are massive, up to about 3 kilometres long and mostly double-deckers that roar along carrying hundreds of thousands of tonnes of cargo across the country day and night.  They are not as bad as in Russia where a few kilometres of freight barrelled past us every time I raised my camera for a shot, but there must still be at least several dozen here each day.

Next time we woke up, we were in Saskatchewan and the terrain slowly became more varied, with lumpy low hills, uneven ground, more diverse vegetation, taller trees and in due course, we had an hour or so stopover in Edmonton and next morning we rolled into Jasper in the Canadian Rockies.  Our Edmonton stop was marked by the start of a dramatic electrical storm. It was really ferocious with lightning flashing brilliantly around us every few seconds.  We went to dinner as it was getting dark and the lightning outside the dining car was tremendous.  We were soon locked up, cosy in bed, but several other passengers said the electrical storm was amazing and followed us for hours.

[sparkledeerfr]

A Hunt

Aka ‘Poor York is not built for this’

Warnings: A big monster gets dead, and some mentions of blood.

-------

Adeline is sitting on her heels, far north of the Cities in the wastes, staring at a set of tracks. She hasn’t laid eyes on what they’re hunting, but she can tell enough about it from the clear prints now that they’re off the spongier Plague soil and onto the sandier. It’s big- about the size of a pronghorn stomper if she had to guess- and slightly wolfish judging by the pad and claw placement. It also has a slight limp or injury on the back left leg by the way it drags it.

But these prints are older. They’re closing in on it, but it would likely be a bit longer before they caught up to it, especially if York kept lagging behind. She knew her and March were tough to keep up with, especially for someone who was unused to longer distances like he seemed to be, but it was a tiny bit annoying particularly as he’d insisted on not bringing too many people. Or as he put it ‘I don’t believe we’ll need an entire retinue’. There was also something about ‘not being able to afford it’, but she didn’t believe that the mention of payment had come up. Really the whole thing was a bit weird but he did look worn out as though he’d been chasing it himself for a long while, and if someone asked for help and genuinely seemed to need it she wasn’t the type to say no even if the person did seem a bit… Well. He was kinda dumb, if she was being honest. Sweet, slightly formal, pretty, and kinda dumb. Either the kind of person you’d feel bad about letting wander into the wastes on his own, or the exact kind of person you’d send in to bait someone else into a trap. If it was a trap they were taking their sweet time with it (and had staged it well), but she didn’t worry about it considering March had agreed to come with her. With March by you you didn’t really worry about much. “‘Bout another day I’d say,” Adeline said, standing back up and dusting off her hands. March was scanning the horizon, DeSoto sitting patiently by his side. “That long?” York asked, and the barest end of March’s tail twitched. York was annoying him, Adeline knew. He’d signed ‘King’ to her about him, which to her made very little sense as he was alone, but March did have some very strange definitions of words at times so perhaps he’d just meant ‘someone from a noble house’, which March was not particularly fond of. Actually quite a few in the clan seemed to have that- She paused and looked up at a noise, zeroing in on where it came from like a hunting cat and training her eyes on it. York for his part just saw her freeze, the strange glittery (Android? Robot? York didn’t really want to ask) guard that was next to him moving around and by her right shoulder, the red painted steelhound taking her left. He tried to see what she was searching for, but around them was just those gross slightly fungal and bulging Plague trees and the barest chirping of some insects. The sandy soil where Adeline had spotted the tracks led out into open space, but there was nothing there either. After a moment York became uncomfortable in the silence. “Excuse me-” he whispered when a man came stumbling out of the trees, spotted them and then froze as if he’d been caught doing something. York ducked behind Adeline.  Not the bravest reaction, in retrospect.

“Wait,” she said. “Hawk?”

“SHORTSTACK?” the man replied, a grin spreading across his scarred and dirty face. He looked like he’d been travelling for quite a while- his entire ensemble was stained, torn and mud splattered.

“HAAA!” Adeline said, opening her arms and making an excited keening noise, which the man (Hawk?) returned before running over and hugging her. From this distance York could now smell him quite clearly, and the scent was something along the lines of ‘fermented fruit and garbage left in the sun.’ Absolutely horrendous. Was this just how people in Plague lived?

Hawk pulled away and looked her over. York was slightly embarrassed for his home flight to see he had snow white Ice eyes. Perhaps he’d just taken going native a bit far. “So,” Hawk said, glancing over to March, who had those almond red eyes on him for just a moment before determining he wasn’t a danger and looking back to the horizon. “Guard duty or somethin’?”

“Nah,” Adeline said, smiling and putting a hand on his shoulder before reaching into her bag for a water skin. “Hunting. You?”

“Lookin’ for a gig, I suppose,” he said, taking the skin from her and swigging a drink. “Not real hard, though, obviously. What the hell you huntin’ with this bunch though? The grand daddy of all Wave Sweepers?” He looked from the steelhound to York, who had to resist the urge to duck back behind Adeline. She shrugged. “Ha! Didn’t ask, did you?”

“Guess it needs doing,” she replied, handing him some dried food, which he immediately stuffed into his mouth.

“And lemme guess...ain’t gettin paid?” he said, mouth half full of food. She shrugged again. “Ain’t changed a bit.”

“I’m...” York said, attempting to speak up. “I don’t mind paying.”

“Yeah sure,” Hawk said, turning around and facing the direction they were heading. “Let’s go find whatever stupid thing needs to get dead.”

----

“So, um,” York said as they walked, Adeline moving in looping circles around them collecting various items. He’d been annoyed at that at first, but it became clear she was scavenging more supplies, a thing he didn’t think they would need until they picked up Hawk. He supposed it was always good to be prepared, even if being prepared meant coming back holding a bloody skinning knife and smelling slightly of viscera. “How did you two meet?”

“Could ask both of you the same question,” Hawk said, lighting a dog eared hand rolled cigarette. He glanced to March who in answer flipped him off. “Ha! Arright.”

“Ah yes,” York said, sort of glad to have Hawk between him and March now that he thought on it. “He came with her. I suppose they travel together on occasion. He’s not very talkative and I’ve been told not to take offense.”

“Yeah well, whatcha gonna do even if you do take offense?” Hawk said with a grin, looking at York out of the sides of his eyes, the other man’s darting from him to March and back again before subconsciously making sure that as much of him was hidden from the android as possible.  “Exactly,” Hawk said. Man Shorty always could pick ‘em.

He of course included himself in that category.

---

“I would really rather not,” York said, looking at the small tent. He hadn't really minded sharing one with Adeline and March despite the indecency of it. They were both at least clean and there was a definite sense of safety from them keeping watch all night, but adding Hawk in…

Especially a Hawk that had again not bathed and in fact had spent the day on the road with them occasionally wandering off to pick various flora that York was somewhat certain was not safe to ingest.

“If someone comes up to us I don't want you far away,” Adeline replied, kicking dirt onto the embers of the fire to put them out.

“Yeah, come in here and get real close,” Hawk said, already laying belly down on a bedroll.

“Knock it it off.”

“I'll knock some-”

“Hawk.”

“Yes mom.”

----

“Should...should we help?” York asked, watching Adeline circle the beast that he knew had taken more than a few lives. It was a massive thing, what could be described as a lizard mashed together with a wolf with huge front talons and breathing out ice and frost. It was really a good thing she’d had the foresight to bring along that steelhound, as it was running around keeping the thing distracted and sending out jets of flame to counteract the worst of it.

But still as he watched her he couldn’t help but feel responsible. He started forward, but he felt hands on his shoulders, one from Hawk and one from March (and March’s was more than a tiny bit unsettling simply because he could feel him being as gentle as possible). “Nope,” Hawk said, pulling him back. “She’s got this. Wait for her to say somethin’.”

“But she’s-”

“Look kid you don’t ask a hunter for help and then tell ‘em how to do the job,” Hawk said, breathing out a plume of smoke even as he could hear DeSoto’s flame being set off again, the growl and snarl and pure rage of the beast increasing as they stood there.

“March!” Adeline yelled over the noise, and immediately he took his hand from York’s shoulder and began walking forward. “Right leg!”

There was a sickly wet crack and York winced. The beast turned to snap at March and Adeline took the opportunity, jamming her spear into the exposed neck. “See?” Hawk said, gesturing towards the scene as March straddled the beast’s neck and...what was he doing?

There was another wet crack, this one more turning and crunching, and the thing shuddered and laid still, York putting his hands to his mouth in shock. “You, uh,” Hawk said, noticing that this probably wasn’t how he should be reacting. “You never see anything die before?”

“I have, just…” York said from behind his hands. “That thing was my father at one point.”

“Your...” Hawk started, then looked back down at the scene unfolding from their safe vantage on a hill. He could already see Adeline taking out a skinning knife, and some new person in all black pointing at something on the dead beast. “Wait! Crap crap crap!”

----

“AAADDDEEEEEE!!” they could hear way, way before they saw.

Adeline stopped, looking slightly annoyed and defeated. “Are you freakin’ serious?” she asked, mostly to herself as Hawk started grinning.

“ADELIIINNNEEEE!” the voice yelled again, and whoever it was they could get some volume.

Adeline cupped her hands to her mouth and yelled, though obviously she didn’t have the lung capacity of whoever was screaming for her. “JACK YOU’RE GONNA ATTRACT EVERY DAMN RAIDER IN THE NORTH!”

“TELL THEM TO BRING IT I NEED A BODY ANYWAAAYYYYY!”

“Gods, let’s just find him and get home,” she muttered.

---

“So what the hell is it?” Santi asked Grenfell as they sat at a table in The Warehouse, looking over the two items sitting atop a blood splattered null cloth. Apparently Bryan had been the one to point out the egg-like object imbedded in the creature York had asked Adeline for help with, and she’d cut it out of the thing and wrapped it.

The other thing looked like a crown, but grimy with blood, hair, and muscle as though it’d grown onto the creature’s head and had been pulled off.

“Oh this is interesting…” Grenfell said, picking up the small stone egg, cracked in places with lines of gold showing as though it’d been repaired with it. He looked it over as though inspecting a rare jewel and Santi waited for an explanation. He could see the inscriptions hovering in the air just above the thing but he didn’t have Gren’s expertise. “Someone very much wanted to kill someone.”

“Didn’t seem like it worked then, if Ade and March had to put him down,” Santi replied, turning his head and trying to piece together the script and what it did on his own. Anything egg shaped was bad, anything Gren really liked doubly so.

“Oh no no no,” Grenfell said, his grin growing wider. “You see this is more of an area of effect curse. Set it somewhere and people will begin changing into twisted forms. It's rather like what used to happen to animals here in the City if they stayed too long, but much more concentrated,” and here Gren paused and looked into Santi’s gem eyes. “The best part is they change into monsters based on personality! A vain person may become a swan beast, wolf for viciousness-”

“Ah, yes, so…” Santi said, cutting him off. “Is it working right now?”

“Indeed! It isn’t really something you can turn off.”

Santi looked at the egg again. “...and you’re touching it with your bare hands?”

“Please,” Gren said, waving him off with one hand while still holding the thing in the other. “If cursed objects could kill me I’d be dead several times over. Do be rational.” Santi sat back, crossed his arms and gave him a look that could melt steel. “Besides this very much works off of intent. The maker poured everything they had into this little thing, and their hatred burned outwards. Since we are not the object of ire it would take much longer to work on us.”

“But it’ll still work?”

“Yes, of course.”

“So how do we destroy it?”

“No idea!” Grenfell said happily, still looking over the thing as though slightly fascinated. Santi buried his head into his hands. “What? I’ve never made one before. You literally have to die to power it.”

“Someone-” Santi started, then looked back to the egg. “Is someone’s soul in that??”

“Oh no, just their life essence, magic, and their last dying wish for revenge,” Grenfell said. “A real go-getter, whoever it was. Plus someone likely had to sneak it into the intended cursee’s residence. Shows some real planning that it worked out.”

“And the crown?”

“It’s just a stupid crown,” Grenfell replied, not even looking at it. “Clean it off and sell it. Who cares?”

Santi glanced back and forth between the objects. Something was still bothering him. “But why didn’t the curse affect York? It apparently affected the rest of his family.”

“Could be a few reasons,” Grenfell said. “Some sort of protection, or perhaps the curse maker just didn’t hate him as they did the rest.”

“Man,” Santi said, shaking his head. “How bad did they have to screw up for someone to make that?”

“All it really takes is angering one wrong person,” Grenfell said. “But why couldn’t I have had fun enemies like this?”