#master sword band

[kommandantpinks]

You know what would be awesome?

A Legend of Zelda power metal concept album, but each song in the album is based off of one mainline game.

GOSH, if it wasn't so hard to pull off without Nintendo's ninjas, I'd listen to it too many times

[frogbehindthewaterfall]

Okay, Red Boy did some bad things. I know that.

He grew up in a space where doing these things is what he was taught, what he was raised to do. (Mixed in that natural childish lack of understanding that what he was doing wasn't OK. I mean, for him, this was basically playing pretend and trying to be like his parents(imagine a child insisting that they're such a big boy now, look they even got their own minions, and their own mountain))

But yknow he's really young, so he can still learn to be better, and see that what he did isn't good

But HOT DAMN

Torturing and imprisoning this literal small child is NOT a cool move. (I mean, you can't really leave if you got the bands on ya)

There had to be a better way to go about this.

No matter the bad things he did, this depth of punishment (on a CHILD) is not the way, like, Guanyin, girl, were the swords really necessary? Was it necessary to use the torture band activating spell first when there was one that could just immobilize him?

[hauntingblue]

ACT 2 OVER LETSGOOOO

[toastedseavegetable]

boar and wolf

[chosopie]

Hear me out: Conquer Sukana who killed y/n bethroned and Y/n, a very high ranking princess convinces Sukana who leave her baby brother, Yuji be. Yuji is a 3 year old who often clinging to y/n since Sukana basically stole the throne. Sukana falls for the beautiful y/n

CONQUERER - RYOMEN SUKUNA

“Master, it would be best if you spared them. They have done nothing against you,” Uraume spoke while he stood by Sukuna’s tall figure that loomed over you and your baby brother Yuji’s shaking figure. “Perhaps, you could even keep Lady Y/N L/N. She is known for her intelligence and her way with the sword.”

You stood in front of your little brother, arms spread open to shield his small body. Your face was covered in sweat and the blood of the man you were betrothed to. Now that he was dead, you were going to be queen—the queen of the foreign conquerer. It was unfair, but this was the rule and tradition every nation had mutually agreed upon. It was survival of the strongest. Those who are strong enough shall take what they can.

“Leave my brother alone or I will show you no mercy,” you spat.

“No mercy?” Sukuna laughed. “And what could you possibly do to me? You’re just a tiny and meek girl.”

You pulled out the dagger that was attached to the band on your thigh and pointed it at Sukuna’s upper abdomen. He quickly grabbed your wrist and yanked you to his hard and toned chest.

“Stab me, girl. Let’s see what you’ve got,” he moved his face close enough to yours that you could feel the heat radiating off his body. His eyes shamelessly examined your face, slowly trailing down to your exposed flesh. You wore a flowy purple off-shoulder dress that had a large slit that showed your legs. With him towering over you, he could see the top of your breasts your dress failed to cover.

You spat at him, causing him to move back. He scowled and tightly held your face with his large hand. His sharp nails dug onto your supple skin, leaving red streaks all over your cheeks.

“Do the women here have no knowledge of manners? Know your place. I own this nation now. I own you.” He let go of your face and snatched Yuji.

“No! Get away, monster!” Yuji fought back and tried to squeeze his way out of Sukuna’s arms.

“Yuji!” You screamed and stabbed Sukuna on the chest, carving out a big line that went all the way to his stomach.

Sukuna winced and threw Yuji onto the ground. You tried to run to your brother, but Sukuna grabbed you and held you in place.

“Please! Let him go! Just take me instead, you bastard!”

“Is that so?” Sukuna smirked, his hand effortlessly lifting Yuji from the ground and tossing him to you. You catched Yuji and hugged him tight, your left hand on the small of his back and right hand gently caressing his hair. “I shall take you as my wife,” the fierce man said.

-

Sukuna sat comfortably on his throne, his chin resting on the palm of his hands while he blankly stared at the lavish banquet your people had prepared. There were girls in revealing dresses that danced right in front of him, but his eyes were elsewhere. His gaze was fixed on you, who sat beside him in a beautiful white dress that was elegantly draped on your dainty figure. Your neck and wrists were covered in jewels of all sorts that Sukuna had gifted you prior to your unification.

“Smile a little, my dove. It’s our wedding. You’re more than lucky to have me as your ally. After all, I’m the strongest out there.”

Your eyes refused to meet his piercing gaze. “Ally? I had no choice. You forcefully took me.”

He gently reached for your chin and turned your head towards him. “You gave yourself to me, remember?”

“That’s because I had to protect my brother.”

“And you looked beautiful doing that. You would make a great mother,” he smiled with amusement.

: ̗̀➛ part 2

[euniexenoblade]

You come home and a girl pops her head out from the hallway, her brown hair neatly tucked into a pony tail and her ruffly head band askew. "Oh hi, Master!" She yells down the hallway, "Don't worry I'm almost done with your bedroom."

You start to worry, you never hired a maid, "How did she get in here?!" you scream internally, an anxious sweat forming along your brow.

As you're about to call the authorities, she walks out from your room towards you, her traditional maid dress covered in blood, a big sword slung over her shoulder, held by one hand, also covered in blood, and with the other arm dragging a folded tarp with a hidden body in it. As she gets closer you can see a tentacle slightly hanging out.

She's next to you. She drops the tarp, and with her newly freed hand she opens the door. She turns to you, "Can you hold the door open for me, Master♡~?" with the energy of a excited maid cafe worker. You nod your head and hold the door open. She once again grabs the tarp and drags it out with her.

You close the door. You never see her again. You never find out what was in that tarp. On this day you've gained insurmountable respect for maids.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Weinersmith and Boulet’s “Bea Wolf”

On July 14, I'm giving the closing keynote for the fifteenth HACKERS ON PLANET EARTH, in QUEENS, NY. Happy Bastille Day! On July 20, I'm appearing in CHICAGO at Exile in Bookville.

Bea Wolf is Zach Weinersmith and Boulet's ferociously amazingly great illustrated kids' graphic novel adaptation of the Old English epic poem, which inspired Tolkien, who helped bring it to popularity after it had languished in obscurity for centuries:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250776297/beawolf

Boy is this a wildly improbable artifact. Weinersmith and Boulet set themselves the task of bringing Germanic heroic saga from more than a thousand years ago to modern children, while preserving the meter and the linguistic and literary tropes of the original. And they did it!

There are some changes, of course. Grendel – the boss monster that both Beowulf and Bea Wulf must defeat – is no longer obsessed with decapitating his foes and stealing their heads. In Bea Wulf, Grendel is a monstrously grown up and boring adult who watches cable news and flosses twice per day, and when he defeats the kids whose destruction he is bent upon, he does so by turning them into boring adults, too.

And Bea Wulf – and the kings that do battle with Grendel – are not interested in the gold and jewels that the kings of Beowulf hoard. In Bea Wulf, the treasure is toys, chocolate, soda, candy, food without fiber, television shows without redeeming educational content, water balloons, nerf swords and spears, and other stuff beloved of kids and hated by parents.

That substitution is key to transposing the thousand-year-old adult epic Beowulf for enjoyment by small children in the 21st century. After all, what makes Beowulf so epic is the sense that it is set in a time in which a primal valor still reigned, but it is narrated for an audience that has been tamed and domesticated. Beowulf makes you long for a never-was time of fierce and unwavering bravery. Bea Wulf beautifully conjures the years of early childhood when you and the kids in your group had your own little sealed-off world, which grownups could barely perceive and never understand.

Growing up, after all, is a process of repeating things that are brave the first time you do them, over and over again, until they become banal. That's what "coming of age" really boils down to: the slow and relentless transformation of the mythic, the epic, and the unknowable and unknown into the tame, the explained, the mastered. When you're just mastering balance and coordination, the playground climber is a challenge out of legend. A couple years later, it's just something you climb.

The correspondences between the leeching away of magic lamented in Beowulf and experienced by all of us as we grow out of childhood are obvious in hindsight and surprising and beautiful and bittersweet when you encounter them in Bea Wolf.

This effect owes a large debt to Boulet's stupendous artwork. Boulet brings a vibe rarely seen in American kids' illustration, owing quite a lot to France's bande dessinée tradition. Of course, this is a Firstsecond book, and they established themselves as an exciting and fresh kids' publisher in the USA nearly 20 years ago by bringing some of Europe's finest comics to an American audience for the first time. You can get a sense of Boulet's darker-than-average, unabashedly anarchic illustrations here:

https://www.comixtrip.fr/bibliotheque/bea-wolf-weinersmith-boulet-albin-michel/

The utter brilliance of Bea Wulf is as much due to the things it preserves from the original epic as it is to the updates and changes. Weinersmith has kept the Old English tradition of alliteration, right from the earliest passages, with celebrations of heroes like "Tanya, treat-taker, terror of Halloween, her costume-cache vast, sieging kin and neighbor, draining full candy-bins, fearing not the fate of her teeth. Ten thousand treats she took. That was a fine Tuesday."

Weinersmith also preserves the kennings – the elaborate figurative compound phrases that replace nouns – that turn ordinary names and places into epithets at you have to riddle out, like calling a river "the sliding sea."

These literary devices, rarely seen today, are extremely powerful, and they conjure up the force and mystique that has kept Beowulf in our current literary discourse for more than a millennium. They also make this a super fun book to read aloud.

When Jim Henson was first conceiving of Sesame Street, he made a point of designing it to have jokes and riffs that would appeal to adults, even if some of the nuance would be lost on kids. He did this because he wanted to make art that adults and kids could enjoy together, both because that would give adults a chance to help kids actively explore the ideas on-screen, but also because it would bring some magic into those adults' lives.

This is a very winning combination (not for nothing, it's also the original design brief for Disneyland). Weinersmith and Boulet have produced a first-rate work of adult and kid literature, both a perfect entree to Beowulf for anyone contemplating a dive into old English epic poetry, and a kids' book full of booger jokes and transgressive scenes of perfect mischief.

Support me this summer on the Clarion Write-A-Thon and help raise money for the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/24/awesome-alliteration/#hellion-hallelujah

[azen13]

I’ve never been to a Starlight Pawnshop before…just look at all this stuff. Too bad I can’t buy everything in this store.

Wait a minute, who left this Chess Piece out by itself? No matter, I’ll gladly take it, even if I’ve never played a single game before in my life!

A Losing Game

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆

Chess Pawn: A finely-carved chess pawn. If life is a chessboard, then so too are people pawns in other's games. Based on this pawn’s pristine condition, whoever controlled it loved it quite dearly.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆

CW: Yandere Themes, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Gaslighting

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆

Jing Yuan is an accomplished man. As the General of the Xianzhou Luofu, he has accumulated a list of titles and achievements that could fill a thousand archives: master of foresight; skilled with a glaive; voted “Most Attractive Bachelor” of the Xianzhou Luofu five years in a row. And, of course, his prowess at Starchess.

Yes, Jing Yuan is very, very good at Starchess. One of the best in the entirety of the Xianzhou Alliance, if not in the entire galaxy. While his knowledge of opening lines could be considered weak for his level of gameplay, after he gets settled, he excels at slowly cutting off his opponent’s options, until reaching the endgame. 

In Starchess, the endgame is extremely important. A poorly-played endgame can lead to a crushing defeat, while quick thinking and clever maneuvering of pieces can allow a pawn to be promoted to a queen, which can then help propel a player to victory.

While Jing Yuan is good at Starchess, he is almost undefeatable in the endgame.

Until today.

The ring was perfect and understated, a band of solid gold engraved with delicate patterns. He knew everything about you from years of dismantling every thread of your being apart, and knew you didn’t care for things that were too gaudy and outwardly luxurious. The night was perfectly planned: a picnic beneath the starlit sky, constellations framing your face like a crown. He had hidden the ring at the bottom of the basket, beneath a beautiful meal of the finest the Luofu had to offer. And you were going to be there, boundless in beauty and grace, sharp as a sword and sweet as sugar.

Tonight, though, Jing Yuan tastes the sea on his lips.

How long has it been since he has cried? Centuries, he thinks, standing in the foyer of his home, the front door slightly ajar. A biting wind snaps its jaws at Jing Yuan through the opening, but he cannot feel it. He can hardly feel anything. 

The numbness spreads from his heart outwards as he moves, first forwards to shut the door. A brief glance outside, and he can still imagine you standing there. In better circumstances, you and him would have gone to Fyxestroll Gardens, and enjoyed a quiet night. He would have proposed. You would have accepted. Everything would be right in the world. But when Jing Yuan opened the door, what greeted him was the greatest misfortune he had ever faced.

You stood outside, jagged shadows stretching like scars across your face, your posture guarded, your face unreadable. At first, Jing Yuan assumed you just had a terrible day, perhaps because of your job, perhaps because of something else. But then you began to speak, poison spilling from your lips, killing both you and him. He knows this is a grave mistake, but you have already drowned in these lies.

As you walk away from him, Jing Yuan makes a vow to himself: he will not let you leave. No, not like this.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆

Without you by his side, safe and secure in his loving embrace, the General’s night is restless; as he tosses and turns, he replays the memories of hurt again and again in his mind, trying to wrap his head around your reasoning so he can dismantle it when he has you again. He may have unknowingly made a blunder, but he will still win this game, the most important game of his life.

Maybe a stop by the Alchemy Commission–your workplace–is necessary, no? Last time he heard, investigators are still clearing out spies from the Disciples of Sanctus Medicus hiding amongst its members. 

Jing Yuan takes a moment to check his schedule, a relaxed smile falling on his face. He still has several hours before his first meeting of the day. Enough time to bring you back home, where you belong. A brief flash of uncertainty courses through his body, like a chess player second-guessing their plan, before he steadies himself. This is for your benefit, he tells himself. With all the dangers on the Luofu, someone like you cannot simply remain unprotected. 

With a calm and patient gait, the General of the Luofu makes his way to the Alchemy Commission.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆

He scrutinizes the cramped halls of the building you work in carefully, noting a pawn here, a bishop there. All people, yet all pieces in the game of love, and the inevitable, complete conquering of your heart. Perhaps they are playing their own games, but they do not matter. In this game, they are Jing Yuan’s pieces to move. Before today, they may have been your pieces. But while the game of life and the game of chess share many similarities, they are not one in the same. Life’s board flips and moves, expands and shrinks. Pieces change allegiances, or disappear and reappear entirely.

The board is not on your side today. You don’t even notice Jing Yuan watching you from the hall, preparing your doom. Within moments, he strides in the room, his lazy gait and relaxed expression taking control over the room and its occupants–including you–in mere seconds. Shocked faces spread like lightning, from healer to healer, before striking yours. You stand in complete terror, as Jing Yuan claims you with a simple glance, before speaking in an authoritative tone, booming like thunder.

“Mx. L/N, you are hereby arrested.” Eyes that once melted with fondness when simply seeing your face now bore into you with frigid disgust.

You can’t help but flinch from the words, mouth agape and mind blank. After a moment, you manage to collect yourself, disregarding the stares of those around you. “Excuse me? What for?” You demand. 

Jing Yuan tilts his head, looking down at you. “Sedition against the Xianzhou Luofu through serving the Plagues Author and the Disciples of Sanctus Medicus,” he cites, taking a stride forward, arms snapping to lock your limbs behind your back like shackles. “You will be taken to the Seat of Divine Foresight and given a proper sentencing for your crimes.”

Try as you may, your shouts and screams of vehement denial do you no good as Jing Yuan walks you out. Streets pass you by like snapshots of a past life. You can see the tea shop where you and Jing Yuan went on your first date. His favorite restaurant to order takeout from. The balcony overlooking the Ambrosial Arbor where he first kissed you. Thousands upon thousands of moves, each and every one thought out to perfection. Countless gambits taken, small victories celebrated, and little defeats mourned. You had nearly defeated him. Or so you thought.

Eventually, you make it to the Seat of Divine Foresight, Jing Yuan’s arms still vice like in their hold, yet not tight enough to hurt. You try to follow the turns the General takes–a right, a left, another left, up a flight of stairs, right again–but your focus wanes.

You are not guilty of any crime.

At least, so you think. Because you committed a grave offense: breaking the weak, feeble heart of your lover.

A lifelong sentence is only fair, no?

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆

“My dearest, why must you struggle?” Jing Yuan murmurs as he pulls you into a small room with only a table and two chairs. Pulling you away from the door, the General gently places you on the ground, and remains by the exit, cutting off any chance of escape you may have.

“Why must you falsely accuse me?” You retort, voice flickering with fire and burning bright, even amongst all the encroaching darkness.

Jing Yuan’s soft smile slowly dissipates into a frown, the shine in his eyes dimming away into nothingness. “Y/N, I have been nothing but patient with you. I have explained why I must protect you. You understood then. Why can’t you understand now?” Slowly, like he’s trying to comfort a skittish animal, Jing Yuan inches towards you, arms outstretched inviting you into his embrace. 

“Because you’re a psycho!” You hiss, stepping backwards. Despite your insult, the General does not anger. Instead, disappointment flashes across his face. He takes another step forward, effectively cornering you.

With a quiet, hushed tone that echoes in the room like a hollow breeze, Jing Yuan’s arms find their way around your torso, pulling you tightly against him. Regardless of how much you struggle, you cannot escape Jing Yuan. “You don’t think that, love. You’re afraid. That’s okay. That’s why I’m here. To care for you. To protect you. To love you. Don’t you want that?” He asks quietly, letting you wear yourself out until you melt in his hands like putty, exhausted in every sense. A few moments of utter silence pass, before he speaks up again. “Why don’t we go home now? I have a surprise waiting for you.”

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆

The moment you return home, Jing Yuan locks the door. To protect you from yourself, he says. Though that’s a condensed version of his actual words, which are far more persuasive, spinning you around in a whirlwind of logic and reasoning you can’t seem to keep up with.

Only a second later, the General is down on one knee, a ring in hand and a glint of fire in his eyes. For a moment, you think the look is a soft, gentle thing. But then you see it for what it is: a love so warped it cannot simply be called love anymore.

As much as you want to reject his proposal, to slap him across the face and attempt to spark another uprising against his smothering love, you know it would do you no good. He would only force the ring on your finger and crown you his spouse, whether you liked it or not.

Checkmate.

[littlejuicebox]

A Midwinter Carol / The OneShot

Pairing: Ascended Astarion x F!Reader/Tav

Story navigation: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

Summary/Setting: Fifteen years post BG3 / You turned down Astarion's offer and went your own way after the ending of the game and you've just returned to BG. Astarion sees you again for the first time in 15 years and then has a surprise visitor that changes everything for him.

Rating/Warnings: M+ / Gore and Sexual Scenes / Spoilers for the game / Prob OOC Ascended Astarion

Word Count: 3K

Notes: This is 2/5 "Days of Star-mas!" "A Christmas Carol" but make it BG3 Ascended Astarion, of course!

I'm also entering this into the #BG3HolidayFluffle23 challenge under the prompt "new beginnings."

Click here to see my master list.

-----

Fifteen years. The Vampire Ascendent hadn’t seen you in fifteen years, since you’d rejected his offer to become his loyal consort for the final time.

You two couldn’t reconcile your differences. You’d wanted him to trust you, to believe that your love was stronger than any desire for power, that you could remain a mortal or become a true vampire like him and still remain loyal. You didn’t want to be a spawn. You’d considered his offer a great disrespect, and ultimately, his changed behavior had driven you away.

“You’re nothing like the man I fell in love with anymore. I don’t know who you are.”

Your words had stung, though he’d never admit it.

It had been an awful, messy, seething breakup, to be sure… and the Vampire Lord almost turned you against your will anyway. But at the time, Astarion’s soft spot for you had reigned supreme, and he still thought himself better than Cazador and above such things. So, against his own wishes, he’d let you go.

Last the Vampire Ascendent heard of your movements, you were somewhere along the Sword Coast, playing valiant hero once again. So, when he walked into Duke Ravengard’s Midwinter Gala with some pretty little thing on his arm that he’d picked up for the occasion and would likely drain of blood and dispose of later, he was flabbergasted to see you sitting at the high table. Right. Next. To. Wyll.

Fifteen years and it still felt like the greatest betrayal, as if you’d staked him through the heart in that moment. It took every ounce of The Vampire Lord’s control to not to turn into a cloud of smoke and break The Duke’s neck then and there. Oh, but how desperately he wanted to.

But he couldn’t risk such a spectacle… many of his dealings were hanging tenuously as it was, and creating a power vacuum in the city was just as bad for him as it would be for those against him. No, Wyll helped to maintain the balance… and generally tolerated Astarion with some level of old-ties respect. They had an agreement: the pale elf would keep his business private and primarily drink from criminals, and Wyll would turn a relatively blind eye. So no, as much as he wanted to, Astarion couldn’t afford such a loss of control.

The Vampire Ascendent watched as you walked about the room with Duke Ravengard, hanging on his arm like a prize and chatting with nobles and old contacts. Astarion’s date — what was their name again? — tried more than once to steal his attentions away, but resigned themselves to drinking heavily and dancing with several other guests. The Vampire Ascendant watched you join the dance floor with The Duke and his blood boiled at the sight; he even bent the stem of his golden goblet while witnessing the vile scene.

No. Absolutely not. This wouldn’t do. Astarion had to do something, had to interrupt whatever game this was. How dare you and Wyll disrespect him like this! So, he stood and abruptly crossed the dance floor, the other guests parting like the Red Sea before him in their shock. Lord Ancunin never made his way to the dance floor for anyone.

“May I interrupt and have this next dance?” The Vampire Ascendent’s voice is honeyed and saccharine as the music pauses and the band readies for their next ballad. Everyone around the room is clapping politely. A gentleman’s smile is plastered across the elf’s lips, but it doesn’t meet his eyes, as he extends his pale hand to you.

Wyll bristles and turns to look at you, and there’s a moment of silent communication between two sets of eyes that must know one another quite well, because Astarion cannot read their nearly-imperceptible movements. Finally, the Duke relents and passes your hand to the Vampire Lord.

“No funny business, Astarion. My men and I will be watching your every move.” The Duke warns through a benevolent-appearing smile, a warning hand clasped on the vampire’s tensed back, before locking eyes with you once more and then turning and walking toward the high table.

You smile at Astarion, as if it’s just the two of you back in the center of that clearing, draped in moonlight and barren to one another, all those years ago. “It’s good to see you, my old friend.”

Old friend? Old friend? The words make the Vampire Ascendent’s mouth practically fill with bile as he spins you about the room. He can feel the steady beating of your heart and smell that intoxicating, tempting bouquet of blood brimming beneath your skin that he’d never quite forgotten.

You two catch up, to some small extent, as you tell the Vampire Lord about your journeys along the Sword Coast and he tries to impress you with his growing influence and wealth, but before long the song is over and The Duke is, annoyingly, coming back to retrieve his prize. You smile so sweetly at Astarion before you depart that it almost hurts; no one else looks at him with that level of love and kindness… all he ever sees anymore are eyes filled with fear, mistrust, or hate.

“I hope you’re happy, Astarion. Truly. I’m glad to see you looking so well. Now go find the date you came with… they’re owed a dance, I believe.” You press a chaste kiss to his cheek, sending an electric shock through his numb heart. He almost gives into his urges and bites you right there, in front of everyone, claiming his love and his prize. But again, he lets you go, slipping through his fingers like sand through an hourglass as you meander back toward Wyll and continue the festivities.

Astarion can’t take any more of this. He goes to find his date, rips them away from whatever conversation they were having with whatever noble, and swiftly exits the party. Back at the Palace, the poor little thing is used for mindless sex and then for sustenance and then left to be disposed of by one of the staff with nary a thought. The Vampire Lord couldn’t even remember their name.

——-

A week rolls by, and gods what a terrible week it was. Astarion’s grip had weakened on the city after a few poor calls. In his pride, he’d never admit they were his fault, and instead he quickly blamed his advisors and sent them to the dungeons. Furthermore, the meeting he’d hosted today with several of the Guilds had practically blown up in his face as the Guild Leaders came to blows in the middle of the Great Hall. Mortal creatures could be so… overzealous. The entire ordeal was giving him a massive headache. If the Guild Leaders didn’t come to an agreement soon, he would lose his monopoly on the shipping industry.  

The Vampire Lord settles into his bed, alone, after downing several goblets of wine, but sleep does not come to him. He’s awake, staring at the ceiling, and all he can think about is you. Gods, he thought he’d moved past all this. But as he remembers your face, your nights together, the way your body felt on his… he feels his erection growing. Astarion is about to stick his hand inside his trousers to provide himself with some relief when a familiar, annoying voice travels through the room.

“I’ve been watching you, Astarion.”

Fucking Gale. The fucking God of Ambition. The Vampire Lord shoots up in bed and sees the silvery form of his former campmate standing at the foot of it.

“What in the hells, Gale! A God and still an absolute pervert, I see.”

The God ignores Astarion, moving to sit his ethereal form on the edge of the bed. The Vampire Lord wrinkles his nose and pulls his legs as far away from Gale as he can.

The God sighs, “Astarion, you’ve rejected my help before, and the strides you’ve made within the city are falling… it’s beginning to seem that you are headed down a path you are not going to be able to return from. A few more bad calls and you won’t come back from it. You are wasting your potential because you refuse to become the master of your own ambition rather than a slave to it. I’m beginning to wonder… is this what you truly want? I can see many lifetimes of yours, with many choices you’ve made along the way, and I’m sorry to tell you this lifetime seems to be the most miserable.”

Astarion scoffs. The fact that Gale is the only prior friend that keeps in touch with him, albeit for his own peculiar reasons, is a sad fact that the Vampire Lord refuses to acknowledge. He’d pushed everyone else away years ago. The only other person he ever saw was The Duke at obligatory balls, galas, and political events… and obviously the last time had been less than fulfilling. But loneliness resided deep in the Vampire Lord’s heart, hidden away from even his own acknowledgement, so although Gale had always been his least favorite, the pale elf still engaged in conversation.

“What do you mean by that? That you can see several of my lifetimes? I find it difficult to believe that this is the worst. Surely there is a lifetime in which I’m still under Cazador’s control.”

The God of Ambition considers this, and then turns and looks off into the distance, as if he’s examining something Astarion cannot see. “Hmm. Actually, there is only one lifetime in which that is still ongoing. So yes, that one may be the worst. I stand corrected, this is the second worst. You’re dead in more of them, a spawn in most of them… and your Tav, or some other version of Tav, is in several as a friend or a lover, to both the spawn and ascendant versions of you. You might be surprised to know that in more than one, you and I are coupled… it’s quite interesting.”

Astarion cringes at the thought of being in a relationship with Gale, but chooses to move past the thought and acknowledge the only bit of information he actually cared about, “My Tav is in several of them?”

“Of course. Would you like to see it? Let me take you on a little journey.” Gale holds his hand out the Vampire Lord, and Astarion cannot help but feel the pull of intrigue. Gods… at least this would guarantee a more interesting night than one with his hand spent down his own pants.

The pale elf sighs and extends his hand to the God of Ambition, and just as their fingers brush, he feels himself enveloped in the warmth of the Weave. Light spirals around the two beings and then suddenly, Astarion and Gale are standing outside a tomb. The Vampire Lord hears himself screaming from inside the tomb and feels the panic and shame rising within his own body. This is from his own past, when Cazador locked him up for a year.

“Why the hells have you brought me here, Gale? This isn’t what I asked to see!”

“No… but I thought it might serve as a reminder of where you came from. You seem to have forgotten… and subject others to similar fates and tortures, nowadays.”

Astarion hears the begging and pleading, the scratching on the inside of the tomb, and his gut churns again at the memory. How something that happened years ago, that he’d shoved deep in his mind never to acknowledge again, could still rip such a reaction from an all-powerful Vampire Ascendent, he did not know. The elf felt himself shaking as he was flooded with the emotion of the memory. Had he really turned into an exact replica of his former master? Hadn’t he wanted to be better than Cazador?

“Had enough? Okay, onto the next one.” Gale snaps his fingers, and both beings are pulled through the Weave.

Suddenly they’re standing in The Duke’s parlor room… the vampire had seen the room just a time or two before, during some business negotiation or another. Then he sees you, bursting through the door with one hand on your swollen belly. Gods above and below, were you carrying Wyll’s seed in this one? The thought made his skin crawl and his stomach churn in disgust.

“Hurry, my love! We need to place the presents here for the others.”

Astarion’s eyebrows crinkle as he listens to the voice responding to you from down the hallway, joined in by the giggles of what is clearly a child. “We’re coming, darling. This little imp is just slowing me down a bit!”

And then he sees himself coming through the door with a silver-haired, giggling toddler wrapped around his leg… but it’s not himself. Pink skin, beating heart, a few more years on his face. Mortal… but how?

Mortal Astarion is carrying a bundle of presents that he places on the coffee table in the center of the parlor. The child grins and puts a hand drawn card on top of the small pile of gifts. The card reads: ‘For Uncle Wyll, Auntie Euphemia, and the Ravengard Twins. Love, the Ancunins.”

Astarion feels his pulse thrumming in his ears as the scene plays out. Mortal Astarion envelops you in his arms and plants a kiss on your cheek, before bending down and placing a kiss on your pregnant stomach.

“Let’s go and join the others, shall we? Auntie Shadowheart and Auntie Lae’zel have a gift for you, my little love!” The mortal pale elf cheers, bending down to pick up the drooling toddler.

“Yay, daddy! Go!” The little babe cheers, clapping uncoordinated hands together, causing both this version of you and his mortal self to giggle in adoration. He watches as you take this version of him by the hand and exit the parlor, headed towards a clamor of conversation filled with several familiar voices. The Vampire Lord tries to follow the little family, desperate to see how the scene continues, but he’s ripped from the scene and thrown back into the Weave with Gale.

“I wasn’t finished!” The Ascendent Vampire shouts in frustration, running his hands through curled hair.

Gale simply sighs and shakes his head at Astarion, before settling onto another scene entirely.

In this one, you are a vampire. Not a vampire spawn, a true vampire. Astarion watches as you don your dress, unabashedly taking in the familiar curves of your body before they’re covered up, and then turns to see himself entering through the bedchamber door.

“My treasure, we’ve done it! We’ve secured educational and apprenticeship programs for the orphans from the Guilds as a show of good faith for our support and protection.”

Your vampire self runs to this better version of Ascendant Astarion, enveloping him in a shockingly passionate kiss. It was enough to make even the Vampire Lord’s skin run hot as he imagined what it would feel like to have you on him like that again.

“I’ve just put on my clothes, my love.” You murmur, voice coy, as you slowly drop your shoulder out of the gown and focus on your Astarion. “But perhaps you won’t mind helping me back out of them… I think that announcement is cause for a bit of… celebration.”

The scene quickly devolves into something overwhelmingly hot and heavy. The Vampire Lord feels himself tingle with desire as he watches everything unfold. Just as the other version of Astarion is about to plunge himself into the vampire version of Tav, the Weave swirls around Gale and Astarion once more.

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” The Vampire Lord hisses as he glares at The God of Ambition.

“I know… steamy, right?” Gale responds, with a small chuckle. “Onto our final scene… this one is your… unfortunate future, if you continue down your same path, I’m afraid.”

The Vampire Ascendent soon sets his eyes on possibly the most gut-wrenching scene he could ever imagine. There you are, standing before him, holding a stake that’s driven straight through his heart. Blood pools around the wound. He’s trying to reach for you, to touch your face, to choke out something he cannot say. And then he’s gone, slumped on the floor, as you hold him in your arms and let out a bloodcurdling wail.  

The crying goes on forever. Your body is wracking with sobs as you turn the corpse onto its back and throw yourself over it, almost desperate to have his body close to yours. After what feels like an eternity, your trembling hands come to his face, and you plant a surprisingly tender kiss on his lips. Astarion notices, with some level of shock, bleeding wounds along your arms and neck. Some bites, some blade slashes… had he really been the one to do that to you?

“I really loved you, you know, Astarion… I wish it hadn’t come to this. How dare you kill The Duke and throw the city into upheaval! My city! Our city!

There was nothing between Wyll and me. Just two old friends, catching up… I’d wanted to be back home, I’d fled from my city for fifteen years after what happened between us. Wyll offered me a soft place to land and a kind transition back into society.

I was sure everything would be okay after all this time. That we could at least talk. It had been fifteen years! But you didn’t come to speak to me, you ignored my scrolls, and then—why?!”

The sobbing returned, and you were slamming shaking fists into the corpse version of himself over and over and over and over.

The Vampire Lord sucked in a breath and turned back to the God, “I’ve seen enough, Gale! Take me home right now.”

“As you wish.” The God of Ambition murmurs, and with a snap of his fingers, Astarion is back in his bed in the Palace.

“So?” Gale asks, lifting himself from where he is still sitting on the edge of the bed.

“I need to talk to Tav… I need to speak with her. Tomorrow.” The Vampire Lord murmurs, his head still reeling from everything he saw. He pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs. What would he even say to you, after all this time?

“I would agree. It's far past time for you to pursue a new beginning, Astarion." The God responds as the Weave starts to swirl around him in bright flares of azure, “Oh... and Astarion? I know we were once friends, if you could really call us that… but don’t think this little show and tell was for free. I’ll be asking something of you, when the time comes.”

The Vampire Lord nods. Of course. It could never be that simple, could it? And just like that, Gale disappears in a spray of light, and Astarion is left alone once more.

No. It could never be that simple. The only simple truth in Astarion’s life was this: you were and would always be his saving grace.

——-

Story navigation: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

[ciphykiss]

< incubus (iii)

blade x f!reader; nsfw, mdni (pls) somnophilia, slightly graphic violence

Love escapes Blade the same way dreams do, lost to hellscape, a curse, and raining swords; each one a reminder of his betrayal, her curse, and him, vengeance immortalized; it is the only thing he is allowed to feel, tastes as bittersweet as liquor once shared by brothers under moonlit nights, the reflections of crescent halos carved into bleeding rivers of a world long destroyed…

He hangs about the other stellaron hunters as a poltergeist; though Kafka trusts him (with her life, he’d presume, but also less), and the young one pesters him to pursue her games, Blade finds himself incapable of forging the bonds that haunt his sleep; the sword of a friend, the back of another, the scabbard of his master, and all the wild blood his brethren shared when they raced through the skies of Cangcheng before it befell calamity to the world-devourer, Rahu;

Why did you do it, he wants to ask, daydreams of asking; he is almost-afraid (he no longer fears, not really), facing eyes of seaglass in mourning.

For love, he who had once held his soul will reply; for love, time and time again… 

—all for a promise.

The promise of his own death, as destiny’s slave had foretold—there is nothing else of want, nothing else of need. There is nothing else he desires as man would, nothing more than a wound to fester and rid him of his misery—fin.

Or so he thought.

He tells himself it is but a fleeting twinge; not quite longing, nothing more than a tug of his fate-strings, toying with him once more.

But he is from a time before starskiffs and the banishment of desire; he can recall the legends of his great-grandmother, besotted with a man destined to live a fraction of her own, the birth of her bloodline done through the dreaming; and though he has never quite experienced it himself, he is well-acquainted with both the stories and instinct of passion, enough to know the dangers—how it drives men and women alike to madness, the brink of insanity, and back to adoration once more. He doesn’t understand it, not really, until the day he meets you.

It is all very banal, he thinks, because he doesn’t even have to look at you to know you are his. He feels it in the air—the hurried, impatient clack of your heels, sweetness of your words (even when you assail him with your questionnaire, as grating as nails on a chalkboard, he’s more annoyed at the fact that he doesn’t want you to stop talking) and the scent—

He doesn’t consider himself particularly Foxian, not after generations of outmixing had thinned the blood of the old. To his knowledge, his predecessors had only passed down their knack for artismanship; apparently, desire was part of that package, because the moment your fingers brushed over the side of his face, he could smell the aftermath of your frustration and solo-pursuit of pleasure, a lingering fragrance no amount of hand-washing could cover up. He knew he had to have you then, one way or another—something had shifted inside of him, like the maw of a wild beast being lured by first blood. Yes, he would have you—if not in the waking world, then in the dreaming, and if not your flesh, then in spirit. You’d made him realize a starvation that he hadn’t known existed; neither love nor affection, more carnal than a means to an end.

He knows this is not love; love is lost to time and his curse, gnawing away at the cadaver of his heart. Yet, he can’t help but bury his nose into the phantom of your flesh, teeth grazing your nape as he opens his mouth to devour—

Your legs curl around him in a vice that eclipses both wedding bands and vows, fingers awry in his hair; he has to bite back a sigh when you yank, sinking deeper into the skin of your collarbone to mask it. Both your strangulated hiss and whimpers have his blood rushing to his head, as distant a song as sirens ashore; he feels as though he’s in a haze, lost in a tangle of hair, threaded fingers, and not-quite flesh, and how long had it been since he’d laid in the embrace of arms—

They could not compare. A body would no longer do; it had to be you. Youyouyou, and only you.

So when you cease your pouting and opt to gather around his neck for a kiss with strands of his hair slipping past your face, he doesn’t refute—how can he, when he feels how you would’ve been his whole had he met you those long years before his demise, how he would’ve chased you to the moon just to crown you in jade and silverwing (would’ve could’ve should’ve), but now all that’s left of him is hollow and bone, and you? You’d just have to make do with a corpse.

He tells himself he’s had his fill, then finds himself chasing your sulking mouth the next night. You ask questions, you throw your fits; you demand answers, bite his lips, draw blood, and everything else under the moon. He tells himself he only needs you for your body, your kiss, but finds himself indulging you, time and time again; your more vapid queries, hazy, slow-blinking eyes, and oh, he’ll give you the illusion of domestication, letting you braid his hair, pulling you up by your waist when he wanted to taste, your lashes fluttering low at the spontaneity of his wanting.

But he won’t let you think (even for a moment) that he is something he isn’t—never whispers of sweet nothings, never a kiss to quell your nightmares (he is your nightmare), only the cold press of his mouth over your pulse, bruising teeth, and kisses that sought to devour, not guise as tenderness.

He doesn’t hope it is enough; it doesn’t matter. You have him (what is left of him), and it will have to be enough, because neither can he change, nor can he let you go.

ꨄ︎

You don’t fail to consider your demonic rendezvous could be the result of a faulty product, so you discard your fantasia for a new one; and so you sit, splayed on your bed (in proper nightwear this time), keeping vigil at your nightstand. The incense burns through the holographic figure of Lan; your room fills with the scent of ambrosial-root and alien flora, the former previously shunned amongst the commonfolk of the Luofu until Tingyun had parrotted the benefits of the immortal root as a soft drug for anxiety and insomnia; you’d made a note to chide Whistling Flames’ production quality the next time you met up with her for lunch if this dream… panned out…

The drop to your dream world is unceremonious; perhaps it’s the result of your previous night, but you find yourself with more heightened awareness than ever before (you wonder if this is what those medicus loonies refer to when they boast of “lucid dreams”). A world bathed in fog-mist and the herbal decay left by smoking pipes, your head resting on silk sheets, feathered pillows, with kiln sake cups identical to the ones bartered at Tingyun’s merchant guild resting an arm’s length away.

You sit upright, scanning your surroundings; no sight of cracked skies, rain, or the pungent blooming of spider lilies.

“...hi?” Your voice echoes through your dreamscape. You feel stupid.

Perhaps it had been a fluke; maybe Tingyun had been right. You begin to doubt yourself, gnawing on your lower lip, before a metaphorical lightbulb beams in the recess of your mind;

“...the fisherman would marry, and the Foxian, enraged and heartbroken...”

“Of all men,” he hisses into your ear, the bite of a wolf from a dark fairytale, “him?”

A fifty-fifty shot, you decide; he’d failed to kill you the last time he’d seen you riding Jingyuan’s face, allowing enough bravery for you to conjure up an imitation of the general.

It’s harder now that you’re not, well, as needy as you were when you’d first met; you envision the hair cascading over his shoulder, long and curling, a single, aureate eye, hands, calloused from battle and gripping the hilt of his war-spear,

“Enough.”

Your stomach drops. So it hadn’t been a fluke, and you were being haunted by the spirit of some deceased Foxian posing as an intergalactic war criminal you’d just so happened to think was bangable. That, or—

“So you really are stalking me,” you accuse, turning to your side. You observe him from where he stands, towering over you with his hands crossed over his chest; he looks more irked than truly jealous, maybe because you’re not half naked and in the process of climbing to a dream-climax; you rest your cheek on your palm, propped by an elbow, and sink a jade-collared foot into the water at the edge of the bed. He stares (or so you assume; it’s hard to tell by the blindfold), unamused when you flick at him, the droplets dematerializing into the fabric of his trousers. “What? Not joining me today?”

For a long while, he says nothing—in silent contemplation, while you pretend to pick at your nails in mimicry of indifference. Please don’t look at me, please just walk away, please let this be just a real—dream—you hear the ripples indicating his footsteps, crowns of spider-lilies rebirthed in his strides until he rests on the edge of the bed, black hair pooling into the silk.

You suck in a deep breath, gazing up at the now storm-cracked skyscape. You hadn't exacted the details of your so-called “plan” this far, half-expecting the circumstances of last night to have been explained by a crumpled club receipt or markered-star hidden away in some crevice of your body. You sit upright, swallowing the pounding of your heart, and brace yourself for a change of course;

He makes no movement of protest when he feels you crawl over to him, throwing the weight of your arms over his shoulders. Not even a compression, you sulk, feeling unyielding, lean muscle. Experimentally, you rest your chin at the juncture of his neck and shoulder, breath fanning over his bone-like pallor; you draw circles into the water with your feet, brushing against the flower stamens, willing the thrum of your heart to quiet.

“You’re awfully quiet,” you observe, voice muffled against the fabric of his coat; he smells the same, smoke and rain, the perfume of his hair an aquatic floral that has you near-salivating and Aeons did you wish you’d meet a man of his allure in the Luofu (without the homicidal package). “Need another projection of the general to get you going?”

It’s meant to be in jest, but also to test his limits; your eyes flicker up just in time to see his jaw flex. The spindles of a lily curl around your ankle and bite, causing you to squeak and fold your legs into the bed. Okay, maybe too far. You can’t help but glare at him (not like he can see it), rubbing the now crimson splotch. Bastard.

“Not cute,” you comment, tugging at the tassels of his collar. He makes no effort to stop you, even as your hands roam his hips, pausing right below the navel, and then working up to his chest, the other tangling in the fabric holding together his garment; it doesn’t take you long to to unassemble his shirt, mouth working down his nape, uncaring of the roadblock of his bandages.

Your fingers arch at his collarbone, having spidered to a two-fingered tilt; he feels you smile, tapping a nail over his skin.

“Aren’t you being too good today?” You wonder, eyeing the faded scars scattered along his torso like a belt of heliobi; you wonder if they belong to the demon-spirit or the space criminal himself, and could he possibly be the real Blade?

Only one way to find out; and you’re determined.

“Not entertained?” You hook your legs on either side of him, then, sliding down to rest on his thighs; you feel him at large, breath momentarily catching in your throat—eyes on the prize, stay focused—before you rest on the blindfold separating the wonders of his eyes from yours. He feels incomplete, unreal; he is, but not like this. You refuse to have him like this.

“Let me see you,” you whisper, and before the weight of your words can sink in, you reach out to yank the knot fastened behind his head.

What you see has your blood turning to ice, the hairs on the back of your neck standing pin-straight, and both your hands flying to your mouth to quell the scream that threatens to perforate the dreaming; because there, where his eyes should be are inky, sightless orbs, no sign of pupil nor sclera; twin voids, like staring into the end of the world. His thighs shift, and you nearly choke out a sob.

“What do you see?” He murmurs. “Is it all you dreamed of?”

There is something sickening in his voice, encapsulating darker hues still; you squeeze your eyes shut, urging your heart to recover from its whiplash. When you open them, you stare at his mouth instead. It’s prettier, despite its velvet cruelty.

“What are you?”

He doesn’t answer, not for a long while; a stray wind blisters your cheek, enshrouding you with dark hair and the scent of him once more. You don’t remember a hand caging your hip, nor the one that had wound around your ankle, only now when he toys with the jade ornament that dangles off it; his grip doesn’t slacken, however, as if afraid you’d take off running at any given chance (he’s not wrong).

“The eyes are incomplete,” his answers are as vague as the real one, and you’re beginning to wonder just how accurate a Foxian’s charades can be. “They only see as far as they know; the rest is filled by imagination.” He smiles, then, wretched and alarmingly beautiful; “Did you see something monstrous?”

“You act as though that pleases you,” you rasp. At that, your dream demon leans in, smile taking a sharper turn as he forces eye-level contact. You have half a mind to scream, cry; conjure up a physical wall, render yourself blind. Anything to not have to glimpse into that void once more.

“Make no mistake; I am a monster.” His breath ghosts over your mouth like claws from inside a coffin. “That is what I am, what I always will be; do not dare dream otherwise. There is no prince waiting for you under this beast, no declarations of love and adoration; I am not like the ones they paint in stories. Do not expect a shelter from your nightmares; in time, you may find they and I become one in the same.”

And though staring into his eyes is akin to being swallowed by the void-whales that drift across the stars only in search of things to devour, you do; you ignore the fear that gropes your stomach, has your hands clammy with cold sweat.

“My little nightmare,” you simper, praying you come off more coy than deathly afraid, “you overestimate yourself. Did you truly think I’d deluded myself with such grandiose? That I’d expect you to fill the void of a real man, buy me a picket-fence complex, and take some revoltingly cute children to late-night starskiff drives on the weekends?” You tug at a strand of his hair, twirling it around your finger; it slips, pliant as silk, and you drop your hand in search of something more entertaining.

His fingers turn bruising; your hand dips past his navel, tugging the loop of his belt free. Absently, you trace the silver of his armor-like garter. “Don’t forget your purpose—here, you are nothing but my dream-concubine, pretty as you may be. You exist to starve me of my fantasies so that you may bring me pleasure yourself, do you not? Fighting words, for one with a goal so…”

Your hands are frigid compared to the heat of his length, giving it a shallow, experimental tug. You hear him affected for the first time, breathing ragged in your ear, and you think he might as well break your hipbone with how tightly he grips it. It is an oddly rewarding sting; you stave off the pain with a giggle, lips brushing over the shell of his ear.

“...endearing,” you finish, teeth catching the flesh of his lobe. You’re only slightly out of practice; gone are the days of experimenting with more than a sloppy, quick fuck in some alleyway of the red-light district, but having a man—spirit, whatever the hell this thing was—of such indomitability crack under your ministrations served the necessary power-high to follow through with your teasing.

You remind yourself it’s all for a greater plan; the plan that suddenly looks as hazy as your fourth shot of tequila on a holiday cruise as you fall into whispering filthy nothings into his ear.

“You poor thing,” you gloat, boring your eyes fearlessly into his; they are half-lidded now, much more tolerable to look at. He presses a thumb warningly down on your pelvis when you arch, knees planted on either side of his hips to support your weight. You grin. “Relax.”

Confidently, you brush his hair out of his eyes—sweat clings to his forehead, jaw worked so tight you know his teeth are gritted. Your hand trails off the side of his face, adoring; “How long has it been since you’ve been cared for? Months? Years? Decades? Why do you deprive yourself?”

He is much too prideful to relent, this you know; because you are not all cruel, you smile, allowing him reprieve in the comfort of your neck. Your dream demon stills at the gesture, muscles growing taut even as he allows you to move him as you please. You laugh, patting the back of his head.

Because he is wholly unused to affection, you kiss the side of his cheek, his hair, base of the throat, and everywhere else when he likely fractures both your pelvic bone and wrist in response to the pace you set. Surprisingly, the wrist he grips is not the one that tugs at his cock, but the one that soothes him by sifting through his roots, as if he is more cautious of adoration than he is lust; you curve your thumb over the tip, and you know he’s close, abdomen constricting, all but cutting off your hand’s blood supply;

Focus. Now’s your chance.

It’s only under the guise of utter sweetness that you manage to pry his fingers from your wrist, lacing your hand with his and releasing him from your other at the same time. He snarls, hips bucking forward at the loss, sounding more animal than man; you use your now-free hand to capture his jaw, the other still tightly wound, and plant a searing, punishing kiss.

It’s humiliating. Would have been pathetic, even, had he not lasted so long and after such a lengthy period of abstinence; and had you been a tad more sadistic. You feel him shudder, the warmth of your mouth and hand-holding too much.

You bite down on his lip. Hard.

It’s difficult, teetering the border between a kiss and mauling his lips off; a plight that has to be overcome, however, as you scrape over the wound and taste blood in your mouth. It’s done. You separate from his person with a gasp, scanning the small, but fresh (and most importantly: noticeable) graze; it would undoubtedly redden and scar, just as your welts had.

Now, all that’s left to do is waltz into your daily session with the space criminal and examine him for a matching wound. Then, you can be sure—

“You.”

…okay, you definitely hadn��t thought this far.

“…we can talk this through,” you laugh nervously, raising both hands in surrender. “Let’s—talk, yeah? Like civil people. Iwaswrongpleasedon’thurtme—”

You squeak when your jaw is tucked into his vice-like grip; you shut your eyes, screeching a mantra of wake up wake up WAKE UP—

“You have some nerve.” He chuckles darkly (yes, chuckles; you’re reciting your final wishes at this point, coupled with a few bastardized prayers to Lan, because Aeons, this had to be the last thing you heard), arm crushing you against him; he feels the same as before, relentless, unyielding, rendering you completely at his mercy.

“What did you expect,” you protest, because if you’re going to die, you might as well go out with the last word; “—when you left me so callously last time,” you finish, chin jutted in defiance.

The world above you begins to splinter; you see the fabric of your blackout curtains, spy the string of polaroids dangling from your ceiling. A wave of relief washes over you; you smile, beguiling, and roll over so you’re no longer pinned under him.

“Well, this has been lovely, but it’s getting late—early—and would‘ya look at the ti—!”

He grips your ankle, tugs; your world blurs from the sudden movement, and you drown in the scent of rain and woodsmoke once more.

His mouth brushes over yours, cold, soft—an almost-kiss. You find yourself with an insatiable yearning for those lips once more—the taste of iron and something sweeter.

Your eyes remain half-lidded in want for only half a second; the next, you find yourself letting out a noise torn between a moan and a hiss, feeling the pads of his fingers circling pressure around your clit. Your thighs clamp on instinct, shocked at the surge of pleasure; you can only stare, horrified, into dark hair and the lightly-scarred pallor of his neck.

“What’re you—”

The words die on your lips as easily as the bloom of a strangulated whine; the rare power-trip over your dreamvader had left you rather malleable, and it didn’t take long for him to deem you prepped enough to split in half. The drag of his fingers is haunting; a slow-burning candle, a lull, bandaged thumb working on your nerves while he curls two more inside.

“Entertained?” He breathes, teeth grazing over the shell of your ear the same way you had; but he bites where you had kissed, devours instead of adoring. Your dreamscape spins; you hear the phantom of your own voice in an echo chamber. “Not entertained?”

In response, you can only grip the back of his hair.

“Not quite.” You bite down into the juncture between his neck and shoulder.

“Entertained,” he rasps, and your world is collapsing; vibrations of bent, gleaming white and silver-blue; the surface below you pools, turns to void-stars. You move only with the rise of his chest, the ripple of his throaty voice; your hips move sluggishly against his thigh, knee parting you open, as if you’re in a trance. He sets a brutal pace, dragging your hips up to meet his, and the friction between your clothed heat and his is enough to have you drawing red down his back, pushed to a state of delirium you didn’t think was possible with mere grinding.

Your response is a cacophony of undulated whimpers; you keen, eyes wet and red, every nerve lit on fire, and the very backdrop of your dream world burns behind your eyes;

You search for his lips like a prisoner starved; the stars fall out of his mouth, and you catch them, outpouring into the constellated belt of a dipper.

Entertained? You feel him mouth against the flesh under your breast, voice drowned by the bell of your morning alarm and the purr of early-morning starskiffs making a beeline for breakfast courts. You’re all but a ragdoll now, held up by a single arm. You twist your neck to glare down at him, eyes itching for the waking world.

“Whore,” You accuse, a half-slur; you blink rapidly, eyelashes fluttering over cheekbone, and swear you feel him smile against your rib.

When you come to, you have ten missed calls from Jingyuan, a barrage of worried messages from Tingyun, and a notice from the Luofu’s government hospital on behalf of the reigning High Elder, Bailu.

ꨄ︎

He hears you before he sees you; Blade doesn’t have a chance to look up before you have your hand at his neck, near-strangling; a pressure that likely would’ve had the average man nearly knocked out. Your breath comes out in harsh, sobbing huffs, and you smell salty, as if you’d been crying; that, and of something sterile—rubbing alcohol?

“What did you do?” The break in your voice tells him everything he needs to know. When he doesn’t answer right away, you tighten your hold, and he finds himself both smiling and unable to breathe. “You fucking bastard, tell me what you did to him.”

“Whom?” 

You let out a shrill, and he laughs, feeling your nails mark over the old scars along his throat, vessels restricting under the abuse; you land a rather solid one across his cheek, enough to have him snap to the left, though unfortunately not enough to break posture. Rather amateur in combat, were you?

“Did you kill him?” You’re screeching now, voice hollowed-out and black with rage, and a small inkling in him whispers that maybe, just maybe he’d taken it too far—but he remembers what Kafka had relayed to him, the script foretold by destiny’s slave, and his own promise, and cannot find it in himself to care. “Did you fucking kill him, you—”

Your words fail you; there’s nothing horrible enough to scream. You want to beat him bloody and tear his hair out from his scalp and kill him, twice as cruel as he had been to Danyin, but—

You fall to your knees, hands flying to your mouth.

“That’s… no, that can’t—that’s not—”

Jingyuan’s hand on your shoulder is a painful tether to reality, and you can only watch as the High Elder rubs her hands over your coworker’s molting form in desperation. The poor Vidyadhara girl looks exhausted, sweat clinging to her forehead as she tries to reanimate a body long gone.

“We found him bleeding outside his post,” Jingyuan says gravely, but you can’t hear him anymore; can’t hear anything, can’t see anything, wishing you could unsee everything. “He had… strangest look on his face… as if he’d seen a ghost… so much blood…”

You spy your own wristwatch coming undone from his now-waxy arms. It clatters to the floor; you stare at it blankly.

“I’m counting on you, friend!”

If only you hadn’t. If only you’d shut your mouth. If only you had. If only—ifonly, Aeons; would he still have been alive?

“[Name]!” Jingyuan shakes you; you wonder how long he’d been doing that, and turn to stare up at him, bewildered. This had to have been a dream, some terrible nightmare. Things like this didn’t happen on the Luofu. It was an era of peace. Things like that didn’t happen to you. Not people you knew. “...Tingyun is heading over as we speak; I do not know what has transpired, but I assure you, [Name], I will do everything in my power to get to the bottom of this, and no harm will come to you, this I swear—”

You want to laugh and cry and tear open the very fabric of reality at the same time. You? How could you possibly have been worried about yourself when you had all but caused someone to die? When you were the reason that—

“...was not something Diviner Fu foresaw. I’ll be taking you off this case, [Name], for time being, and you will be compen—”

“No.”

“...I don’t believe you’re in the right headspace—”

“No,” you repeat, and you’re already standing up, legs moving before your brain can process your destination; Jingyuan makes a motion to grab your arm to stop you, but whatever face you’re wearing has him frozen in his tracks. “I’ll see to it I see this job through. All the way. On behalf of him.”

“Did you like your gift,” he wonders, and suddenly, he is nothing short of hideous—a beast in human skin, scum, something that existed to die; you gnaw down on your bottom lip and taste iron, anything to quell the traitorous tear that dampened his blindfold and ran past his own cheek. “Had you truly let down your guard so prematurely?”

“You monster,” you whisper, finally. “How could you take someone’s life so—so—”

“Life,” he murmurs, “is only made precious through death. A lesson not all learn early, a paradise unreachable for me… ah,” he chuckles, words catching in his throat when you try your damndest to suffocate the piece of shit in front of you.

“Do you think yourself nature?” You grit, voice a clamor; “Do you think yourself above life? What gives you the right to rob another of theirs—are you even human?”

“On the contrary,” he sighs, “I give them a gift of the highest honor—the gift of death. It is all predestined, those I kill; a slave to destiny is what I’ve become. I can only yearn for the day he returns my favor—the day I may walk over the blood I’ve spilt to welcome the end which I’ve sought for… all this time…”

You feel like vomiting. You’d never understood them, neither the woes of the soon-to-be marastruck or the elders, who viewed life as more a chore than something to be cherished; something to squash under their soles. They called it the curse of the abundance, but they had become the true curse—an enemy of life itself. 

“One day,” you promise, “you will fear death. One day, you will find something—someone—worth living for, and even your cruel, unbeating heart will take form, mimicking that of a real one. And I pray—I will make sure of it—you die that day, the day you fear death. Until then, I hope you wander. I hope you roam every corner of the galaxy, pushed to the brink of death and reviving once more; I hope you are always unsettled. I hope you never find peace.”

You hear the general’s men burst through the door a second later, ripping you away from the creature. He sits there, in silence and contemplation, and you’re unable to rip your eyes from his form;

His last words are amused, a murmur; the shade of summer trees.

“How odd of you to curse me with what is already reality.”

ꨄ︎

When he dreams, your hands are at his throat once more; you might be crying again, he can’t tell; your tears are corporeal, and he still can’t see you. He comes to the stifling realization that some part of him—a part that should be impassive—does not wish to see you in such a state, your sniffling drawing his ire.

“Change,” you spit, imagining your hands to pop that godforsaken throat open like it should have in the waking world, “stop looking like that. Change. Now.”

He makes no effort to move, as if your ministrations do not bother him in the slightest—just like in the real world. You let out a snarl.

“I warned you,” he says, as you begin beating down on his chest with the ferocity of a dozen wolves, “in time, you would find that your nightmares and I become one in the same.”

“I don’t care,” you howl, fists going raw in their onslaught; “Stop looking like that—that thing. It’s revolting.” 

He doesn’t respond; you wail and howl until your throat runs dry and the skin of your palms ache, seemingly, an eternity; you collapse on his chest, and he feels it turn wet with your tears. You’re shaking from exhaustion, anger, something more—too much.

And despite it all, through your rage, you reach an epiphany—a welcome one; for whatever demon may haunt you, it isn’t him. Isn’t Blade. You’d seen him at your altercation, lips unmarred and sporting not a single bruise he would’ve gained in your dream world; and despite the healing prowess of Xianzhou Natives, not a single one sported regenerative abilities to that degree.

You raise your face to meet his, and cup his cheeks—slowly, softly, unlike your prior treatment. It’s a shocking change, one that has him reeling from the whiplash.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper, a hoarse, scratchy apology. “I’ve been taking my rage out on you, but you—you are not him. You don’t deserve it, not really. I—I don’t know your circumstances, or why you’re here… but I don’t think you would have chosen this face. Not if you could’ve helped it.”

He says nothing. He should tell you the truth—observe as something shatters inside you once more, and have you reeling from the impact. He should break you cleanly.

But he doesn’t.

“You don’t have to do anything,” you say, sounding dead. “Just—make me forget. Please. I don’t want to think of anything anymore.”

He finds you completely pliant when he shifts your form on his chest, lacking your usual bite—you say nothing when he moves you under him, hand cradling the back of your head so he can tilt you for a kiss.

Your lips don’t move against his, merely open—you shudder, curling your legs inward instead of at his waist, and he finds himself despising it. You. Him. Everything in between.

You’re crying again. He finds himself unable to do anything other than mouth away your tears, even as you whisper for more, beg, even; an excuse to kiss you once more, again and again, repeatedly; catches them right over your mouth, sweeps that can almost be considered gentle, despite that being the last thing you want (need).

“Fool,” he murmurs, blanketing you in darkness; of hair, fabric, and his hands. You close your eyes, lulled into an even deeper sleep—a dream within a dream.

Before you doze off, you wonder if this is his own way of showing kindness—an effort made so you would not be forced to bear the torment of seeing his face once more.

taglist: @aliceu, @hypernovaxx

a/n: this was so painful to finish mostly bc I had to adult and do actual life things >.> lmk if anyone wants to be added to the taglist! (provided ur not a minor!!) ill probably edit this a lot bc god knows i did not proofread

[imagines--galore]

||The Thread of Fate|| Part Thirty

Summary: Soulmate AU. They say the Thread of Fate connects you to your one true love. It may tangle. It may stretch. But it will never break. Wrapped around your little finger it tightens when it feels your soulmate is close and loosens when they are far. And becomes visible with the colors of your soulmate’s Nation when you finally fall in love with them.

Pairing: Zuko x OroraOC (ATLA)

Rating || Genres || Warnings: T+ Romance. Adventure.

Previous Chapters - Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six, Part Seven, Part Eight, Part Nine, Part Ten, Part Eleven, Part Twelve, Part Thirteen, Part Fourteen, Part Fifteen, Part Sixteen, Part Seventeen, Part Eighteen, Part Nineteen, Part Twenty, Part Twenty-One, Part Twenty-Two, Twenty-Three, Twenty Four, Twenty-Five, Twenty-Six, Twenty-Seven, Twenty-Eight, Twenty-Nine,

A/N: A filler chapter, but I guess we all deserve one after all the emotions and turmoil and heavy stuff. And the next couple of chapters are also gonna be filler so.....yup! Hope you enjoy!

Zuko stared in amazement.

"So, you're telling me that you made your sword from a rock that came from space." The surprise and awe was evident in his voice as he lifted Sokka's sword at eye-level and inspected the blade. Sokka, who was sitting beside the Prince gave a proud grin.

"Yup! Toph even made an arm-band out of the leftover piece." The girl in question pulled off the only piece of jewelry she would probably ever wear and held it up, only to change it shape as she bended it to show her control over the space rock. "That's pretty amazing." Zuko commented, to which Toph gave a small shrug of nonchalance, a slightly smug grin on her lips.

There was no denying the pride in her voice as she added. "That's nothing compared to my invented metalbending." How exactly a thirteen year old had been able to do that, was still a mystery to him, but Zuko wasn't about to question Toph's age. None of them were of age to become Masters and yet everyone fighting beside Aang seemed to be powerful in their own right.

Aang was a Master Airbender and Waterbender. Not to mention his Earthbending skills weren't as abysmal as she had thought, according to Toph, and he was shaping up to be a pretty good Firebender too.

Katara was a Master Waterbender, and she was accomplished when it came to Healing Abilities. Not to mention Toph had told him how she had made her own water while in jail.

Toph was a Master Earthbender, while also having created Metalbending and mastering that as well. Zuko suspected it was a good thing he never had to face off against her in a battle.

Sokka was a good strategist and given that he had helped invent the War Balloon and other War Machines they'd used during the Invasion, Zuko had made the assumption that despite his rather clumsy nature, he was a formidable warrior.

Orora was a Master when it came to Healing Abilities, and, according to Aang, she was nearing the Master level as a Waterbender. She had really come a long way since he had met her.

And then there was him. A Master Firebender, with an expertise in sword-dueling from Piandao himself.

Guess it wasn't a surprise that he actually felt as if he were equal to all of them on every level. Something he had never felt before. With his peers or really anyone his own age, he had always been Advanced, so he hadn't been able to find a connection with them. With people older then him, other then his Uncle, they'd thought him to be too immature to give him the time of day. Plus most of them were just old gasbags who were more concerned about keeping their positions rather then let someone younger take their place.

For once, Zuko felt like he belonged with these people. Kids his own age.

And it felt nice.

Suddenly Toph sat up straight from where she had been sitting in a slouch and grinned. "Well look who's finally up!"

Though before the Earthbender had even begun to talk, Zuko knew who it was.

Since he had felt his string tug.

Sure enough, Orora was walking towards them, stretching her arms over her head as she did. "Morning." She managed to speak, despite the yawn that accompanied it. "You do realize that its nearly afternoon right?" Sokka asked the older girl who made her way towards the water pots they kept for washing up. "I mean I love to sleep in as much as the next guy, but this is a bit excessive for you isn't it?"

Glancing up from where she had been splashing some of the water on her face, Orora gave him a deadpanned look. "That's because no one else has a room mate who snores like a platypus bear." She shot back, glaring at Toph as she did. The younger girl grinned. "Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning."

Orora simply rolled her eyes as she sat down between Sokka and Toph, which put Zuko sitting across from her, completing the little circle.

Glancing at the sky, the Waterbender sighed. "Guess I'll just have to wait till lunch to get something to eat." She muttered under her breath, reaching up to run a hand through her hair, which she had left unbound for the time being. Or rather because she'd left the strips she tied her hair with in the fountain room and hadn't been back to retrieve them.

She barely had any time to pout when a bowl of rice appeared in her line of vision. Orora blinked, staring at the hand holding it out for her.

"I saved some for you." Zuko stated, clearing his throat as he did. "Aang and Katara went off to practice Waterbending and Sokka and I were in charge of cleaning up so I figured I'd save the leftover for you." Why he felt the need to explain himself further was beyond him.

The gesture was enough for old memories to reawaken. All those times she had been the one to save food for him, and cover it so it would stay warm for him.

Reaching out, she took the bowl, cradling it between her palms as she looked up at him and gave a small smile. "Thanks." Sokka, who had pretended to go back to polishing his sword, glanced between the both of them out of the corner of his eyes. Meanwhile, Toph picked up on something that she had held back for so long, but wasn't about to because she knew it would cause chaos and embarrassment for both Orora and Zuko.

And she lived for it.

"Woah!" She exclaimed softly, grinning from ear to ear.

Zuko glanced at her, frowning slightly. "What?"

"Relax guys! It was just a bowl of rice, not a proposal. Your heartbeats are going crazy."

The result was instantaneous. Zuko went red in the face, his mouth opening and closing as if he wanted to say something but couldn't find the words for it. Sokka choked on his own laughter, fell backwards, regained his breath, before resuming laughing. Orora pursed her lips, her cheeks pink, as she glared at her friend.

"I can feel you glaring at me right now Ice Princess." Toph commented, not at all bothered by the heat she could feel behind the look Orora was giving her despite being unable to see. Smiling smugly, the blind girl raised her cup of water to her lips to take a drink.

Only to find it frozen solid.

"Hey!" She protested, glaring in Orora's direction who simply smirked before taking a bite of her rice. Having regained a little bit of his composure, Sokka managed to sit up straight once more, though he put his space sword back in it's sheath. "So............, did the two of you manage to talk things out?" He asked, glancing between the still red-faced and slightly annoying looking Fire Nation Prince and a Waterbender who was calmly eating her breakfast.

Obviously neither of them knew the two of them, along with Aang and Katara had been spying on them last night. Before the either of the concerned person could make a comment, Toph spoke up. "Course they did. Firebug's been chirpy all morning hasn't he? Must mean something good came out of yesterday."

All three of them paused.

"Firebug?" Zuko echoed, to which Toph nodded, looking way too proud of herself. "Don't worry. That won't be your only nickname. I also have Angry Guy and Prince Pouty." The last nickname had Orora clapping a hand over her mouth to muffle the snort of laughter that escaped her. Zuko threw an annoyed glare in her direction to which she shrugged. "Well not like you haven't been called that before."

Her words only prompted him to pout, which resulted in Orora and Sokka bursting out into loud laughter.

                                           ————————–

When she had woken up earlier that morning, Orora had expected things to still be tense between her and Zuko. Not wanting to deal with what was to come, and simply bask in the knowledge that she and Zuko were, for once, in agreement when it came to what they were for one another, she'd closed her eyes, and went back to sleep.

The next time she woke, the girl had forced herself to get out of bed. And yes, when she had stepped out of her room she had been nervous, unable to determine how things would be between her and Zuko.

Would they still be at odds and be awkward around one another, or would things be just as they had been in Ba Sing Se?

She found herself praying to the Spirits it was the latter.

And Zuko's simple act of saving her some breakfast and giving it to her, was enough to shatter a few of the residual reservations she had about her decision, while also making her see that perhaps, sometimes, prayers were duly answered.

Once she'd finished her breakfast, she dragged Sokka off to retrieve whatever she had left in the fountain room yesterday.

In reality, she had needed some advice.

Just one last bit of doubt before she could truly move on.

Sokka, sensing her hesitation, saved her by being the first one to speak. "So, are things alright between you two now?" He asked, peering at her face to make sure he saw any emotion that passed over her features.

Though he shouldn't have worried about her hiding anything from him, because quite honestly, Orora was sick and tired of hiding her true feelings. She had been forced to do it her entire life, and the past few months, the two times she had tried to keep her emotions in, she had, for lack of a better word, exploded.

And she was done.

"We talked." She revealed. "And he was ready to leave if his being here was too much for me." As they stepped into the fountain room, she spied her bag and walked over to retrieve it. "Sokka?" She called, clutching the pieces of blue she used to tie her hair back. "When did you decided that it was time for you to move on and put aside your grief for Yue?"

Turning, the girl watched as his expression grew somber and he pursed his lips, thinking over his answer. "I didn't." He finally revealed. "When we ran into Suki outside of Ba Sing Se, there was a point where she revealed she was my soulmate, but I didn't."

He sighed. "I thought I would be dishonoring Yue's memory by getting together with Suki." Sokka paused, allowing his memory of the girl to wash over him, before he smiled softly, Suki's face coming to his mind. "But then I realized that its not what she would've wanted. She would've wanted me to be happy." His smile widened. "So I told Suki she was my soulmate too."

Having walked over to stand in front of him, Orora gripped the strap of her bag. "But, didn't you feel any guilt or anything when you finally let go of your feelings for Yue?" She asked, wanting nothing more then to understand what he had gone through to move forward and carry on with his life.

The Warrior nodded. "I did, but Yue's sacrifice also made me realize that life is too short, and we shouldn't let things out of our control stop us from living our lives."

She blinked, his words settling within her and resonating more then anything. Sokka's advice were the very basis of her reasoning to let go of all that had happened between her and Zuko and move forward. And it did surprise her that Sokka had chosen to do the same because, she didn't think it would be easy to let go of all those feelings.

As he watched her expression change from uncertainty to realization, Sokka smiled, crossing his arms over his chest. "Seems for once I said something that didn't result in an ice mask." He joked, to which Orora smiled at him. "Don't get too confident about that. We still have the rest of the day." At his expression, she laughed.

"Thanks Sokka." He grinned, reaching out to wrap an arm around her shoulders as they began to walk back to where their friends were. "No problem. All I ask is that I don't have to walk in on you making goo-goo eyes at each other, or smooching. No smooching in front of me either, gives me the Ick."

He would've continued, if Orora hadn't allowed her wrist to snap and an ice mask to slap over his mouth, effectively shutting him up.

                                           ————————–

"Are you sure you should be doing this here?" Teo asked in a slightly nervous tone as he watched Toph crack her knuckles. The Earthbender scoffed. "Please this place has been standing a hundred years. A little bending match isn't gonna cause any harm."

Since Toph felt she hadn't appropriately kicked anyone's butt in the last few days she had offered a friendly bending match. And Sokka, being an ultimate Earth Rumble fan, his words, had volunteered Haru to face off against Toph.

And since the voices of reason, Katara and Aang, weren't around to stop them, and Orora had agreed because she had wanted a break from Toph's teasing, no one else had been opposed to the idea of a little entertainment.

Haru had quickly bended a large circular shape in the floor. The one to even step on the line would loose. It was a fairly large circle so enough for the two Earth benders to fight it out.

"And the person who uses any material from outside the circle looses." Orora called out from where she sat next to an excited Sokka. He looked almost as if he would vibrate out of his seat. She really didn't understand what was so exciting about two people fighting. Once both Earthbenders were within the ring, Sokka stood up.

"And begin!"

The best was two out of three.

As soon as Toph landed the first win, Sokka leapt to his feet, waving his arms in the air as he screamed and hollered. "Woohoo! Go Toph!" His sudden jump in the air included a knee in the face for Zuko who sat beside him, and a smack in the face to Orora as he waved his arms. She'd been sitting beside him, though on top of a rock giving her some elevation, and grumbled as she rubbed her aching nose.

"Calm down Sokka." She said, as Haru stepped into the ring once more. "Its just a bending battle."

The words seemed to act as a catalyst of some sort, since Sokka, The Duke and Teo, who were now just as immersed as Sokka was, turned to her with a look of utter aghast and shock. "Just a battle?!" Sokka shrieked as The Duke added. "This is the coolest thing I've ever seen. And I've seen a lot of things." He stated his eyes never wavering from Toph's strong figure.

Alright so she couldn't fault The Duke for being fascinating. It did involve his soulmate after all. But Teo as well? He looked ready to jump out of his wheelchair as he waved his arms in the air.

As the second round of Earth Rumble began, Orora dropped her chin in the palm of her hand as she rested the elbow atop her thigh. "Its just two people throwing around rocks for the fun of it." Glancing at Zuko where he sat in front of her, she nudged him gently with her knee. "I don't see you going ga-ga like these three. Not to your liking then?" She asked, as Zuko glanced briefly at the three shouting spectators.

He shrugged. "I mean its interesting, but I kinda agree. Its just two people throwing rocks at one another." At that moment Haru delivered a particularly brutal attack that even Toph had a little difficulty in maneuvering. But she was able to at the last moment.

Though to save herself, she had to send a rather sizable boulder in the direction of the spectators.

"Look out!"

It was only their instincts that saved Orora, Sokka and Zuko from getting crushed.

The three of them jumped out of the way, leaving the boulder to smash into the place where, mere moments ago, they had been sitting. Orora, a little winded from throwing herself to the floor, raised her head to shout at Toph. "Watch where you aim those things!"

And by 'Watch' she of course meant watch with her feet.

Having landed on his feet instead of his face, Zuko stood, holding a hand out to help her up. Grumbling under her breath, Orora stood, brushing the dust from the front of her shirt as she did. "You okay?" He asked, the concern evident in his tone, even as she glared darkly at Toph. "I'm fine." She growled, blowing a strand of hair from her face.

Sokka wasn't even deterred, already on his feet and shouting at Toph to end the match amid Teo and The Duke's words of encouragement.

It would seem Toph had no desire to prolong the match any longer. A few minute later, Haru was over the line and on the ground. "Yeah! Go Blind Bandit!" At Zuko's look of confusion Orora quickly explained. "That was her name when she competed in actual Earth Rumbles."

"Anyone else up for a challenge." Toph called out, basking in the afterglow of her victories. She raised an arm, pointing to where Orora and Zuko were standing. "Since you both are the only other Benders around, I think it should be one of you."

Zuko shook his head. "Its not safe to use firebending in a tight space. I might accidentally burn someone." Orora looked at Zuko in surprise. "Wait....did you just...." She trailed off as Zuko turned his head to glance back at her.

Orora remembered a Zuko who would never have backed down from a challenge. Who would never have given up the chance to fight against someone.

A tender smile pulled at her lips as she reached up to playfully ruffle his hair. "You really have changed haven't you?" She laughed at his attempt to push her hand away, but he was smiling as well, because yes, he had changed. And he liked himself this way. Not because Orora liked him, but because for once he wasn't at war with himself about anything.

"Well since Firebug is out. Orora! Get your butt in here!" Toph called, sounding more then a little impatient. The Waterbender shook her head. "I'm not about to fight just for the sake of entertainment Toph." She said, to which Sokka made a strange sound of horror, as if he were unable to comprehend someone wouldn't want to fight for the fun of it.

But Toph, not wanting to stop just yet grinned. "I'll make you a bet. You fight against me, and if you win I don't tease you and Zuko for three days."

Zuko blinked, frowning as he glanced at Orora who looked as if she were actually considering the deal. Which she wouldn't take, he figured, she would rather-

"Deal!"

He stared at her, a little surprised. And he wasn't the only one. Though judging by the smile that pulled at her lips, she had something up her sleeve.

"But if I win, you will do what I've been asking you since we came to the Temple." Zuko smiled, shaking his head. He should've known his Soulmate would have an ulterior motive.

Toph scowled at Orora, and for a moment the Waterbender thought she wouldn't accept the deal. But then the blind girl nodded.

Orora smirked.

                                           ————————–

While Sokka and Haru quickly moved the two pots of water on either side of the circle so that Orora could draw from them anytime during the battle, the Waterbender quickly readied herself.

Which included quickly picking up sections of her hair from either side of her temples and pulling out the hair comb Zuko had returned to her. A little too busy gathering any spare piece of hair behind her head so it wouldn't get in her face, she missed the way Zuko's expression softened at the sight of the comb as it nestled in her dark brown hair once more.

Exactly where it belonged.

A stray piece of hair did land just above her right eye, but she wasn't bothered by it. The rest of her hair she allowed to hang free, thick dark brown locks settling in unruly waves just behind her shoulders. From her bag she pulled out her gloves, pulling them on as she stepped into the circle. If she was going to use all of her body to dodge Toph's attacks, she had no desire to cut her skin and get hurt necessarily.

For a moment everything and everyone stood still, watching with bated breath.

Toph made the first move, creating a row of sharp rocks protruding from the floor and towards Orora.

Inhaling deeply, Orora dropped into a stance, her arms creating twin elegant circles, pulling the water from both the pots and allowing it to create a whirlpool around her, elevating her into the air.

"Showing your hand early in the battle. A little over-confident there Ice Princess?" Toph called as soon as she sensed what had happened. Orora grinned. "Just want to end this quickly so I can get what I want." She called back.

Throwing her arm out, the girl shot a tendril of water towards the blind girl. Sensing the attack as it flew through the air, Toph quickly brought up a shield of earth. The water dissipated, dropping to the ground where the earth sucked it in.

Knowing she would tire herself out if she continued the whirlpool, Orora quickly dropped the intensity. And not a minute later several sharp rock projectiles flew through the air, right where her head had been a moment ago. Getting into her battle mindset was easy as she created a short yet wide circular pillar of ice and stood atop it.

The leftover water from the whirlpool was sent in a small yet strong tidal wave towards her opponent. Who avoided it by creating a ball of earth around her. "You're holding back Princess." Toph called once she had dropped her earth shield. "That's because I don't want any stray attack to hurt anyone else." Orora called back, gesturing to their spectators who had only escaped Toph's previous attack of sharp earth projectile because Haru had been there to deflect it.

Toph waved her hand. "They can take care of themselves." So saying, she attacked Orora head-on with a large boulder aimed straight towards her. Without even flinching the girl shot a bubble of water towards it, big enough to encompass and freeze it in midair. Throwing her leg out, Orora pushed a disc of pure thin ice to fly through the air, slicing the boulder in half before it had even dropped to the floor. But the disc didn't stop there. It flew through the air, landing just beside Toph who barely flinched.

Instead she created several steps, one higher then the next, as she climbed up in the air. Orora knew the next attack would be from the air, and the instant she skated away from her perch, Toph's earth clad figure came crashing down, sending her trunk of ice showering in each and every direction.

Orora pivoted on her feet, her arms thrown out as she caught each and every last fragment of the ice and instead directed it towards Toph. Though it did little damage as Toph simply created a pyramid of earth around her to defend herself from being pierced. One face of the pyramid flew through the air, sliding across the earthy terrain and would've nearly slammed into Orora if she hadn't somersaulted out of the way. She'd barely landed on her feet when her arms were coated with water. Hardly standing up from the crouch she had landed in, the Waterbender threw her arms out to try and catch Toph by the arms.

Of course that plan worked out as well as could be expected given that Toph felt the water coming halfway and counteracted it by kicking her foot out and sending Orora to the ground where the earth lurched under her feet. Getting the wind knocked out of her wasn't exactly a new thing, but then the idea that formed in her head next was certainly she'd never thought of before.

"Alright Toph." She grumbled, barely standing up from where she lay. "You wanna be like that then." Her hand shot out, sending a wave of water towards the Earthbender.

Freezing her feet in place.

"What the?!! Orora!" Toph called, not having expected her friend to play dirty like that. Rising to her feet, Orora grinned. "What're you gonna do now that you can't see?" She goaded, her blue eyes landed on the half broken boulder that was still laying there, each half covered in ice.

"Lets see you dodge this!" So saying she sent both boulders flying, the ice allowing her to control them both. What she hadn't calculated was the fact that Toph could sense the earthen halves of the rocks and while one was knocked out of the way with a swipe of her arm, landing harmlessly on the ground, the other wasn't as lucky.

The force behind Toph's bending was enough to send the ice covered boulder flying through the air, and landing with a resounding crash..............right where the rooms they had all been sleeping in were located.

Every eye turned towards the location in horror, minus Toph.

The boulder had taken out two pillars as it went, before crashing through, first Katara's room, going through Sokka and Aang's room, before landing halfway between Toph and Orora's and Teo and The Duke's.

"Katara is gonna kill us."

                                           ————————–

Suffice to say, it wasn't a pleasant conversation explaining to Aang and Katara what had happened. Toph and Haru had tried to clean things up a bit, but obviously they couldn't recreate the architecture the way it had been before.

With the rooms destroyed, and the remaining one's on the verge of collapse, it was decided that all of them would sleep in the courtyard outside instead.

Which meant cleaning up the debris from their impromptu battles, against each other as well as Combustion Man.

"Why did I agree to this?" Orora grumbled as she allowed a small stream of water to sweep away most of the dust and grime that had accumulated on the floor over the years. Toph, Haru and Aang were busy clearing away the bigger rocks and boulders. Katara was supervising Sokka, The Duke and Teo as the moved everything from the rooms to the courtyard. Zuko was stuck with preparing the everything for their lunch, which Orora would be cooking later. Of course this meant cutting a lot of vegetables.

A task he still hated.

Glancing up from where he had chopped the last of the carrots, Zuko shrugged. "You tell me. Normally you don't get goaded into taking bets." Orora huffed, as she sent another small wave of water to collect the dirt. "Yeah well this was one chance I could get Toph to do something shes been putting off for days. She may be a sneak, but she will always honor her bets." Washing away the last of the dirt, she smirked. "Kind of reminds me of you."

He rolled his eyes at her, trying not to show just how happy he was that she spoke to him so.........normally.

"You've gotten really good." He complimented. "And you managed to bend with your feet too, so I guess you figured that out." Trying hard not to sound too proud, Orora grinned. "It took me awhile to perfect, but I finally got the hang of it." She said, making a small circle on the floor with the tip of her shoe. The both of them watch as a small stream of water snaked across the floor and in a circle of ice, following the movement of her foot.

Though she wasn't able to keep her balance on one foot for long. She tilted to the side with a gasp, and would've fallen if Zuko hadn't reached out to grasp her arm and caught her. "Though maybe you should take some balancing lessons from Aang." The Prince suggested with a teasing glint in his warm golden eyes. Orora playfully smacked his chest.

He didn't let go of her arm, while her hand didn't lift from his chest where she had hit him moments ago. Everything around her seemed to fade away as she met his gaze, unburdened. Then again, the moment wasn't so dissimilar from what Zuko was feeling at the moment. Though while Orora felt a rush of contentment in the comfort of the moment, Zuko felt relief.

Relief that now when she looked at him, it wasn't with rage, sadness and uncertainty. But with silent surety.

"Thank you." He said, his fingers gently gripping her forearm. The girl frowned lightly. "What for?" She asked, her head tilting to the side.

He smiled.

"For giving me another chance." He revealed, his hand sliding down to where her hand was, only to link their fingers together.

The fingers that had the string tied to it.

The string that glowed with the respective colors of the other's Nation since last night.

Seeing the blush rise to her cheeks never ceased to make him smile, and that moment was no exception.

Was it strange that only yesterday it hadn't seemed like there was any hope for them, and yet now, standing there, looking at her, Zuko couldn't help but thank every Spirit, known and unknown, that he had his Soulmate back.

They still had a long way to go, still had to work out on some things.

But being civil to one another and actually speaking, being friends again, was one step closer to what they both wanted in the end.

"Why is the floor not clean yet?!"

The sudden exclamation broke the moment, and caused Orora to let out a gasp of surprise. She pivoted on her feet, smacking Zuko in the face as her hair flew behind her as she turned to smile sheepishly at a glowering Katara.

"Sorry. Sorry. I'm on it!"

                                           ————————–

"So who exactly won?"

Sokka asked once Katara had stopped chewing them all out and had assigned chores to everyone. Which included Orora and Toph making lunch. They'd only just sat down to eat, with Katara glaring at her brother over her bowl of food. Everyone glanced at the two girls who sat next to one another. Orora glanced at Toph who just shrugged. "We'll just call it even." She stated. "For now."

"But what about the bet?" Haru asked, leaning forward, eager to know the results. Aang, who had been more then a little miffed about being unable to watch the matches, intervened. "Well since no one won, I guess it means you'll both have to uphold your end of the bargain."

Orora grinned, while Toph let out a sigh. Turning her sightless gaze towards the older girl, Toph nearly shuddered at the way Orora's heart was beating with excitement.

"There's no getting out of it, is there?"

"Nope."

"Oh boy."

                                           ————————–

Tag List - @wavesofchaos​ @violet-potter​ @rennysketch​ @emma-andrea1 @lovesammikinzz @fuzzyfestcat @msrawog @notsaelty @lust-for-pan @aces-tattooartist @jinxxangel13 @lotr-got @bitterspoons @realrintaro @gatorgirl151 @inutheangel @heartfully10 @lucaaahhh @juniper-july19 @anuttellaa @gfksz @bussyvussy @punksnotdeadbutiam @ablofftoneverland-blog-blog @slut-for-menn @vyliie @army-moa75 @juwhls @aqlodun @lovelybaka @glowyruby @niktwazny303

[jymwahuwu]

kjhgfghjk oooh ooh! jing yuan with a wingweaver reader! perhaps the reader is a half breed and pulls a zuko where she is banished from her people because she may have been too 'soft' or 'critical' of their ways.

( aka reader actually saying "um sorry but i think being a band of space pirates terrorizing hapless people in the name of yaoshi might be...idk...wrong..." ).

however due to her status as a denizen of abundance, the luofu captures and detains her? jing yuan, having a soft enough spot for birds as is might grow a but too interested in the reader? especially with how awkward and easy to fluster she is.

and oh, she's been cast away, scarred and scorned by her own people for being kind? for being too 'gentle'? it's easy enough to prove that the reader is not a threat and is allowed to wander under strict surveillance. and he's watching her too, always watching, ready to comfort her when she wakes from those painful nightmares, to satiate the touch starvation she had to put up with for so long as she's a mewling mess below him, to stand by her.

just as long as she never leaves his gaze, see? he is an emanator of the hunt after all, and she's a denizen of the abundance in his territory. it would be messy if she were to disobey his orders.

https://honkai-star-rail.fandom.com/wiki/Wingweaver

Thank you for sharing this!! immediately studied wingweaver. I want to be the general's pet bird and be teased by him in his hand...😩💕💕

-CW: yandere, non-con, manipulation, humiliation, forced pet play

"Leave, since you can't agree with our life. Don't come back!"

The arrogant Wingweavers drove you out of the tree-like space world after you once again refused to join them in looting and violating Xianzhou and other space civilizations in the name of Aeon Yaoshi. You wandered and starved on several small planets, and then snuck into a cargo Starskiff to rest.

All Starskiffs need to be checked. As soon as the cloud knights noticed the wings on your back, they immediately surrounded you with swords raised in their hands. That's one of the signs of Denizens of Abundance! After Jing Yuan was informed by the knights and arrived, you were already firmly trapped in a web woven from cosmic materials. Like a frightened bird, you wailed and struggled, holding on to the net with both hands, while your precious wings trembled slightly. Some feathers had fallen to the ground in the commotion. Something soft inside him was touched.

"Who are you? What is your purpose?" After the basic interrogation, Jing Yuan ordered his subordinates to untie your net and tie your wrists with soft ropes. You sobbed and chirped unconsciously.

The background check was completed within a day. That information was unearthed from you, and there were signs of your expulsion. The general can prove that you are not a threat. The condition is that you must be under surveillance.

Jing Yuan… almost feels sorry for being able to do whatever he wants with you. A collar is locked around your neck with a heart-shaped symbol on it, which includes tracking and forced sleep functions. Everyone can clearly see the collar around your neck. This is so humiliating. You plead for the collar to be invisible or to use a bracelet instead, but are reminded that as Denizens of Abundance you are not entitled to bargain.

And you know you're being watched all the time. No matter where you wander in Xianzhou…

Jing Yuan gave you some Strales and Credits as pocket money, and even graciously gave you a mobile phone device, so you wouldn't forget to buy him a gift and thank him, right? He's not that unreasonable. You can have friends...just remember to stay away from them, people who are attracted to your wings and shy, gentle nature. People who have romantic thoughts about you.

Your sleeping area is a large cage in the General's mansion, filled with plush cushions, pillows, and dolls…or…sleeping next to your master is a reasonable alternative. Jing Yuan is not that mean in this regard and enjoys combing the feathers on your wings or sleeping on them. Those feathers were as soft and delicate as velvet.

He set up a social account for you to share your lovely daily life (without your consent). This…is like a warning to all Denizens of Abundance. They witnessed your pampered life in the hands of General Luofu and were pissed off. How can you be so submissive? How could you be the enemy's… pet bird? They regarded this as a demonstration, but only Jing Yuan knew that his main purpose was to let the whole world know how lovable you are, and the warning was incidental.

One day you wake up from the cage and are caught by the flash of the camera. Jing Yuan blocked the light with his hand, told the film crew not to disturb you like this, and then allowed them to continue filming. You panicked and hid behind the general with trembling wings. He lifted you up and explained to the film crew how shy and easily frightened you were… Later you found out on Space TV that they were filming a documentary about you… the theme was General Luofu and his pet bird. You were annoyed and embarrassed, but after arguing with Jing Yuan, you sat on his cock and apologized...

Discipline and comfort are necessary. Jing Yuan loves having you curled up against his chest. Those little breathing sounds and the rise and fall of your chest. The wings relied on and surrounded him.

"Don't-don't drive me away..." You exclaimed from the nightmare, whimpering and sobbing in fear. The general wipes away your tears and kisses your forehead and eyelids. “No one will expel you.” While intertwining his lips with yours, he used his fingertips to draw circles on your clit. Your butt is supple and springy... The hand spreads your ass cheeks and presses the cock into your warm walls. Listening to your beautiful moans is like singing to him in a cage. He's glad you're not as aggressive as one of those wingweavers, such a sweet little bird...

Those hunting eyes are on you. He is the hunting general, just like the Aeon Lan they admire, he has only focused on the same goal for thousands of years, fighting against the civilization of the Denizens of Abundance.

divider @/cafekitsune

[padam-in-padamm]

okay so. I've had dnd on the brain for the past few weeks, so naturally I've had some thoughts about a joker out fantasy/dnd au, assigning them all races and classes and subclasses (and making some moodboards for them)

I am still very much a beginner when it comes to dnd and most of my knowledge comes from scouring the internet rather than having any actual experience, so this is 90% based on vibes, but here we go!

Bojan: human bard

I mean come on, this guy was born to be an entertainer. I couldn't see him as any other class, naturally charming anyone he comes across and inspiring his friends to keep going. I feel like he'd be college of eloquence, just to really ramp up those charisma skills, and the Universal Speech feature is perfect for him. I could also see him multiclassing in swashbuckler rogue just for fun, those vibes are very fitting for him as well. Poor guy rolled terribly on Constitution though so he keeps getting sick

Kris: half-elf wizard

Look at that man and tell me he isn't an elf. The wizard mechanics just scream Kris to me, I think he'd love the organizational aspect of it all. School of divination subclass would be perfect for the guy who loves to make plans and to-do lists and to be on top of things. Also I could see him having the noble background, or at least his family being notable and famous in some way, his dad being a former adventurer who Bojan used to idolize or something to that effect

Jan: tiefling rogue

Sneaky and quiet and fades into the background, but also very good at what he does. I admit this one was the most based on vibes rather than rational thought, but idc it works for me, and it gives him a very fun vibe contrast with the class I gave Nace. As for subclass I could see him being an arcane trickster, that also gives him some ability overlap with Kris the same way they have overlapping roles in the band as guitarists

Jure: tabaxi fighter

Yeah Jure being a tabaxi is non-negotiable for me. As for his class, this one I was the least sure about - I definitely see him being a martial class rather than a spellcaster, but I'm not sure if a fighter specifically works best. I could also see him being (or multiclassing as) a barbarian or ranger, something with more thematic ties to nature. Either way Strength is his highest stat, but he's also not a brainless fighter, I could see Battle Master working for him as a subclass. Also I'm assigning him the two-weapon fighting style, let him smack monsters with two swords or axes like drumsticks

Nace: human cleric

The token healer of the party, but I actually think it works really well for him. He wanted to be a vet after all, and I think he'd be very comfortable protecting and supporting his friends. Him having the highest Wisdom in the party works well with him being the oldest and most experienced of the bunch. Life domain for sure, and I'm having fun imagining his holy symbol being a turtle, because longevity and good health and protection or something

[lunastrophe]

Drow Language 🕷️ Glossary from Drow of the Underdark (2e)

Drow glossary from Drow of the Underdark (E. Greenwood, 1991), a supplemental rules book for use with AD&D (2e). Around two hundred canon words that allow to create simple sentences, messages and the like.

I organized the terms from the glossary into categories, so that the range of topics and the variety of vocabulary for each of them could be seen more clearly. Unsurprisingly, categories with the most words are connected to dealing with people, stealth and fight, travel and exploration, also magic and spirituality.

🕷️ To Be

tlu – be, to be phuul – are zhah – is

🕷️ Pronouns

usstan – I, self (literally, "this one") usstil – one in my place dos – you dosst – yours dosstan – yourself nind – they, them, their, theirs* nindyn – those vel’uss – who

*In fan-created drow language sources, "them", "their" and "theirs" are usually translated differently to avoid confusion.

🕷️ People, Professions, Titles

dobluth – outcast faern – wizard, magic-worker of any race or gender ilharn – patron, title of matron mother’s chosen mate ilhar – mother, to mother* ilharess – matron or matron mother, title of a female ruling a noble drow House ilharessen – matrons jabbuk – master, male in charge of some task or office malla – honored, term of respect qu’ellar – House, titled noble family sargtlin – (drow) warrior valsharess – queen** yathrin – (drow) priestess yathtallar – (drow) high priestess

*Only in a biological sense - "to mother" as in "to give birth to", not "to nourish and comfort". ** Title typically reserved for Lolth.

🕷️ Friends, Enemies, Relationships

abban – ally, not-enemy abbil – comrade, trusted friend* akh – band, group inthigg – agreement, treaty khaless – trust** maglust – apart, alone nau – no ogglin – rival, opponent, enemy*** qua’laelay – argument, disagreement, confrontation, but not yet open conflict quarth – order, exercise of authority quarthen – ordered, commanded ssinssrigg – passion, lust, greed, longing, love**** thalra – meet, encounter talthalra – meeting, council, parley thalack – war, open fighting xal – may, might, perhaps

* At least as trusted as possible in drow terms (see khaless). ** Especially foolish or misplaced kind of trust, since drow do not really believe in genuine trust. *** "Active"; all creatures are considered potential ogglin until proven otherwise. **** Not a selfless, unconditional, romantic kind of love.

🕷️ Non-Drow, Monsters

darthiir – faeries, surface elves, traitors gol – goblin goln – goblins haszak – illithid, mind flayer haszakkin – illithids rivvil – human rivvin – humans orbb – spider phindar – monster, dangerous being, especially a non-intelligent creature

🕷️ Insults

iblith – offal, excrement, carrion* wael – fool

* Often used in reference to non-drow and slaves.

🕷️ Battle, Life, Death

bautha – dodge, to dodge dro – life, alive elgg – kill, slay, destroy elghinn – death honglath – clever thinking, calm, bravery, good behavior jivvin – fun, play, but in sense of amusing cruelty, "animal spirits" kulg – snag, hitch, blockage* kulggen – deliberate rampart, shield, or other barrier luth – cast, throw, hurl phalar – grave, battle-marker plynn – take, size sargh – confidence in weapons, battle-might, strength-at-arms, valor sarn! – beware!, warning! sreen – danger streea – suicide, death in the service of Lolth, a House, or a community streeaka – reckless(ness), fearless(ness) thalackz’hind – raid, attack from afar ultrinnan – conquering, victory, to win or prevail velve – blade, dagger, knife, sword z'ress – power, strength, force, dominance**

* Impediment to will or to plans, but also an actual, material blockage, like debris in a shaft or passage. ** Especially strength of the will that allows a person, for example, to successfully manipulate others.

🕷️ Schemes, Stealth, Shadows

brorn – surprise brorna – surprises golhyrr – surprise, ruse, trap ilindith – aim, goal, hoped-for event inth – plan, stratagem, scheme kyone – alert / alertly, wary / warily, careful / carefully kyorl – watch, wait, guard kyorlin – watching, waiting, guarding olist – caution, stealth oloth – darkness, utter natural darkness or magical darkness ssussun – light, brightness veldrin – shadows, concealment afforded by varying light velkyn – unseen, hidden, invisible waela – foolish, unaware, unwary

🕷️ Magic, Faith, Destiny

elamshin – destiny, the will of Lolth* elend – usual, traditional faer – magic faerl – magical faerbol – magical item orthae – holy, sacred Quarvalsharess – Goddess (title of Lolth) quar’valsharess – goddess (other than Lolth) ul-ilindith – destiny yath – temple, also property, work or decree of the temple Yorn – power, will or servant-creature of the Goddess (Lolth)

* Destiny as unique purpose, connected to the intent of higher power (Lolth).

🕷️ Work, Learning, Exploration

colbauth – path, known way mrimm – guide, key, inspiration noamuth – wanderer, lost, unknown obsul – opening, door, gap or chink ragar – find, discover, uncover talinth – think, consider xun – do, to complete or accomplish xund – striving, effort, work xundus – doing, achievement, work completed or manifested in some concrete result zhaunil – learning, wisdom, knowledge z'hin – walk z'hind – trip, journey, expedition z'orr – climb

🕷️ Wealth, Goods, Gifts

belaern – wealth, coinage, treasure belbau – to give belbol – gift bol – item, thing, an unknown, unidentified, mysterious or important object cahallin – food, but only produced or harvested, including raid-spoils; not hunted game or cooked food

🕷️ Numbers, Quantity

uss – one ust – first draa – two drada – second llar – three llarnbuss – third tuth – both mzild – more jal – all

🕷️ Comparisons

alur – better, superior alurl – best, foremost taga – than ultrin – supreme, highest, conqueror ultrine – supreme, highest (applied to Lolth only)

🕷️ Relations In Space And Time

alust – in front, facing, in the forefront bauth – around, about dal – from del – of doeb – out elendar – continue, continued, continuing, enduring harl – down, under, below izil – as lil – the lueth – and natha – a pholor – on, upon rath – back ratha – backs rathrae – behind ulu – to wun – in wund – among, within, into

For more of my drow lore ramblings, feel free to check my pinned post 🕷️

[autumnaaltonen]

Anonymous requested: "headcannons about Alucard and Alexander Anderson being in love with the same S/O?"

I was feeling more in the one-shot mood, so I hope you like this either way.

Alucard and Alexander Anderson Being in Love With The Same S/O

It started at the National Gallery, where you tagged along with Sir Integra, Walter, Seras and (you think?) Alucard. Tbh, he disappeared the moment you all stepped out of the limo, so you imagine the flirtatious vampire has wandered off to find a dark closet to rest in before being called upon when if things go awry.

Seras, too, leaves you three, mentioning something about “finding a good plan B”. Whatever the hell that meant.

So that just left you, Sir Integra, and Walter, to wander about the marble hallways of paintings, waiting for your invited company to arrive.

If only they would show up on time for once…

“What nuisances,” Integra grumbles, before turning to you. “Go see if you can weed the heretics out. I’m positive they are perusing the exhibit, purposefully wasting our time.”

“Of course, Sir,” you obey, bowing slightly before making your way through the maze-like museum. You imagine that whoever the has Iscariot sent to London; well, they must stick out of the average crowd.

Scanning the tourists for holy robes, uniforms, hell, even a gun or sword, you fail to spot anybody who could possibly be your tardy visitors. Eventually you resort to exploring the forbidden staff area, knowing that both Hellsing and the Iscariot have the pontifical balls to break simple rules. Opening many doors with obvious ‘DO NOT ENTER’ and ‘PRIVATE PROPERTY’ signs, but finding most of them locked, you sigh in disappointment, deciding to make your way back to your boss.

But then you spot a familiar head of blonde hair, exactly where she shouldn't be.

“Seras, is that you? What the hell are you doing back here?” you call to her, seeing the young vampire in an unfamiliar uniform. She gives you a cheeky smile and an awkward wave, before disappearing around a corner. Tailing her, you run back down the hall, only to turn the same corner and collide into what you could only assume to be a wall, solid and sturdy as you smack face first and begin fall to the ground. Startled and blurry-eyed, you prepare to break your fall before a very long and strong arm catches you around your shoulders.

“Woah there, friend. Are you alright?” an unfamiliar Irish-tongued man asks, lifting you back onto your feet. You rub your sore forehead, blinking your vision back to coherency before looking up…up...and up, to your human wall.

Christ, he’s tall.

“Haha, yes, indeed you can thank our lord and saviour for that.”

“Oh wow, did I say that out loud? I’m so sorry—” you spy the golden crucifix and clerical collar around his neck, “—Father. I shouldn’t have been running. I saw that my friend had gottn a bit lost and…well she’s gone now.” You huff in annoyance, knowing you’ll give Seras a good talking to later. She’s becoming far too much like her new master as of late.

“All is well, my dear. Actually, I have found me’self a bit lost as well; the museum is just so beautiful that I stumbled off course!” he laughs jovially.

You smile back, knowing you’ve found your man. “Actually, Father, you are just the person I’ve been looking for.” You lift your arm band slightly for the priest to see, telling him your name and position in the Hellsing Organization.

You see his cheerful smile damper a bit at the Hellsing insignia on your uniform, before quickly recovering. “I see. Father Alexander Anderson, at your service, my dear.” He bows his head towards you, “please call me Alexander. After all, you and I come from two very different clergies, I imagine.”

“A pleasure, Alexander. Although, I like to keep my faith ambiguous,” you add. “Sir Integra is waiting for you in the Sainsbury Wing, if you would please follow me.” You raise an arm in the direction out of the staff wing.

“What about your wee friend?”

“Oh, I’m sure she’ll find her way spontaneously back. Come, let’s not keep Sir waiting any longer, she can be quite the impatient woman.”

Alexander follows you back into the exhibits, making small talk along the way by commenting on the many displays. While a member of Iscariot, you discern Alexander to be a kind man with an eye for art. He tells you small sermons associated with some of the Italian pieces, amazing you with his theological knowledge, and letting him know so. You never imagined an enemy could be so enjoyable to talk to. But you suppose he’s only your enemy by association.

“I take it you are familiar with Hellsing’s pet vampire, dear?” he suddenly asks out of the blue, making you stop pause in surprise. His tone is pleasant, but his face tells something more. You recognize it as hidden disdain, masked behind innocent curiosity.

“Erm, yes, I am.” That was the understatement of the century. You have become more than a little familiar with Alucard over the years you’ve worked by Integra’s side. If you had to describe him in three words, it would be devious, coquettish, and handsy. He has made it more than clear that he has developed an attraction towards you, yet you have hesitated to return the handsome vampire’s advances in fear of getting played. Surely a creature of his stature could never have feelings for a human such as yourself, right? So, you’ve remained neutral, neither encouraging his inviting caresses and seductive words, nor pushing him away.

“We’re coworkers,” you affirm. “But I would not describe us as anything more, though Alucard can get a tad possessive,” you admit.

Alexander sighs with sympathy, suddenly draping an arm around your shoulders, just like he had when he caught you on your fall. He continues to lead you through the museum, not particularly focussed on finding your desired destination any time soon. “A shame. A pretty young soul such as yourself should never feel controlled by a vile monster.”

You purse your lips at the compliment, never hearing a man of the cloth make such a comment before, let alone towards yourself. His hand lowers from your shoulder to your middle back, pulling you gently ever-so-closer to his side.

“Just let me know if you ever need a delivering hand to aid you in a time of need, and the Lord shall answer your call,” he winks at you with a smile, making you giggle in disbelief.

“Father, are you flirting with me?” you ask with mock scepticism.

“Don’t ya worry, dear. I’m more than happy to look at the menu. It's ordering that’ll require a confession out of me. Or two.”

You giggle at his boldness, before the both of you hear an angry cry echo down the hallways.

“Anderson!”

Alexander frowns, before removing his arm from around you. “Please excuse me, my dear. It seems we have missed introductions.” He cracks his knuckles together, before two silver bayonets are unsheathed, seemingly out of nowhere. You gasp in shock as he stalks his way down the hall with a malicious grin on his face, sermons spilling from his mouth as he makes his way to his target.

You follow quickly behind, practically running to keep up with the tall priest. Down the hall you spot Sir Integra, Walter, and also Alucard with his gun’s raised, pointing them at the two other Iscariot members you missed in your search. You know this was going to lead to only one thing.

Alucard laughs maliciously. “Neither of us could ever back down in front of an enemy. Come on then, Judas priest!”

“What a coincidence. You won’t be so lucky this time, vampire. Do you enjoy playing with God’s most gifted children so?”

Jesus Christ on earth. “Stop!” both you and the silver-haired Iscariot member yell at the same time.

You see Alucard’s eyes widen as he catches you running behind from where Alexander had appeared. A scowl replaces his bloodthirsty smile. “What were you doing over there, Catholic? How dare you even breathe the same air as my beloved!”

“Beloved?” Alexander sneers. “How delusional! You really think this beautiful soul would ever be with a putrid demon such as yourself?”

“I’m ordering you to stop!” the Iscariot man repeats.

You've had enough of their cat fighting. You yourself between your quarrelling admirers and silently pray to God (or beg to Satan) that your new knights aren’t feeling as trigger-happy today.

“Hi! Right this way, everybody!” Seras practically yells into your ear, as a flock of elderly Japanese tourists stumble their way around you. “Everyone with the Japanese tour right this way, please! Kochira e dōzo!”

Seras' can-do attitude and smile is a welcome de-escalation of the tense situation. You only wish she had let you know beforehand, before deciding to run away.

Alucard fluidly moves his way through the murmuring crowd, grabs you by your waist and leads you back behind Sir Integra and Walter, much to Alexander’s detestation.

“What were you doing with him?” Alucard glowers.

“I was doing my job, since you decided to disappear," you huff.

“I was making sure the area was safe, for your and my master’s protection. Don’t you know who that priest is? He’s just as much a monster as I. I won’t allow him to go near you again.”

“And what makes your attitude any different from his? How is that any of your business? ” you glare back, not pleased with being pulled around so much today.

Alucard lowers to your level, getting in your face. “You are my business. You are mine.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, monster.” Alexander approaches from behind you both, bayonets thankfully gone from his hands. “I think the dear knows the path they walk, and it is not beside you.”

Alucard turns with a hiss, prepared to start the fight anew when it was your heart on the line. Hell, you know Alucard wouldn’t hesitate to bring about WW3 for you.

You stomp your foot on the ground in frustration. “I don’t need either of you to speak on my behalf. The path I walk is my choice alone, and at this moment, it’s away from both of you pompous idiots!” you yell, before turning on your heel towards the pavilion to prepare it for Integra’s meeting. Both of the men look at your back with marvel, before glaring at one another.

Maybe a war really was about to begin?

[starhoppin]

pick a picture; what to expect for the month of october

pile 1 -> pile 2 -> pile 3

disclaimer; this is a general reading! these messages may not fit everyone. please take what resonates and leave the rest.

「 pile one」

five of wands rv (cb: the word lord rv, the wise woman of wonderland rv) knight of swords (cb: the arrow master rv, the hungry ghosts), six of swords (cb: the sacred union)

you may be purposefully avoiding conflict this month. you may find out that people are gossiping or talking badly about you behind your back. you're being asked to not engage with them. they are projecting onto you - and that is not your problem. it's their own fears and negativity speaking. there may be one person (feminine) in particular that is causing drama. do not be afraid to walk away from someone because you're worried you will not find another. staying with such a person will not benefit you in the long run. for some of you, this particular situation may be regarding a friendship of some sort. you may be grappling with a lack mindset this month. this negative mindset may be affecting your self-esteem and your relationship with potential romantic partners. this may sound redundant, but settling is not the answer. you may be giving too much of yourself to people who do not deserve it and you are not allowing yourself to receive. relationships should not be one-sided, you deserve to receive love as well. you may be experiencing self-deprecating thoughts. shift your perspective of yourself and address those limiting beliefs. be willing to stop this cycle and things will change for the better. i'm seeing that once you end this cycle, there is true love in your future - if you're brave enough to take the leap. also, i saw 12:34 on the clock while i was reading - if that is confirmation for someone.

[songs that may resonate] get it your way - the band camino, sparks fly - taylor swift, in a perfect world - dean lewis & julia michaels

「 pile two」

temperance (cb: the altar princess, the cosmos), 5 of swords (the metal king, gaia's garden), the lovers rv (the lady of the mirror, the mapmaker of destiny)

you may be starting a project or have a new opportunity that will bring a lot of meaning to your life. this could be something creative. this will bring you a lot of happiness and stability, as long as you diligently work towards your goal. however, you must be mindful of people with negative intentions trying to take advantage of you and the success from this project. keep quiet about the details of this new venture, and make sure to set boundaries with others. you may be experiencing trouble within your love life this month. for someone specific: you may have found someone who you want to start a relationship with; however, they do not want commitment. Instead, they want the more... physical aspects of a relationship or wish for a casual fling. do not blame yourself if this turns out to be the case. their actions are a reflection of them, not you - do not let their low-vibrational intentions taint your self-esteem.

[songs that may resonate] dirty little secret - the all-american rejects, i choose you - sara bareilles, your love is my drug - kesha

「 pile three」

death (cb: the dragon's duel), three of pentacles (cb: the resting tree rv), five of wands (cb: the swan queen)

you may be facing a significant choice this month. i'm hearing "should i stay or should i go?" you're being asked to analyze your choices to determine which one will serve your highest intentions. this may be concerning the end of a cycle. you may have finally completed your healing journey and you're ready to move forward into a new period. however, this will take a conscious effort on your part to step into this new chapter of your life. you may also be experiencing a lot of stress this month. if you start to feel yourself getting overwhelmed with your commitments: stop, take a breath, and meditate if you can. do not try to do everything at once or you may make mistakes - things don't happen overnight. also, do not be afraid to ask others for help to lighten your load. you aren't meant to do everything yourself. be open to assistance from others.

[songs that may resonate] eyes - bazzi, till you're ready - navvy, i'm yours - jason mraz

tarot decks used in this reading: cirque du tarot & wisdom of the hidden realms oracle cards