#mercy i lean hard into the reborn again thing but like

[bhaalsdeepbat]

i'm writing drabbles about mercy, but they're specific story beats i want to explore more (like waking up on the beach)

my durge is a nonbinary feral creature and they also chose their name (so it isn't the name they had while bhaal's chosen). where I am at rn, they don't remember their name nor have they chosen a name yet. I can't figure out if it's less annoying to call them "the tiefling" and "the sorcerer" when i need to specify what the "they" is referring to, or if I should just refer to them as "The Dark Urge" until i get to where they pick a name to give

thoughts???

[childofchrist1983]

My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments. - 1 John 2:1-3 KJV

From Adam and Eve to us today, the temptation to be in control of our lives and to sin is alive and well. We don't need to even think about original sin: We want to be God. No? Well, Satan spoke through the serpent and told Eve that the reason God didn't want her and Adam to eat of the fruit of the Tree Of The Knowledge Of Good And Evil was because if they did, they would be like Him – And they wanted to be like Him. From the days of Moses at Mount Sinai, the consistent theme of how we know God is to seek and trust Him and keep His Commandments. It was true then and it is true today. If we know God, we willingly love, obey and serve Him. Yesterday, we talked about the sins we may not even realize we are committing. Today, we need to take a closer look at the Commandments. It's not surprising that keeping the first Commandment of believing in, loving and serving the one true God Almighty and not having any other gods before Him is taken for granted.

God wants us to obey rules that are made to help us and protect us, all for our own good; but we hate to be told what to do. One of the first words a toddler learns is "No". We may not kill, but we hold onto anger, and violence is a response for many people to situations where they don't get what they want. Fidelity in marriage is not considered a priority for many people and the media exploits this with programs that actively encourage sexual behavior as "fun" and no strings attached! Vandalism, as well as plagiarism is rampant. Scandals concerning educational qualifications and work applications are common. Do people understand that this too is theft? Truth can be hard to find in personal relationships, work ethics and the political arena. We want what everyone else has which leads to envy and often destructive behavior. We need to know God, leaning on Him continually and keeping His Holy Word in our hearts as well as in our minds and lives. Then we need to keep them.

We have just celebrated the birth of Jesus Christ this Christmas. We also have been preparing to welcome and meet Him when He comes again. If we truly know Him as our LORD, God and Savior, not only will we be saved and spiritually reborn. With His help, we will be able to love Him and our neighbor and follow Him and serve Him exactly as He called us to do from the very beginning. Let us pray that all those who have not come to the knowledge of Him and His goodness and Gospel Truth will be able to receive the revelation and be saved. As Christians, we choose to keep Father God Almighty and the LORD Jesus Christ first in our hearts and lives and all other worldly desires behind us. He extends salvation to everyone, and we want to show the world the freedom, hope and peace they can have in accepting and following Him. May we follow and serve God daily with love, trust, awe and wonder. May Father God Almighty and the LORD Jesus Christ strengthen our faith, lift our spirits, protect our hearts, and show us opportunities to help bring others to Him and His Gospel Truth daily. May we do this duty boldly, humbly and faithfully. To God be all the honor and praise and glory!

We must come to Father God Almighty and the LORD Jesus Christ with sincere hearts to ask forgiveness and follow Him and His Holy Word and Spirit always. We praise Father God Almighty and the LORD Jesus Christ for the mercy He bestows upon us and we are grateful for His grace and mercy and infinite blessings. By surrendering our hearts and our lives to His will, we see all the blessings He has bestowed upon us. God our refuge and our salvation and our constant provider. We lift our voices to Him in praise for His steadfast love, mercy and understanding. May Father God Almighty and the LORD Jesus Christ open our minds and hearts more and more to perceive and embrace Him and His truths. May He help us to find time to pray and read and study the Holy Bible daily and to find power in prayer, praying according to His Holy Word and will. May He help us to come to Him in true repentance and with faith in Him and His grace and merciful nature. May He give us the grace, courage and strength we need to walk with Him and do His will daily. May He teach us to watch our words when we pray to Him and to speak reverently and rightly. May we continually ask God to transform our hearts and make us faithful and humble as we walk with Him daily. We must come to Father God Almighty and the LORD Jesus Christ with honest, humble and repentant hearts. We must seek Him and His will and choose to follow Him all the days of our lives. May He help transform our hearts, help us to seek and live for Him above all else and to grow spiritually and build our faith and relationship with Him with each passing day. May He forgive our sinful nature and help us always make Him and our relationship with Him top priority.

As true and born-again Christians, we choose to walk in His righteous path and lead a life that is pleasing to Him. We desire Him and His will above anything else. We desire to walk in accordance with the love and light He has shown to us through His Holy Word and Spirit. We long for a deeper relationship with Him and a deeper fellowship with our brothers and sisters in Christ as well. When we fall into temptation and sin, we must turn to Him for forgiveness, strength and guidance. When believers learn to walk in accordance with God's Holy Word and Spirit, they have deeper fellowship with both God and one another. And the sin that could threaten to destroy that fellowship, if confessed (1 John 1:9), is covered in the blood of Jesus Christ and no longer a barrier between us and God. May we ask Father God Almighty and the LORD Jesus Christ to forgive us for any sins we have sinned this day or in days past. May we be faithful to Him and His Holy Word always. May He help us to walk more consistently in the light and to not neglect long to confess and forsake any sins that hinder our walk with Him. May He lead us in the direction He wants us to go so that we may seek and serve Him faithfully. God is holy and almighty and deserving of all praise honor and glory. We rejoice in Father God Almighty and the LORD Jesus Christ, knowing He is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8). He is the Alpha and the Omega (Revelation 1:8). May our hearts always be filled with thanksgiving and rejoicing. May He help us to praise Him freely and honestly like all believers who came before us. May we live a life that showcases our love and trust in Him and His Holy Word and Spirit as He uses us draw others to Him and His soul-saving Gospel Truth daily. May He continue guide, correct and protect us, so that we continue to grow in Him and not weaken and stray. May we all remain faithful to Him and to this duty and purpose He has called us to. Seek and put your faith and trust in Father God Almighty and the LORD Jesus Christ and let Him do the rest. May He humble our hearts and help us focus on following and serving Him daily and helping others with joy and happiness. We lift our voices in praise to Him for His love, mercy, peace, faithfulness and grace - For EVERYTHING!

It is vital that we remain rooted in Father God Almighty and the LORD Jesus Christ through prayer and His Holy Word and Spirit and that we live and walk as a beacon of His light and love and share and spread the Gospel Truth daily, so that the lost souls in this world can come to know Him and be saved. The more we focus on Father God Almighty and the LORD Jesus Christ, growing spiritually by building our relationship with Him, leaning on Him and His Holy Word and Spirit, the better off we will be. Thanks to this and our faith in Him, we know that everything will be alright. And we will forever be grateful to Him. As true and born-again Christians, we believe in Him and His Holy Word and we strive daily to walk in His Holy Spirit. We know though our mortal bodies should die, He will raise us up and into new and glorious bodies (The Rapture). We who are truly His and alive at His second coming will never die, and our bodies will be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, and so shall we ever be with Him in His Kingdom of Heaven forevermore (1 Corinthians 15:51-52, 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17). This is one of many promises given to us by God Himself. Thank God for His strength and guidance when we are faced with sin and temptation. Thank Him for His mercy and grace. Through Bible study and prayer, God reveals His wisdom and guides us to see opportunities to grow closer to Him and grow spiritually. He gives us direction to live our lives daily according to His will.

Jesus Christ is the ONLY way to Heaven (John 3:5, 14:6), the ONLY way to salvation (Acts 4:12, Ephesians 2:8-9) and He is the resurrection and the life (John 11:25-26). Jesus Christ the LORD of lords, the KING of kings, the GOD of gods (Deuteronomy 10:17, 1 Timothy 6:15, Revelation 17:14, Revelation 19:16) - He is the Living, Almighty and Everlasting God (Isaiah 9:6, Revelation 1:8, John 3:16, John 3:36, Jeremiah 10:10). There is no other God besides Him (Isaiah 45:5). We MUST humble ourselves before Him, turning our backs on false teachers, false gods and idols and our sinful ways. We MUST repent and turn back to God and recognize who He is and love Him in return for His great love for us. We MUST make God top priority everyday! May we be motivated to spread God's Holy Word and Gospel Truth to all the Earth, knowing that it is the only hope of all those lost in their sins. Let us not hold out a false hope for men to be saved without the Gospel, but instead, strive to do our part to get the Gospel out to a lost and dying world.

Leaning on Father God Almighty and the LORD Jesus Christ through prayer and His Holy Word and Spirit strengthens us and our knowledge and wisdom about God and His Gospel Truth, exposing these imposters. May God help us to seek and lean on Him daily to gain the strength, wisdom and spiritual discernment needed to expose Satan and his imposters who seek to destroy us and God's ultimate Truth. Everyday, we must remember to share Jesus Christ's Gospel Truth with the world and to thank Father God Almighty and the LORD Jesus Christ for the grace that He poured out for us on the cross at Calvary. He has freed us from the burdens of sin and from the eternal damnation of Hell. In all we say and do, may all praise, honor and glory always be given to Him and His Kingdom of Heaven.

With renewed minds, hearts and wills, let us serve Him humbly and faithfully out of pure love and grateful rejoicing. May He remind us of His presence and to remain at peace, fully knowing that all will be well because He is always with us. Let us seek Father God Almighty and the LORD Jesus Christ today and everyday with all our heart and being, looking for His love, light and will for our lives with each step we take. Let us seek to please Him with our thoughts, words, and deeds and seek to advance His Kingdom of Heaven and His glory with our lives. Let us seek Him from a pure and humble heart, and when we so seek, we believe Him and His promise that we will find. May He help us all to be more sensitive to the teaching ministry of His Holy Word and Spirit, relying on Him and allowing Him to speak to us and guide us every step of our Christian journey.

God gave us the Holy Bible - His living and Holy Word - to let us know of Him and His abiding love and care as well as guide and prepare us for all our lives. May He help us encourage one another as we continue our walk with Him and our duty to Him daily. Thank Father God Almighty and the LORD Jesus Christ for being present for all our new beginnings and all our lives. May He redirect any anxiety we feel as He provides countless opportunities for growth and change. May we humble ourselves before God always, asking Him to forgive our sins and make our hearts and lives anew through His Holy Word and Spirit. May He help us make Him and His Holy Word top priority, so we can grow spiritually and grow in our relationship with Him as we apply it to our daily lives. Thank God that we can focus on Him and everything about Him, for that is what keeps us sane and at peace. May our words and actions always be a reflection of Him and His Holy Word and Spirit and will.

May He help us to always walk in His grace and Holy Spirit, not by our own measure. May He give us the humble humility to know that our freedom and eternal salvation is found only in Him, so that His grace may sustain us, and we may never lose sight of His love and light and mercy. Thank Father God Almighty and the LORD Jesus Christ for calling us to Him and to serve Him. May He equip us to do all that He has called us to do so that as He works through us, He may use us to produce fruit, to reach others, and to encourage all brothers and sisters in Christ. May He work all of these things in us and through us for His Kingdom and His glory. Thank Father God Almighty and the LORD Jesus Christ for all His creation, for His miraculous ways and for everything He does and has done for us! Keep the faith and keep moving forward in your walk with Jesus! He loves us and He knows what is best for us. Seek, follow and trust in Him - Always!

Thank Father God Almighty and the LORD Jesus Christ for His Holy Word and for sending His Holy Spirit so that we might have His grace, not only to awaken us and transform our hearts in our spiritual rebirth and guarantee our eternity with Him, but to also call upon Him whenever we are in need. Thank Father God Almighty and the LORD Jesus Christ for all the reminders of His love and mercy and faithfulness within His Holy Word. He is bigger than any challenge or circumstance in our lives. Knowing this within our minds and our hearts, nothing can deter our faith in Him and His Truth. May we all accept Him and His eternal gift of salvation and ask that He would transform our hearts and lives according to His will and ways. Thank Father God Almighty and the LORD Jesus Christ for His Holy Spirit who saves, seals and leads us. May we always thank Father God Almighty and the LORD Jesus Christ for His almighty power and saving grace. For He is our strength, and He alone is able to save us, forgive our sins and gift us eternal salvation and entry into His Kingdom of Heaven.

May we make sure that we give our hearts and lives to God and take time to seek and praise Him and share His Truth with the world daily. May the LORD our God and Father in Heaven help us to stay diligent and obedient and help us to guard our hearts in Him and His Holy Word daily. May He help us to remain faithful and full of excitement to do our duty to Him and for His glorious return and our reunion in Heaven as well as all that awaits us there. May we never forget to thank the LORD our God and our Creator and Father in Heaven for all this and everything He does and has done for us! May we never forget who He is, nor forget who we are in Christ and that God is always with us! What a mighty God we serve! What a Savior this is! What a wonderful LORD, God, Savior and King we have in Jesus Christ! What a loving Father we have found in Almighty God! What a wonderful God we serve! His will be done!

Thanks and glory be to God! Blessed be the name of the LORD! Hallelujah and Amen!

[icylook]

True Love's Last Kiss

Pairing: Leon x Leri (MC)

Rating: Mature; Word count: 1252; Read on AO3

Tags: Spoilers for the AMR demo; Not canon compliant - Leon and Leri (MC) started their relationship half a year before the final battle; Established Relationship; Angst; Hurt No Comfort; Feels; Heartbreak

A Mage Reborn demo 👑✨ @mage-parivir

Fic title inspo from the song - True Love's Last Kiss (Eternal Eclipse) 🎶 🤍

“Why did you do it?”

The question grates on his mind like long nails on a blackboard. A restless needle poking at his brain.

Why, why, why?

He heard it so many times, from so many people. 

Why? Murderer. Traitor. Why, why, why?

Asking, shouting, demanding, threatening, using force so he breaks and tells them.

Why?

He endured. 

“It had to be done.” Wearily he says the same thing he said to others. Over and over again, because they wouldn’t listen even if he told the truth. He was already doomed in their eyes, maybe from the start. No one likes a stray that gets the attention of those in power and steals them from you.

“Tell me your reasons. Why did you do it?”

But the way Leon asks the same question is different. He demands like a king he is. The way he squares his shoulders like he prepares for an attack, the jut of his chin when he stands up to a challenge. The fire in his eyes, dark in their silent fury and only a gentle tremble of his voice betrays how deeply Leri’s repeated words sting. 

Right now Leri is the enemy that refuses to be conquered and he’s aware how stubbornly clever Leon is with his foes.

“I know who you are, Melmesne.” 

Oh. So they’re using that to paint him a villain. Briefly, he wonders who was so smart to dig up that particular information, serving it to their king to fuel his wrath. The venom in his voice when he spits Leri’s forgotten surname feels like a slap to the face and he closes his eyes. The phantom feeling of a knife in his chest twists without mercy. He feels it since he’s learnt in the ruins of the old laboratory of what has to be done to stop the countdown to a massacre.

“Did you plan it? Pretended to be a friend, use me, use all of us just to strike when it suits you best?” 

Leri silently watches how Leon prowls in front of his cell, like an agitated predator that would tear into his prey at the smallest provocation. He sways on his feet when he slowly gets up from the floor, his bad knee screaming in pain thanks to the hours in one position.

“Did you lie about everything? About us?”

No. 

He didn’t. Even now Leon’s accusations are like a whip cutting at him until he bleeds. And he does bleed, silently.

“Was it lie that you loved me just to bend naive prince to your will?”

No, no, no. 

It’s the first time in his life he was able to taste something as sweet as love and love back. He still does, with every bitter word, keeping it in his heart even if it shatters. 

“Tell me why you did it!”

Leon so rarely asked him for things. Leri never wanted to deny him anything. It hurts to see him like that. To hear the desperation mixed with loathing in his voice. 

Why why why-

It’s too much. It builds and builds until it finally spills.

“There was no other way!” The shout tears straight from the depth of Leri’s chest like thunder. 

Leon flinches, stopping his pacing.

Leri’s breathing hard, shivering. The sudden outburst snuffing out his fragile energy like wind a candle flame. He stumbles, limp hair covering his face as he hangs down his head. Doesn’t see Leon moving closer like he wants to catch him when he curls his dirty hands on the bars of his cell, the chains pulling at the gesture. The bruises flare with fresh pain under the cuffs, threatening to re-open the scabbed wounds on his wrists. 

He doesn’t care.

“No other way.” Leri rasps, leaning his forehead on the cold iron. A second of relief on his feverish skin. He ignores the hot threat of tears at the back of his eyes.

He recoils when Leon’s fingers close over his, holding on tight and he briefly relaxes under the warmth of his palms. 

“Leri…”

He looks up at the face of a man close to his own, bowing over him with all his frame. “Truth can save you.”

Leri blinks, lost in the green eyes so bright he feels like drowning. The hold on his hands grounds him. 

“Let me save you.” Leon whispers, earnest in his hope.

He hates to crush it. Hates the light to dim to nothing when he says softly, “Truth won’t bring back dead.” 

The chain doesn’t allow him to reach for Leon’s face, halting him halfway. His fingertips twitch in the space between them and Leon doesn’t move, gaze fixed on him.

“I promised.” 

Leon’s eyes widen. “Don’t-”

“I promised I’ll come back to you.”

“Stop it, I can’t-” The crack in his voice breaks Leri’s heart further.

The smile on his face hurts, splitting the cut on his lip. The words taste like copper. “I came back. Aren’t you glad to see me, love?” 

And before Leon’s stricken expression turns into something else Leri’s the first to withdraw, even if it pains him to do it. Stepping back, until there’s a wall behind him, sinking down to the ground in a heap. His head lolls to the side as he watches Leon’s hands flex over the bars, knuckles white in his grip. 

“You waited.”

Leon grits his teeth, jerking his arms away from the cell, eyes burning and too wet for his comfort. He angrily wipes at them, half turning from him and Leri bites the inside of his cheek to keep the hot and heavy tickle in the back of his throat from spreading up.

“Kept your word. Thank you, love.”

Leon chokes on a mirthless laugh, his gaze weighty before he turns his back at him. “You’re so cruel.” 

Before he storms out his parting words reach Leri’s ears, a raw whisper of painful secret. “May the god be merciful to you because I can’t.”

The silence when he’s finally left alone is deafening. 

First, Leon.

Then, Ilya and Saine. 

And after all of them left him, there’s Ante, who quietly peels off from the shadows to show him she’s been there all the time. Listening and observing. She steps close to the cell doors, staring at him wordlessly. The blankness of her face, the rigid stance say it all without voicing it out loud. 

“I was right about you.”

Leri looks at her, golden eyes half lidded. He hurt her companions. She would kill him with her bare hands if not for the orders of keeping him alive until execution.

He’s so tired, the cold of the floor siphoning what little warmth his battered body still has. Leri closes his eyes, the corner of his mouth curling up. 

“It’s good to be right, no?”

And when he’s truly alone the tears leave clean traces on his skin, pouring freely from closed eyes. The chasm in his chest feels almost like during the worst experiments he had to endure. He didn’t know it was possible, to feel pain this great again after what happened to Eli. The risk of having something to lose, the agony of having your heart pulled straight out of you. It would hurt less if it was done literally.

Maybe Nyx will finally swallow him in his death and he'll come back to haunt them all.

A ghost, memento of their mistake. 

But, even if they knew, it’d be too late.

Truth won’t bring back dead.

[tobeornottotc]

Do you think vegas will make it in the end? I know they said season 2, but do you think maybe they said that so as to distract us from thinking this? I'm getting stressed, i want vegaspete to both be here..do you think vegas saying things like making merit to meet in the next lifetime or eat so you can have strength to kill me later on can be considered forshadowing? Also, build, on the live conference thing said something about mile/kinn slapping him, so we are hopefully getting that, in your opinion, what do you think would cause the slap? Will it be because pete chooses vegas and defends him? Or something else entirely

Hi!

Sorry for the late reply. Let's get into this. Normally I don't promote things but anon if you haven't yet we discuss all of this and more on a 8 hour twitter space breaking down things all things episode 11 and VegasPete. Vegas will be one of the characters that will be in the danger zone essentially. his story depends on where the directors and writers want to stop at before they deal with him in season 2. So it's hard to explain to you what could happen with him. It's either he will be seen as dead by us the audience with a cliff hanger waiting for his rebirth to happen in the next season or if they will tackle his rebirth in this season as they have been foreshadowing to both him dying and being awake, or a side of him dying and being reborn anew into something of good. The next life conversation is part of these foreshadowings essentially the religion believes in making merits for your next wife 'washing' away your bad karma, your evil deeds, and those you hurt and getting repentance and mercy to become someone else. This isn't a scary foreshadowing because it's a positive way to view *dea*th, it is about it being a tool to bring purpose and a new happy peaceful beginning again. Deth (i'm gonna have to spell it like this so i don't get flagged) in KP is a good thing, Porsche is connected to this with the phoenix he needs Deth to be able to reborn into the queen of the chessboard, so does Vegas who is also his queen of his chessboard, both queens have to become something new for their story to take place and for their loved ones to be protected and happy. There has been so many, like so many foreshadowings for VP with deth and rebirth, I just even got a new one from a fan, but I feel confident for now they are tackling and keeping this with Vegas, we will see him go through some type of deth but they'll hopefully talk or hint at his rebirth too.

As for Build getting slapped. I can see Kinn being betrayed by Pete but a slap feels out of order since Kinn already left Pete and forgot about him. I feel like the show wants KInn to make mistakes but they don't want him hated, they've rewritten him to fit that, so slapping Pete when it could make him look heartless and extra I don't think I believe that but then where else or what other reason would Mile have for slapping Build? So yeah I get your point, Kinn slapping Pete upon him admitting he wants to leave or betrays them seems again cruel, is there a chance Pete may ask for the slap, for a punishment because his head isn't focused on his work? Is there a chance Pete may ask Kinn to do that? Yeah that's what I would lean into more than just cruelly slapping him cause youre butthurt he betrayed you. But like I said I'm uncertain about this statement, however Build did say it and it wasn't an error so Mile must have slapped him and made him realise Pete is a masochist. Even the actor is saying it.

Thanks anon! there's a lot to think about when analysing VegasPete dynamics and boy did the show go all out for it. They have spent so much energy and effort thinking and making these two be filled with depth and symbolisms and things to foreshadow and explain the psyche behind their love story. For that I truly want to trust this team and see what they do with the ending. They are changing the novel's ending so this analysis is not a spoiler, but more just on what the show is giving and it is deth and rebirth with VP. Who will go? who will need to be rebirthed? how will they show it in the story narrative? that's what we have 3 episodes to figure out. Thanks again have a great day <3

[malaismere]

Campaign 3 Predictions - Compiled

So, as a fan of compiling statistics, I've been keeping track of race/class predictions for campaign 3 for the past...at least a year, from tumblr, reddit, and twitter. with EXU over, and my spreadsheet hitting 400 (?!), I figured I'd share the fandom's current predictions

Travis

Human (30), Dwarf (29), Elf, Shifter (11), Half-Elf (10)

Cleric (103), Bloodhunter (63), Wizard (50), Fighter (49), Druid (46)

Lycan bloodhunter (41), Forge cleric (26), War cleric (16), Eldritch Knight fighter, Bladesinger wizard (14)

Marisha

Elf (16), Genasi, Tiefling (14), Dwarf (13), Dragonborn (11)

Paladin (112), Rogue (53), Fighter (43), Cleric (40), Warlock (37)

Eldritch Knight fighter, Glory paladin (14), Artillerist and Armorer artificer, Battlemaster Fighter (8)

Liam

Dwarf (25), Halfling (18), Tiefling (13), Elf (12), Warforged (11)

Druid (77), Cleric (72), Bard (71), Fighter (59)

Stars druid (16), Dreams druid (10), Eloquence bard (8), Alchemist artificer, Whispers bard, Twilight cleric (7)

Sam

Dwarf (34), Kobold (24), Goliath (17), Warforged (15), Kenku (13)

Sorcerer (106), Cleric (98), Druid (63), Wizard (47)

Wild Magic sorcerer (61), Wild Soul barbarian (14), Twilight cleric (8), Life and Forge cleric, Wildfire druid, Divination wizard (7)

Laura

Elf (21), Human, Tabaxi (19), Genasi (15), Gnome, Aasimar (10)

Barbarian (75), Sorcerer (74), Bard (64), Warlock (60)

Wild Soul barbarian (14), Wild Magic sorcerer (12), Glamour bard (10), Shadow monk (9)

Taliesin

Warforged (16), Elf, Changeling (14), Gnome, Genasi, Tabaxi (8)

Sorcerer (68), Rogue (65), Warlock (55), Bard (45), Wizard (43)

Aberrant Mind sorcerer (18), Whispers bard, Phantom rogue, Soulknife rogue (11), Mastermind rogue, Clockwork sorcerer (9)

Ashley

Elf (26), Human (18), Tiefling (17), Half-Elf (12), Dwarf (11)

Rogue (95), Bard (91), Monk (43), Ranger (41), Warlock (38)

Swashbuckler rogue (21), Glamour bard (13), Mercy monk (9), Drunken monk, Wild Magic sorcerer (8)

I also (although less consistently) collected continent/setting predictions. Marquet was the top (49), then Issylra (29) and the Shattered Teeth (22). For non-continent settings, some form of Spelljammer was the top (19), followed by the Age of Arcanum (17), and Planescape/Planehopping (15). Underdark, Ravenloft, Blightshore, and a return to Tal'Dorei were also suggested multiple times.

Much longer and rambly discussion (and my own predictions) under the break.

Top predicted races were Dwarf, Elf, and Human (~100). Dwarf and Elf haven't been played before, so that tracks, and I don't think it's out there to assume we'll get at least one human again. Also, post the whole thing with Essek and long rests, people really started jumping on Elves (which, fair). Warforged, Dragonborn, Tabaxi, Genasi, Tieflings, and Changelings all are pretty prominent (~50).

Of the races not yet established as existing in Exandria, Warforged and Changeling were the most popular (Warforged now dubiously canon post-Aeor, and Changelings dubiously canon with the LoVM bartender), followed by Shifters, Leonin, Kalashtar, Fairies, Grung, Ravnica races (Loxodon, Simic Hybrid, Vedalken), Van Richten's Races (Dhampir, Reborn, Hexblood). Locathah and the other Feywild/Strixhaven races are the only officially published races at 0 suggestions. The lowest previously seen race is Gobins at 2, one of which was for Sam again, and the lowest PHB race was Half-Orc at 17.

Class wise, Sorcerer was actually the most predicted class (which kind of tracks, as it's the one that hasn't shown up even as multiclass), followed by Cleric (generally assumed as compulsory), Paladin (only as a multiclass), and Rogue (also assumed as compulsory, but way less so. Not surprisingly, Bloodhunter, Ranger, and Artificer were the lowest.

Wild Magic Sorcerer was far and away the most suggested subclass, the only one to break 50, although it hasn't hit 100 quite yet (I think it will by the time the final characters are announced though). EK Fighter, Lycan Blooodhunter, Forge Cleric, Swashbuckler Rogue, Wild Soul Barbarian, Stars Druid, Glamour Bard, Bladesinger Wizard, Eloquence Bard, and Echo Knight Fighter are the other top subclasses.

Every official subclass has been suggested except for Berserker Barbarian, Grave Cleric, and Transmutation Wizard (previously played), Battlerager Barbarian and Banneret/Purple Dragon Knight (SCAG subclasses, which are widely unpopular), and the dubiously-official Planeshift subclasses. Open Seas Paladin is the only Matt homebrew to not be suggested at least once. For dead UA, Satire Bard, Brute Fighter, Giant Soul and Stone Sorcerer, and Raven Queen Warlock have all been suggested, usually only once, although many of the suggestions were collected while classes were in UA for Tasha's, Van Richten's, and Fizban's which is technically still UA but announced so...

With Travis, the predictions bounce between two main ideas - a melee spellcaster (Forge/War/Tempest cleric, Bladesinger/War wizard), or going back to a melee class (Bloodhunter, Fighter) but with a bit more mechanical interest (Lycan, EK/Echo/Rune/Battlemaster). I think those are both solid predictions, and while I really, really doubt we'll see a Lycan bloodhunter or a Forge cleric, I think the general vibe is probably spot on.

My own prediction is one of the more out there, but still in line with the general thinking - Artillerist Artificer. Travis is definitely a very tactical player, and it would be cool to see him get a turret for the battlefield, plus all the general utility/versatility of the artificer. Alternatively, I really could see a rogue, although more like what Mastermind or Inquisitive is trying for as opposed to how they actually turned out, if that makes sense.

Race wise, the top guesses are fairly plain, outside of shifter (which is mostly tied into the "werewolf" vibe). None of them would shock me, but I don't have any predictions.

I think that everyone's right on the money with Marisha as a paladin. Her next character being high charisma seems spot on, and I think moving to a half-caster also tracks. EK/Echo/Rune/Psi fighters would also fit, although they don't lean towards high charisma, or a warlock, maybe a more melee one.

Rogue seems unlikely purely due to the fact she's played one before, kind of. Matt and Marisha have both talked some, but her first game wasn't Vox Machina, but a previous game Matt had run where she'd played an assassin. You can do non-assassiny rogues, but still.

(Other fun facts about this game because it's wild: apparently the session she sat in on before playing involved half the party getting eaten by ghouls. the party joined up with another half-tpk'd party (marisha and the replacement characters) to get the raven queen to bring their dead friends back, and a fate-touched rogue swore service to the Raven Queen in order to bring the last party member back.)

My prediction for Marisha is also paladin, although I don't have any thoughts on the subclass, with genie warlock as a second because they are fun. No real thoughts on race other than I too would love to see tiefling Marisha.

Most people are going with a support caster for Liam, which I totally buy. Caleb definitely leaned towards support caster, even if he usually did end up played as DPS. Druid has taken the top given the polymorph->wildshape vibe, although it's still very yclose with Bard and Cleric. Suggestions for fighter dropped after EXU, and while Liam does play a lot of fighters, I doubt we'll see it for C3.

Honestly, Liam is the one I have no predictions for outside of 'support caster'. I'd lean away from Cleric and towards Druid or Bard, but it's hard to say. I also think Artificer deserves to be in the running, as it seems like something Liam would really enjoy, but also...might not want to go Int-caster to Int-caster. My only real thought on race is that I want to see whether Marisha and Liam choose the same again.

Top guesses for Sam is, far and away, Wild Magic Sorcerer. This was also the top guess for C2. I do not think Sam will play a Wild Magic Sorcerer. In general, though, the vibe is going back to fullcaster - Sorcerer, Cleric, Druid, Wizard. I think full caster is probably right.

Sam is so hard to predict because it isn't what he'd choose, but what Liam chose for him. I think it's either something really standard or something really out there, and since I can't guess the really out there, I'll go for the standard - Elf Wizard or Dwarf Cleric, leaning towards Dwarf Cleric, due to the support class and the fact that Sam's mentioned never playing a religious character.

The main vibe for Laura is definitely "DPS" which is understandable. I don't know if I agree with it, but I understand it. Aside from Barbarian, the rest of the vibe is spellcaster - and I don't think we'll see a completely no magic character from her either.

Prediction wise...I understand barbarian, but I'd actually go with Ancestor or Beast over Wild Soul. I could actually see a Bloodhunter from her too, although leaning away from Vex vibes. I think I'd want to go with Wizard, though I'm not certain on that. I would bet Tabaxi but idk, I could see her avoiding that for Travis' sake.

Everyone always names Taliesin as the hardest to predict (he had the lowest count at 354, under even Ashley at 365, to everyone else's ~380/400) but I don't think he's harder to predict than Sam. The thing that makes him hard to predict is that he likes to build characters to fit the party, which he (probably) won't be doing, same as with Molly. The other main thing he tends towards is mechanical complexity in a way that suits his characters.

The main driving influence in the top suggestions is Eldritch Weirdness. Aberrant Sorc, Whispers Bard, Phantom Rogue, Warlock in general. I don't disagree with any of the subclasses, but I really don't think he'd go eldritch for eldritch sake, if for at the very least being...he has always been this weird and it's yet to be a driving force behind any of his characters before. Like the Taliesin-is-an-elder-god thing, I think this is mostly people who don't hang out around occultists. Look, I've had multiple people sell me their actual souls, and you don't see all my characters being warlocks.

That being said, I don't think I disagree with the top classes, just the subclasses. I definitely agree with Sorcerer as a good choice for him, although I'd actually go Clockwork, as I think it has a fuck-with-the-DM vibe. Taliesin is the most heavily suggested for dunamancy subclasses, which wouldn't surprise me, but I think he might avoid on the sole point of not wanting something too tied with the last campaign. A lot of people also name the psionic subclasses, which I'd be more likely to second if they had kept the weird mechanic from the UA, but don't disagree with, excepting my issue with Aberrant Mind.

My out there guess is that he's going to choose a multiclass build. He definitely enjoys playing around with weird builds (Owlbear, he did a non-CR oneshot as a monk/stars druid). On the one hand, a lot of these builds work best for oneshots or starting at higher levels, as they can take a bit of time to come online, but with such a large party, I think it will still function.

(my actual prediction for Taliesin is that his character is weirdly reminiscent of either the aasimar echo knight or the elf blood cleric from the exandria game I'm running.)

Ashley is being predicted as a Dex/Cha build, and I'm totally here for it. Pre-Fearne, I was leaning Ranger, especially Fey Wanderer for a fey build, but post-Fearne, I'm going Rogue, especially Swashbuckler. I agree that seeing a high Cha Ashley would be great, especially to let her be more center-focused than Yasha had been, and swashbucklers are just...really fun. Also, the whole Aeor arc really left me wanting to see Ashley as the go-ahead-and-scout character, just to watch her push buttons.

For continents...I understand why people are guessing Marquet, since it's currently the most explored. I think that if they're going to do Marquet, then Matt will sit down with a cultural consultant. I say will over should, because I won't make any value judgements, but I think it's in line with what Matt and CR would do in that situation.

I can't really tell whether this is a prediction or what I'd like to see (the two are distinct but often difficult to untangle) but I'd actually go with Issylra, and specifically playing up the (at least initial) set up of explorers and adventurers heading out into the wilds. I will also place my bets on them having some sort of more steady home base, and my hopes on that they get an airship. My wildest out there guess is that the plot will move towards either planescape/spelljammer in the upper levels, tying into some of the seeds from the end of C2.

I have seen a handful of people predicting table seating order, which is both very minor and also the thing that I may be most interested in. A while back, someone made a post pointing out that the main romantic relationships were all cross-table, while the strongest platonic relationships were same-table or side by side. Because I am the sort of person that I am, I did statistical analysis on ao3 fics....and it's statistically significant. So I am trying to see whether or not, based purely on C3E1, I'll be able to predict what the top ships for the campaign will be.

This rambling has mostly gotten out of hand because I don't have much opportunity to talk about this, but, you know. If you send me predictions I will give you the current odds gambling style, so that you'd know how much you'd win if you'd place a bet, because I did the tables up as a joke for something else and now I kind of want them to be used for something.

[platypanthewriter]

Hook Possum 2/4

Art by @monsdasarah​ for Harringrove Big Bang!

CHAPTER ONE

After dinner, Jonathan Byers got out his guitar, and started teaching them camp songs.  Steve resigned himself to weeks of Kum-ba-ya stuck in his head, but they heard a weird grinding, crunching noise in the distance, and Robin whispered “I think that came from the cemetery,” just to freak everyone out.

“The cemetery?!” a boy yelped, and Jonathan started playing The Bell Witch, because he was just as awful as Robin was.

 “Little Betsy, the age of 12/Living in a dream, the first one to scream,” he sang, and Steve groaned into his hands.

“Invisible hands/Leaving their mark in the dark

Night after night/The Bell Witch attacked and attacked

Torturing Betsy/Until a circle was held in candle light.”

 The littlest kids started climbing right up on Hook Possum.  The air filled with stories of the Bell Witch, and how she could travel, she could be anywhere, and how the bathrooms at Camp Butternut Springs were always cold.  

“They’re haunted,” Robin said, and Steve elbowed her, growling.

The bathrooms were always cold, because they were poured cement set in the hill, and the cabins warmer, because they were up the hill where they got some sun, and built of wood.  Steve tried to explain it every year, but every year the kids all started running around and shrieking about the goddamn Bell Witch.  The littlest kids asked Hook Possum to go with them to the toilets as it got dark.

Even Robin ‘Oh, that’s haunted’ Buckley took mercy, and didn’t tell them the local ghost stories.  Yet, anyway, Steve thought.  A small mercy. 

When Steve found a kid crying outside the bathrooms after playing the mirror game—they stared in and said I hate the Bell Witch, over and over, watching until their faces looked creepy and distorted in the low, flickering light—Steve sat down on the ground and patted his little sobbing shoulder, and sighed.

“Look,” he said, “—there’s only one ghost around here, Hook Possum.  Hook Possum is the ghost of possums who get hit by reckless drivers.  The Bell Witch isn’t here, because of Hook Possum, okay?”

“I s-saw s-something,” the kid wailed, clinging to Steve’s arm, and Steve pulled his sobbing hanger-on back to the fire.

“Hook Possum’s our local cryptid,” Dustin was saying, and then he had to explain to the younger kids what a cryptid was.  “Like Bigfoot,” he said, “—or the Loch Ness Monster.  Or the Pope Lick Goat Man.”

“...the what?!” Hook Possum asked, startled, and Dustin’s chest swelled with excitement as his grin widened.  

“The Pope Lick Goat Man,” Dustin breathed, “—was originally a farmer, who sacrificed his goats and who knows what else to Satan.”

“Dustin,” Steve sighed, as the story brought more kids around the fire.  

“He was reborn as a twisted goat man,” Dustin said over him, because Dustin wouldn’t have any frantic children banging on the door of his cabin at two am.  Dustin continued with relish.  “He lives under the train trestles of Pope Lick Creek, mimicking the voices of dead loved ones to lure people into the path of the train.  There have been so many deaths it’s illegal to go near there,” Dustin whispered, to his rapt audience of a bunch of children who were definitely gonna be too scared to go to the toilets that night, and they’d probably wet their beds.

“Dustin, come on,” Steve groaned.

“The trestle is over 750 feet long, and it’s a 90 foot drop,” Will Byers added, and Steve smacked his face into his hands, because he hadn’t expected that epic betrayal.  

“When the train comes, there’s nowhere to go,” Dustin continued, with relish.  “It’s said he’s so terrifying people leap to their deaths at the sight of him, even if there’s no oncoming train.  Ninety feet down into Pope Lick Creek.  That’s like jumping off an eight-story building.”

The kids gasped, and Steve pinched the bridge of his nose as Robin stepped in, grinning evilly.

“He’s been known to jump down from the trestle himself, to attack cars underneath with an axe,” she said.

“Augh!” squeaked one little boy, and the kid Steve had rescued from the Bell Witch mirror game clung tighter to Hook Possum, sniffling.

“Hook Possum has a hook,” Robin told the squeaking kid, once Steve elbowed her hard in the gut, again.  The kid did not look reassured.  “—and the Goat Man lives in Kentucky, over a hundred miles away.”

“Hook Possum jumps on cars too,” Dustin said cheerfully, and Hook Possum said “Wait, what,” again, as Dustin climbed up on one of the logs around the fire, holding his finger like a hook.

“Hook Possum is the vengeful spirit of possums killed by reckless drivers,” Robin explained—far from helping—and started telling tales of drivers stopping to pick up hitchhikers that turned into massive, man-sized hissing possums in the passenger seat of their car.

“One account is weirder, because the guy was super drunk,” she whispered, leaning in, and the kids listened, riveted.  “He picked up a hitchhiker, but when he looked in the backseat, it was just a coat around a fleet of possums,” she said with relish.  “They climbed all over him, scratching and biting—”

“I’m a ghost story?” asked Hook Possum, and Steve spun in place to see him half-shadowed in the light of the fire, the flames glinting off his molded teeth, his empty mesh eyes skull-like.

“Uh,” he said, giving an involuntary shudder.  “Yeah.  Didn’t you know?”

“Don’t let anything get me,” the kid Steve had rescued from the bathroom sobbed, throwing both arms around Hook Possum, and Hook Possum patted their hair.  

“I want real ghost stories,” said one of the kids around the fire, and Hook Possum breathed “You don’t think I’m real, kid?” with a little possum-y hiss in his voice, his silvery plastic hook reflecting the firelight, and the kid yelped.  “I’m scarier than anything else out there,” he growled, and Steve, in all honesty, had to agree.  The kid blinked huge eyes, and Hook Possum patted their head again, clumsily, nearly poking them in the eye as they giggled.  

Steve groaned, smiling, and wondered if Hook Possum knew what he was letting himself in for.  

That night, he patrolled by a cabin of boys talking about two travellers whose car was attacked by metallic thumps, and sure enough, the kids who’d been playing the mirror game and scaring the shit out of themselves all came and banged on the counsellor cabin door shrieking that they’d seen red lights in the woods, and demanded Hook Possum, who ended up costuming back up in the dark.  

Steve helped tie the costume at the back of his neck, and Hook Possum lurched by him to listen to them wail.  Steve could hear his confused growling from inside, and wandered out after a while to help.  

They spent a weird three-quarters of an hour standing in the humid night heat, making up stories about Hook Possum, and Steve maybe, sleepily, told everyone his limited stock of possum facts three or four times.  They eat ticks, the kids started reciting along with him.  Their body temperature is too high to carry fleas.  Steve could feel Hook Possum laughing against his shoulder.  

“Can you sleep hanging from your tail?” one asked, and Hook Possum shook his creepy paper-mache head, shoulders slumped like maybe he really wanted to.  

Steve patted his back.  “Possums can’t actually do that,” he said, grateful to be reminded of a possum fact he’d forgotten.  “They can use it to climb, though.”

“You are not helping,” Hook Possum hissed, as the kids started clamoring for him to climb a tree.  

“Sorry,” Steve whispered back, thinking fast.  “Uh, possums carry their young on their backs—” he started, and stopped, because that was obviously the wrong thing to say, and Hook Possum yelled as he got dog-piled to the ground.  

“Harrington,” he hissed from the ground, and for a second it sounded so familiar Steve paused, frowning vaguely at the lake, until Hook Possum’s yells threatened to wake the whole camp, and Steve had to pick up the top-most flailing child and threaten to throw them all in the water.  

“Go back to bed, all of you,” Hook Possum growled, and one of them hugged him.  

“Will you walk me to the cabin?” she asked softly, and he sighed, staring—maybe—at Steve.  

“Come on, might as well,” Steve told him, and Hook Possum snarled, but let the little girl grab his hook.  He then stumbled off the step edge of the boardwalk around the cabin, flailing his arms, and Steve grabbed him by one gross fursuited paw, clicking his flashlight on.  Since the little girl had the other one, and the whole horde of them trotted along surrounding Hook Possum, which made it slightly less weird to hold hands with him.

On the way back, Hook Possum was still unsteady, even without a kid yanking on him.  Steve tried to keep the flashlight pointed squarely where the guy could see it, but he kept tripping over stuff he couldn’t see in the mask, so Steve kept holding his hand, leaning close to whisper ‘there’s a root in the path,’ and ‘step up here,’ and feeling like he was escorting a drunk date home from a party.  

“...didn’t know you were into possums, Harrington,” Hook Possum muttered, laughing a little, and Steve snickered, thinking of the lines he and Robin had decided on if any kids wanted to talk about—about awkward things, like girls kissing girls.  He hoped they didn’t—he hoped they all talked to Robin, who seemed much more qualified, but he’d practiced saying ‘I’m honored you trusted me’ in the mirror.

“I’m trusting you with my secret possum...thing,” he said, snorting a laugh.  “Aren’t you honored.”

“More nervous,” Hook Possum whispered back, stumbling again.  “Don’t take advantage of me out here, Harrington.  I’ll play dead, I swear to god.  I’ll hiss and bite you.”

“I’d treat you right,” Steve told him, grinning.  “Get you ticks to eat or whatever.  And carrion.”

“Oh, okay then.  Gee.  Thanks, man,” Hook Possum laughed, making a gagging noise.

“Eat your ticks, they’re good for you,” Steve commanded, and felt Hook Possum laughing harder.

When they got back to the cabin—finally—everybody else was trying to sleep, so Steve turned Hook Possum around by the shoulders in the dark, taking the hook, and feeling along under the awful mask to untie the suit.  He helped lift the creepy mask—the face of it felt warm and damp with breath, and Steve shuddered—and then he tugged on the paws as Hook Possum struggled to extricate himself.

“...you don’t have to help,” he said, but he sounded tired, and Steve squeezed his warm naked shoulder.  

“I don’t mind,” he said, and one of the other guys hucked a pillow at them, groaning.

“Get a room,” he mumbled sleepily.

“G’night, Possum,” Steve whispered, snickering again, and Hook Possum shoved him, but Steve was sure he heard a muffled laugh.

 The next morning, everybody was kinda subdued, as usual—the kids that weren’t scared were more homesick than they’d realized, the excited kids hadn’t gotten very much sleep, and the kids that believed in ghosts hadn’t gotten any sleep at all, which was about three-quarters of the camp, thanks to Steve’s best friend Robin “That toilet seat is also haunted” Buckley.  

It was the first really hot day of the summer, so Robin and Steve took everyone canoeing, and the shallows filled with splashing, giggling, and shrieks. Steve trailed his hands in the water, climbing in and out of the canoe at every opportunity to pick kids up so they wouldn’t overturn the boat.  In the middle of the chaos that afternoon, when the kids were mostly too exhausted to row and too full of lunch to swim, but it was too damn hot to want to get out of the water, Hook Possum stalked by, wading straight into the lake, twenty, thirty feet out up to his chin, and just stood there, staring, smoke wafting from his mesh eyes.  

After a few minutes of watching the floating, smoking possum head, Steve stuck his paddle in the water to bring himself to a splashing halt—the kids in the canoe yelped and squealed—and then he shouted paddling orders until they came up alongside the creepy apparition sticking out of the water like a malevolent buoy.

“Ho there,” Steve said, responsibly, “—non-invasive, helpful local wildlife!  Are you in need of assistance?”

Hook Possum coughed, choking, and then growled, shaking his long papier-mache snout.  “Temporary insanity,” he groaned.  “Jesus.  Even the water is warm.”

“Better than sitting in your own sweat,” Steve said cheerfully, having worn the damn thing.  He remembered feeling like a dripping-wet half-rotten kitchen sponge, sitting in a sauna.  

“Kill me,” Hook Possum muttered, sighing, and one of the kids leaned out of the boat and put a baseball cap on him.  

“The shade helps,” she reported, and he sighed, looking even more ridiculous as a bedraggled, haunted possum head, smoke wafting from its empty eye sockets, with a baseball hat over one ear.

“...thanks,” he said, and she nodded, tucking her hair behind her ear, and digging out a tube of sunscreen.  She proceeded to rub it on her ears, nose, and all over the boy next to her, who sighed.

“Uh, just...wave if you...start to drown,” Steve told Hook Possum, wanting to be encouraging, but uncertain how to help someone dying of heatstroke in a horrible old possum mascot costume who was presently up to their neck in a lake.  He couldn’t see any expression on Hook Possum’s face, but he was pretty sure it was the face of someone with nothing to live for.  “Uh.  S’mores tonight?  I think?”

“...I can’t eat in this thing,” Hook Possum groaned, with a plume of eye smoke.

“We can hide in one of the cabins,” Steve told him.  “You can, um, transform.  In there.”

“...like Cinderella?” Hook Possum asked, snorting a laugh, and Steve grimaced.  

“I was thinking more like a werewolf at the full moon,” he said, and Hook Possum’s mask shook with laughter.  “Don’t drown,” Steve told him.  “I mean, if you die, you won’t get the money anyway, so you might as well take the damn thing off.  And I’ll bring you s’mores.  With extra chocolate.  Chocolate is worth it, right?  How d’you like your marshmallows?”

The creepy, lumpy mask turned to him, its mesh eye holes more alarming than ever with the way the sun hit the smoke.  “...you giving me something to live for, Harrington?”

“Don’t die in a possum suit, man, you don’t want that on your gravestone,” Steve said fervently.  “And think about the funeral.  Everybody trying to say nice things and you in that thing.  Have a heart—”

“I think the funeral parlor would probably take it off my body,” said Hook Possum, genuinely laughing, and Steve blinked.

“Oh.  Oh, yeah, they probably would,” he said, nodding.

“Anyway, nobody’d come to my funeral,” Hook Possum said, snickering, and Steve leaned over and smacked his snout.  The water around the canoe splashed a little, and the kids yelped, watching them in exhausted, overheated fascination.

“You’re not a possum,” Steve reminded the guy, who turned his head towards Steve again, probably to stare.  Steve grabbed his painted snout, holding his attention.  “You’re not a real possum.  People would come.  Max would come, and me—”

“...you think?” Hook Possum laughed, and Steve glared.  “Okay, okay, sorry,” he said, sounding like he was grinning.  “I won’t drown.  Hook Possum says no drowning, kids.”

“I used to think Smokey the Bear did that,” said the boy dripping with sunscreen.  “You know, just walked up to you and said ‘don’t start forest fires,’ like that.  This huge bear.  I was terrified.”

“I could just walk up to boaters and say ‘don’t drown,’” Hook Possum snickered.  “Alongside the boats.  Hiss at them.”

“Holy shit,” Steve cackled, letting go of the mask.  “You should.  Do it.  Do it to Robin—her, look, over there—”

Hook Possum turned to look, and then moved silently through the water, his head floating along the surface like a duck gone wrong.  Steve and the kids floated in the water, holding their breaths, until the other boat erupted in shrieks and overturned.

“Oh, he is so getting s’mores,” Steve wheezed, laughing until he could hardly breathe.

 When the kids started to wander towards dinner, Steve found Hook Possum again, hanging onto the dock.  

“You okay, man?” he asked, and Hook Possum nodded silently, so Steve crouched down to have a look.  “You coming in?  It’s cooled off some,” he said, and Hook Possum nodded again, but didn’t move.  “...you need help?” Steve asked, and Hook Possum paused for a second before shaking his head.  

Steve waited, and finally, Hook Possum cleared his throat.  “Fuck off, I can do it, I’m fine.”

He obviously wasn’t.  “You feel sick?” Steve asked, used to the first aid questions after so many summers helping around camp.  “Tired?  Shaky?”

“...just getting...cooled off,” Hook Possum muttered, but he didn’t move.  The lake water was pretty warm, too, and Steve considered it, wondering whether it was even helping.  

“Don’t be an asshole.  You need a shower, some water, and a nap,” he told the stubborn six-foot tall possum clinging to the dock, and it hissed like it was born in the woods.  

“...don’t need a nap,” Hook Possum growled, and Steve laughed.  

“Well, lie down, at least.  You’ve got heatstroke, dude.”

Hook Possum shook his head, so finally Steve jumped in the water next to him, put an arm around him, and pulled him towards shore.  

“What are you doing,” he mumbled, but when he tried to push away he almost fell, so Steve grabbed him tighter.  

“I told you,” Steve sighed.  Hook Possum was staggering, leaning heavily against Steve’s shoulder, and vibrating with tension.  “You’re gonna die in that thing.  You can’t do this all summer.”

“Fuck you,” Hook Possum muttered, tripping as soon as they hit dry ground.

“I’ve got you,” Steve told him, grimacing, because it was probably ungodly humid in the wet fur suit, and he was pretty sure Hook Possum hadn’t taken his mask off to drink any water.  The chatter and occasional yells from the food tent washed over them as Steve took him through camp to the showers.

As soon as they were inside, Hook Possum’s head jerked up.  “Oh fuck no,” he mumbled, pulling away, but Steve held on.  

“You need to get cleaned up and cooled off, and rest up,” he told the scary possum mask.  “Seriously.  You can’t mess with this shit.”

“‘M’fine,” Hook Possum slurred, and Steve shoved him around to untie the suit.  

“I won’t look, jesus, I promise, I’ll close my eyes, okay?  Just lemme help you get this off, and get in the damn shower.”

“...fuck you,” Hook Possum muttered, his shoulders wet and shivery against Steve’s hands.  

With his eyes closed, Steve couldn’t tell whether Hook Possum had the grayish pallor, but he grabbed the moron by the back of the neck and held a hand to his forehead, which was feverishly hot.  

“Get off me,” Hook Possum squeaked, staggering back, and Steve stepped back too, listening to the sounds of sodden fur paws stumbling around.  

“You need me to stay with you?” Steve asked, knowing what the answer would be, but also wary of leaving someone who’d obviously never had heat stroke before.

“I don’t need a fucking babysitter,” Hook Possum snarled, in a deeper register than usual, and it pinged Steve’s brain.  He frowned, standing there trying to think of anyone he knew who was awkward and grouchy but good with kids, and called him Harrington.  “Get out,” Hook Possum said, sounding exhausted.

“I’ll get you some water,” Steve told him.  “Gimme the Hook Possum stuff, I’ll wash it.”

“...it can go in the wash?”  Hook Possum asked, sounding aggrieved, and Steve snorted a laugh.  

“It can go in the washtub,” he said.  “I’ll throw it in and let it dry overnight.”

“Oh,” Hook Possum said weakly, then rallied.  “Thought you were holding out on me.  Secret washing machine in your bunk.  ‘Cause you’re the owner’s son.”

“Yep, just me and the washer, holding each other close,” Steve agreed, rolling his eyes under their lids.  

“You’re into some kinky shit, Harrington,” Hook Possum told him, and Steve felt the gross muddy Hook Possum costume shoved against his arms.  

“Eugh,” he sighed, gathering up the paws and hook.  “You know it.”

“That’s not gonna be dry by tomorrow, is it,” Hook Possum said, woodenly, and Steve wanted to shake him.  

“Look, I can write you an excuse.  Take a sick day.  You can’t get right back in this thing.  It’s fine.”

“...I’ll make it up,” Hook Possum said, in a rush, after a long pause.  “And I’ll find something I can do, so I’m not fucking everybody over wearing this thing—”

“Dude,” Steve sighed.  It felt weird not knowing the guy’s name, but equally weird calling him Hook Possum.  “Relax.  Take a chill pill.  Nobody’s on your ass about this.”  He turned to leave, but Hook Possum started talking again.

“...they make you do all the first aid, or what?” Hook Possum asked, and Steve snorted a laugh at his wariness.

“They teach us all basic first aid,” he said patiently.  “You sure you don’t want me to stay?  Because you sure don’t seem like you want me to leave.”

“Fuck you!” Hook Possum growled, again, rattling at the door of the shower stall like he’d stumbled into it.  

“I’m going, don’t make me explain to Max how you fell and broke your face after I left you in here,” Steve called, heading out, gross stinking wet fur suit in hand.  He dumped the whole thing—except the mask, which he thought might melt, even though it was tempting—into the big wash basin where the kids washed their own clothes, added a ton of soap, and poked it a few times to get the water through the fur.  He found some apples and grapes in the fridge, added some cheese and crackers, and got a plastic cup of water.  He sat it all in his bunk—in case Hook Possum just collapsed in his own—and grabbed the bathrobe he always brought just in case, and Hook Possum’s towel.  

When he knocked at the showers, Hook Possum was silent, so Steve leaned in.  It was dark, but the shower was still running.  “...you alive in there?” he called, and heard Hook Possum laugh.  

“Told you I was fine,” he muttered, burbling with the water hitting his face, and Steve went to lean against the stall door.  

“Oh, sorry, should I put you back in the suit and dump you in the lake?” he asked.  “Or just leave you here to get back to your bunk naked?”  

In the darkness, Hook Possum was just a vague shape, but Steve squinted, trying to make out a face, or something.  “Fuck you,” he said, laughing.  “The hell are you gonna do, carry me in your arms?”

“I could,” Steve told him, always ready for a challenge.  

“Oh, fuck you,” Hook Possum said, laughing harder, and Steve grinned, a little confused.  

“I am the first aid officer, actually,” he bragged, having put himself on the schedule earlier.  “You need me to sweep you across the threshold, I guess that’s what I gotta do.”  There was a muffled grunt and a splashing thud in the stall, and before Steve could think, he had kicked the bottom of the door and jiggled the latch so it popped open, the way he had a zillion times before, when kids crawled under locked stall doors as a prank.  He crouched next to the dark shape in the dim stall as Hook Possum scrambled back.  “You okay?”

“Jesus fuck,” Hook Possum panted in a high voice.  “What in the goddamn are you doing in here.”

“You fell, dipshit,” Steve told him, rolling his eyes.  “Are you okay?”

“Yes!  I am okay!” Hook Possum hissed, wedged in the corner.  “Get the hell out of my shower!”

“Jesus, sorry, didn’t know you were a blushing maiden possum,” Steve told him, holding out a hand to help the guy up, but Hook Possum just groaned into his hands, so Steve shrugged, and left.  The door slammed shut after him and latched.

“Go away,” Hook Possum growled, and Steve snickered.  

“I brought you a towel, and my robe,” he said, and Hook Possum sighed.  “And some water.”

“I’m fine, christ,” Hook Possum muttered.  

“And I got you some grapes and stuff,” Steve told him, halfway out the door.  “In the cabin.  Lot of water in grapes.”

“...I’m okay,” Hook Possum said, after a pause so quiet Steve was wondering if he’d passed out in there.  “Jesus.  I’m not one of your...second graders.”

“No, because then you wouldn’t’ve been wearing that thing, or going without water,” Steve said crisply.  “And I would carry you to your bunk, like a goddamn bride.”

Hook Possum choked on the shower water, somehow, coughing.  

“You’re getting off easy,” Steve told him, his vindication lessened by Hook Possum choking like he was about to die.

“Holy crap,” he panted.

“You’re welcome,” Steve told him.  “I guess.  I hung your gross fur bag out to dry where it’ll get sun.”

“...didn’t even get the full service,” Hook Possum muttered.  It sounded like he was still laughing, exhaustedly.

“What, you want the bridal carry?  Because I’ll do it,” Steve threatened, and Hook Possum said something muffled, like he had his face in his hands.  “I’ll just wait right here, ready to cradle you to my chest,” Steve told him, and Hook Possum groaned, laughing harder.  It was hard to stay mad at him, because he was kind of giggling, in the tired way kids did when they couldn’t stop.  

 He wandered back into the cabin as everybody was singing camp songs, to see a big bony foot sticking out from under the flag covering Hook Possum’s bunk.  It withdrew.

“You awake in there?” Steve asked, grinning.

“...no,” Hook Possum groaned.  “What are you doing here?”

“Brought you some more water,” Steve told him, and after a minute, Hook Possum said “...just set it on the floor.  I’ll drink it, I promise, jesus.”

Steve nodded, and wandered back to the fire. 

PART ONE | TWO | THREE | FOUR

[hanaridulsetcheese]

i found you

a song of achilles x red, white and royal blue crossover.

In the darkness, two shadows, reaching through the hopeless, heavy dusk. Their hands meet, and light spills in a flood like a hundred golden urns pouring out of the sun.

Years passed, actually centuries passed after the death of Achilles and his lover Patroclus. The souls of the lovers drifted aimlessly in an unknown void, so close yet so far away from each other. Fate never wanted them to be together, no matter how hard the two fought, it was just never enough.

Suddenly, at the dawn of a new eon, hope seemed to spark as the souls gravitated towards each other, a distant force seemed to have had mercy on them after the eons they spent unable to be together.

"Be reborn. " it spoke as the souls vanished, "Be happy. "

~~~

Henry and Alex stood hand in hand as they waved at the paparazzi from the steps of their plane. The two boys were on their way to Greece as representatives for both the British and American embassy. The paparazzi were still as crazy about the two boys now as they were at the beginning of their relationship, multiple cameras flashed as the boys waved one last time before finally entering the plane.

"Are we really that popular? " Alex plopped himself down on the fine leather seat of the plane, propping his feet up on Henry's lap who sat opposite to him.

"Everyone loves gays in power. " Henry replied.

The flight to Greece was smooth and quicker than the two had excepted it to be. It was already the peak of dusk as they got of the plane. The smell of the Aegean sea air immediately relaxed the boys as they looked forward to their week on the lush island of Delos.

"Greetings Mr. Diaz, Prince Henry. My name is Chiron and I will be taking care of you both during your visit here. " a tall, lean man met them as they got of the plane. His long and curly hair fluttered gracefully in the breeze of the late afternoon. The man extended a broad hand towards them and they took turns shaking his hand. "I trust that your flight here was smooth? "

"Indeed, it was. " Henry agreed.

"Splendid. You both must be famished after the flight so we will take you straight to your hotel when you can have dinner and an early night. " Chiron gestured for the two men behind him to take the luggage from the boys before leading them to an SUV.

During the ride to the hotel, Chiron listened as the two boys marvelled over the passing scenery. Despite the dark of the night the beauty of Greece still shone bright, captivating the boys as they looked around.

Alex was staring to his right hand side at the beach when there was a sudden force that drew towards the left. A row of white Greek columns lined the area, forming a barrier around something that Alex felt lured to.

"Chiron, what's inbetween those columns? " Alex kept his eyes glued to the columns until they drove past it. Henry glanced back to see what Alex was looking at before turning to Chiron to hear what he had to say.

"Those protect the graves and memorials of the soliders who fought during the Trojan War. Among them is the memorial site of the famous Greek hero, Achilles, himself. " Chiron glanced at Alex through the review mirror.

"The memorial site of Achilles? " Alex mumbled before looking back at the columns again, the last column no longer in his sight as they drove further away.

"You okay? " Henry placed a gentle arm over Alex's who just nodded his head and stared back at the beach, lost in his thoughts.

Henry decided that Alex might just be jet lagged and decided to leave him be, keeping his hand interlocked with Alex's for the rest of the car ride.

~~~

It's been three days since the couple arrived in Greece and it had been hectic. They were piled with work as soon as the work up the on the first day, they're schedule packed for almost every minute.

Since the two had to work at different embassies, they saw each other for breakfast and dinner, lunch was usually spent in their respective temporary work places.

As the days past by, Alex had forgotten about the grave of Achilles he'd seen the second they were handed their work. He'd only seen books during the past three days. There was absolutely no time to go out and visit the island of Delos they were on.

However, hard work and determination did prevail as Alex managed to finish his work ahead of schedule and was now free to roam the streets of Delos as he waited for Henry to complete his work.

Walking through a little market alleyway, Alex took in the sight of the locals as they went about their daily lives. They talked, laughed and just enjoyed each other's company, greeting each other enthusiastically as they passed and Alex found himself smiling to himself. He loved the social, carefree nature the Greeks had.

The place was small, innocent and friendly. It was something Alex grew to like during his days in Greece, it was definitely a huge contrast to his life back home.

"Young man, may I offer you a sample of figs? " a friendly old lady held out a platter with the ripest figs Alex had ever seen. He gratefully accepted the offer and poped a fig in his mouth, the fresh flavour exploded, filling his tastebuds with the grainy sweetness of it's juices.

Maybe he was overwhelmed with the sweetness of the fig or he was simply just exhausted from all the work he'd done the past couple of days but as he finished the fruit, he felt his hand reach out for more of the fruit. Each bite he took, a familiar yet foreign feeling took over him.

The old lady watched in delight as the First Son inhaled the fruits one after the other until the plate was cleared.

"You sure seem to like the figs, my boy. " she handed him a tissue to wipe the juice that he didn't even know had trailed down his arm.

"It seems so. I'd never ate anything quite like it before, yet it felt so familiar to me. " Alex looked at the crate of figs that sat on the stand behind her, "Could I please buy some? "

Alex made his way back to the hotel happily with his packet of figs bumping against his legs as he walked. He didn't expect Henry to be in the room as he walked in. The British boy eyed him sceptically as he shut the door behind him.

"What'd you bring? " Henry's voice was thick with exhaustion. He was laid back against the headboard with a book spread open on his lap. Alex jumped onto the bed and showered his tired boyfriend with little pecks all over his face, giggling as he did so.

"I brought you some figs. " Alex said once Henry finally got him to calm down. "It's the best thing you'll ever taste, I swear. " Alex handed the little fruit to Henry and watched eagerly as he bit into the fruit. The bliss that struck Henry's face as the sweetness burst in his mouth made Alex satisfied.

Together, they sat on their bed and devoured the fruit while talking about their day and their time in the beautiful land of Greece. Before they hd realised it, they had come down to the last fig in the packet.

"Catch." Henry tossed the last fig to Alex. Alex felt like he watched the fig in slow motion as it formed a perfect arc before landing into the cup of his palms, soft and slightly warm.

For some reason, Alex had felt like he'd just experienced deja vu. A blured image formed in his head. He found himself looking at a table full of boys however, Alex seemed to only foucs on a specific one.

They sat on opposite ends of the table, everyone's attention was on a boy who was devouring a bowl of figs in front of him. The aura around the boy seemed to draw Alex towards him, making him unable to remove his eyes from the boy.

Suddenly, the boy diverted his gaze from the fruit to Alex who wasn't quick enough to look away. Softly, with a quick flick of his wrist the boy tossed the fig towards Alex, "Catch. "

"Alex? " Henry called out to the dazed boy.

"Huh? What? " Alex focused on Henry who gave him a concerned gaze.

"Are you feeling okay? " Henry placed the back of his hand to Alex's forehead, "You've been acting strange ever since we arrived in Greece. "

"I-I really don't know. I keep getting this feeling like- I don't know, deja vu? " Alex rubbed his temples, "I keeping thinking about those columns we passed the other day. "

"Do you want to go and visit it? " Henry offered.

"I don't think we'd have the time for that. " Alex placed his hand over Henry's and gave him a smile, "It's alright though, I'd much rather spend my time with you. "

That night, as Alex slept soundly it was Henry's turn to think about those columns. Alex had talked about it a few times since they'd got there and Henry couldn't help but want to take him there. He'd do anything for Alex.

Sending a message to Chiron, Henry requested day off for the next day saying that he had something urgent to take care of before snaking his arms around Alex's sleeping body, slipping of to sleep.

The next morning Henry awoke earlier than Alex as usual and prepared himself for the day ahead before waking up his sleeping lover.

Alex peaked at Henry through the half opened lids of his eyes and gave him a toothy grin. He puckered his lips like a fish, demanding his daily morning kiss. "Not with your morning breath, mister. " Henry pulled Alex out of bed and told him to get dressed without any further information before leaving the room.

When Alex had met up with Henry at the lobby of the hotel, they were escorted out by a friendly local who drove them to their destination which Henry still refused to tell Alex about.

After what felt like hours, they finally pulled up to the place that had been on Alex's mind since the beginning on their trip.

"The memorial of Achilles? " Alex marveled at the tall Greek columns that towered over them, all arranged protectively around multiple, marble tombs.

They walked with interlocked hands along the path, acknowledging all the soldiers that fought during the Trojan War. Multiple flowers lined the banks of the tombs along with notes written by locals who were still grateful for the war they fought.

At the very center of the memorial stood the grandest marble tomb, it's surface gleamed in the sunlight as if heaven itself was acknowledging the memorial. Alex dropped Henry's hand and walked aimlessly towards the tomb.

"I could recognize him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. " Alex ran his hands along the tomb of Achilles.

"I would know him in death, at the end of the world. " Alex's voice was now barely above a whisper.

"Alex, what are you saying? " Henry placed an arm on the boys shoulder.

Alex turned to him, tears glazed his eyes and threatened to spill as he stared back at Henry. The deep brown eyes of Alex stared longingly at Henry's as if he hadn't seen them before. It felt as if the person looking at Henry was not just Alex, but for some reason be still felt connected to that person.

"I have found you, my love. " Alex said. "Achilles, we can be happy now. "

Henry finally understood what was happening, it was as if all the mysteries in the world finally became clear. "Patroclus, we found each other. "

[autumnalfallingleaves]

After several months, I finally wrote a thing because Wizards hit me in the feels.

~~~

Remembering.

Or,

There are consequences to changing the timeline.

~~~

Blinkous Galadrigal has, for nine-hundred years, known that there would one day be a Trollhunter with piercing blue eyes that shine like hope. Hope for victory. Hope for the next day. Hope for the future. 

He has met this Trollhunter. His name was Jim (an odd name), and his blue eyes had shone as he rallied the citizens of Dwoza to arms. Something had stirred within his breast, then, along with the utter fear that threatened to overtake him. His brother felt the same, he could tell, but he, Blinkous Galadrigal, would not give in to the terror, not when this literal whelp could stand before them and tell them they’d win, despite what they may think. He had lived a much longer life than this child. Surely, he could fight a war?

And they fought. And they won, all because of this child with hope-blue eyes and the ability to look at him and tell him he could do so much more. 

Much later, the Trollhunter approached him, after the fighting had ceased and Jim and his companions had returned to whence they came. 

Deya the Deliverer, once Callista the Calamity, stood before him and told him who this child had been: a Trollhunter, like herself, but from the distant future. Jim had told her, she said, that a day would come where Blinkous himself would be a close companion of his, and one whom Jim trusted with his life. 

He would need to know Jim, she said, but do not tell him that you know him. Let him forge his own path, but do not let him do it alone. Guide him to be the child of hope that he knew from Dwoza. 

Hope for the future, Blinkous, the Deliverer told him, and teach Jim to hope, as well.

~~~ 

AAARRRGGHH!!! has, for nine-hundred years, known that there would one day be a Trollhunter with a toothy, knowing smile that looks like mercy. Mercy for the disillusioned. Mercy for ones who do not know better. Mercy for those who deserve second chances. 

He knows this because it was this whelp who showed him a better path. Under Gunmar, AAARRGGHH!!! was always watching his back, always frightened, always waiting for the fatal blow. In the Skullcrusher’s horde, there was always a chance that you would be killed by one looking for power, no matter what your rank was. This… Jim had looked at him, smiled, and offered a hand not to strike him, but to offer a chance to start again. A chance to live a life without fear.

AAARRRGGHH!!! was reluctant to take it. What did this child know of him? Of war? Didn’t he know that there was no mercy for a killer like him? 

Kill him! The citizens of Dwoza yelled, and AAARRRGGHH!!! agreed. He was guilty of so many things. The only thing he deserved was death. 

But no. He never got what he wanted, did he? Not a chance to have a peaceful life like these Trolls, not a chance to have a family like the small, four-armed Troll and his brother, both of whom were clearly terrified by him. 

The Jim had scowled at the other Trolls and told them no, they would not kill him. Then he smiled at AAARRRGGHH!!!, and it shone like mercy, the kind where you could try again and again, and no matter how many times you slipped, you would not be punished for it. 

The boy was merciful. The general was not used to this feeling… this… this… kindness. When had he ever been kind to another? He couldn’t remember. And…

…When had he ever been merciful?

But the Jim was filled with it, and it was this mercy that allowed him to meet Blinkous. Or Blinky, because Blinkous was hard to say and that was what the Jim had called him. Blinky was skittish and anxious, but he was also empathetic and kind. He did not hit AAARRRGGHH!!! when he made a mistake. He corrected him with a smile, and not once did he ever judge him. 

It was nice. 

After the Battle of Killahead, on their way to the New World and a new Heartstone, as the Dwoza stone had died in the blast of magic that shook the heavens, Blinky told him who the Jim had been: a Trollhunter like Deya, but from the future. He and AAARRRGGHH!!! would know the boy, he told him, and they would be his teachers. 

AAARRRGGHH!!! was glad. The boy had been his savior, and he would have a chance to repay him. He would teach him mercy, AAARRRGGHH!!! decided, like Blinky would teach him hope. The mercy to be able to spare a former GummGumm like him.

~~~

Deya has, for nine-hundred years, known that there would one day be a Trollhunter with a soft-yet-strong voice that rings like justice. Justice for those unfairly slain. Justice for the generations yet to come. Justice for oneself. 

This Trollhunter was the one who gave her her purpose, her name. Before, she had been Callista the Calamity, doomed to put all she loved in danger. She was an outcast, she was bad luck, she was someone no one wanted around. She was tainted by humans, after all, and carried a human name. But she couldn’t help it. Her memories of her old life were gone. Where was the justice in that?

But Jim hadn’t cared. He saw Callista, not the Calamity. He didn’t have the history needed to judge her. He’d met her in the dungeons beneath Camelot and decided she was someone who was worth saving. He spoke of hope and mercy and justice, and Callista couldn’t help but swept away by the tide of it all. It had been a while since someone had cared enough to talk to her, and more importantly, to listen to her. 

And he listened. He listened as she told him about her story: her village destroyed, being captured by humans, given one of their names, and deemed an outcast by her kind. She lamented to him about how she wished she could avenge her village, her family, to enact justice for them.

She listened, too, and learned of how Jim was not of her time. He was from the future, and held the position of Trollhunter, a mantel granted by Merlin to protect Trolls from evil, such as Gunmar and his horde. Merlin? Protecting Trolls? A preposterous thought. 

But here was this half-human, half-Troll boy from the future, with a suit of ebony and crimson armor, and she had no choice but to believe. Maybe she, Callista, would be Trollhunter one day, and she would finally be able to bring about the justice she so desired.

And little by little, as the days went on, Jim gave her the tools to bring her justice. He gave her the courage to speak up as he pleaded with Dwoza to help them in the coming war. He gave her status she needed as she helped win the fight against the GummGumm general. He gave her hope as she sat in a crevasse, Amulet in hand, unsure if she was worthy to wield his mantel.��

It’s Jim’s, not mine, she thinks, but Jim tells her no, that the mantel is hers. He may be Trollhunter, but he is the future’s Trollhunter. The people back where he comes from need him. She, Callista, is this era’s Trollhunter, and the people of this time need her. 

She listens, and he leaves, and before she goes as well, her village gives her one last gift in the form of a carved totem.

She is Deya, and she is the Deliverer, but it was someone else who delivered her, who did her village justice as he gave her her purpose. 

So she fights. 

After all is said and done, she is visited by a specter of Merlin. He tells her that she, his champion, will have a legacy spanning centuries. Her name will be celebrated by thousands, and she will be remembered by countless others. He tells her that, when she dies, her spirit will live on in a Void Between Worlds. She will serve as a teacher for those who come after, and eventually, for Jim, the boy with eyes like hope, a smile like mercy, and a voice like justice. 

So she waits. She fights for justice, and eventually, she is killed by Bular’s sword. It’s morbidly poetic, in a way: she locked away the father, so the son takes her life in retaliation.

The Amulet leaves, and she is reborn in a world of spirits and magic, all cloaked in a blue haze.

Later, she is joined by others: a lean Trollhunter with the affinity for cloning themself to get the edge on enemies, a pacifist Trollhunter with gentle eyes and words, a Trollhunter whose son sought only to make him proud, and many more. 

Deya does not tell them about Jim. It’s too soon for them. They know the stories, of course, where a whelp from a distant land inspired the mighty Deya to take up arms against Gunmar and his injustices, but they do not know the true nature of the boy. That is knowledge for her and her alone. 

Finally, nine centuries after the great Battle of Killahead, a human is Chosen as Trollhunter for the first time. His eyes shine like a hope not seen in years, his smile bestows mercy upon whomever he graces it with, and his voice rings like a chance for justice. 

His name is Jim Lake, Jr., and as he fights, as he wins, Deya watches with a proud gaze. Her title might be “the Deliverer”, but it is he, this human child with the resilience of a Troll, who truly deserves the moniker. 

He delivered her, and in turn, she delivered the world.  

[dearcat1]

Alessandra AU

Fandom: Bleach, Katekyo Hitman Reborn.

Relationships: Ichigo Kurosaki & Xanxus.

Summary: Ichigo reborn as Xanxus’ little sister.

.

[Part 1] [Part 2]

Honestly, Xanxus is not even surprised when these particular bunch of clowns appear in front of him. He's just happy that it happens during his sister's first day of Mafia School. He doesn't want them anywhere near his baby sister. Not after he saw the amount of damage her soul is still healing from. 

There had been quite a lot of casualties the day Xanxus found out. His elements don't talk about it, Alessandra looks oddly touched if the subject ever comes up. The entirety of the training grounds had to be rebuilt but Xanxus figures they should be happy Xanxus had mellowed enough not to go out hunting. 

"Rukia, I presume," he drawls and looks the outfit over. Summer dress and a cute little smile, she looks like a high schooler and all-around good little girl. The act won't serve her well here, though, this is the Varia and they know better than some Japanese teachers over three decades ago. Alessandra is fond of her, Xanxus hates her with a passion that surprises even him. 

Both of them agree, whatever debt was owed to her has long been paid. 

"Ah, yes, mister Xanxus," she demurs, sweet as sugar. "Is Ichigo here? We'd like to talk to him."

Xanxus hides his fury behind his careless facade. He's a mafia Don, he knows how to play this game, no matter how compromised he is. "Ichigo Kurosaki is dead," he doesn't say because of you but he hopes she heard it regardless. "He doesn't live here."  

She falters at that, for a split second, and then recovers. "My apologies. I meant Alessandra, mister. Could we talk to her?" 

With a hum, Xanxus shrugs, takes a deliberately slow gulp of his whisky and watches her do her best to reign in her temper. "I don't believe you can, no." 

"And why is that?" She asks, tone far tighter and teeth pressed together. 

Maybe he shouldn't be taking as much enjoyment from this as he is but Xanxus doesn't give a shit about her comfort, "for starters, she's not here at the moment." 

"And?" Rukia demands and Xanxus lets her.

Let her think that she's untouchable, let her go on with that for a while yet. Xanxus wants to see the realization in her face, the fear creeping in. He'll draw the line in the sand and he's taken measures to ensure it will be respected. "And even if she was, I wouldn't let an ungrateful traitor like you anywhere near her."

"Traitor?" Rukia grits out and there it is, the temper. If Xanxus didn't hate her so, he'd admire her spine. "We are his friends!"

Yes, Ichigo's friends in just the same way that Timoteo is Xanxus' father. It's easier on the mind to call it kindness than manipulation, after all. "Were you? Then why is it that you only come around when you need something?" 

Rukia's eyes widen and she flinches back, Urahara beside her lowers his head and hides behind his fan. The third soul reaper just grimaces slightly and Xanxus has no idea which one this is but he's going to hate him out of principle. "Or am I wrong?" He goes on, knowing full well that he isn't. "Are you here just to say hi and not because you need a child to fight for you? Incompetent as you seem to be." 

"Soul Society needs…" 

"To lower its ego." Xanxus finishes for her, "if it needed to be created, it means the world survived before it as well. Your disappearance might make things hard for a while but the world will adapt. If an organization has become incompetent enough to need a teenager to save them when they have people who have been alive for centuries on their payroll…" 

He lets the implications settle, lets them see how unwilling he is to cooperate. Let them know he will not bow to their self-importance. 

"We could just ask Ichigo directly," she answers, smug with the knowledge that very few have ever been more important to Ichigo than his family and friends.

Xanxus doesn't let it bother him. This girl, centuries-old or not, is in denial. She can't seem to think of Alessandra in any other way than in terms of Ichigo. And yes, Ichigo and Alessandra are at their core the same but reincarnation has its impacts and as much as Ale remembers her life as Ichigo, it's faded like all old memories are. And Xanxus is her older brother, the one she admires and looks up to. The one she trusts to keep her safe. 

"You do that," he mocks, drinking a little more whisky. "She'll give you the same answer: no. My sister won't break a promise to me for the likes of you." But seeing as he doesn't want any of them near his Ale, he leans forward in mostly fake interest. "Let me show you something, before you go. Try to get out of that fake body of yours." 

Though Xanxus can see the obvious disinterest at the beginning, he can also tell the moment she realizes that she can't. Xanxus smiles, all teeth and bloodlust, "what do you think will happen to you should you die in that? You're, after all, already a spirit." 

Verde's services had been incredibly expensive to acquire but Xanxus wasn't about to get stingy on such important matters. Besides, the new data might just be enough for the crazy scientist to stick around a little longer. 

"You're a good brother," soul reaper number three says with something that tries to hide approval. "I am glad. Send Alessandra my regards, we will be leaving."

"But brother!" 

"Rukia," the man Xanxus now can identify as Byakuya reprimands, "we're going." 

The girl follows with a frown on her face and evident confusion surrounding her. Xanxus doesn't care, if he never sees her again he'll be a happier man for it. He turns to look at the blonde instead. "So?" 

"Her soul," Urahara begins, hesitant. "It can't be fully healed."

It's not, it really isn't and Xanxus is both furious and terrified. It must show in his face somehow because the scientist closes his fan, clutching it against his chest like a lifeline. Ichigo loved this man like a father, Xanxus knows. Alessandra loves him mostly the same, perhaps because there was no father in this life to muddy the waters. She misses him, after nightmares or bad days. Xanxus… he doesn't know how he feels about it. 

"I couldn't save Ichigo," and like this, without the fan hiding his face, it's easy to see the grief and regret. The desperation. "I couldn't. But Alessandra… the machines I made to keep Ichigo stable, they should help her heal." 

This is begging, Xanxus knows. And he wants to deny the man, turn him away and demand he never returns. But he remembers his sister's words "Kisuke didn't know what was happening" and her unwavering belief that even if everybody else abandoned her, Urahara would have fought tooth and nail for Ichigo's life. So he nods, ignoring the tightness of his jaw. "Send the research over, if it checks out, we'll contact you."

He doesn't know what comes over him but in a moment of mercy or maybe out of misplaced fondness, he reaches for the man. Xanxus lays a hand on the blonde's shoulder and hands over a small picture the Varia Commander always carries with him. Alessandra, smug and grinning at the camera. He has more copies anyway.

Kisuke leaves after that, clutching the picture to him like it's the one thing that keeps him going. Maybe it is. Xanxus… about this man, he doesn't know what to think.

[brandyovereager]

The Phoenix Effect - pt. 4

I had a lot of fun writing Rowan’s POV for this and I may have gotten a bit carried away...but I love Rowaelin! <3 :)

On ao3:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/22195906/chapters/58766644#workskin

Summary: Rowan is in Rifthold with Dorian when a strange phenomenon sweeps the land. Those once dead are popping up alive. Everyday, more and more are Reborn. One day Rowan encounters a Reborn young man who refuses to give his name, only asking to know the whereabouts of Celaena Sardothein.

-

As helpful as the Fae king had been so far, and as much as he could be trusted with his discretion, visiting the Keep was something Sam had to do alone. This was his revenge, and he needed to be the one to carry it out.

“I’ll do what I need to and meet you at the castle gates by dusk if I haven’t gotten the information I need.” Hopefully the scum left at the Keep could tell him the full story of Celaena’s fate, but if not he would still need the Rowan’s help.

“Absolutely not.” Sam was taken aback.

“Excuse me?” This was the first time the Fae had outright denied him the discretion he asked for.

“No way are you going to do whatever it is you think you need to do alone. I’m coming with you.” Sam hadn’t expected that.

“I can handle myself.” He’d spent years at the Keep, he knew the terrain and the people like second nature.

“I don’t know what sort of trouble you’ve gotten yourself into but I can tell it’s with some very bad people. You need to be smart about this. I might not be necessary, but I certainly wouldn’t be detrimental. You could use someone to watch your back, after all, I’m assuming these people are the reason you died in the first place.”

Sam had to admit he was right about that.

“You can come with me, but you stay outside. I will go in and take care of my business alone. You’ll stand guard and wait for my signal if something goes wrong.”

Rowan’s response was a simple nod. Good. The Fae would be nearby if things to a turn for the worst, but this was a conversation Rowan had no part of. As curious as the King of Terrasen’s past seemed, Sam didn’t want to bring him into this. A royal had no place in the murdering of three well-known assassins to avenge the death of another well-known assassin.

————

The further they walked, the more certain Rowan became that this kid was in some deep shit.

They were trekking through the city, side-by-side, and in silence. Rowan observed the young man carefully as they maneuvered through the crowds, in part to make sure they didn’t get separated, but also out of curiosity.

The young man was slender, but not in a way that put him at a disadvantage. On the contrary, he was lithe and nimble. He could slip easily through the crowd practically undetected, quite the opposite of Rowan’s method—simply be hulking and angry-looking and people move out of your way. The young man was not scrawny or weak. He was probably made of lean and compact muscle underneath his clothing.

He reminded Rowan of Aelin, and wasn’t that just a heart-wrenching thought—soon, they’d be back together soon. His delicate movements were similar to that of the former assassin’s—perhaps that was how this young man got himself mixed up in underhanded dealings. Rowan could easily picture the boy as a thief or an assassin, silent but dangerous.

“So Aelin Galathynius is alive?” The young man’s question made Rowan crook the edge of his mouth up in a secret smile.

“Yes, Terrasen’s true queen is alive and well, just as she will be for many years to come.” Rowan was sure of that. If her sheer power and immortal grace alone wasn’t enough, Rowan would lay down his own life to keep her breathing.

“What’s she like?” Whether these questions were simply small talk or the young man was trying to figure Rowan out, the Fae did not care. He would gladly praise his love to anyone who would listen.

“Fierce, determined, relentless,” Rowan smirked slightly as he continued, “stubborn, arrogant, hotheaded,” his face softened, “immensely beautiful, loyal to kingdom and kin, passionate as her fire,” he would forever be in awe of her, “and powerful beyond legend.” The young man was now analyzing his face closely.

“You two married for love, yes? It was not arranged?” Rowan couldn’t help but chuckle at the question.

“I bring her absolutely no political advantage as a husband. My status as a Prince was nothing but an empty title. I had no money or land, and she had far better options in that aspect, but that didn’t matter to Aelin. We are mates, simple as that.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know much about Fae, but your kind mate for life, yes?”

“In a sense, yes. When a Fae meets their true mate, there is an undeniable connection. Mates are tied to one another in a bond far greater than the mortal concept of marriage. The mortal world would see our marriage as a poor move for Terrasen, but such things are insignificant in the face of a mating bond.”

“I thought you were kind of odd for a king.” Rowan laughed at the kid’s observation.

He was more husband than king. Aelin was a wonderful queen, and did not need a consort to make decisions for her. What she needed was his love and fealty. He supported his mate emotionally as she bore the mantle of queen. He was blood-sworn to her, and he would do whatever she asked of him—hence his presence in Rifthold.

The two walked on, further and further, and with every turn Rowan felt the pit of his stomach sink deeper. He didn’t know how close they were to their destination, but the area was sickeningly familiar. Rowan hadn’t spent too much time in Rifthold before, especially not in any one area, but he knew this place. They were near the Assassin’s Keep.

His observation was proven true as the young man turned down a street and then stopped in front of a familiar building.

It might just be that his earlier deduction was correct. However, this young man and Aelin moved so similarly not just because they were both trained assassins, but because they were trained by the same man.

Rowan had a horrible feeling about this.

————

Sam hadn’t seen the doors to the Keep since he left with Celaena. Arobynn and his lackeys had likely taken him here to be tortured and killed, but he’d had a blindfold on the whole time.

The place was just as dark and terrible as always. Why make a building full of professional murderers look inviting? From the information Sam had found in the Hall of Records, Arobynn was no longer there, but he still felt no great desire to enter.

He glanced over to his Fae companion, who was staring at the building with an odd look on his face.

“Stay out here. I could be a while, but don’t come in unless I call for you.” For a monarch, Rowan accepted the outright order quite well, and Sam once again wondered about the story behind the King of Terrasen.

The Keep was cold inside, just as it had always been. Celaena had always used it as an excuse to buy the most expensive blankets and other finery to keep warm, but Sam had always had a deep chill through him whenever he was here.

He found Tern first. The man was sloppy, always had been, and it was easy to catch him off guard. With hardly any effort he had the other assassin subdued and tied to his own chair, Sam moved to stand in front of him. The moment Tern finally saw his face a look of shock appeared before quickly being replaced with anger.

“I heard a bunch of dead ones were popping up, some god’s gotta be off it if they picked you.”

“I’m aware you prefer me dead, you did help kill me after all.” Sam was, in fact, still a little bitter about that.

“Is that what you’re here for, revenge? You’ve come to kill me for killing you?” Tern’s teeth were bared in a sneer.

“I am enjoying the feeling of you tied up and at my mercy—and it may come to that later—but no, I’m here for information.”

“You want to know who ordered the hit on you? I thought it was pretty obvious it was Arobynn, but maybe you’d like my confirmation?” This buffoon was quickly exhausting his patience.

“No, that was obvious. I knew even then that it was him. I need you to tell me what happened to Celaena. Why was she sent to Endovier, and where is Arobynn?” Tern’s mouth curled into a sinister smile.

“You do not know?” Sam was growing tired of tedious conversation. Tern was acting quite proud for knowing something Sam did not.

“Obviously not, so tell me. What happened between the both of them after I was killed?” What did he do to Celaena?

“I take it these questions mean you have not heard whispers around Rifthold about the assassin or her master? I’m sure you have deduced what that means.” Sam briefly sacrificed his sharp focus to roll his eyes in annoyance.

“Neither is in the city, yes, but why?” Tern’s answers were sounding a lot more like questions.

“Arobynn Hammel is dead. He was murdered in his sleep two years ago, most likely by that brunette whore he kept company with.” So Arobynn was dead, but Celaena had not killed him. Celaena had never gotten to enact her vengeance on the cruel man.

“If he only died two years ago, then he would have been alive to see Celaena’s capture. Why didn’t he save her? Was it his fault?” Why would Arobynn give up his star assassin to the King?

“Yes, he set her up to be arrested. He baited her with your murder, knew she would come for revenge, and arranged for Adarlan’s Guard to be waiting for her. He was angry about her trying to run off with you, thought he’d teach her a lesson, starting with your death.” Sam’s blood was boiling with his strong emotions, one of which being immense rage.

“So I was a pawn, killed so Arobynn could reprimand his precious protege? It was better for her to meet a slow, torturous death than for the two of us to leave the Guild?” It was horrible, pure hatred and cruelty. Why could they not be happy?

“It’s your own fault for thinking you could. Nobody gets out of here. The life of an assassin follows you wherever you go, and you two had to learn that the hard way.” Not for the first time, Sam imagined how their story could have ended had they not both belonged Arobynn Hammel. If they had been born average children in Rifthold, would anyone have gone to such lengths to prevent their happiness?

“Arobynn is lucky he’s already dead, the bastard deserved far worse than a slit throat for his sins, but perhaps I can make do with you and your cronies.” Sam felt a sadistic smirk appear on his lips and slowly stalked closer to his prey. “How much did you know beforehand of his plan for her? Did you help him set the trap?” Tern began to shake slightly and struggle harder against his restraints.

“Hey now, I was just a henchman—an ignorant henchman at that. Arobynn didn’t tell us anything but what we specifically needed to do, and only right before we needed to do it. He didn’t trust us with anything that sensitive.” It was an empty excuse, really, not enough for Sam to spare him.

“You still did it, though, and I bet you were happy to. The three of you held no great love for Celaena Sardothein. I’m sure business only got better.”

“That may be true, but you still don’t want to kill me.” It was laughable, and Sam let out a short guffaw at Tern’s statement.

“Why not? What more could I need from you? You’ve answered my questions, and given me greatly displeasing answers. I should take your life as vengeance for Celaena’s.” It’s what he’d come here intending to do, anyway.

“What if I told you that Celaena didn’t die in Endovier?” Sam froze. “I can tell you how she got out and where she went, just leave me here alive.” Tern knew he had him with that, and began to look smug again. Ordinarily, Sam would have swiftly wiped the look from Tern’s face, but he was entirely fixated on what the assassin just revealed.

“You have my attention.”

@rowaelinforeverworld @flowersinvegas @aelin-queen-of-terrasen @camixd93

Message me or reply to be tagged (or just to let me know what you think)!

[yeniayofnymeria]

Arya Stark and Black Swan

(I don't know who the picture belongs to, I found it a long time ago.)

Hello/Selam,

In fact, as you know, Arya is one of the biggest five of GRRM. She has a key role in the books. The problem is that it's hard to predict exactly what this role is. I've been trying to piece together her puzzle pieces for years. The result I have achieved so far; Arya is on the side of the ice in the Battle of Ice and Fire alongside FM / Great Other ... Most people see this story as a classic good-bad battle, but I don't. The reason I think so is GRRM's statements.

Men are still capable of great heroism. But I don’t necessarily think there are heroes. That’s something that’s very much in my books: I believe in great characters. We’re all capable of doing great things, and of doing bad things. We have the angels and the demons inside of us, and our lives are a succession of choices…[Woodrow Wilson] was a racist who tried to end war. Now, does one cancel out the other? Well, they don’t cancel out the other. You can’t make him a hero or a villain. He was both. And we’re all both. - GRRM

...

Much as I admire Tolkien, and I do admire Tolkien — he’s been a huge influence on me, and his Lord of the Rings is the mountain that leans over every other fantasy written since and shaped all of modern fantasy — there are things about it, the whole concept of the Dark Lord, and good guys battling bad guys, Good versus Evil, while brilliantly handled in Tolkien, in the hands of many Tolkien successors, it has become kind of a cartoon. We don’t need any more Dark Lords, we don’t need any more, “Here are the good guys, they’re in white, there are the bad guys, they’re in black. And also, they’re really ugly, the bad guys.” - GRRM

So I don't see the side of ice and fire pure good and pure bad. They're both. Just like the Stark and Lannister war. So I don't see any problem putting Arya on the ice. After all, she's a Stark, and the Stark family is portrayed as "ice."

Lets continue.

The post was created using multiple topics(I combined them.): u/DutchArya 's https://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php?/topic/146440-arya-the-singing-bird-stark/ post and u/Arya1100's https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/7vw332/spoilers_extended_black_swans_and_arya_stark_an/ post.

It's an old theory(of theirs), but it's been a year or so. I wanted to resurrect. I just added a few things. And I commented in my own words.

Black Swan Theory

The black swan theory or theory of black swan events is a metaphor that describes an event that comes as a surprise, has a major effect, and is often inappropriately rationalized after the fact with the benefit of hindsight**.** The term is based on an ancient saying that presumed black swans did not exist – a saying that became reinterpreted to teach a different lesson after black swans were discovered in the wild.

The theory was developed by Nassim Nicholas Taleb to explain:

The disproportionate role of high-profile, hard-to-predict, and rare events that are beyond the realm of normal expectations in history, science, finance, and technology.

The non-computability of the probability of the consequential rare events using scientific methods (owing to the very nature of small probabilities).

The psychological biases that blind people, both individually and collectively, to uncertainty and to a rare event's massive role in historical affairs.

Unlike the earlier and broader "black swan problem" in philosophy (i.e. the problem of induction), Taleb's "black swan theory" refers only to unexpected events of large magnitude and consequence and their dominant role in history. Such events, considered extreme outliers**, collectively play vastly larger roles than regular occurrences:**xxi More technically, in the scientific monograph 'Silent Risk', Taleb mathematically defines the black swan problem as "stemming from the use of degenerate metaprobability" - From wikizeroo.org

Black Swan in summary = A term used to refer to an unexpectedly large event, effect, event.

Arya Stark is thought to have a connection with the Black Swan... This is both a “theory i'm issue I mentioned above and a kind of ugly duckling that turns into a beautiful swan.

Black Swan

Arya felt as though the lake were calling her. She wanted to leap into those placid blue waters, to feel clean again, to swim and splash and bask in the sun. But she dare not take off her clothes where the others could see...

From up here, she could see a small wooded island off to the northeast. Thirty yards from shore, three black swans were gliding over the water, so serene . . . no one had told them that war had come, and they cared nothing for burning towns and butchered men. She stared at them with yearning. Part of her wanted to be a swan the other part wanted to eat one. - (Arya, A Clash of Kings)

The important thing in this quote is that he sees “3 BLACK SWAN as I mentioned above. In fact, the Europeans did not know Black Swan until the 1697s, and I think that this is the basis of the theory that I mentioned first. So, in essence, these animals are a very rare species. Considering that the ASOIAF universe is a kind of a different version of Europe... In other words, the author added a “black swan" instead of the common white swan.

In the next book (book 3) Arya meets some of the Brotherhood and Lady Ravella Smallwood. She treats Arya well, washes and dresses her.

It was even worse than before; Lady Smallwood insisted that Arya take another bath, and cut and comb her hair besides; the dress she put her in this time was sort of lilac-colored, and decorated with little baby pearls. The only good thing about it was that it was so delicate that no one could expect her to ride in it. So the next morning as they broke their fast, Lady Smallwood gave her breeches, belt, and tunic to wear, and a brown doeskin jerkin dotted with iron studs. "They were my son's things," she said. "He died when he was seven."

"I'm sorry, my lady." Arya suddenly felt bad for her, and ashamed. "I'm sorry I tore the acorn dress too. It was pretty."

"Yes, child. And so are you. Be brave."

This woman from House Swan. Their sigil is so interesting 

Battling swans black and white and so is the House of Black and White and that is where Arya is being reborn at every dark moon.

In the books Black and White was often touted as the struggle for darkness and light; therefore, we may interpret the question of swans as the struggle between dark and light parts of Arya or some kind of foreshadowing, which expresses an "enemy" in the future. In another comment 3 black swans; 3 can not be predicted to affect the story, may also express the great effect.

Water Dance

Arya stands on her toes, on one leg. This is indeed reminiscent of ballet. Ballet dancers learn to stand upright, on the tip of their toes, often on one leg. It's explicitly linked to the water dancing. So, "water dancing" = "ballet" and Swan Lake is a ballet that also has narrative similarities to Arya's story.

Ned stopped and looked at her. "Arya, what are you doing?"

"Syrio says a water dancer can stand on one toe for hours." Her hands flailed at the air to steady herself.

Ned had to smile. "Which toe?" he teased.

"Any toe." - (Eddard V, aGoT)

Later on, Arya wishes she could dance on water. This is what the Swan ballet dancers do!

Skinny as they were, her legs were strong and springy and growing longer every day. She was glad of that. A water dancer needs good legs. Blind Beth was no water dancer, but she would not be Beth forever. - The Blind Girl, ADWD

...

She was not far from the Gate as the crows flies, but for girls with feet instead of wings, the way was longer. - Mercy, Winds

Ugly Duck and Beautiful Swan

You all know the story of the ugly duckling. The swan, which started life as an ugly duck, is considered by all to be ugly and excluded. But one day something happens that when the ugly duck grows up, it turns into a beautiful swan and amazes everyone.

Readers think that the swan motif is also one aspect of it, which I'm sure everyone who reads the books carefully noticed it.

Arya considered herself ugly from the very beginning, and Sansa and Jeyne mocked her long face and subjected them to “Horse-faced” insults. According to Arya, her mother told her; if she wore beautiful dresses like Sansa and combed her hair, she could have been as beautiful as her sister.

But Jon and Ned always said she was beautiful; his father stated that she resembled his sister Lyanna, who is said to be a very beautiful girl. On the other hand, as she grew up during her adventure (such as Lady Smallwood), some began to emphasize that she was “beautiful.. For example, we have recently seen The Gentle Man said to her face is beautiful.

There is also a reference link to the swan and beauty in the series.

Arianne touched the pin that clasped [Balon’s] cloak, with its quarreling swans. “I have always been fond of swans. No other bird is half so beautiful, this side of the Summer Isles.”

“Your peacocks might dispute that,” said Ser Balon.

“They might,” said Arianne, “but peacocks are vain, proud creatures, strutting about in all those gaudy colors. Give me a swan serene in white or beautiful in black.” - The Watcher, ADwD

Thank you for read.

[icylook]

I Hold You

Pairing: Leon x Leri (MC)

Rating: Explicit; Word count: 1625; Read on AO3

Tags: Spoilers for the AMR demo; Not canon compliant - Leon and Leri (MC) started their relationship half a year before the final battle; Established Relationship; Angst and Fluff; Smut

A Mage Reborn demo 👑 ✨ @mage-parivir

Fic title inspo from the song - I Hold You by Clann 🎶 🤍

“Tickles.”

Wicked smile curls his lips, not that Leon can see it with his head thrown up, exposing his throat to the gentle assault of his mouth. Next kiss is even lighter and Leon squirms again but doesn’t tell him to stop. So he licks briefly over the pulse point, tasting the salt of his skin, breathing in the scent of soap and… tang of blood. Someone wasn’t as dutiful in his quick bath as he should be. 

But he knows why. Leon is tired. 

Every day a little more, his shoulders carrying the weight of the rebellion. 

Tired of the responsibility, and he’s ashamed of it, Leri being the only witness of a miserable confession, one dark, dark night ago. Murmured into his chest, breath wet with hot, unwanted tears. Guilt eating him alive because of the lives he’s lost, because he didn’t know what he should do with the faith of so many people in his hands. Terrified to the bone with the thought of disappointing those who believe in him and leading them to their cruel, unfair demise.

Leri sees the exhaustion with the line of his spine tauter with every speech he makes to rally his troops. He notices it in brief grimaces of pain, long hours in heavy armor with the weapon in his hand, constantly stained with crimson.

But after every nightmare of the day before, at every dawn, he gets up from his bedroll and faces what fate seems to throw at him. And Leri keeps being his shadow because of his resilience. 

Because Leon is his Sun.

And he’s the Moon.

Leon’s hand tangles in his braid when Leri nips lightly at the crook of his neck. Lets out a shuddering breath when his hand wanders down his waist, his fingers close over the fabric of his trousers, teasing the shape of his length. He’s quiet when he slowly makes him fill in his palm, a gasp here and there when he sneaks his hand in to take hold of him properly. Touching him as he likes, kissing his way up his throat and along his jaw. Feeling hotter in his own night clothes with every little noise and expression of pleasure the man in his arms makes. 

So subdued and quiet, so different than when out on the battlefield - commanding and unyielding in his strength. 

Here, he’s Leri’s.

Nights are the only time when they can be close to each other. Resting side by side in precious moments of calm. Rare are the days when they go to sleep at the exact same moment and wake up together and Leri cherishes them dearly. Collecting the memories before what little happiness they share is snached by the time.

In their shared bedroll Leon isn’t the king and a mighty warrior he serves, but a man he loves. And he isn’t a royal retainer and mage with eerie magic that most keep their distance from, but a man in love. 

Both of them take huge risks on the battlefield, and Ilya does what she’s able to with her healing, but some of Leon’s scars run deeper than his skin, even if he tries not to show it. 

There's no doubt the war takes its toll on everyone, mentally and physically. 

Every night Leri molds himself over Leon’s body as if it is their last. Leon’s embrace is as tight in return.

Nyx is merciful, but he can feel the growing hunger under his skin with every close dance with death, the cold fire in his veins harder to conceal. He doesn’t want to think what will happen when he pushes the line one time too many. Because he knows he can’t keep toeing it without consequences. 

They call him reckless, but what he’s doing is calculated. He makes light of the exhaustion of his body after every collapse when the spells take too much. Doesn't want them worrying about him when so much is at stake. 

He'll be fine, he’s fine. 

Teasing his companions when they scold him for being inappropriate on purpose, just to see the shadow of a smile on their face. Once, Saine told him that the sound of his laughter on the battlefield upon a spell going well is more terrifying than the spirits he summons. An impish thing to be amused but proud of, but Leri isn’t picky - he has a reputation to uphold.

The hold on Leri’s hair tightens when his wrist twists the way he knows Leon likes. Suddenly, the world tilts when his back meets the bedroll. Leon braced above him now.

“Leri...”

His breath hitches. Leon whispers his name like one of the gods in an hour of need. He almost drowns in the depth of an emerald that’s gazing at him like no one has ever before.

Any witty words stay stuck to his tongue with the shift in the mood. Leon’s eyes darken when he cups his face, leaning down, hot breath upon his lips. 

Hovering, waiting for him to meet him halfway. And he does, because he’s selfish and wants everything his Sun gives him. 

He’s good, Leri thinks, as Leon’s light kiss deepens and he parts his lips to let him in. The clumsiness of that first stolen kisses long gone, making him shiver with need. He hasn’t thought of Leon being a fast learner, eager and determined. Being focused on him now, as he is in battle. It’s both satisfying and frightening, but the thrill of it is something he seeks, over and over again.

Leri lets out an involuntary hiss when Leon hoists his left thigh, jostling his bad knee.

“Sorry,” Leon brushes his mouth over his, then over his cheeks and eyelids. Peppering his face with soft kisses and softer “sorry”, nestling himself between his legs and he opens them for his lover. Welcoming the weight of his warm body, pushing up when Leon pushes down. Drinking up his breathy moan with his lips, the tenderness of it making his heart clench. 

Slightly distracted by the way Leon licks into his mouth his hands stop at his sides, fingers digging into the hard muscles of his back. He pulls at the fabric of his shirt, impatient to get rid of it. But Leon doesn’t relent as Leri expects him to, too thirsty for a taste of his kisses. Making his head spin with the sensations of hunger mixing with affection he still tries to get used to.

Leon grunts when Leri bites at his lower lip and pulls back, tongue soothing the sting. The blush of his cheeks goes down his neck, gold hair messy, reddened lips plump and wet. Shirt hanging on one arm, the smooth skin of his collarbones and chest almost glowing. Green eyes full of want. Looking utterly debauched.

I did this, Leri thinks.

Somehow, they are able to push their trousers down enough to get a hold of their cocks. It shouldn’t feel as good as it does, the friction on the verge of uncomfortable. But they don’t stop and Leon is silent, unrelenting in the sensual flow of his body. It’s Leri who has trouble with keeping the noises in, biting at his fist.

The walls of the tent are thin and he could throw a silencing spell on them, but using his magic as it’s recovering will only botch the process. Leon catches his hand, holds down his wrist, then intertwines his fingers with Leri’s. Hot breath mingles with his, a gasp fans his skin when Leon shifts on his elbow, face twisted in quiet pleasure.

“Leri,” he speeds up the roll of his hips and the heel of Leri’s leg digs into the small of his back. Leon slows down to a drag, grinding and worrying at Leri’s neck, sucking at the skin and making Leri arch his back with a sobbing moan, barely stifled in the crook of his neck. 

“Stop teasing me, blondie, come on,” Leri’s low whisper makes Leon tighten his hold on him, light huffs of air leaving his throat when he sneaks his hand to grasp their cocks together. Leri’s hand closes over his and they keep at it in near perfect rhythm with their hips moving. Leri is first to feel the tug of pleasure low in his belly, spreading up his spine and the force of his thrusts increases with the urge of the chase, using Leon’s body to get to it. 

He curls into Leon with one long exhale when he nears his completion, hips jerking a few more times before he stills. Leri blinks as Leon’s shaky hand cups his face, kissing him sloppily, teeth latching at his bottom lip as Leon’s writhes above him. He rearranges both of Leri’s legs to wrap around his waist and rolls his hips again, still hard. Leri twists his hand up and down, rubbing the hot skin of his length and soon Leon’s back goes taut when it’s his turn to come, spilling over Leril’s fingers and his stomach, catching on his nightshirt. Silent in his climax, cherry lips opened in choked gasp hidden in Leri’s hair.

Both of them breathe hard and fast, Leon’s chest shining with sweat, strands of gold hair plastered to his temple, but green eyes are full of content. Leri reaches for him and Leon easily goes down, lips capturing Leri’s in slow and lazy kiss, full of satisfaction and affection. 

One more night.

He had him for one more night.

Leri wants to hold him again and again, wishing the moment to never end.

He didn't know that he was cold until he started basking in the warmth of his Sun. Because now, being without it, the cold seems unbearable. 

[windstormwielding]

@catnippp​ said via Send 💭 + a topic and my muse will tell you what they think about it (accepting!):

💭+Quincies/Espada after the wars

“Goodness... where do I even begin with those?”

A mildly apprehensive Kōtarō couldn’t help but crane his head back a little, chin resting between thumb and curled index after he set down his cup of hot ginger tea. Eyes closed for a few moments so he could concentrate on his answer in relative silence… and with the additional comfort of guaranteed anonymity from the man with the bucket hat sitting across the low table, he was free to speak his mind without judgement or persecution.

When one of his men brought up the topic of Aizen a few days ago, his answer came with a straightforward explanation of his own distaste toward the turncoat with godly ambitions, a common opinion shared among many shinigami within the Gotei 13.

But the Espada and the Quincy, on the other hand… Just sharing his honest opinions on either group would take some time for him to elaborate freely, but both at once? That would take the 13th’s lieutenant a hot minute and a half to properly compile his thoughts.

Then again, there’s some benefit to speaking off the cuff—no second-guessing, just throwing out the first things that come to mind. Ten years still gave him plenty of time to think, even between restoration efforts within the Seireitei, and boy does he have a lot on his mind on these.

Might as well begin with the easy one?

“I guess I’ll start with the Espada. A group of already ultra-powerful Menos-class hollows whose transitions into Arrancar were heightened by the Hōgyoku… and were recruited or coerced into working under Aizen,” Kōta began. “As things currently stand now, I don’t have any particularly strong feelings on the Espada… I’ve said it once before already, but I really don’t think Arrancar are inherently evil. Heck, I’d even go so far as to say that even Hollows aren’t inherently evil, though they are definitely more frenzied by nature in order to feed—only ones who were truly evil as humans get sent to Hell upon death anyway. There’s good and bad among the Arrancar, just the same as us Shinigami, and I would be doing their reclaimed humanity a disservice if I still thought them no different from beasts. They’re people, and like people, all that matters is the kind of person each individual Arrancar chooses to be.”

With that train of thought, Kōtarō blinked to himself once he realized he had gone off on a tangent, then shook his head and downed some warm tea to renew his focus. With a satisfied hum, he resumed his discussion on the main topic of his monologue: the actual Espada, and not waxing philosophical on Arrancar wholesale.

"Anyway, I’m getting off-track, but my point is that I’m not going to condemn the surviving Espada for their past affiliations; once that war was over, the feeling I got was that they wanted to move on from Aizen just as much as we did. After the ex-Captain got them involved in his affairs, only to send them off to die by the hands of other Soul Reapers, they deserve at least that much from us. I won’t pretend I know the new Queen Tier Harribel personally, but she does have the A-OK from a friend (Nelliel) of a friend (Ichigo) of a friend (Captain Rukia) of mine. Overall impression is that she’s leaps and bounds ahead morally over the likes of Barragan Louisenbarn and Aizen himself, so that should count for something, right? My hope is that we can establish some kind of amicable relationship with her new order she’s trying to raise, although I’d imagine she would rather have us leave well enough alone—just so long as we’re not hostile toward one another…”

A wistful sigh followed as the Lieutenant’s thoughts drifted on wishful thinking. It would be nice if the Gotei 13 and the new Queen could found a diplomatic partnership of some kind, wouldn’t it? He personally felt an amicable alliance would only help to better strengthen each side, but even the new kingdom born within the realm of Hollows have little to no reason to trust the Seireitei as is. Then there’s the matter of Central 46, the governing body of the Soul Society, who’d surely have thoughts of their own on such an alliance, and none of them positive. What a shame.

Arms folded unto themselves for comfort as the lieutenant leaned back against the zaisu. His gaze stared off into nothing in particular as he looked up to the shop ceiling.

“...but that’s just how the system works, isn't it? We slay Hollows so they can be reborn into Souls, and so that we can keep preserving the balance between the Soul Society, Hueco Mundo, and the world of the living lest it all comes to an unceremonious end. While I don’t think that ought to apply to fully sentient beings like Arrancar, in a way, I see us slaying Hollows as a mercy. It’s a kindness, really, to end the suffering that consumed them as souls, souls we couldn’t save on time… which is more than I can say compared to how my precursors treated the Quincy.”

And there it is. Kōtarō turned silent at his mention of the Quincy—the polar opposite to his kind, those who he directly and involuntarily fought against in the Quincy Blood War. The relationship between Hollows, plus Arrancar by extension, and Shinigami was a relatively simple one to break down into words. It was an easy regurgitation of hard facts internalized over his century-long career, splashed with his own personal impressions on those who stood at the apex of Hollowkind. Quincy, on the other hand… where could he even begin?

“…I only swing my zanpakutō to slay Hollows. Cutting down humans though—the very people I’m supposed to be keeping watch over and protecting—that’s not what I signed up for, but that’s exactly what I did during that war, isn't it? Even if it was in self-defence, those Soldaten were still humans with lives to live and families to come back to… it’s shameful, when I think about it.”

Gaze narrowed as grim visions of the war returned to the forefront of his mind, then shut firmly with a wince for an expression as Kōta fought those unpleasant memories back.

“A-anyway, right. The Quincy, a race of spiritually empowered humans who fight with reishi manipulation… though I’m guessing you’re asking specifically about my thoughts on the Vandenreich, aren’t you?” This earned the lieutenant a slow nod from his candy shop-owning inquirer. “Well, whereas the Espada were either coerced into joining Aizen, fought for the sake of fighting, or relished at the opportunity to kill Soul Reapers, the Quincy who rallied under Yhwach’s banner differ in that they all shared a justified, nigh-unified hatred towards us. Unlike Aizen and the Espada… the Quincy’s war was a direct consequence of the Gotei 13’s past actions—that much, I understand now. Yhwach only galvanized and weaponized what was already there because of my predecessors.”

The look on Lt. Ryōhei’s face came off as fatigued now—he had a long time to think about this particular subject, with many sleepless nights spent reading and discussing the matter with fellow reapers after the dust settled. “Even if genocide was attempted for the sake of preventing the collapse of all three realms, all in the name of balance again, it’s still genocide, right? Of course retribution was going to follow. Of course they’d want to wipe us out in turn, just as the Gotei 13 tried to do unto them between the first war and the attempted extermination over 200 years ago. Then the second war came, only for Yhwach to dispose of them just as easily once they served their purpose…”

The storm-haired man paused as his own words started to weigh him down. "I feel... awful for them, really. Time and again they’ve been persecuted through no real fault of their own. Quincy don’t exist—weren’t brought into this world—only to die by our hands. I refuse to accept that.” A brief pause, to top off his half-full cup with some fresh tea... only to realize the pot was empty. "Then for their loyalty, the reward many of the survivors wrought was abandonment by their own God-King. There’s no sugarcoating it: the Quincy deserve better. Compassion, aid, pity, whatever; they kept getting robbed at every turn, and then were robbed some more when they’ve had enough and bit back. I don’t care if negotiations in the past fell through—we need to sit down, try again, keep talking, and come up with something of a proper solution for both sides.”

His company noted how Kōtarō’s observations between the Espada and Quincy differed, given he’d only ever fought one of the two himself, and so he piped up with an interesting question. Forgiveness?

“Truth is… I do forgive them, Urahara-san. Really, I do. Impossible as it may seem, even after they’ve slaughtered thousands of our own? Including Yamamoto, Sasakibe, and… and even Ukitake? After everything they’ve done? I honestly forgive them. There’s no point in condemning the remaining Quincy for fighting under Yhwach’s banner once upon a time. What matters is how we survivors—us and them—choose to live our lives in the here and now. Those among the Sternritter who still swear fealty to Yhwach, it’s probably inevitable we’ll come to fight again. There, I can sleep comfortably knowing I’ll raise my blade to try and stop them from trying to pile on more needless sacrifices, and this time, I’ll be ready for them if that happens. Those who just want to live their lives in peace, on the other hand… I’d like to build up a proper rapport with them somehow, if it’s doable, you know?”

A laugh broke from the lieutenant, albeit a sardonic one, as he continued with that line of thought. “Though I’m sure they don’t want to risk making themselves visible to Gotei folk like myself, or would sooner put an arrow through my heart before I’d get the chance to say: ‘Hello, my kind tried to wipe yours out on three separate occasions! What say we forget all that and let bygones be bygones over a good sporting game of shogi?’” Kōtarō even swung his arms together to emphasize his delivering a punchline as though he were a standup comedian, but the wry smile on his face made it clear he wasn’t aiming for laughs.

Ah, his tea grew cold from neglect… and the cup was still half full.

Oh well, down the hatch.

As he drank the last of his tea, Kisuke chanced another question—if there were any Arrancar or Quincy Kōtarō would want to meet himself. An interesting proposition…

“Well… I did hear that Captain Kurotsuchi has a Privaron on standby who specializes in wind manipulation like me? I’d like to meet him sometime, if that’s the case—discuss our craft, see what we can learn from each other and what not.”

A name slipped from the man of science’s lips: Dordoni. The lieutenant of winds nodded and made a mental note of it; the next time he’s over by the Shinigami Research and Development Institute, he’ll ask around.

“As for the Sternritter, at least among those I’ve read about… that’s an easy one. Sternritter T: Candice Catnipp, the Thunderbolt.”

Somehow, his name choice only seemed to amuse the man sitting opposite across the table. The combination of fan raised over his face, a tasteless joke, and a sly smirk got under Kōta's skin immediately.

“H-hey, hey, it’s nothing like THAT! I’m a man of storms and wind, she’s a woman of thunder and lightning—I vibe with her aesthetic is all I’m saying!” Kōta was quick to shoot up onto his knees and slam his hands on the table as he tried to defend himself (he couldn’t help but wonder what kind of crazy weather they could create together, lover of storms he is), but it was a fool’s errand that only spurred Urahara into further laughter at his expense. Oh well.

“SO, as you asked, I shared my thoughts on our former adversaries and then some. Say you keep your end of the bargain and we keep all of this between ourselves?” he huffed, shooting an unimpressed glare toward the man in green, who just set down a new batch of fresh tea for them both with a nod. At least that’s settled.

Kōtarō mulled things over as he sipped on ginger, as he found his mind going back to Ginjō and the words they exchanged then. He had believed in the greater good of the Soul Society for so long, but some of the atrocities his own kind committed had him stop and think sometimes. Even his late Captain set his foot down when he saw one injustice too many with Rukia’s execution 12 years prior, which only made Ryōhei prouder to serve the Thirteenth Division under Ukitake’s name.

The source of all that injustice… the endless suffering of Hollows, the attempted genocides onto the Quincy, the ongoing squalor Souls lived in after believing in the idea of a cozy afterlife…

“…sometimes, I can’t help but wonder,” Kōtarō found himself saying. "How much easier would it be for everyone if we didn’t have to worry about something as arbitrary, impersonal, and cruel as ‘balance’ in the first place?”

[thebeauregardbros]

Alus’ feelings towards Zenos (MAJOR stormblood / shadowbringers spoilers!!!)

When I first met him, I thought - “Another Garlean Soldier. When will this warpath of death end?” Another killer. Another warlord. Another war. It feels like it will never end. He wears another helmet. Another faceless murderer. Another mask that just felt like a cruel disregard for allowing us to remember they are human, just like us. All for the fight, all for the bloodshed. All they care about is strength, nothing else. Have they also forgotten they are human?

When I chanced to see his face, I could not help but utter these words; “You... Are so beautiful. ‘Tis such a shame.. .. Your beauty is wasted on such cruel and ugly actions.”

My brother, Arc, lashed at me. He thought I was stupid to even utter such words - Ones not deserving for a murderer, even as a joke. But I never hated my enemies anyway. I always felt regret. I always wished they’d cease for the sake of peace. Now, especially. I felt so sad someone so beautiful would fail to understand what they had in their possession. I tried so hard to be beautiful. Those gorgeous eyes.. I wish I could see them peacefully smile over a cup of tea, at least once. So I told him. “Wouldn’t you rather come and sit and have some tea with me? Zenos.. That’s your name, no? A real life prince..” He could never guess that all I ever wanted to be was a beautiful prince such as he. He probably wouldn’t care if I told him, anyway. Garlean society is so much different than ours. He had no idea what he possessed. Everything I envied, everything I wanted. Wasted. Turned to composted trash and bile. The stench of blood that makes one wish to puke.. Such ugly corruption for such a beautiful man. “Please turn yourself in. I promise I shall visit every day.. What is your favorite kind of tea?”

He wouldn’t listen. War and violence, much rather his cup of tea.

Arc could see my anguish. I didn’t speak of Zenos outside of battle, much. That was what much of our relationship came down to: last second regrets, though oft it was not a problem; I am grateful for Arc being by my side when it really matters, or else I might throw myself upon Zenos’ blade, just to show the villain how much I hated war. How much choice he had. Just to get close enough to him to hug that sad, sad man. To tell him he didn’t need to fight to feel something. That someone almost as strong as he could be so different, without regret. I do not want my brother to see me die. I don’t want my brother to die by his hand, either. I knew what we both had to do. We had to stop him. We had to fight for the thousands that were cheering us on. The patient and self-destructive path to peace was not much an option...

I saw him in a field of flowers for our last battle. I asked him once again to stop. If he were to be executed after turning himself in, at least he would have the chance of redemption in the seven hells - to return to our planet with a new chance at life, one I would do anything to protect. I told him this. I pleaded him.

“Me and you.. We’re the same, aren’t we?” he spoke. “Mine and Thine - We art the same!” I shouted. Zenos smiled. “Two beasts of war.” Tears dripped down my cheeks. “Two with the choice to change.”

It was not a battle to me, only a sad goodbye. He lifted his sword to his neck. I screamed in anguish. I begged him not to slit his own throat. For the first time, he smiled. It was the most beautiful thing I ever saw. But he ignored me once again. He said he wanted to die feeling this feeling of bliss. I could never understand. “Goodbye, my first friend.”

“My enemy.”

-

For the first time, I touched Zenos with my own hands, not in violence. My hands shook as I cradled his still warm body, I desperately tried to heal his wounds - no avail. No matter how much I didn’t want to accept it, he was dead. I didn’t even get the choice to bring him in. I hated this. I couldn’t believe this. Arc put his hand on my shoulder. I violently shrugged it off. I didn’t want to hear his objections right now. ”A tyrant is dead. Brother.. You cannot show yourself like this.” After a moment, I sighed heavily, and wiped the tears from my face. ”I... I know.” I had to smile for the people. I was their hope, after all. I had to stay optimistic. This was.. still a good thing. A good thing overall.. A good thing... I kept repeating it in my head as if to convince myself. Arc was right, wasn’t he?

- Despite it all, I couldn’t sit still. I snuck away as Arc slept.

I personally saw to his burial. I knew the rights. I studied as a thaumaturge for this exact purpose. I was no black mage, only a priest in training, one who had to abandon that life quickly as I realized fighting helped more. A decision I regretted had to exist. I saw to his burial personally. My peers told me to disguise myself as to not arouse the anger from the locals I had just saved. I obliged. But I know the gods would know who I am. I knew they would grant him the smallest of mercy if I prayed hard enough. Hydaelyn might hear me.

-

I found myself at ‘home’ again. The café felt especially empty that day, despite it always being empty. I sat and listened to the tick-tocking of the grandfather clock. The seconds seemed to go by especially slowly. The ticks felt deafening. I picked up my sketchbook and drew a portrait of the beautiful tragic prince. Leaning the book against the heavy vase, at least now I could drink tea with him. Even though I know he’s not here.

Arc’s words repeated in my head. It was for the best, right? But brother.. I still failed. This was my fault. I could not save him. I couldn’t even bring him in. What kind of paladin am I? What kind of hero can’t save the ones who need the most to be saved? At least I’ll be hydrated. I chuckled through choking tears. I never had you, but I never wanted to lose what you could have been. What a pathetic man I am, to wish for the impossible.. But I don’t ever want to believe it was really impossible. What a contradiction I am.

-

A man named Asahi confronted me. He told me it was my fault Zenos died. He called his killer. He told me he would never forgive me. I tried to explain that I tried to, with all my might, to save him from his own death. But that wouldn’t get to him. I am just an enemy of Garleans. A killer of men. Just like Zenos. The cycle of war and death would never end. Maybe he wouldn’t listen because I barely believed my own words. I felt so horrible.

At this time, Yotsuyu seemed to have been reborn. I told my brother - Even if ‘twere an act, mayhap she truly wished to become a new person. A person of peace, and eating sweets and tea.. For that reason, I would protect Tsuyu with my life. I would do anything to help her. I would fight entire armies to protect her innocence at this time. I didn’t care what others thought. Maybe - just maybe - I could finally save someone who was responsible for so much misery, just like Zenos. She had such potential. And the more I spoke to my allies, the brighter her future seemed to be. But just like Zenos, she ended up giving in to her miserable existence and chose death, like it was inevitable. Her only option. “This is who I am.” she said. I could barely feel bad for Asahi’s disappearance from this world. Am I really such a useless man? Was this really inevitable?! What is the point of all of this if it’s really only going to be like this?!

-

Maxima was a man of peace. One of Garlean descent, no less. A man of the Garlean embassy. I trusted him. I don’t ever want to lose him. He’ll be my friend forever. Please fight this ideology of war with me, Maxima.

-

“He’s... gone?” The grave of Zenos was empty. The rumors of Ascian posession were true. I felt the world melt away as anger overtook me. I couldn’t hear. I couldn’t see. It wasn’t fair. He died in happiness. I got to see him smile for the first time. The smile I would cherish for the rest of my life, even if it were for such a cruel ending. I felt my body move on it’s own, ready to fight. I could barely feel Arc place his hand on my chest to stop me and ask me where I was going. If I couldn’t have him live peacefully, why couldn’t he at least die as he wished? All he had? The only thing that mattered to him? Did that feeling matter nothing?! Even if his life was a complete tragedy, could they not have let him die as he wished!? The only peaceful thing he ever did?! What can I do? My allies stop me. They tell me even if I wished to, I could do nothing. A warrior of light walking into Garlean terrority would be suicide. All I could do is wait. So I’ll wait for you. You better come see me - So I can kick your ass out of my friend’s body and let him rest for once and for all! I will never forgive you!

[ayma-nidiot]

In the White Light - Prideshipping fic Chapter 1

Also on AO3 -> https://archiveofourown.org/works/23875060/chapters/57390967

Summary: In a war against dark forces, most of the Nameless Pharaoh's High Priests have died. Yami Yugi travels to modern day Domino City, desperate to find a soul strong enough to help him turn back the hands of time. He just might have found him - in the form of one of his priests who supposedly had died - and he doesn't fear the curse that has made Seto Kaiba so powerful. After all, he wields the power of an ancient Egyptian song.

Notes: So this will be a pseudo-crossover of Yu-Gi-Oh with Fire Emblem Fates and Fire Emblem Awakening.

The order of events in this fic will be slightly different from the anime. In reality, the Pyramid of Light happens after season 3 but before season 4. In this fic, it will interrupt the Battle City Tournament of season 3. Also, the duels in the Battle City Tournament will have different opponents against each other than in the anime.

The fic starts at the end of season 3 and will end at the end of season 5.

As always, constructive criticism is appreciated, especially if I am not portraying the rules of Duel Monsters correctly. I am fairly new to the game and am quite confused by the rules.

Chapter 1 – The Bane of Your Existence

“Now you’re the one who’s defenseless!” Seto Kaiba, duelist extraordinaire, laughed as he dramatically put one of his most powerful cards on his Duel Disk. He now played in the semifinals of the Battle City tournament – unsurprisingly, held by him. To add a bit of a twist to the tournament, he decided to hold it on top of his KaibaCorp blimp. “Behold, the bane of Yugi’s – and your – existence: the Blue-Eyes White Dragon!”

“Hah!” Yami Yugi, a spirit from ancient Egypt, was not impressed by his rival’s haughty behaviour. “It was the bane of your existence. Or do you not remember our very first duel?”

“Oh, I know whose existence will be banished on this day, Pharaoh. Now go! Blue-Eyes, finish off that-”

“I don’t think so, you rich punk!” Joey Wheeler, Kaiba’s current opponent in this duel of the Domino City Tournament. “You’ve activated my spell card, Scapegoat, negating the attack from your Blue-Eyes White Dragon!”

“Oh no…”

“Oh, yes!”

“Grr…” Kaiba, not only irritated from this surprise attack, now began to feel pain in his shoulder blades and in his lower back. “Be that as it may, most of your good monsters are still gone. How are you going to counter it?”

Joey drew his next card. “I place these two trap cards face down to end my turn.”

“What, you’re just going to not play any monsters, and have these puffballs be the only thing to defend your Life Points?” Kaiba drew a card and cackled. “Hehe… Okay, Blue-Eyes, attack his second Scapegoat!”

“That’s right! Savin’ the best for last is my specialty.”

“So is mine, Wheeler, so is mine.”

Two more turns passed, and now it was Joey’s turn; his Scapegoats were now all gone.

“Unless you draw a god card, Wheeler, you are toast! Oh, that’s right, you don’t have any!”

“Or unless I draw this: Monster Reborn! I use it to summon Jinzo from my Graveyard! And that’s not all… I’ve got the Swords of Revealing Light!”

That same spell that Yugi used in our first match! Wheeler didn’t have it before… Kaiba now glared at Yami Yugi. So… You lent it to him, and not me, an actual worthy duelist?

He returned to his normal composure. “So what? All it’s going to do is buy you time. Unless you’ve got a deck full of Monster Reborn to bring back your actual good monsters, then you still don’t have a chance.”

Kaiba laughed with each card he drew over the next three turns. His back pain grew even more as well, but he ignored it in favour of what he believed would be his imminent victory. “So, you didn’t summon anything good, did you? Just a few useless spell cards?”

Joey simply slammed a trap card face-down on his Duel Disk in response.

“I judge from your silence that you’ve run out of tricks.” Kaiba held two cards in his right hand. “I will first use Polymerization to bring forth Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon! And if you thought I was done, I’m going to tribute this Ultimate Dragon…”

“Uh…” Tristan stepped back. “He’s not done? But isn’t Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon his best monster?”

“…No, I’m afraid not,” answered Yami Yugi. “Don’t tell me he’s going to summon-”

“Now behold! I will tribute my Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon! Come forth, Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon!”

As this beautiful beast, made of pure white armour and sapphires, roared up a whirlwind, Joey’s belief in himself began to wane. “Impossible… I thought you lost that card after Yugi beat Anubis! This can’t be real!”

“Oh, it’s real, Wheeler! I have four dragons in my graveyard, so my new dragon gets an extra 1200 Attack Points, for a grand total of 4200! Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon, attack Jinzo and wipe out the rest of this loser’s Life Points!”

Joey fell on his knees in shame and in pain from this loss. “Yug, I’m sorry… It looks like it won’t be you and me in the finals after all… And after you sent that Marik packing, too. I really wanted to see all your god cards in action.”

“So now it’s time to finally beat you, Yugi!” Kaiba set his sights on Yami Yugi now.

“Before we do, I’ve got something to ask you, Kaiba… When Joey summoned his Scapegoat, I noticed a twinge of pain in your face. Are you feeling all right?”

Kaiba didn’t expect this level of concern from Yami Yugi. “Why are you concerned about me? Shouldn’t you be more concerned about the guy I just crushed?”

“Make no mistake about it, I am. But just because you’re my rival doesn’t mean I wish you harm. You know what, we should take a break and then resume with the finals in an hour or two.”

“And just in time for lunch, too!” Teá exclaimed. “Yes! Perfect chance to show my cooking sk- Hey, where did you go, Tristan and Joey?”

“Hahaha…” Yami Yugi now turned back to Kaiba. “See you at lunch?”

“I prefer to eat in peace, thanks.”

“Oh… Well, then, at least let us cook for you?”

“…Fine, then. You should serve me, after all.” Kaiba headed for the lower deck.

To avoid having to mingle with this band of doofuses any more than he had to, Kaiba decided to make a stop – a conveniently long stop – to the loo and wash his face and hands. “Tch. I don’t need this friendship bull from you, Yugi,” he spoke to the mirror. “My money is more than- Huh?”

Kaiba had been so busy lauding his own riches – and admiring his own looks. But that didn’t stop him from noticing two giant wings coming out of his back in the mirror’s reflection, wings that looked similar to those of the Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon.

“What the fu-” Kaiba looked at his back again, but this time, the wings were absent. He blew off his “vision” as just being absorbed in his victory. “Ha. I knew it was just my imagination.”

He dreaded having to do it, but he hadn’t eaten all day, and the match with Joey tired him. So Kaiba took a deep breath before entering the kitchen – which to his relief, had not a spirit of the Pharaoh, but an ordinary Yugi Mutou instead. He had expected the boy to be annoyingly cheerful when he entered, and not reclusive as he was now.

“Thank you, my humble servants.” Kaiba smirked as he took some of the food that everyone – who, like Yugi, had chosen to ignore his presence – back to his room. Before he could finish his lunch, he heard a knock at the door.

“Go away, you dweeb.”

“Seto, that’s not very nice.” Mokuba frowned as he opened the door. “I was just here to give you your favourite dessert – and to see if you’re okay.”

“Oh, uh… Mokuba. Sorry about that. Why wouldn’t I be okay? You saw me win, didn’t you?”

“Did Yugi and those obnoxious friends of yours give you a hard time again?”

“I’m… not sure I want to talk about it.” Kaiba gave his empty plates back for Mokuba to wash. “I would like to rest before my match with Yugi, so you may leave.”

“Okay… Big Bro, I’m here for you all the time. Don’t you forget that.” So spoke Mokuba as he quietly shut the door.

“I wish people would stop caring about me…” Kaiba drifted off, even more tired now that people around him wouldn’t seem to get off his case.

_______

“Mind Crush!”

At the mercy of this mysterious spell, Kaiba cowered, and remaining as such as his VR equipment lowered to the ground.

“May you eventually learn the heart of the cards, Kaiba.” Yami Yugi walked over to where Kaiba knelt and offered helping hands. “Now come, up you get.”

“You don’t have to help me. I just absolutely squashed your grandfather. Why show kindness to an enemy like me?”

Yami Yugi didn’t accept Kaiba’s refusal to help him, and knelt down at his eye level. “I told you, I want you to learn the heart of the cards. Have fun playing this game, instead of seeing it as just a way to make money and hurt people.”

Kaiba had no words for this seemingly new gentle attitude from Yami Yugi.

“What’s wrong, Kaiba? You’re blushing.”

He could feel it in his face, and that Yami Yugi didn’t lie. Kaiba could hardly bear to look at the face – the very handsome face – of this stranger who had just beaten him flat. He wanted to run his fingers through the other man’s bangs – he was close enough to see every strand – and he didn’t even bother to resist doing so.

“K-Kaiba…” Yami Yugi, to Kaiba’s surprise, didn’t flinch at all, but instead leaned into the hand that touched him. “I’m… I’m so glad… to finally see-”

___________

“AH! FUUUUUUUUCK!” Kaiba sprung awake at this… interesting dream, in more ways than one.

“Jesus, Kaiba… What’s gotten into you? Did you have a nightmare or something?”

Kaiba was not pleased to see Joey standing at the door to his room. “What the hell are you doing here, Wheeler? And yes, if you must know, it was a nightmare.”

“Ooh, I like scary stories!” Tristan showed his face, too. “Care to tell?”

“No, but I do care for the both of you to get the fuck out of my room!”

“Yeah, yeah.” Joey waved his hand horizontally. “We just came here to tell you that Yugi is feeling up to your match now. I don’t know if you are; you certainly don’t look it.”

“O-Of course I’m up to it. Just… Uh, I’ll be there in a minute.”

[kumeko]

legacies

Character/Pairing: Primo, Tsuna, Vongola fam, Byakuran, Arcbaleno

A/N: Written for the KHR zine. It was really nostalgic skimming through the series to come up with ideas.

Summary: In a different lifetime, Tsuna never became a boss. In a different lifetime, Mukuro destroyed the Vongola family. In a different lifetime, a new set of Arcbaleno were born.

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This is your power, Primo wrote in a different lifetime, with ink as black as the secrets he had to carry. The power to save lives, to change destinies, to alter history.

Midway through the letter, he paused. The sound of children laughing filtered in through the window like sunlight, bathing his study in warmth. No matter how often he heard the sound, it still took him by surprise every time.

This was not the town of his childhood.

Leaning back on his chair, he closed his eyes and listened. He had never expected to get here when he started. All those years ago, he had only hoped to save one person, to help just a single child. Now he had done all that and more. What used to be a village of desperation had turned into a place of hope.

“What are you doing?”

Opening his eyes, Primo spotted G standing at the doorway. As always, he shifted uncomfortably at the entrance. There was something about the carefully lined up books, the trappings of formality, that made his right hand man antsy. “Nothing.”

G glanced at the desk, at the quill still in Primo’s hands, and didn’t comment on the obvious lie. “We have a meeting.”

“I had forgotten.” Primo carefully folded his letters and placed them in an envelope before affixing a seal on red wax. Turning it over, he held his quill over the front of the envelope. A goblet of ink dropped, and then another—who was he sending this to? His children? The Simone family? His guardians?

“Primo?”

“Let’s go.” He set down the quill and stood up. There was no point in considering the address any further. Stopping by the fireplace, he dropped the letters in and watched them shrink into nothing.

He was never going to send them anyways. At least, not in this lifetime.

-x-

“This is your power,” a baby with a gun said, his face hidden in shadow. “The power to topple governments, crush your enemies, and conquer countries.”

Tsuna stared blankly. “Huh?” A baby was talking to him. Was he still sleeping in class? Pinching his cheek hard, he felt a sharp sting of pain.

Nope, he was definitely still awake.

“I am not repeating myself.” The baby gave him deadpan stare, almost a glare. Actually, it was a glare and Tsuna took a step back. Babies shouldn’t be able to shoot or talk but this one looked like he could kill.

If this wasn’t a dream, this had to be reality. Even if that made no sense. Even if there was absolutely no way that it would make sense. Tsuna might be an idiot and he might be failing every single class he was in, but even he knew that there was no reconciling what he was witnessing with common sense.

“I’m here to tutor you,” the baby continued, gesturing for him to enter his house. “To prepare you for the mafia.”

“The…mafia…” It sounded like something out of a manga or a movie. Tsuna rubbed his eyes but the baby was still there. “The guns-and-murder mafia?”

“You will be the next Decimo.” The baby kept talking as though Tsuna wasn’t interrupting him every other sentence. Why were there babies in the mafia? “You will inherit it all in a few years.”

Tsuna took a step back. “No.”

For the first time, the baby responded. “What?”

“No,” Tsuna mumbled, shaking his head furiously.

“What?” The baby cocked his head and Tsuna sensed danger.  Absolutely no good would come from dealing with this not-baby. Even the gun didn’t seem like the scariest thing about him. “Would you repeat that?”

In one reality, Tsuna would have reluctantly accepted his duty, out of love for his friends in family. He would make a great Decimo, changing just what it meant to be in the mafia.

 But that was not in this reality. In this reality, Tsuna was just a scared teenager staring down the barrel of a gun.

 “No!” With that vehement refusal, he turned tail and ran from his destiny.

-x-

“This is your power,” Tsuna offered, holding out his hand. “Our power, the power to protect, to help.”

His hand was slapped away and Tsuna was left with a total of three guardians. A total of maybe three guardians because Yamamoto and Ryohei didn’t seem to really get what he was saying and Gokudera always seemed to be one realization away from leaving him.

“…you need more tutoring,” was all Reborn had to say in response. It wasn’t even in his usual sharp manner. There was a little resignation, a little disappointment.

If you had told him a few weeks ago he would crave the approval of a child, Tsuna would have laughed. As it was, even though he still didn’t want anything to do with the mafia, he didn’t like failing at this too. But he was Tsuna. Tsuna who flopped at everything he tried. Tsuna who couldn’t even talk to the girl he liked or get good marks. A no-good failure of a person. What more could they expect?

“I’ll try again,” he mumbled, the best he could promise.

As the days passed, the remaining three rings sat on his dresser, mocking him.

-x-

“This is your power,” Mukuro laughed, holding up the Ninth’s bloodied and limped body. “The power of the mafia, the power that I will destroy with my own hands.”

He let go, letting the Vongola head fall to the ground with a sickening crack. Lying on the ground, Tsuna could barely lift his head and witness the fall of an empire. Around him, his friends lay unconscious, bone peeking out of flesh from where Mukuro had hit them.

“Why?” he gasped and Mukuro’s attention snapped back to him.

“Still awake, are you?” Grinning like a chesire cat, he walked toward the prone boy. “I warned you what would happen.”

“I know…” Tsuna coughed, blood dribbling down his lips. Shit, it was internal, too. “But I thought…”

“What?” Mukuro raised an eyebrow before smoothly crouching. Leaning on his staff, he lowered his head to Tsuna’s eye level. “You thought we were friends?” When Tsuna didn’t reply, he chuckled. “I told you before what I wanted. You chose not to believe me.”

“I thought...” Tsuna’s hands gripped the broken concrete. “All those times…”

“Decimo.” The words came out like a hiss, a mocking respect. “Despite what you may think, I never once altered my course. This is what I wanted. This is what I always wanted.”

He got up now and flicked the blood off his trident. It splattered on Tsuna’s face. Looking down at his handiwork, Mukuro tilted his head. “I think I’ll leave you alive, to witness your folly.”

-x-

“This is my power,” Xanxus offered the Vongola, his smirk sharp as a razor. “The power to take, to crush, to conquer.”

There was nothing to say to that, no challenge to offer. Nono was on his deathbed and very little remained of Tsuna and his guardians. Even if that weren’t the case, the battle was lost. By the rules, Xanxus had won.

By the rules, the Vongola had a new Decimo.

“We recognize and accept your status,” a Cervello finally said.

Xanxus’s smirk grew bigger. “Like I fucking needed your approval.”

-x-

“This is power,” Byakuran sang happily as he stripped the ring from the Decimo’s bloodied hand. “The power to rule every time line, every universe, everything.”

Scattered around him were the Vongola family, their bodies lying in craters and hanging off trees. It was surprising how easy it was to defeat them all. Life was a game and in this one, he had no rivals. Turning around, he spotted Shoichi running toward him with a briefcase.

“Here!” Panting lightly, Shoichi stopped next to him. “I brought them.”

“Thanks! You didn’t have to run, you could have just walked.” With an easy grin, Byakuran opened up the case. Seven pacifiers, six Vongola rings, and around him were the seven Mare rings. This was it then. This was everything he had worked for. Carefully, he slotted in the Vongola sky ring into its place.

With bated breath, he waited for something to happen. For anything to happen. Some internal or external change, something that indicated he now had command over everything.

“Why?” He had the rings and the pacifiers. There was nothing left. “Nothing is happening.”

“Nothing?” Shoichi peered down into the case. “Maybe we need to wait a little longer?”

“No.” Tapping the sky pacifier, he frowned. It was almost like the pacifiers were dead. He was missing something. With a sigh, he announced, “We failed.”

“Failed?” Shoichi rubbed his ears, as though to confirm what he heard. “How?”

“That’ll be up to another me to find out.” His smile dropped as he passed the info to his other existences. This world was a dead end now. A different Byakuran would have to succeed. He picked up the sky pacifier with a grimace.

He had been so close.

-x-

“This is your power,” a broken man from a broken family said derisively. “The power to destroy families, to cover up truths, to hurt innocents.”

“It—it isn’t, you’re wrong!” Tsuna croaked out, futilely grabbing Enma’s hand as it choked him.  Power, he needed more power. Enma’s eyes were dark and full of fury, offering no quarter, no mercy.

“We have been hunted and destroyed because of the Vongola,” Enma hissed, his voice low and full of contempt. “We have lost everything because of you.”

“There…a mistake…there has to be…” Tsuna gasped. It was hard to breathe and his fingers clawed on Enma’s arm. “We can…change…fix…”

“There is no fix.” Enma snorted. “Everyone is in the Vindice now; I’m all that’s left.”

There was no response this time, no false promises or hopes. Enma released his former friend’s limp body. Even death was too good for him.

“With his death, you are the winner,” the Vindice announced as they appeared.

Winner. Enma laughed. The word never sounded so hollow.

-x-

“This is your power,” a joker with a wide grin announced. “The power of the Arcobaleno, the power that will save the world.”

Before Tsuna could react, the pacifier was around his neck. A collar, it choked him and he crumpled to the ground. “What—Reborn!”

His tutor didn’t respond. Lying face down on the ground, he didn’t so much as twitch. Checker Face bent down and prodded the baby. “I think he’s dead.”

“No!” Tsuna clawed at the pacifier but it burned, his whole body burned. He was losing something, losing pieces of himself, and fire ran through his veins. “Get…it…off…”

“No, no, that’s not how it works!” With a grin, Checker Face walked up to the prone boy and gently tapped the pacifier. “It’s yours now—you can’t give it back.”

“Re…born…” Tsuna reached out to his tutor, fingers trembling. However, he couldn’t reach and the effort was too much. Darkness tinged the edges of his sight and his adversary’s face loomed over his.

“Don’t worry, it’ll only hurt at first. Then you’ll be a proper Arcobaleno.” He tapped his chin, considering it. “Though, maybe I should erase your memories of this—it’d be hard to pick another set if you knew what would happen.”

“No…don’t…” The last thing Tsuna saw was a wide grin and then all was dark.

-x-

“Did you use your power again?” A voice stirred Byakuran out of his revere. Looking up, he saw Yuni sit on the ground next to him.  

“Yes!” He grinned as she leaned against the tree, her face barely peeking out from under the brim of her white hat. Though maybe calling it a hat was charitable.

“See anything interesting?”

He considered it for a moment. “You die a lot. But not in this timeline.”

“That’s good.” Yuni looked across the park at Reborn. With the curse removed, he was no longer pint sized. Noticing their stare, he tipped his hat. Yuni waved back cheerfully. “Uncle was really happy. I…I’m glad I don’t have to die this time.”

“No, you don’t.” Byakuran went back to watching everyone at the party. Humming, he added, “I couldn’t find a single universe where I ruled everything.”

Yuni gripped his hand lightly, beaming up at him. “That’s good, too.”

Her touch grounded him. Under a tree, Chrome was chatting with Mukuro. There was a world where he rotted in prison, a world where he died escaping, a world where Chrome didn’t make it past the car accident. Near them, Yamamoto was playing baseball and Ryohei was eating with his sister and Haru. Byakuran had seen worlds where Yamamoto was a star baseball player, where Ryohei got badly injured in a boxing match. There were times where the entire Vongola was wiped out and others where they wiped out everything.

There were many realities to choose from, many to live through. Yuni’s hand was warm and firm, still not releasing him. If she died, he wasn’t sure what he’d do. He wasn’t sure if he even wanted to find out.

“It is, it is,” he sang back instead. He was in this world. There was no need to consider the other possibilities.

Nearby, Enma and Tsuna sat under a tree, quietly drinking a cup of sake. In the Decimo’s hand, there was a letter and he cleared his throat. “I found these the other day, locked in the old study.”

“What is it?” Enma took a small sip as everyone’s attention returned to the Vongola head.

“Letters written by Primo.” Clearing his throat, Tsuna started to read them aloud and Byakuran closed his eyes with a small smile. So the letters had survived in this timeline.

This is your power. The power to save lives, to change destinies, to alter history.

Perhaps those words were for him. However, he was done changing history and altering destiny.

Byakuran had found his timeline.