#mitzi writing

[greens-multiverse]

[after - almost six months, holy fuck - here's part two of my end-of-anniversary-crystal songfic about abe and azure journeying to the bottom of reality/excuse for a lot of expository flashbacks about my season 2 myth arc headcanons. part one, which contains most of the setup, is here. our song being ficced is still the ai girl and the deep heart sea; tonight we're on the first full section, 'reincarnated girl rho.' this... turned out much longer than i expected]

so if you did go diving into the depths of the substructure-sea, what would you find just below the surface? easy: the physical world

you might think we live in the physical world, but that's not entirely true. human bodies exist in the world of atoms and forces, but human minds, like the minds of anything sentient enough to dream, belong to the lower layers of the noos. that's the term for the blanket of ideas and memories and stories we sophonts collectively lay over bare reality, the landscape of thought that gives everything meaning. up here, a piece of stone could be the last remaining artifact of a lost civilisation, or a source of energy that could power a city for generations, or the mark of the one true king. down there, it's just a collection of molecules

still, as stark as it might look with the haze of imagination removed, the topmost portion of the substructure is pretty similar to the world we know. the stars spin and the elements flow and people and animals act just the same, though if you didn't know how our home layers work you'd never guess why. and even if you do, it's hard to impose the framework of narrative over them for very long without the support of the noos. down there, nothing could be or means or implies anything; it just is

which isn't to say travelling through it would be exactly like going for a walk in our home layers - it might, if you were going for a walk across it, but if you're going down through it things get very strange very quickly! the philosophers also say that time is a direction, much like up or forward, and they're fairly close to right. going through the topmost layers of the substructure feels like plunging through entire timelines, events thousands of miles and dozens of years apart all flashing past your eyes at once. it's like experiencing dozens of scenes from the same story all at once, all without any context to tie them together or any subtext to give them meaning. but if it's a story you played a part in, you might be able to follow along, just about

it's pretty easy to find yourself reflecting on it

sunlight zone

Azure, the girl who returned

down here, I can see everything

as we drift downwards, time and distance fall away, and all that ever was blurs together, like disconnected clips of an absurdly long video. it's as if in the final death throes of this tiny shell of a world, the strings holding its timeline together have snapped, and the whole arc of its short history has tumbled into my hands. I feel like I could see anything, anywhere, if only I knew how to sort through the heap. I can even catch a glimpse of its ever-fewer potential futures

the back of my right hand shines a familiar colour I still cannot name. Abe's hand in mine crackles with haze, purple and white chasing each other around his crumbling skin. beneath it, I can just about see the beginning of a vast, eternal structure

the further we descend, the closer everything draws to us. it's becoming hard to distinguish discrete events, everything running into everything else. soon, I realise, the only moments I'll be able to perceive at all are this world's approaching end, and its distant beginning

but I don't need to look to see all the parts that truly matter. ever since IT came, I've remembered everything I've ever witnessed in perfect clarity

IT was far too unstructured to be called an 'entity' there was no one who understood what IT was or why IT had come into existence so they called it 'Missingno' or 'the glitchhaze' or 'OLDEN' some even called IT 'Altair' as if IT were a god

I did not witness ITs entire emergence, of course. the formation of the confluence called OLDEN began before my world was created, before his, perhaps even before the true reality all the worlds of the haze are mere shadows of. whatever ITs source, IT came to impinge on that reality, chewing it up, piece by piece, shredding order and logic and spacetime until only a formless haze of glitches remained. there was nothing anyone could do to stop IT. even the gods could just barely slow IT down

and yet, so I'm told, there was no malice in IT, not then. ITs bites at the edge of the universe were random, almost exploratory, as if IT didn't know what it was, or even what IT was. everything IT touched collapsed into haze, but that haze did not lash to corrupt everything it could reach or sink beneath the surface of reality to poison it from within. most often it disappated, and even when it lingered it reached out tentatively, inquisitively, even playfully. whether IT was curious or hungry or simply lacked enough of a mind to want anything at all, no one knew, but IT wasn't trying to destroy our universe in the beginning

but by the time IT came to my world, IT had changed. IT had learned how to hate

IT came to a world wracked by change and uncertainty and shredded it apart with a brilliant vicious light since no matter what all would someday return to the void why not cut short this farce of a universe and bring an end to ITs own suffering?

my world was nothing. a bubble within a bubble, a tiny simulation created as a last bastion from the corruption. but limited as I knew it was, insignificant as I knew it was, it was mine, and I fought hard to free it from those who would harm its people. I defeated each gym leader, I tore apart Team Rocket, I ascended the Indigo Plateau to claim the title of our world's first champion. ten settlements, twenty-five routes, a hundred and fifty-odd species of pokémon, and I stood above them all, the strongest trainer between the impassable mountains and the waters that trailed off into nothingness. I swore to protect them from whoever and whatever might seek to harm them

I was so young, then. so naïve. so arrogant. despite everything I had already learned, it never occured to me SOMETHING might come that I could not fight

IT came to my world at dawn. by the morning's end the ocean was a writhing mass of corrupted matter, advancing northwards in an unstoppable deluge. by mid-afternoon, the plains were choked with haze, towns and forests collapsing in on themselves faster anything could flee, faster than most could even notice. by nightfall, all that was left of my world was a mountaintop, and a temple, and me

I had begun the day determined to fight IT until the breath left my body, but by this point all I could do was sob. I had lost all my allies, all my pokémon, all my hopes as city after city fell and nothing we could think of so much as made IT flinch. they had relied on me to save what they could not, take revenge where they could not, and I had failed them all. despite everything I promised on the Vermillion dockside, I hadn't been able to protect anyone. all I had left was despair

I'm not sure why I had been allowed to escape. perhaps IT meant to save me for last

IT came slowly up the mountainside, chewing the horizon as if savouring each bite. I watched it from the empty doorway of the temple, unable to muster the energy to flee any further. for the first time, but not the last, I sat and waited for the end

then the space just in front of the doorway flickered, and Abe stepped through a crack in reality and out into the snow. we had known each other for some time now, he who designed my world, I who tracked him down and demanded to know why. I had seen him teleport across the world through his unknown doors many times before, but I was still somewhat surprised to see him alive. so quietly for a moment I didn't know if he heard it, I croaked out his name

he was just as shocked to see me here, I could tell by how quickly he spun around. his breath caught for a second, and he mouthed, "I'm sorry." then he turned to face the approaching chaos, and his shadow blossomed into an infinity of fractals

the beginning of the battle between the last of the fossil gods and IT was, I am told, like nothing ever seen by living eyes. unseen it remains, for I did not watch it. I moved further into the temple, behind enough walls it seemed unlikely I would be impaled by debris, and there I curled up and waited for the storm to pass. there was nothing I could do against IT I had not already tried a thousand times, and besides, what difference could a single powerless human make in a clash of the divine?

all around me, the earth, the walls, even the air shook. I could not even begin to interpret the sounds - the crackling, the tearing, the rattling - erupting from the temple's entrance, but soon enough I saw cracks drive through first the stonework and then the empty air. I knew my world was finally dying, and, despite my youth, despite my pride, despite my fear, I felt strangely relieved. a gash in spacetime snaked through the halls towards me, shedding glitches, leaking a brilliant, terrible light -

and from a direction I was not watching, something pierced the back of my right hand

I instinctively jerked my arm back towards me, but as soon as the impact sight came into view, I froze. there was no blood, no pain beyond the initial shock, not even a wound. there was only a sliver of dark orange stone barely larger than my fingernails burrowed into my skin, faintly humming. I had just enough time to take in the sight before the tear in the universe reached me and glitches overwhelmed everything

everything, that is, except me. the stone walls melted, the air collapsed, the world around me crumbled into a thick morass of swirling, chattering, ever-changing decay, but I remained just as I was. even when the haze lanced out at my body directly, the force I had seen rend through buildings and mountains and people alike in mere seconds slid off my skin like a passing rain. the space (if one were to call it that) around my head shifted rapidly between water and wood and viscera, but I could breathe more easily than I had in hours. through the flickering, crackling haze, for the first time I saw the back of my hand gleam

I did not know, then, that the miniscule stone shard tinting my skin an impossible colour was the last remaining fragment of an entity older than the gods. at the end of the battle I was sheltering in the temple from, IT aimed a dart of pure haze right at the core of the only fossil god still alive, the Dome. but for whatever reason such a being might do such a thing, the Old Amber leapt into its path. the impact made the packed-together rock at the heart of their being burst into a thousand infinitesimal pieces which flew off in all directions, shattering against the mountain or evaporating upon contact with the glitches. but somehow, through a series of coincidences and just-right circumstances, one shard slipped through it all and landed in me

was this planned by the Old Amber, or mere happenstance? I still don't know, and I doubt I ever will. but whether there was a purpose behind it or not, from that moment on the glitches could not touch me. a whole world could dissolve into haze around me, and I would keep my form, and my identity, and my memories. no matter how much time passed, no matter what happened, I remained myself

but all that I discovered later. then and there, curled up in that crumbling temple at the end of everything I'd ever known, I dazedly watched half a dozen tendrils of corruption pass through my body harmlessly before I realised I was not, in fact, dead. I reached out for one of the few remaining patches of wall and slowly got to my feet, and just when I'd found a stable footing my world finally snapped open and I tumbled head over heels into the glitchhaze. I fell for what seemed a thousand years through light and texture and shrieking, repetitive sound, and none of it so much as pulled my hair. the shock had faded from my mind enough I was beginning to wonder why

then my back slammed against solid ground. it knocked the breath out of my body, and when I inhaled I tasted air once again. the surface I was lying on was wet, spongy, and stable, at least as far as my arms could reach. when I pried my gummed-shut eyes open, the first thing I saw was a dazzlingly blue sky

it was a fairly typical early hazeworld fairly early on in its development. no tree was yet tall enough I could not step over it, the largest animals were barely bigger than mice, and the pokémon were still amorphous clouds of spirit, not coherent enough to create physical forms. even once it had fully matured, its sky never changed from that brilliant blue, and its dirt squished like jelly rather than crumbling. the worlds of the haze were only ever so real, and this one was even less so than mine had been

but in that moment, all that mattered was that it was

yet there was one whose existence ITs haze could never erase I was "Vega", lodestar inviolate, she who saw everything

that grassy clearing caught in an eternal morning was not alone in the glitchhaze for long. as some consequence of its battle with IT, the Dome created handfuls, then dozens, then hundreds of these tiny worldlets, little pockets of order billowing in the haze. each new hazeworld was just a touch more real than the last - a sky that dimmed and brightened again, soil that could be broken up to plant whatever fruit you pleased, water that cycled from stream to lake to cloud and back; a little larger, a little more self-sufficient. soon they were detailed enough humans could live there, and they built settlements, then cities, then regions. and then, slowly, step by stumbling step, they began to reach out across the haze to each other

I had long mastered the art of travelling through the haze by then. Abe, who had also survived that last battle, had to travel between worldlets through broken warps and bizarre glitchmancy tricks, his unknown doors writ large, but I could simply walk off the edge of one world and stroll through the glitches to the next one. not that it was ever that simple, of course; navigating the endlessly shifting landscape of the glitchhaze was more art than science and more luck than either, and I seldom arrived in the precise world I was aiming for even when I didn't spend months lost in the wilds of the haze. but it was never dangerous, not for me. out of everyone in existence, I alone travelled the haze without fear

the people of the hazeworlds grew used to Abe and I passing through their regions. we both got into the habit of telling them stories; he of the worlds that lay past their borders and the ways they could be reached, I of the worlds that once were and how they had been destroyed. we taught them what the haze was and that there were others like them beyond it, and they taught themselves how to send things through it; first information, then objects, then living beings. soon the haze was home to a great alliance of worlds, interconnected by hazeships and databeams and a dozen kinds of interworld teleportation, fighting back the glitches wherever they could, always searching for a way to defeat IT forever. Abe and I they revered as gods, the ones who had shown them the nature of reality and bestowed upon them the power to change it. with our teachings, they so fervently believed, they would restore the universe

Abe helped them whenever and however he could, but I seldom did. I could never muster the will to do much more than pass on my stories, never shake the feeling that no matter what anyone did, reality had merely been granted a stay of execution. why, I still cannot say; perhaps my mind was as trapped in that moment of despair as my body, and just as my hair never grew no matter how many decades passed me by, my heart never lifted out of that black pit. or, perhaps, I simply never managed to overcome my grief. all I could bring myself to do was sit on the outside of that glorious dream and half-heartedly hope it would be fulfilled

alas, it was not to be. no matter what they tried, no matter how they struggled, in the end there was nothing we mere humans could do against ITs hate. one after another, the worlds of the alliance were overcome and fell, and the links they'd forged between them became vectors for the very corruption they'd been made to fight against. over the course of its long defeat, the alliance grew desperate and cruel, but even that was not enough, and once it finally broke the surviving worlds of the haze were left completely without protection. once upon a time a world was not considered stable unless it was completely free of glitches, but now even the most substantial were strewn with impossibly stretched landmarks and holes in reality that opened into infinity. even Abe, as immortal as I was but for somewhat different reasons, began to mutate, his form and his memories slipping away a fraction more every time he crossed the haze, until all that was left of him was a barely sentient heap of glitches, marked out from the rest of the corruption only by the occasional flash of purple

but I? I remained. no matter how many worlds crumbled around me, no matter how long I spent lost in the haze, my self was preserved. even in that final barely coherent, violently unstable, utterly corrupted mockery of a world, where no division existed between human and pokémon and language had degraded into loud, garbled noise and time had broken in a way impossible to put into words, I had not changed one bit since the day my world died. in my customary seclusion, I watched the strands that held together this final world quietly fray, and I wondered whether, once all existence had been devoured by IT, I would finally be permitted to cease

isolated as I always was, she nonetheless tracked me down. a girl with blue hair and red scales and a wide, fanged smile, whose eyes were tinged the faintest purple and whose voice carried a muted echo of thousands more. like so many residents of the haze before her, she and her allies had sketched out a wild, one-in-a-million scheme to restore the lost worlds and bring the battle to IT. I didn't believe they could do it - there? then? at the end of everything? - but for the very last time I gave them my stories. I told them everything I knew, fully expecting that it could never make a difference

some time after that (in a manner of speaking) the last world abruptly shattered. the slow rot that had been eating away at it since before time had broken suddenly surged, and pillars of pure corruption burst out of its husk of a sky. as the ground beneath my feet dissolved into glitches for the very last time, the shard in the back of my right hand vibrated so fast it became painful. through the haze and the light, I thought I saw my left hand begin to melt -

and I sat in the Champion's Chamber of the Indigo Plateau, on the same plastic folding chair my world's Lance had taken to calling my throne, so many long years before. the stitching on the jacket I had left dangling on it the day my world had ended pressed into my back

it took me so many long seconds to comprehend where I was. it took me several more to realise I could still move. my heart hammering, my body shaking, half-convinced that if I moved too quickly this dream would burst like a bubble, wholly expecting Koga to burst in at any moment and announce that something was eating the sea, I got to my feet. I took a few dazed steps, and my shoe tapped against something on the floor

I looked down, and I saw pokéballs

what can I say about what happened next? my charizard wrapped my tail around its body and held me close as I cried. his scales rustled, solid and alive, radiating a warmth that drove my grief to the edges of my soul for the first time in an eternity of loneliness. with every pokéball I opened, every old ally I reunited with, every step I took in a world like so many others I had passed through but in its details unmistakably mine, it receded a little further. how it came to pass, I suspect not even the gods could say, but the people of the last world of the glitchhaze had brought back the first. they had brought me home

the story of that reborn world is not one I am equipped to tell. as much as I tried to keep a grasp on events, from the moment we discovered there was a new land beyond the once-impassable western mountains I played at best a peripheral partin the saga of ITs final defeat. but I was once more part of it; so longer a silent, sobbing witness to a fate I could not change, but an active participant in an impossible, glorious miracle. I fought where I could, and I laughed when I could, and though my sorrow never entirely went away it became easy put it aside for a few moments and bask in the beauty of this dream-made-reality

and yet, as wonderful as it was, it was not perfect. there was one person missing. I scoured the world in my search for him, both the tiny region we had grown up in and the new lands blossoming into existence all around it, fully convinced he had to be out there, restored along with everything else. but I never found more than a shadow. there was one time… but that was not him. I have been told over and over again that my best friend still lies at the bottom of the Cinnabar Strait, as dead as this world once was, and will soon be again

but that cannot be. he was a host of the Voices, and even when all of reality was on the verge of being devoured by glitches, they were as immune to the corruption as I. somewhere, somehow, he must still exist, if not in body then in spirit, if not within this universe then without it. and though logically he could be anywhere in the infinite nothingness outside reality, I know - somewhere, I think I always have - where he is. for so long I thought him unreachable, but no longer

wait for me, Evan. I'm coming to save you

and as for THAT which declared everything I had l ever loved and all we dreamed together no more than a useless charade what would I say to IT? … come on we've still a long road ahead

[wickmitz]

— THE ELECTRIC-FEVER REMEDY.

[ominous-feychild]

✦ Character Voice Tag 4 ✦

We're doing a voice tag to help introduce you guys to some new characters to my blog! Introducing: the Mulul Gang!

"The Mulul Gang" are the avatars of the Water Existential, Mulul!

I made some good general quotes that are good at encapsulating / introducing different aspects of the characters! Feel free to hop in and do a version of this for some of your characters, new or old!

Find their OC In Threes here!

Lines used: ✦ “Nice to meet you, I’m ___.” ✦ “Wait… you trust me?” ✦ “I trust you.” ✦ “Everything’s falling apart, everything’s going wrong—” ✦ “I got this.”

Your lines: ✦ the same!!!

Characters from the Mulul Gang: Zenebe, Mitzie, Coco, Lionel, Deirdre, Louhi, Alcyone, Meadow

CONTENT WARNING: implications of death and self-sacrifice (especially relating to death)

“Nice to meet you, I’m ___.”

ZENEBE

“Pleasure to meet you. You may call me Zenebe.”

(*grinning; if trying to appease himself to the person, would give a bow... which he doesn't break eye contact for*)

“May our acquaintance be long and mutually beneficial.” 😉

MITZIE

“... Mitzie.”

(*looks away*)

“Don’t expect me to remember yours.”

COCO

“Hello! Coco, nice to meet you! I hope we can be great friends!”

LIONEL

“Oh, uh… Lionel here. Yeah, yeah—Lionel. Because I’m basically a lion. Hardy-har-har.”

(*ears lay flat back as he snarls, showing off his fangs*)

“So original. I’ve never heard that joke before.”

DEIRDRE

“... Deirdre. It’s nice to meet you…”

LOUHI

(*bows head in a polite nod; offers a soft smile*)

“Louhi… nice to meet you, {Name}.”

ALCYONE

(*avoiding the gaze of the person; voice barely a whisper*)

“... Alcyone…”

MEADOW

(*curtsies, smiling*)

“Nice to meet you! You may call me Meadow!”

if with Alcyone:

(*bows her head politely and smiles, but holding Alcyone’s hand… and standing halfway between the person and Alcyone, like she’s shielding her from them.*)

“Nice to meet you! Meadow here, and this—”

(*gestures with her free hand toward Alcyone*)

“—is Alcyone. Sorry! We’ve really got to get going, haha.”

“You trust me?”

ZENEBE

“You… ha…”

(*awkwardly rubs the back of his neck and looks anywhere but at them*)

“... I don’t know how good of a decision that is. You should really work on your sense of judgement.”

(*awkward grin! Quickly changes the subject—*)

MITZIE

(*freezes*)

“... I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but don’t bother. Mind your own business and take care of yourself—and I’ll do the same.”

COCO

if she didn’t know/believe it before:

“Oh, um… I wasn’t expecting that… but…”

(*shakes her head rapidly, then nods stubbornly*)

“Of course! I got this!”

(*soft smile… whether she believes them or not.*)

if she knew/believed it was obvious:

(smiles weakly) “Of course. Don’t worry… I got this.”

LIONEL

“Oh! Um…”

(*awkward shuffle and fidgeting, can’t meet the eyes of the person*)

“Thanks, but… I don’t know if I’m as capable as you think I am…”

DEIRDRE

(*avoiding eye contact*) “I’ll… try my best to earn your confidence in me…”

LOUHI

(if known/expected)

“Mmm… why are you telling me that?”

(if surprising/new to them)

(*pauses, taken off-guard… but gives a gentle smile, whether they believe it or not*)

“Well, now I have to succeed, don’t I?”

ALCYONE

(*freezes… then tears up, pain written across her face. Voice breaking:*)

“I… don’t deserve your trust.”

MEADOW

(*puts on a sad smile*) “Then I’ll do my best to justify it.”

“I trust you.”

ZENEBE

“Listen, I—...”

(*can’t make eye contact*)

“... I don’t know how good of a decision this is, but I trust you. Whatever you need… I can help. Just tell me what you need me to do.”

alternatively:

(*smirks, giving a deep, sarcastic bow*)

“I’m your sword. Wherever you need me, I’ll be there. Just give me the order and I’ll carry it out to the best of my ability.” 😉

MITZIE

if recent/new connection:

“I… if you say you’ve got this, I’ll take your word for it… but, please. Don’t push yourself too hard… or get cocky. Cockiness gets you killed.”

if long-standing:

(*silently sits down with the person to read… and might lean into them*)

COCO

(*sits down beside/moves to hug the person*) “Of course; I trust you. You can do this!!”

LIONEL

if hesitant; likely in a situation where he's "abandoning" them to fend for themself... even though he doesn't want to:

“I… believe you. No—you got this! You don’t have to reassure me!”

in a similar situation, but confident in their abilities:

(*lifts them up with both of his right arms, placing them on his shoulder*)

“YEAH! You got this!!! LET’S GO {NAME}!!!”

(*parades them about while hyping them up and pumping his fists on his opposite side*)

DEIRDRE

(*very purposely maintaining eye contact, gives a soft smile and puts her hand on their shoulder*)

“You got this. Let’s go.”

LOUHI

(*brushes their hair from their eyes to meet their eyes with a more serious—but calm as ever—look*)

"I believe in you, {Name}. But... is there anything I can do to lighten your load?"

ALCYONE

(*tightly hugging herself… and fingers white from how tightly she’s gripping her own arms*)

“... okay. If you insist…”

MEADOW

(*meeting their eyes with a serious look*)

“If you say you got this, I’ll take your word for it… but, please. Don’t take on too much weight. If you need help, I can help. Just say the word, and I’ll be there for you.”

“Everything’s falling apart, everything’s going wrong”

ZENEBE

“Haaaa….”

(*leans back and runs hands over his hair stressfully, trying not to explode… but radiating heat and leaking steam*)

“Okay, okay, great. Fantastic! Fan-fucking-tastic!”

(*Stands up straight to grin darkly… but glaring everywhere he looks and still leaking steam*)

“Let’s get this over with.”

MITZIE

(*silent, internal screaming… scanning her surroundings and running through plans and possibilities in her head as she frantically tries to find a winning scenario.*)

if verbal:

(*voice uneven*) “I… don’t know if we can get out of this. I’m sorry…”

COCO

(*INTERNAL SCREAMING*)

“GUYS, WHAT DO I DO!? I DON’T KNOW—”

LIONEL

(*eyes wide and face drained of blood… though it’s not visible through his fur*)

“Ohhhh, Mulul… ohhhh no… oh, Existences—”

(*panicking, paces with his head down, in his hands, and petting his own mane to try to calm down*)

DEIRDRE

(*dark, bitter smile*)

“... I was wondering when everything would finally fall apart.”

LOUHI

(*accepting of their fate... but analyzing the situation to try to find ways to help everyone else escape. Aka... sacrificing themself to save others.)

ALCYONE

(*blank staring and silently crying… at most, will do her best to help others escape with their lives. Has already accepted it’s the end for herself.*)

MEADOW

(*internally panicking, but taking in everything around her and trying to come up with a plan to get everyone out safely*)

if verbal:

(*voice slightly uneven, but faking a smile… poorly.*)

“We got this. Just… take a deep breath and focus. {‘Calmly’ gives instructions on how to proceed}.”

“I got this.”

ZENEBE

if faking confidence:

(*cracks knuckles and pops neck, walking forward menacingly/with a cocky smirk*) “No problem.”

if being genuine:

(*cracks knuckles, but serious and clearly alert*)

“No problem; consider it done.”

MITZIE

(*even, empty stare*)

“Of course. Is that all?”

COCO

“Yeah! No problem!”

(*hugs!!!*)

LIONEL

if faking; more likely than alternative:

(*weak smile*) “Yeah! Don’t worry about me, I got this!”

if genuine, or more confident in his success:

(*grins and flexes his arms*)

“Oh, yeah, I can take care of that, no problem!”

(*winks like the goofy lion he is*)

DEIRDRE

(*takes in a slow, deep breath, quickly tying her hair back*)

“Alright. Let me take care of this.”

LOUHI

"Hmm..."

(*pushes their sleeves up and steps in front of the other person / blocks them from proceeding... so Louhi can do it instead.*)

"No. Let me handle this."

ALCYONE

(*takes a slow, deep breath, standing up straight and making herself look as confident as possible. Quickly creates barriers of light to block people from stopping her, and will write any communication in the air with light rather than speaking... like she does half the time, anyways.*)

MEADOW

if in a moment of danger:

(*stands up straight, puts herself between the danger and whoever she’s protecting, and bursts a wall of earth and/or plants behind her to further block them off. Glaring at the threat.*)

“Let me take care of this.”

if otherwise:

(*smiles slightly*)

“Don’t worry about me—I can take care of that.”

WOOOOO, the Mulul avatars definitely don't have a boatload of issues each! Nothing to worry about at all!

It's almost like, as I've (probably) said before, life as an avatar is both incredibly dangerous and extremely repressive... yknow... because you've sold your soul to a god that wants nothing more than to use you.

Aaaanyway, I thought these were good ways of showing these guys' general personalities! And, I'm ngl, I'm surprised by how diversely they all react to things, haha.

Who's your favorite of the bunch so far?

And want to guess who mine is? 😉

Voice Tags: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

Tag list: @honeybewrites @the-golden-comet @illarian-rambling @ashirisu @urnumber1star

@the-letterbox-archives @48lexr @aalinaaaaaa @mysticstarlightduck @paeliae-occasionally

@thecomfywriter @darkandstormydolls + open tags!

(Second to last time I'll tag you guys for unless you're in the "everything" tag list! Tell me if you'd like to be added to the Mulul Gang's permanent tag list!)

Divider by @saradika

[cheezy-str33t]

explosion (tumblr please dont fuck it up this time)

[comeforthepizza]

Posting My Rock-afire Fic W.I.P. to Motivate Myself to Keep Writing It :3

A/N: This is far from finished, but I need the motivation to keep writing it, so I figured I'd post a little bit of it just for giggles. Dook, Mitzi, and Beach Bear are my favorite trio in the RAE and I'm really hoping to get the creative boost I need to continue exploring their friendship and the wacky trouble they get each other into.

Current word count is only 325 words. Will absolutely increase. :3

There was only one thing worse than a slow day at Showbiz Pizza, and that was a slow day brought on by gloomy weather. At least when business was lackluster on a pretty day, the glorious daylight shining through the glass front doors kept spirits high, and the occasional family seeking solace from the sun and a bite to eat kept things from getting too boring. But when the rain was coming down in sheets- on a weekday afternoon, no less- the Rock-afire Explosion was left hopelessly restless.

Mitzi and Beach Bear were nearing the end of their fourth round of air hockey when Dook, who was listlessly fiddling with the buttons on a nearby arcade cabinet still demanding tokens, commented, "You'd think havin' an arcade all to ourselves'd be more... Y'know. Fun."

"I think it's one of those things," Beach Bear posited as the puck sank into his side of the table with a clatter of plastic, "that's really only fun the first few times."

Dook abandoned the cabinet and leaned on the edge of the air hockey table. "Can't we just play somethin' for the heck of it?"

Beach Bear made a loud incorrect buzzer sound as he placed the puck back on the table and shot it back to Mitzi.

"Why not?"

"We've already played through today's set twice. If you wanna try and sweet talk Looney Bird into switching things up, be my guest, but if they have to listen to Mitzi's 'enchantin' rendition of Magic' one more time, the poor employees said they're gonna freak."

With an indignant huff, Mitzi shot the puck back at him with all her might. While it missed the goal, it hit the table's edge with such ferocity that it flew into the air, past Beach Bear's head, and rolled across the floor until Dook, itching for something to do, caught it under his boot.

"Nice shot," Beach Bear snarked. Mitzi only glowered at him.

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

Unfortunately, that's all I have right now, but I'm having fun working on it. :)

[rudnitskaia]

Hi! I read your stories about Rocky and Maura on AO3 and they’re very good! Do you plan to write fics about Maura working with Rocky at Lackadaisy? Please write more! 🙏

Hi, anon ✨😭✨ I'm truly sorry for the late reply and hope you're doing well and will see my reply even after so much time passed 🥺💖

I'm very, VERY happy you like RoMaunce dynamics! 💖🥹💖 As for your question: the truth is that Maura working at Lackadaisy is a possible scenario, and a very interesting one, but it's not the only one. In any case, Rocky's and Maura's story isn't sweet and easy, but, if Mau starts to work at Lackadaisy, it triggers too many angsty outcomes not only for these two, but for many people around them.

Anyway, I wrote a ficlet about one of these personal outcomes for Rocky and Mau (though it came out to be more of a Zib & Mitzi's story). Hope you'll enjoy it. <3

A Better Life

Rocky didn't want to look, but he couldn't stop. His body felt numb, refusing to budge, and his glassy gaze was fixed on just one spot in the main hall of the Lackadaisy.

On Mau.

There she was, letting out another mischievous laugh and shifting the cue to her other hand. Even from such distance, from the backstage, he could clearly see the eyes of the bar patrons roaming over her figure as she bent over to make a hit. Their stares made him sick to the stomach.

The grip on the violin bow grew even tighter. Mozzie was finishing up to play some unassuming piano tune that meant to fill the silence before the beginning of the main concert. Soon the whole band must get on stage, but music was the last thing Rocky could think about at this moment.

“Come on, honey, spin around,” Mitzi encouraged Maura, clearly pleased with how the white, gold-embroidered dress fit her. “Isn't that nice? And it would finally stop gathering dust in the closet.”

Apparently, Miss M, who gave Maura one of her own evening dresses, really had high hopes for the girl. Rocky had already been over the moon when Miss M finally agreed to his entreaties to talk to Mau about working at Lackadaisy, and even more so when she decided to give Mau's talent a chance by bringing back gambling as an illegal activity in her establishment. And Mitzi's expectations paid off in spades. The resumption of liquor deliveries from the Arbogast Funeral Home, coupled with a new twist in the form of an “invincible female pool player”, has lured quite a few customers to Lackadaisy. For the first time since the days of Atlas May, the bar was running at some kind of profit rather than a loss. In every sense, it was a victory.

But right now, Rocky would have given anything to go back in time and knock the very idea of bringing Maura to Lackadaisy out of his own mind.

“It's a play, Rocky. Just a role. Otherwise these drunken high rollers wouldn't have the excitement, the desire to bet more and more, to keep competing with me. They like to think they can win not the game, but me, you know? Like a trophy. That's my job, to pretend it's really possible when it's not. Everything will be fine,” Mau assured him, furtively hugging him in the back room. He understood. After all, they needed money, needed desperately. Besides, how could he be upset about something so trivial? It would be ridiculous. After all, she still fell asleep beside him every morning. But the more time passed, the more unbearable he found the sight at the pool table, which he was forced to watch from the stage every damn night.

When Rocky felt a touch on his shoulder, he shuddered and hastily released the fabric of the curtain.

“Spit it out, kid,” Zib took a cigarette out of his pocket and lit it. “Or you're gonna get hot steam coming out of your ears.”

Rocky hesitated. Then cracked a strained smile.

“I was just admiring the place, that's all… it's been a long time since we've had this much noise, hasn't it? Miss Pepper finally has someone to dance with when Freckle runs out of breath. Last time they—”

Zib hummed and leaned against the opposite wall. His grin alone made it clear that he wasn't buying this ridiculous attempt to change the subject. Pulling back the curtain a little, he stared out into the main hall for a while, listening more to the cheerful chatter of the crowd than to Rocky's continuing monologue.

“Don't tell her you're jealous. It'll make things worse.”

Zib's words caught Rocky by surprise, and it took him a lot of effort not to show his astonishment. He didn't know what had given him away, since he'd never been explicit about his relationship with Mau. Out of everyone, Freckle was the only one who knew for sure, and it seemed, according to her overly mischievous tone, that Miss Pepper had suspected something, too. And yet Zib had hit right on target — even without looking at Rocky, he knew he had. But though the poisonous feelings that had been overwhelming Rocky for a month now had eaten him almost to the core in the enforced silence, and though the opportunity to finally discuss it with someone seemed too tempting — he couldn't allow himself to open up. He just couldn't.

“Begorra, why would you even think that? To whom and who could I…”

“Zib,” Mitzi interrupted them, suddenly entering the backstage area. “One of the visitors wants to hear this,” she held out a double folded sheet of paper. “Tell the others. He paid well.”

When she left, Zib reluctantly unfolded the paper and then slipped it carelessly into his pocket. Despite the need to walk on the stage soon, he took his time, favoring an unfinished cigarette. With his fingertips he pulled the curtain aside again, revealing a thin golden strip of carefree revelry from their faded, half-empty backstage.

“You know, it's natural,” he took a puff, “To want the best for the ones you love,” the smoldering cigarette outlined the room. “But just consider it. Any of these men could give her everything that the likes of us, mired on the margins, could never give her. The freedom not to think about what to eat, where to sleep, and how to survive while the pockets are empty, not to choose between, let’s say, a new coat for the winter and a month's rent for some hellhole. And if someone can give the person you love freedom beyond your reach, it would be dirty to demand them to drop that chance for a better life, don't you think?”

Shaking the ashes to the floor, Zib again pulled out the now crumpled note that Mitzi had handed him and fell silent for a short while. He didn't open it this time, just studied the blank side of the note for a few seconds with a thoughtful, detached look. A look in which, for just a moment, flickered a glimpse of longing. His husky voice sounded almost otherworldly when he spoke:

“You're lucky if she chooses you anyway. Cherish it while you can.”

Completely stunned, Rocky remained silent. A thousand questions flashed through his mind, but he didn’t dare to voice any of them. Zib didn't just empathize with him, no — he knew. Knew like no other. The man, meanwhile, put out the cigarette butt and headed toward the back room where the band members usually had their rest.

“Get on stage. It's time to start.”

[lambjock]

little doodle that was apart of something bigger i did! just a boss lady & her devotee employee …

[danosrosegarden]

Glitz for Mitzi Fablemen maybe fem reader and it’s post divorce

silly girl - mitzi fabelman x fem!reader headcanons (NSFW)

elijah's anniversary celebration: post two!

✨ glitz prompt: give me a character, and i will write a nsfw piece for them. ✨

{contains: a lesbian relationship in place of bennie's existence lol, fluffy backstory, and descriptions of oral sex (fem receiving).}

♡ Mitzi's ready for a fresh start all around. She's got a brand new, sparkling city to live in, she's got her girls by her side, and she's got a very special lady to fawn over. At her age and with her life experiences, she thought she was far past the point of schoolgirl blushing and drawing glitter gel pen hearts around a name, but here she was, doing just that each time you popped into her head.

♡ It was such an unexpected whirlwind, your relationship. Mitzi wasn't out looking for anything after the dark thunderclouds of her divorce soaked through her skin and broke her hope up into little jagged pieces. But into her life you came, the adorable waitress at her new favorite diner. You were so full of life. So bright-eyed. Joyous zest glimmered on the pads of your fingers and glistened on everything you touched. You reminded Mitzi quite a bit of the clear-skied life she saw when she was with Burt. But no...she couldn't be falling in love again this quick, could she? That would be ridiculous.

♡ Yet she couldn't help it. Damn what everybody else thought, you were enchanting. Mitzi would be lying if she said she didn't feel conflicted. She'd never even considered these feelings towards a woman before. But love just finds its way, doesn't it? she thought with a grin as you refilled her water glass.

♡ The months following were as big of an untamed, whipping windstorm as the feelings that cascaded through her mind when she first laid eyes on you. She wrote you long letters. You took her on daytrips. She played you gorgeous pieces on the piano. You tried to replicate her playing and you two snort-laughed together when you failed miserably. If she wasn't sure of it before, she sure was now...she was hopelessly lost in the velvety fabric of love.

♡ She hadn't felt so anxious in quite a long time than she did right now, writing a neat, heartfelt letter confessing her feelings towards you. She hoped with all the power within her that you wouldn't think her something horrible or strange. She hoped that if you didn't reciprocate, she could at least still hold your friendship close and dear. She hoped.

♡ Mitzi watches a wide smile spread across your face as she presents the letter to you and lets you read it one afternoon during a daytrip to the park. A crashing wave of relief engulfs her from head to toe as you envelope her into a warm, tight hug.

♡ "I thought you would never feel the same, darling," you whisper to her as the wind whispers through the bright green grass.

♡ You decide against labels or pressure. There are no expectations when you're with Mitzi Fabelman. You can just be.

♡ And the same goes for the soft intimacy you share with her in the dim, moonlight soaked haven of your bedroom. You're able to laugh it off when your teeth accidentally clack together as you kiss her deeply. It's effortless, feeling at ease with her as your hands brush against each other and her long, sparkling fingernails unbutton your top.

♡ You're physically naked, that's clear, but you also feel emotionally peeled. Like a raw, bleeding heart as Mitzi plants kisses on your bare chest. You shiver at the sensations, and you feel her mouth curve into a soft smile on your skin.

♡ You feel dizzy with adoration as you watch her head dip to reach towards your aching cunt. Her tongue's silky swirls are gentle, but your hips still buck and your toes still curl. Your body tingles with television static yearning as she rubs her hand against your soft thigh. Her tender pets on your skin and devoted suckling at your clit makes you want to cry.

♡ You feel a tight knot cord itself up within your gut as Mitzi's lapping picks up speed. Your hands find themselves in her hair, tugging ever so lightly and causing a playful squeak to skirt out from her mouth. You wished you could stay here with her like this forever, your bodies wrapped up together. The blanket of infatuation, the aura of affection. You could live off of this high forever.

♡ Mitzi thought she was silly for what she felt. You were molded so perfectly that you had to be unattainable. And maybe she was. Maybe she was just a lovesick fool. But here and now, her skin crackling with the warmth of this special trust and bonding, there was no role she'd rather play than the silly, silly woman who had fallen so hard for you.

[eggman91]

ok jerma in Lackadaisy au

Idea 1

That’s it he’s literally just the same. He’s still a human. He still has modern technology. He’s just jerma hanging out in St. Louis still streaming but on radio

idea 2

same as the first one, but instead of wick , Mitzi, tries to use Jerma to fund Lackadaisy and zib get cucked again as Mitzi somehow develop feelings for jerma even though he ate a whole bunch of Oreos and puked on her Capet

idea 3

the savoys get really drunk and try to summon spirit or demon instead, they summon Jerma while he was doing his dollhouse stream into existence and yes, Mordecai was there to and is now questioning reality

idea 4

there’s a new criminal gang taking St. Louis by storm. A gang of rats led by the giant rat, who makes all of the rules Lackadaisy. And marigold will destroy by the end of the year.

post in the comments your opinions and other ideals for jerma in Lackadaisy

[mountainleafuniversity]

@harmonia-university recently had an Easter art with various characters as Lopunny and I decided to draw Mitzi in that form.

[ritzy-reminiscence]

─♣️─ Lackadaisy : Shut-Eye²

⸝⸝ tl;dr : continuing on the shnor mimimimi headcanons from this post ! features the savoys, mordecai heller, mitzi may, and the lackadaisy band as a bonus !

🍺 Nicodeme Savoy + Serafine Savoy

I feel like, after trudging around in the bayous and the swamps and sleeping wherever their exhausted bodies drop on for most of their childhood, the Savoys are extremely picky about their sleeping accomodations.

Think of satin sheets, smooth as cream and fine as silk; embroidered pillows bursting with cotton and feathers; blankets upon comforters upon quilts; mattresses so fluffy and soft you sink into it upon contact. The Savoys demand the best when it comes to their beds, and considering their reputation around Marigold, I doubt anyone is brave (or stupid) enough to contradict their wishes.

And it would be alright if they actually slept in it but like .. they just don't .. well, most of the time, anyways.

Their evenings are spent not in their castle-worthy beds but rather in the Marigold room, chatting and smoking and drinking until the chickens start to crow. And even when Marigold ushers its last guests out the door, a couple dozen liquor bottles and boxes of party food somehow finds it way up the Savoys' suite, where the distinct beats of drums and gossip thrums in the room long after the sun rises.

Honestly, I'm surprised they can manage to go on rumrunning duty after getting shitfaced drunk the night (and day) before 💀

And when they do get to sleep, Serafine in particular really likes the windows thrown open to catch the nighttime breeze. It reminds her of the gales that go through the bayou when she and Nicodeme were lost in there, and as much as she hated every other aspect of the bayou, the gales specifically gave her a bit of comfort during those times.

Nicodeme's a blanket hogger. That's it. That's the post.

ALSOO ,, their room in the mornings is just . Eugh .

Littered with cigarette butts, burned-through matches, half-drunk bottles of gin and whiskey and whatever they could smuggle out of the speakeasy; pillows everywhere, the mattress hanging by a thread on the bedframe, and the sheets all nestled around Nicodeme while he sleeps on his back with his hands clasped together like a princess and while Serafine is 0.5 inches away from falling off the bed.

I just want to address a personal apology to whoever cleans their room up when they're gone because I know damn well the Savoys aren't doing it 💀💀

•☽────✧ ‧˚₊ ° ♣️ ° ₊˚‧✧────☾• ₊° ♣️ °₊ •☽────✧ ‧˚₊ ° ♣️ ° ₊˚‧✧────☾•

🪓 Mordecai Heller

On nights when he's on "Asa's Shadow" duty, I'd say that Mordecai wouldn't really collapse on his bed from exhaustion the second after Marigold closes down and he's free from all the musical notes and murmurs and shrieks of laughter that he's been enduring all night.

If anything, I think he'd really take the time to unwind and calm down. He'd sit at his kitchen table and drink some tea, maybe cook up a couple of slices of French toast to fill his stomach as he never really eats anything that's served at Marigold -- he thinks too many people have touched it and it makes him feel all .. icky.

He'd also spend just a pinch of time cleaning the house; nothing too big, just rearranging some books in the shelves, sweeping the floors and wiping dust off the windowsills and tables.

Oh, and he'd read books before sleeping as well. Thick ones. Hardcover ones. He wouldn't read new books or books that he's put off reading because of his workload, but rather one that he's familiar with. Something he's read so many times that, at this point, he could recite it cover to cover without needing to look. In his mind, it helps him relax and destress because of the comforting familiarity of the paragraphs, the unsurprising and mundane words that his eyes had glossed over so many times before, the feel of the worn pages that his fingers had held and brushed too many times to count.

(Do I want to be a book? Yes. Yes, I do.)

As being a tuxedo cat means getting hot easily -- and that's a massive yikes for Mordecai -- I think that he sets the blanket aside and sleeps without one during the summer. Or if the night is chilly enough to warrant the presence of a blanket, he'd use a thin one, or he'd just wear pajamas and a long-sleeved top.

And I'd say Mordecai sleeps on his stomach, with his arms all wrapped around a pillow. Something about the way the soft, slow breeze of the fan hits the fur his back lulls him into a slumber like no other. Plus, it keeps him from feeling too hot and sweaty.

Tl;dr : Cold pillows, cold sheets, cold room for Mordecai. Anything other than that and he'd much rather sleep outside than have a single bead of sweat show up on his body during the night 💀

•☽────✧ ‧˚₊ ° ♣️ ° ₊˚‧✧────☾• ₊° ♣️ °₊ •☽────✧ ‧˚₊ ° ♣️ ° ₊˚‧✧────☾•

🍷 Mitzi May

Oh honey .. Mitzi does not sleep well, that's all I can tell ya'.

In the timeline of the comic, I'd say that Mitzi rarely gets any sleep, and that she manages to get through the day with a conconction of the strongest coffee she could find mixed with whatever leftover beer she could spare.

Atleast, during the daytime, she has Rocky's shenanigans to keep her mind occupied. But once the sun sets and Mitzi climbs the narrow stairs to the third floor of the cafe's building .. it all just starts to unfold and her facade gives way to weary sighs and smudged mascara.

(Alright, that's enough angst )

On nights where it's not so bad, Mitzi would spend most of her time in Atlas's old office, talking to his painting and keeping him updated on what's happening. By this point his painting has become a diary for her, and although she knew it was stupid, she couldn't help but confide everything to it, as if it were a best friend. Even though his painting never moved, never talked, never offered any words of comfort, Mitzi always finds herself calmer afterwards.

Then she'd go into their - her - bedroom, and she'd start cleaning herself up. She'd do it slow, like it was her first time handling all the creams and washes on her vanity table. For Mitzi, this was when she really feels at peace. When it's just her, her cold creams, and the hum of the building's old heating system running in the walls. There was something in the soft, sure way she kept herself clean that made everything just a bit more bearable.

Mitzi likes to sleep on her side, with a huge pillow right besides for her to hold. Regardless of the weather, she'd keep herself under the covers. She falls asleep pretty easily, but on the nights where her troubles become too much to bear, she just stares at the lights of the buildings across the street, watching each window turn from gold to black, and play a little game with herself in which she tries to fall asleep before the light in the last window turns off.

Unorthodox, but it works everytime.

And in the morning, Mitzi finds herself with a little bit more willpower to carry on than the night before.

•☽────✧ ‧˚₊ ° ♣️ ° ₊˚‧✧────☾• ₊° ♣️ °₊ •☽────✧ ‧˚₊ ° ♣️ ° ₊˚‧✧────☾•

🎷 Lackadaisy Speakeasy House Band (Bonus !)

I've read somewhere that Zib lives in the same building as the rest of the band so ..

Let's just say their landlord hates them. It's bad enough that the sounds of their instruments creaking and groaning along the tight squeezes of the hallway was enough to drive anyone up a wall, but do they really have to rehearse in their rooms, too?

And don't get me started when they having a little (BIG) jamming session. Like, yeah, they sound good at first but eventually it all just devolves into a cacophony of god-awful squeals from someone's saxophone.

Zib himself sleeps on his bed (a thin mattress on a rickety old bedframe .. someone get him a proper bed please .) most of the time, but every now and then the band likes to crash at his room for shits and giggles.

Cue Zib tangled up with Sy on the floor, with Ben sleeping on the bed like he owns the place, and J.J. and Mozzie snoozing in the makeshift bed they made pushing two old couches together.

Hey, atleast they pay their rents on time .. right ?

[greens-multiverse]

[hi! i’m mitzi, and i can’t draw, so instead of making mads or animatics or whatever when i get a blorbo song stuck in my head i write really pretentious songfic. this particular one is something i’ve had cooking in the back of my head for years, about the end of tpp anniversary crystal, and azure chasing OLDEN through the depths of reality. around - the end of last year, criminy, life’s really been happening a lot lately - i started rambling about the fossil gods on the tpp lorecord, which segued into rambling about amber, which segued into rambling about OLDEN, which segued into this. i’ve been working on this post since march, bird jesus save us all. check my ‘mitzi writing’ tag for the previous rambles, but they shouldn’t be strictly necessary to understand this]

[our story starts at the end of anniversary crystal, itself the end (and also the beginning, it’s complicated) of the long battle against OLDEN. the REALITY-DEVOURING GODMONSTER has been defeated (though IT isn’t quite dead yet), the voices are getting ready to leave evan, the world is slowly falling apart, but don’t worry, that’s supposed to happen, and at the tomb of the voices on top of mt silver, a meeting takes place]

[our song being ficced tonight is cosmo’s ‘the ai girl and the deep heart sea’ - specifically, the first fifty seconds of it. it’s a long way to the bottom of the ocean of reality, and this is just the first step]

you ever hear that story about the shadows on the cave wall? like, some people were locked up underground, chained in place, unable to even move, for their entire lives. in front of them was a blank cave wall, and behind them was a blazing fire. between them and the fire, sometimes, would pass... things. people, animals, objects, moving behind the prisoners where they couldn't be seen all the prisoners could see were the shadows projected on the wall in front of them. that was all they knew of reality it's a metaphor, like. just as the prisoners see only the shadows and not the objects that cast them, so the world we know is just a distorted reflection of the true reality beneath. beyond this transient, illusory physical world, the philosophers say, lie the forms and concepts that create it, abstract and eternal. reality as we perceive it is just a flimsy crust over the true nature of the universe now, that's not entirely true. just because our world is a product of the deeper structures of reality doesn't make any less real. every part of the universe, from the most distant depths of the substructure to the soaring peaks of the noos, exists just as much as every other part. still, the philosophers do have the right idea. beneath our reality lies concepts, and beneath those concepts lie mathematics, and beneath that... well, it gets hard to describe the substructure in human language past that point. but it continues down, for many, many more layers. if the shadows on the wall are cast by objects, then those objects are themselves shadows, as are the things they are shadows of in turn. really, the allegory of the cave breaks down too quickly to be that useful. a better metaphor might be... the world we know is just the surface of an endless black sea

0. the surface a short conversation beneath a black sky

at the top of the mountain, among the ruins of the tomb, she sits. once upon a time the icy biting wind might have bothered her, but she's weathered far worse. she tosses snowflakes between her gloved fingers, and waits

above her, the phantom stars are slowly fading away. next will be the sky, and after that -

"hey!"

he strides through the rubble, limbs passing straight through solid stone. in his eyes is a light from beyond the world, but around them is still a lenseless pair of glasses. he talks as he walks, Voice perfectly pitched to catch her attention. "i've been looking for you everywhere! what're you up to?"

she glances at him, and then back to the sky. "waiting for the end"

he sighs, a little wistfully. "yeah. it'll all be over soon." he finds his own spot to sit in the ruins, and for a moment, they watch the stars blink out together. then he hrmmms. "actually"

it always has to be business with him, doesn't it. "what do you want now," she groans, more tired than anything else

"oh, nothing, if you don't want to get involved!" he shakes his head so hard his neck almost twists. "I just thought you might be interested, and you could -"

she groans again, more irritably. "get to the point already"

"right, right." he exhales, adjusts his empty glasses. "OLDEN"

he stands up and starts pacing in a circle, hands flying through gestures she doesn't even try to interpret. "see, IT's not - the Voices injured IT pretty badly, but IT's still existing. IT's fled into..." he slows down, furrowing his brow. "...I'm just going to call it the substructure of reality for now, we really don't have time for the full explanation. the fossil gods are going to chase IT down and finish IT off, once and for all. I’m coming along, as..." another furrow. "sort of a focus? anyway"

he stops and turns to face her again. "we wanted to know if you were coming too"

she - pauses, just for a second. then she narrows her eyes. "why would I?"

neither of them so much as glances at the back of her right hand. what point would there be in alluding to things they're both all too familiar with?

instead, he starts gesticulating even more wildly. "because you could help, most of all! you're better at navigating the haze than I ever was, you must know a thousand shortcuts we can use to catch up with IT. it'd be a good idea to have someone who isn't plugged into the heart of the universe along in general, just in case IT throws up an anti-reality barrier or an outsider-sifting net or something like that. and..."

he trails off. then he nods his head, just once, and looks her right in the eyes. "and there's a chance - just a chance, I don't even know how we'd do it - that we could save him." he shuts his eyes. "it's probably the last one we'll ever get"

the words hang in the air. he is silent, she is silent, the stars vanish, one by one. finally, she lets out a long, slow breath. "alright"

"all..." his face lights up again. "yes! great! cool! thank you, Azure"

there's maybe a slightly fond twist to her mouth. "let's just get going, Abe"

"yeah, we probably should. if you just..." he tilts his head like he's listening to something, and then nods. "just take my hand"

he holds out his. it's already tinted purple, its borders beginning to fuzz into incoherence like every other object around them - except the clear, sharp outline of the one she extends to grasp it. their palms touch and their fingers lock -

and they plunge beneath the surface of reality

deep, deep down in a sea of possibility

in blackness so far down no hint of form ever pierces it

a single IDEA coalesced in bright white

the world blocked out by the haze of ITs tears

[wickmitz]

I decided to start talking about Wick and Rocky's relationship because I like their dynamics too, I like seeing Wick scared of Rocky and Rocky being aggressive with him, which is unusual because Rocky is rarely aggressive with anyone, but of course Wick is an exception to rule

Also my mini opinion about their possible relationship, I think that if Rocky didn't have to fight for his place, then he and Wick could become friends, or at least tolerate each other a little, I also see some superficial similarities, their gentlemanly and romantic natures, and their common love for explosions (remembering the quarrymen chapter), but this is my assumption, I think that I don't understand the characters' personalities well, so I can be wrong in this assumption, something like that. So, what do you think about their relationship?

for starters, i cannot thank you enough for this ask! as i’ve said previously, i have many thoughts on these two, so it’s nice to finally be able to share some of them. although given the extent to which i think about them, i apologize in advance if this is sloppy and sort of everywhere … while i’ll try to structure things the best i can, i cannot promise i’ll succeed! but hopefully this is an enjoyable reply nonetheless.

one of my favorite things about rocky and wick’s relationship is absolutely how aggressive rocky is towards the aristocrat ; he is prone to glares and cruel jokes and borderline hissing whenever the man is within his line of sight, or can be brought to a wailing-fit over the mere mention of his name from miss m’s mouth. there is a childishness to it, but a very prominent threat as well in spite of rocky’s usual incompetence. so he goes out of his way to posture around wick, readily lying and adorning himself with the gangster drapes he so badly wants to wear, in the hopes that it intimidates … will even badmouth wick’s family and make fun of his name and rock related obsession to mitzi, and so on so forth! yet all of this is very reminiscent of schoolyard bullying rather than anything too severe, though we as the audience understand rather quickly that rocky would bash wick’s head in with a tire iron if he could. ( translation : if it wouldn’t earn the tears or hate of a certain beloved mitzi may ) and it’s all very intense despite the absence of actual violence! and i understand why many fans see this as unusual for rocky and believe that it’s only wick who makes him act so aggressively, but i’d argue it isn’t really wick at all that prompts such scary reactions from him … and that rocky is a deeply angry character who’s a.) been boiling quietly for a long, long time and b.) has turned wick into a punching bag of sorts for this inner world of resentment and hurt. basically, when he’s judging the well-to-do or poking fun, his eyes don’t look at wick and actually acknowledge him as sedgewick sable ; instead this is a being, something vague and metaphorical, who threatens to upseat rocky’s permanence in the lackadaisy and steal away his savior, and he’s had a hand in the violinist’s misfortune for a long time.

obviously, rocky doesn’t think wick robbed him of his family twice over and made him homeless, but he is channeling the fear and anguish of those events into his loathing for wick, if that makes sense? it’s easier that way -- to finally have an outlet for everything bleeding inside of you, to be able to bite and claw at something without feeling conflicted or having to take personal accountability for your own mistakes … which is something that i think rocky does struggle with to a degree. he is sort of a finger pointer! his pain has to be worth something, it has to be for someone else ; spending years homeless and losing his last bit of family was for freckle, and the scrambling of his literal brain was for mitzi, and that means he can’t ever be angry with them! well, except that he is, somewhat, but he buries it deep down instead of feeling it. with freckle there is a sense of strain between them -- an air of ‘you owe me’ from rocky to freckle as he uses freckle to appease miss m, and he constantly pokes fun at his cousin too. it’s lighter than his jabs at wick, but there’s a constant pestering, a reminder of how good freckle has it : how he’s got the mom and the house and the job and the girl most notably. i don’t think rocky is intending to come across as mean, and to his credit he hardly does! but it’s rather clear to me that some part of him, some hidden and deeply hurt part, is rather indignant about taking the fall for freckle all those years ago. which he can’t understand, because how could he? he made that choice, he decided to take accountability for something he didn’t do because he loves freckle and knows it’d be so easy to believe this family tragedy was roark’s fault ; the devilish child he was, all troublesome and too broken to properly fit anywhere. so there is a disconnect born here, where rocky can’t comprehend that he’d be angry at freckle, so instead these not so great feelings are placed elsewhere and silently boil over time. and with mitzi … i don’t think he’s angry at her per se, but there is a frustrated and desperate chorus of : why him and why not me, when i’m the one out here dying for you? which is certainly unpleasant. of course, rather than allowing those feelings to be more aimed at miss m, whom he feels unloved by, he ( again! ) represses these emotions and allows them to fester into his greatest fears and fantastical complexes. i think there is a lot of other miscellaneous anger he could have towards others too … perhaps some part of him is sore upon seeing ivy’s normal lifestyle, watching her go to university and knowing that’s been taken from him. or an ache felt when hearing stories from zib and the band and how they used to travel successfully, living as nomads, and rocky is all too reminded of his similar lifestyle and how he couldn’t make it work as effortlessly. people with immense trauma are more prone to irrational anger and jealousy, to viewing everything around them as unfair and believing it’s even more unjust that so many people get to live comfortably while they’ve suffered. a situation that gets more messy when you’re someone like rocky, a man who’s willingly made choices that have harmed himself and wants to continue on with his smiling, bumbling fool of an act. he does not want to be angry, does not want to see it within himself, i think, which leads to an accidental increase of it.

all of this is to reiterate that wick is a scapegoat for rocky and nothing more. it’s why he’s rather hypocritical whenever it concerns the man. for example, it was stated by tracy that he looks down upon wick for his excessive presence at the bar, yet he appears to enjoy hanging out with zib -- who drinks just as often! he makes fun of how all wick ever talks about is rocks, when he himself is prone to poetry rambles that people find irritating or boring, and etc etc. this is also just a human nature thing, to critique someone you heavily dislike and even going as far as to belittle things you love or do in your own day to day because you just hate them that bad! but given rocky’s willingness to befriend anyone, it more so reeks of a dehumanization element. wick is every obstacle in his way, every divine force that threatens to send him packing again, so he is equal parts unnerved by wick’s presence and angry about it. it is mostly a fear response we are seeing, an emotion that’s morphed into long held resentment and anger. so his actions are extremely defensive, with him trying to push wick far away and keep him and mitzi separate, like some sort of animal attempting to ward off a threat that’s come too close to their home. despite the loaded animosity there, this hate has hardly reached its peak … but it shall only grow more intense as things continue onward i’m afraid, since as it stands ( in the comic at least ) rocky is at an all time low … and is ten times more desperate. i’d honestly say wick has become so warped in his mind’s eye that he can only strive towards ‘winning’ over the other man, because that’s all he can see anymore. i think mitzi implying that wick willingly helped her out, the intense head injury, and rocky’s fragile emotional state is exactly what pushes him towards premeditated murder in look-see. i don’t know how people perceive that arc, but to me it’s very clear that rocky actively sought to see the deaths of wes and fish that night. going as far as to lament that he’d be, “very disappointed if ( he ) dreamed them,” and purposefully luring the marigold duo away to have freckle pick them off. while you could argue that this was a smart move, in a gangster sort of sense, there’s still no denying that rocky is oddly chipper about the whole thing and is now seeking death out ; whereas before his methods of vengeance were just, well, ruining people’s livelihood but ultimately leaving them alive. this isn’t to discredit the fact that rocky is going through something! he is in a very muddled and dark place, mentally and physically, but even tracy has said that the head injury hasn’t changed rocky’s personality -- it’s only brought things to the surface.

source : q&a with tracy .

which, yeah! makes sense! head trauma can cause a person to become a wreck emotionally ( think mood swings, irritability, etc ) but it doesn’t completely morph someone either. personality changes may occur, but it’s not like you’re being rewritten entirely, you know? and given tracy’s old statement, it’s clear that ‘personality changes’ aren’t a side effect he’s suffering from. something that adds to my beginning statement, which is that rocky is a deeply angry and troubled person, more so than fans give him any credit for.

however, to touch upon your mini opinion about these two, i actually wholeheartedly agree that rocky and wick could become friends if circumstances were different. they do in fact have many superficial similarities, but one of the more prominent things they deeply share is never really belonging in the groups they frequent. this is more overt with rocky’s character, yet wick faces it too in subtle ways. the well-to-do crowd, seen through the investors, find the gentleman to be lacking in about every place imaginable ; to them he is an obsessive freak who cares too deeply for meager rocks, something they constantly mock him for, while he’s also being noticeably set apart from the rest of them … he seems younger than the investors, more excitable, passionate, and a little less experienced, and doesn’t seem to care for money or reputation as much as them either. there is a constant rubbing between him and them, where what he enjoys is seen as wrong, such as his love for the lackadaisy and his choice in paramor, a grieving widow with extremely dangerous ties. we also know that wick doesn’t have many friends at all, with the only two he has being lacy and church ( church is listed as such on his character profile, in a sort of tongue-in-cheek way ), both of whom work for or with him. they are obliged to hang around, and while they care in varying ways, they are prone to judging him just as much. honestly, it’s not shocking that wick seeks refuge at his chosen speakeasy! but even there he is rather distant from everyone else. he doesn’t speak to zib ever in the comics, nor seems all too close with viktor, ivy, or horatio … it is merely mitzi he is close to, even if he knows of the other people who work there. and, once again, wick very obviously doesn’t fit in. he is not gangster material, could never be an atlas may replacement, much less someone who could get his paws dirty in such an active way. so he has his feet in two different worlds and doesn’t know how to fit into either of them, or which one he actually wants to fit into more. i think in many ways rocky could relate -- these are two very lonely people who wish to belong somewhere and be accepted by some group or another but go about it in all the wrong ways. wick, who is too hesitant to fully commit to what he wants and is worse off for it, and then rocky, who obsessively throws himself against what he wants until he breaks every bone in his body. they also have explosives to bond over, lol, and other miscellaneous things like their taste in women i suppose … but this potential bond adds to the tragedy of lackadaisy, where we see two people who on every level should get along but we’re burdened with the knowledge that it’s an impossibility anyway, because there’s no removing the circumstance of which they’re in.

though i like to believe that despite wick’s fear of rocky, he maintains a kindness towards him regardless. i think his worries about rocky are rather surface level … he doesn’t know the boy at all, really, and thus can’t make heads or tails of him, hence him believing the lie in balderdash. so when i’m feeling particularly self indulgent, i like imagining a world where they’re forced together and sort of ‘stuck’ together ; to which rocky finally breaks and exposes his wounds to wick, in every sense of the word, and wick finally gets him. the aggression, the possessiveness of mitzi … it is all fear and desperation and a profound sadness, things he’d sympathize with. if rocky was able to explain that he loathes wick because if he saves the lackadaisy then mitzi won’t need him anymore and that it’s not fair that wick gets to so easily fix things when rocky would give his soul for his home, for her, and how wick could render every sacrifice he’s already made for naught by smoothing things over with some greenbacks and he can’t lose this, he just can’t --! … which, well, wick is too kind of a man to be able to do anything except feel awful, even though it’s not his fault at all. here we have two people who could coexist! and they should, since rocky logically can’t do every speakeasy job ( band member, rumrunner, mitzi’s shadow, also the guy who gets the money for the hooch ) by himself, just like how wick can’t save the lackadaisy with only his cash and limited booze stash. it’d be a joint cooperation, a collaboration between them, both equally important in the grand scheme of crime’s every turning wheel … but rocky’s rage and fear won’t let him see that, and likely never will. still, in scenarios where everything ends up alright for the lackadaisy and the people involved in it ( which is not how canon will go, by the way ), i fancy wick and rocky getting better within their relationship. rocky will always be prickly and quick to upset around the other man sadly, but perhaps he could see wick in a softer kind of light. or at least understand vaguely enough that he isn’t out to get rocky, so to speak. and then maybe wick learns that pancakes soothe rocky’s ire and poorly makes them anytime he wishes to talk to the man, and other fun things like that! but you should have more confidence in your character analysis skills, because you were spot on ( at least in my eyes ) about them potentially getting along if things were different. it’s certainly a fun aspect to play around with, and is important to note when discussing their relationship so you can fully understand just how warped rocky’s perspective on things are. and how unstable and traumatized he is too, of course </3 sidenote, but i also hope that throughout everything i’ve said here, or anything i’ve said before on my blog, that my love for rocky and my own sympathy for him comes across well enough. while he’s deeply flawed and i have no qualms discussing said flaws in depth, i also don’t think of him as some insane freak who’s evil at his core or anything like that. honestly, i adore analyzing him so much as a character because of how far down his issues go! he’s very well written, i’ll say, as is wick and many of the other characters, but i digress.

once more, thank you for the ask! i’ll end this here because i fear if i don’t i’ll start going in circles, since their relationship is so vast and very important for rocky in a character sense. hopefully i shed some more light on it though! i love these two to bits and pieces and i wouldn’t be half as invested in lackadaisy if their dynamic wasn’t so monumental -- at least to me.

[ominous-feychild]

✦ OC In Three #9 ✦

Starring: the avatars of the Existence of Water!

They're a ragtag bunch of (not-so-young) immortal children at heart who've banded together in a dysfunctional family to back each other up as they fight in the Existential War!

ZENEBE

MITZIE

COCO

LIONEL

DEIDRE

LOUHI

ALCYONE

MEADOW

More info to be released about each of them soon! <3

Feel free to send in asks about any of the individual characters, or just leave a comment on what you think of their vibes! I'm curious if you can guess any of their powersets based on their photos, haha.

(Hint: most of them don't have "pure" water magic despite being avatars of the Existence of Water.)

I think I'm going to (eventually) post a bunch of things about these guys, so tell me if you'd like to be added to the Mulul Gang's tag list!

OC In Threes: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 Part 6 | Part 6.5 | Part 7 | Part 8

Tag list: @honeybewrites @the-golden-comet @illarian-rambling @ashirisu @urnumber1star

@the-letterbox-archives @48lexr @aalinaaaaaa @mysticstarlightduck @paeliae-occasionally

@thecomfywriter @darkandstormydolls

Divider by @saradika

[irenadel]

Small Graces

Mitzi x Mordecai The animated short took over my brain and re-ignited the hots I have for Mordecai. Filthy porn ahead, beware. I'm not brave enough to make this furry. Everyone is a human here. Pre-canon. Lackadaisy glory days when Atlas was still alive. Some mild spoilers for the last couple of comics, so read at your own risk.

Part I

He hadn’t meant to fall asleep. Unprofessionalism notwithstanding, Mordecai abhorred falling asleep in his clothes. It was liable to wrinkle them and require his pants be sent to the dry cleaners yet again this week. At least someone (he earnestly hoped it had been himself, he shuddered at the thought of strange hands touching his feet) had had the sense to take his shoes off and neatly drape his bloodied jacket and vest over one of the apartment’s plush chairs.

And there was the small matter of keeping a lookout for anyone seeking revenge for the recent bloodshed on his boss’s estranged wife.

He supposed it had been the steady ticking of the clock which had lulled him into sleep. On difficult nights he always slept with a pocket watch close to his ear… But his was most certainly still securely tucked into the pocket of his vest, and he didn’t see a clock anywhere in Mrs. May’s Bohemian though, he begrudgingly accepted, tidy bedroom. It wasn’t a clock. Ah. The high sweet keys of a piano emerged from his cottony, still half-unconscious perception (it had been a lot of blood loss, he wouldn’t have volunteered for lookout duty if Viktor hadn’t been in a sorrier state than he was). A metronome. He should have known, though somehow hadn’t expected it from Mrs. May’s self-admittedly hodgepodge musical education.

There’d been a man in the tenement building Mordecai grew up in who had fixed and tuned pianos for a living. Sometimes when he was working, he would use the metronome for some unknowable purpose. Mordecai had always liked the sound.

He let it draw him out of sleep now. Let it provide him with an excuse not to bother, or be bothered, by the lady of the house. It was still dark out, still dangerous, though the hint of a slowly graying sky promised him a ready reprieve. Soon he could be back home, change into fresh clothes, and never have to think about having had to intrude into a married woman’s private chambers. Nevermind that this married woman should have been in her husband’s home, not in some dingy apartment where Mordecai had to keep a lookout for her. He couldn’t pretend to understand what happened in a normal marriage, let alone one with any sort of turbulence to it.

The steady tick of the metronome, the accompanying slow, high notes of the piano let him tune out the distracting reality of the room, let him focus on his post at the window. He would not think of the confounding Mrs. Atlas May. He would not think of her vanity behind him, or the brush disgustingly full as he supposed it was with human hair. The whiff of perfume and cosmetics. The slept in unmade bed or any dirty clothes that–

But the bed was made. It had not been so when he arrived, when he’d woken up its occupant in the middle of the night. And someone had cleaned her vanity, down to putting her brush and combs away… The same someone who had draped his bloodied clothes upon the back of a chair, maybe taken his shoes off when he had curled up in the window sill… the same person who could have fallen asleep again but had chosen to stay up and occupy herself with something outside the bedroom, giving him space…

He’d known Mrs. May a long time. He’d known she was smarter than she let on, more perceptive… He hadn’t realized she was also kind.

“Would you like some coffee, sweetheart?”

He’d nearly jumped out of his skin, had certainly scrambled off his perch in the window sill. He hadn’t heard the piano stop because the metronome was still going.

“Thank you, Mrs. May, but not presentl–”

He’d turned to at least acknowledge her presence and was jarred into full alertness by the sight of Atlas May’s wife in nothing more than a nightgown and a robe. He averted his gaze immediately, brushing past her on his way out the door, unable to keep from shuddering at the extraneous, unexpected contact.

“I’ll just give you a minute.”

He fled into her little parlor for safety, finding himself drawn to the still ticking metronome. A good enough excuse to keep his back to her and allow her the grace of an inconspicuous exit.

“Sugar, you can give me ten or twenty minutes,” she drawled, still leaning on her bedroom’s door frame. “I’m still not putting on any clothes before the sun is out. You’ll just have to make your peace with it, honey.”

She gave him no time for further discomfort, sitting herself back down on the piano’s bench and resuming her practice. He was frozen in place, unable and unwilling to cede her the territory she had just gained. He should go back to his post at the window, pretend none of this had taken place and hope it would not be mentioned to any of their mutual acquaintances.

She didn’t play the same high, melancholy melody as before, but a set of scales. Somehow, that was better. Somehow, the repetitive, rising and decreasing nature of it soothed him. He wouldn’t look at her but still he felt some of the tension ease from his shoulders and found himself suddenly aware of how exhausted he was. It had been a long night.

“You can sit down, sweetheart, you don’t have to stand at attention”

He glared at her, not dignifying her comment with an answer but still not finding in himself the energy to move back to the window.

“… if it makes you so miserable, I can dispense with the babysitter, Mordecai.”

He tried not to roll his eyes at her. “Mrs. May, your husband made it clear—“

The piano stopped with a sudden, dissonant twang. “What my husband wants is no longer my concern.”

The venom in her voice embarrassed him. This whole situation was simply intolerable. He wanted to cringe back from it and suddenly the thought that all her small kindnesses, her attire and her proximity may have been an attempt to involve him in some kind of petty revenge against Atlas… it was too much. Spite could be so tiresome.

“How ever much I appreciate your courtesy Mrs. May, I wish to play no part in your marital strife.”

She stared at him, half dumbfounded, half immeasurably wounded. He was not prone to sentimentality but somehow her big green eyes (beautiful, he’d often heard the boss comment what beautiful eyes his wife had, personally he was indifferent to them) made him fidget.

“Mordecai sweetheart,” she said tiredly, closing the piano’s fallboard over the keys. “I know it must be hard to understand, but not everything a married woman does is about her husband.”

There was a certain exhausted defiance in the way she looked at him that made him uncomfortable. His mother had looked like that at times after his father had passed away. It made his cheeks burn with a guilty sort of flush.

Atlas is still alive, he wanted to say, don’t look at me like that, Mrs. May.

But he said nothing, just returned her tired gaze with a bewildered one of his own and watched her silently give up. She made to get up from the piano, one hand reaching for the metronome to stop its steady ticking and he panicked. He didn’t want her to go back to her bedroom, disrobe even further and sleep in the bed he would have to be near if he went back to his lookout spot. Out of options to detain her further, he did the one thing he could think of: he acquiesced to her request and sat down on the bench beside her.

There was a certain satisfaction in seeing those usually languid, knowing eyes widen in surprise, and his stomach did a flip at the hint of a smile dancing on Mrs. May’s unmade but still very rosy lips. She flipped the fallboard back back up and started her scales again. Mordecai let out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding.

Up close, she didn’t smell like cosmetics as she usually would have, no slight sheen of sweat as he had always known her to have, from her exertions on the stage or the dance floor. Had she bathed too, while he slept? For his benefit? He forced himself not to squirm on the bench, suddenly aware of the bare, warm flesh beneath her thin nightgown and robe. He should not have sat down. For all her skimpy costumes back in her stage days, Mordecai had never personally been so close to a woman in such a state of undress. It made him nauseous, made his skin itch, made him…

She’d stopped playing.

“Mordecai honey,” she said tentatively. “Do you need a minute?”

For a second he didn’t understand what she meant. Then he became aware of the rapidly forming bulge beneath his silk pants.

He clambered off the bench, against the piano’s keys, their frantic, offkey protest mirroring his own frantic, strenuous desire to flee. He would have, if she had tried to touch him, would have ran if Mrs. May hadn’t left her seat on the bench and taken a slow, deliberate step back.

“Darling, it’s alright,” she’d said softly, so kindly it made him even more anxious. He wanted to blame her for this. Her and her uncharacteristic concessions to his innumerable peculiarities, so often points of contention or mockery. He wondered if she had planned this. Would have found it easier to retreat in a fury if she had. He wondered how she could have undone him so thoroughly, how she could’ve known, as she seemed to have guessed everything else, that nothing but the scent of her clean skin and talcum (no perfume, no artifice) could have left him in this dizzy, pitiful state of arousal…

But she didn’t seem to know what to do anymore than he did.

He could see her make up her mind in real time. Felt his whole body thrum with anticipation the moment she stepped into his space. It must be the blood loss or the drugs still swimming in his veins that kept him frozen in place. He must still be under the influence, woozy from adrenaline, or he would have never allowed this, never considered this. Would have never let her get so close. So close he could feel the heat of her body beneath her nightgown. So close he marveled that it was not enough.

“Mrs. May—“

“Honey, if you call me ‘Mrs. May’ again while we’re doing this, I’ll scream.”

She didn’t scream though. And for a short, panicky second Mordecai was afraid she would try to kiss him. Mrs. Ma– Mitzi did not. Did she know he could not stand it if she tried to kiss him? Even when she threw one arm around his neck, running her nails up his scalp in a way that made him forget about propriety, promises or even the wrinkles sure to form on his pants, all she did was lay her forehead against his while he panted madly, waiting, hoping, aching… Her other hand found the front buttons below his belt, deftly undoing them before snaking inside. Did she know he could not take anything else? All the secret, lewd things he’d heard others whisper about, the ones that had seemed too full of fluids and other people’s filth, the ones he’d scoffed at  (wondered at)... did she know this was the only one he could stand? He looked at her pleadingly, not recognizing himself, so desperate he was almost ready to tell her she could try to put her lips on him, anything, anything at all to quench this needy, wanton fire on his skin.

Her hand was enough. Wrapping around his penis, firmly, hotly pulling at him. He’d only done this to himself a couple of times during the first desperate pangs of adolescence. It shouldn’t have surprised him how much better it would feel when someone else did it for him. It shouldn’t have surprised him how much more skilled she was at it. He was mortified at the whimper that escaped him, his glasses fogging with a sweat he suddenly could not care less about. Her eyes were half-lidded, her lips almost a smile, as she stroked him again and again, good God, to the rhythm of the metronome.

“Mitzi,” he keened desperately and heard her throaty, low chuckle before he saw the first real smile he had seen all evening break out on her face.

She must know, surely she must know how good it was, how crazy it drove him to have this done to him properly. He bared his teeth, letting his head hang back, keeping his hips still out of sheer stubbornness. He would not interrupt her blissfully rhythmic strokes. He’d surrendered any protests he could have. She knew better, knew him better than he knew himself. Knew he would prefer the chaffing to any improvised lubrication. Knew the only kind he could allow was what she could gather from the weeping tip of his erection, with her sharp little nails, running down his length again and again, again and again, all to the steady ticking of the metronome behind him. He was swimming in that even, predictable tick, tick, tick. Swimming in the heat at the pit of his stomach, in the sweet smell of her skin and her lady’s talcum, mysterious and alien and clean. Balls tight, nipples tingling, his skin so hot and needy he felt it would crawl off him any minute now, any second…

“Mordecai sweetheart,” he heard her one more time, searing lips against his neck. “Come for me.”

He hadn’t known the words would make a difference. They did. He screwed his eyes shut, hands braced against the piano and felt his balls empty themselves in her hand, his hips lost at last, pumping of their own accord against her. He, for once in his life, utterly heedless of the mess he was making, while choking on her name, Mitzi, Mitzi, Mitzi, like a prayer.

When he came back to himself, Mordecai realized she was panting against his throat too, her other hand still firmly cradling his neck, whole body draped across his own heaving one. The wound on his shoulder throbbed dully, and for a moment he was at a loss before this overwhelming, bounteous humanity in the form of Mitzi May, still in her nightgown, one hand covered in the shameful, evidence of his transgression. For a moment he felt like he could heave.

He felt like a fool when she used her clean hand to extricate a handkerchief from somewhere – the lady in her had thought of the handkerchief, the ballroom bawd had thought to stock it even into her undergarments – and used it to clean him up so thoroughly and expertly he was left dumbfounded. Deeply, heartbreakingly grateful. Almost ashamed of his brief, furtive revulsion.

“Thank you,” he managed, pathetically sincere.

Mitzi smiled at him again, something watery hiding behind her large doe eyes, which he could, at last, admit were beautiful beyond measure.

“Thank you,” she countered. “I needed that.”

Mordecai didn’t know if it was the haze of orgasm, danger or gratitude, but he touched her of his own accord then. He reached for her face and felt nauseously delighted when she leaned into his hand. He did not know if he would ever understand his sex’s fascination with beautiful women… but he understood this much. He felt reckless with the knowledge, almost drunk on it. He felt generous but afraid, suddenly, that whatever this was, would evaporate as morning dew…

When Mitzi made to go dispose of her soiled handkerchief he grabbed her wrist with sudden, forceful intent. It felt delicate, birdlike under his hands, capable as they were, of such brutality. He felt a thrill in that new awareness of her fragility, compounded by her still racing pulse and the lingering warmth of their exertions on the thin skin stretched over her veins. Reckless, heedless of consequences or even his own inclinations, he pulled her closer grabbing two ample handfuls of her hips and buttocks. He risked his forehead against her stomach and was exhilarated both at his persistent desire to touch her and her clean, handkerchief-free hand on his hair, carding fingers through the mess they had made of it. Together.

“Take a bath,” he’d risked the order, looking up at her from his seat on the piano’s edge. He was glad she bit her full unpainted lip, seemingly pleased, instead of cutting him down with a condescending “sweetie” or an icy glare. His heart was hammering at his daring. “I’ll meet you in your bed.” 

[glitter50000]

Smile

The boss wasn’t known to smile.

If he did, it was only for business and even so, he would only grant a small one. Other than that, smiling was something not many people were witness to.

His crew took it as a challenge. They would tell jokes here and there and be met with a raised eyebrow or a neutral expression, sometimes deadpan if it were that corny. If they were lucky, they would get a tiny upturn of the lips, but it wasn’t common. Someone tried to tickle him once.

“Don’t even think about it,” Atlas muttered, just as they were behind him with their arms raised.

“…Sorry boss.”

People had considered it almost impossible to make him smile. Some say he’s a good businessman for it, better to show nothing to anyone for potential enemies could come from anywhere. Some suggested he wasn’t a cat at all but something else with what little emotion he grants people. One thing is for sure, Atlas’s smiles were reserved and rare.

So imagine their surprise after the new lead singer, a woman named Mitzi, who had taken an interest in their boss managed to have him hide a smile by bringing the glass to his lips when she winked at him.

If that surprised them, then their jaws were to the floor as they saw the two of them talking at the bar. When she whispered in his ear and whatever she said made him put his hand over his mouth and chuckle.