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#more lore coming next chapter!

smol-dargon · 1 year

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Not me posting a fourth chapter because I really wanted to see where this story would go

The air was completely still inside the mausoleum, as if the place were holding its breath. The knight shivered, her chain mail rattling. Her breath was visible in the air. This was not a place for them to linger, clearly.

In the floor ahead of them, several panels in the floor rattled, as if barely containing their occupants. Dan led the way, club at the ready. The knight raised her axe and nodded at him, prepared for whatever might come crawling out of the floors. He bashed the panels in one after the other, sending tiny gremlin creatures scurrying across the chamber. The knight had her hands full corralling and killing them all.

In short order, the room was silent again, save for the sound of their armored steps. One of the panels didn't have anything inside. Rather, it dropped out into a corridor below. With little else to go on, Dan hopped down. The knight followed quickly behind.

Their path was blocked by a stained glass panel. He hated to destroy such art, but he hoped the souls of the recently risen dead would forgive him. He had to pass in order to save the kingdom. The knight was one step ahead of him though; she destroyed the panel without a second thought. In fact, she looked rather upset at it. Beyond the shattered pane, more of the gremlin creatures scurried about, swiftly dispatched by her axe. She took a moment to catch her breath, looking even more distressed at the sight of three more pathways, each blocked by their own stained glass design.

He gave her a bit of a questioning look. It was one thing to be committed to saving Gallowmere. It was quite another to be so hateful towards art.

She heaved a great sigh and rubbed her knuckles as if they ached.

"My father sent me to a convent once for 'misbehaving'. I've hated anything that even smells like a church ever since."

He'd heard of such things happening in other places. Places far removed from his beloved Gallowmere. Women here might not always do the same things men did, but never were they punished for being unusual or unladylike. It explained why she had been so stressed about being discovered, and why she was so aggravated at the mere thought of not being respected as a knight.

"Sounds awful. Sorry."

He hoped even if she couldn't understand his words that his tone at least would carry. To his immense relief, she took a few moments to breathe before steeling herself to continue.

"Let's just get this over with. The sooner we're out of these halls, the better."

He took the lead this time. It was a good thing too. The left path send them down a corridor half blocked by jagged crystals. He smashed their way through a sea of them so she could charge into the room at the end and take care of the creatures within.

With that done, she picked up the rune in the corner. The corridor shuddered. The floor was suddenly very unstable beneath their feet. They both made a mad dash out, barely making it before the floor completely disintegrated. Perhaps that had been a trap. They would have to keep an eye out for other such designs.

The panel across from their original entrance was next. Just beyond it lay the gate the rune opened. Even before she placed the rune, they could hear more chattering creatures past a short drop-off into another chamber. Without waiting for him, she dashed ahead, eager to blow off some steam. By the time he caught up, she'd taken care of them all, then dashed up the stairs in search of more.

He shook his head. She could handle herself. It might do her some good to get the anger out. He noted a gate on the opposite end from the stairs, but without a rune to open it, all he could do was follow the knight back to the upper level.

He had barely left the staircase when he felt a sudden lightness at his hip. His sword was gone! He whipped around to see one of the gremlins tearing off with it. Annoyed, he decided to test something he'd been curious about since waking up again.

He pulled his left arm from its socket and threw it as hard as he could at the creature. It yipped and lost its grip on the sword, but his arm kept going. He groaned, but looked back just in time to see his arm heading straight back for the creature, streaking through the air like a boomerang. It hit the gremlin a second time, more than enough to take it out for good. He was quite pleased with himself!

He wasn't counting on his arm still having momentum when it made it back to him. His own arm backhanded him before clattering to the floor behind him. He was getting really tired of doing cool things and then immediately going back to being ungainly.

The knight reappeared around the corner, surveyed the scene, and couldn't suppress a hearty chuckle. She retrieved his sword from where it had fallen while he fumbled with getting his arm back into place. It was a little easier said than done.

"Uh... help?"

She snorted and held his sword out to him.

"I'll trade you."

She took his detached arm and gave him back the sword. Sheathing it one-handed was tricky, but he managed. After a brief moment surveying his shoulder and arm joints, she fitted them back into the proper places with a satisfying crack. He tested his limb out and made a mental note to never try that again.

"This leads back to the entryway and downstairs. I found the runes we need."

After a short trek through the halls, they were back at the three-way junction facing the final stained glass panel. She destroyed it, this time with a great deal less malice than before. The hall was once again crusted with sharp edges, which Dan helpfully cleared from their path.

She stopped him before he could step fully into the room at the end.

"If this one is booby trapped like the other one, I'm faster. I won't be long."

He retreated back to the junction to wait. Certainly enough, shortly after the sounds of combat faded, the building rumbled and shook. The knight came tearing back up the hall, narrowly throwing herself clear.

"Much easier that way, see?"

He chuckled and turned to continue down the center path once more. Back upstairs, she led him through the main chamber and into a side room. A ghostly organist banged away haphazardly at the keys. He was no musician, but he was pretty sure that wasn't how one played the organ.

The knight pulled a set of papers from her breastplate and offered them to the specter. He happily took them and placed them on the stand before him. After the first few chords, a side door opened, revealing yet another of the strange chalices.

Dan retrieved it and awaited the appearance of Canny Tim. However this time, he was met with another face.

"Ahh Fortesque! What's this I hear about that arch cad Zarok still being alive? Thought you killed the fella?"

Dan grimaced.

"Well, about that--"

"Never mind, you old war-horse, better show 'im what's what, eh? I expect Johnny Zombie's a bit more of a handful than you remember. How are you doing for weapons?"

Dan held his club out for the ghost to see, gesturing with his free hand to the mostly dull broadsword at his hip.

"Here, take my warhammer, it'll smash anything and it won't fall apart like a club. I only ever get to use it cracking walnuts around this place."

He started to refuse, worried he wouldn't be able to handle such a massive weapon.

"Nonsense, Fortesque, I won't take no for an answer. Knock a few heads for old Stanyer Iron Hewer, eh?"

With that, the spirit disappeared, leaving his massive warhammer behind. A bit doubtful, he did try to pick it up. It ended up lighter than he was expecting. He tucked it into place and prepared to continue. When they turned back around, the phantom of the organ had vanished.

At long last, they could open the final gate with the rune she had picked up. Down the hall were shards of glass jutting forth. But a path lay in the middle, just wide enough for a brazier on a pedestal. She scouted ahead and peeked around the corner.

"Aha! The beast's heart! We can set it alight and make killing him that much easier!"

She returned and they began the arduous task of pushing the stone monolith down the thin path between the crystals. It grated down the hall, sparks flying from the friction. Between the two of them, it was short work. At the end of the hall, a massive crystalline heart beat, floating serenely between a pair of statues. They redoubled their efforts and finally shoved the brazier into place beneath it. The heart beat faster in the heat before shattering into countless pieces.

Unlike the other corridors, this one didn't crumble beneath them. They checked over their weapons and armor and headed back up into the main chamber.

The final pane of stained glass bore the image of the demon himself. As they entered, the pane vibrated angrily. Without further warning, it shattered, the stained glass demon bursting forth with a shriek.

Dan charged in ahead of the knight, swinging viciously at the demon. It only took a few hits for him to realize nothing he did was even slowing the thing down. The demon leapt about, aiming to crush them beneath its talons.

The knight stayed well clear of the two of them, her axe stowed into a holster at her back. He wondered for a split second how she intended to help without a weapon. The demon took the opportunity to slam its fist into him, sending him flying across the room and into the wall.

The demon moved to the center of the room, charging an attack with its heart floating free of its chest. He drew the crossbow Canny Tim had given him, but before he could get fully to his feet and take aim, the knight stepped between him and the demon.

She took up a defensive stance. Her arms sparkled with a crackling blue energy, almost like lightning crawling towards her fingers. In the next moment, she let it fly. Twin beams of energy flew through the air towards the demon's heart, causing it a great deal of pain.

He managed to get back on his feet just in time to leap out of the way of a stream of glass shards the demon channeled from its heart. He was startled at the knight's ability to use magic, as it was incredibly uncommon among humans. But he didn't have much time to ruminate on it. Glass shards flew every which way, and he was hard pressed to hold the demon's attention so the knight could reposition.

She let him keep the thing's focus while she charged up another magical attack. The next time its heart came out, it froze Dan in a glass prison from his waist down. His weapon arm was trapped as well. Seeing this, she aimed one beam at the demon and the other at him. It hurt greatly, but it did free him, so he couldn't complain too much.

Between her magic and his crossbow bolts, the demon slowly began to weaken. Its attacks became more harried and frantic, even as it lost the strength to continue its assault. Seeing its tactics failing, it turned its attention to the knight instead. The jagged bits of glass streaked towards her. She raised a hand, creating some sort of barrier that stopped them just before they reached her. He took the opportunity to deal ever more damage to the cracking heart with Canny Tim's crossbow.

With these last few bolts, the heart shattered into pieces. The demon froze, cried out in anguish, and fell to the ground, where it too fell completely to pieces. Amid the pieces, an ornate key with a skull on it lay. He scooped it up and tucked it into his breastplate for safe keeping.

They breathed a collective sigh of relief. At last, they could leave the graveyard proper and take up the chase in earnest. The demon itself had given the. Their exit from the mausoleum, its empty pane leaving an opening from which they could carefully drop back into the graveyard below.

But before they could continue, Dan squared up to the knight properly. He didn't trust magic as far as he could throw it, especially after the mushroom incident. The entire court had done things they regretted that night...

"I have questions."

She nodded, her proud stance faltering under his scrutiny.

"I figured you might... What do you want to know?"

#medievil #sir daniel fortesque #the left handed knight #the errant knights #oop lore reveal #more lore coming next chapter!

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playerkingsley · 11 months

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currently thinking about the moment, after the denouement of the circle of needle & thread as it had been, nathaniel returns home. he goes to a well-adorned box retrieved from the abandoned offices once haunted by draven kingsley, removes his officer’s revolver from its holster, and as his shoulders loosen and his jaw unclenches, he breathes

#what happens when he finally removes the trappings of officer & detective and allows himself to process what he’s lost #is it before or after he meets with his father once again—when there’s a whisper of reconciliation between them.#as he told lucas: when does he turn the page and start to write the next chapter of his own life #what if I reach through the screen and shake travis until more lore comes out #cr spoilers #critical role #candela obscura spoilers #candela obscura #nathaniel trapp

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prokopetz · 1 year

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The Gremlin Game Designer's Creed

Rules are toys, and the process of rules-mediated play consists of smashing their faces together like little girls making their Barbies make out. Unless a rules module is explicitly intended to be enacted solo, it should present a generous surface area for other rules to bite into. The most elegantly self-contained piece of rules design is, collaboratively speaking, also the most useless.

The principal function of "player characters" as discrete collections of mechanical traits is to furnish each player with an assemblage of shiny things to show off to other players. Mechanical abstraction is well and good, but if you abstract away the act of curating one's collection of shinies, player engagement will suffer.

The GM, if present, is a fellow player. Ensure that they have their own toys and shinies to play with. The failure of a game to provide these is often a major contributor to why nobody wants to run it!

The most effective way of encouraging players to do what you want is to make a number go up. This applies to both to rewards and to misfortunes; a number counting up to disaster a much more visceral motivator than a number counting down to zero.

Crunch is good. The defining feature of tabletop roleplaying is that rules produce stories. The act of interpreting the outputs of the rules and the act of telling the game's story are the same activity. Be mindful of what kinds of stories your rules want to tell; you may find that their opinion on the matter differs from your own!

Actually assembling your game's rules is as much a process of discovery as it is of invention. In the course of designing and playtesting, you may find that your own game has rules that you didn't know about. Where did they come from? It is a mystery.

Randomised outcomes should be made mandatory with care and restraint; randomised outcomes should be made available with delirious abandon. As far as is practicable, players should always have the option of asking the dice what unhinged bullshit should happen next. Corollary: lookup tables are your friend.

Players don't need your permission to depart from the rules as written; granting it is arrogant. By the same token, however, it should never be unclear to players whether they're departing from the rules as written. Let the thought process behind what you're writing hang out for all the world to see; folks will be rummaging in the game's guts anyway, so give them easy access.

If your game has a default setting, explain it as little as possible, but always let the rules and presentation reflect it. Seeing an entry for "poorly made dwarf" in a table of player character backgrounds will fire a group's imagination more strongly in three words than a chapter stuffed with worldbuilding lore could in ten thousand.

You don't need to be good at naming things as long as you're good at puns. Wordplay, alliteration and rhyme may also serve in this capacity, as, in a pinch, may a well placed dick joke.

#gaming #tabletop roleplaying #tabletop rpgs #game design #penis mention #swearing

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queenimmadolla · 7 months

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𝐅𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐤 𝐋𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐌𝐞

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐈𝐈: 𝐑𝐨𝐥𝐥 𝐌𝐞 𝐈𝐧 𝐃𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐧𝐞𝐫 𝐒𝐡𝐞𝐞𝐭𝐬

(A Lisa Frankenstein, Eddie Munson AU)

previous — next part ┊ 𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 ( + playlist)

Summary: You learn the identity of your new undead friend, get a mini ‘makeover’, catch your crush’s attention and bury a body while Eddie learns throwing up on the girl he’s interested in probably doesn’t display his potential as a boyfriend, but his protective nature might.

Chapter Warnings: a stinky boy, dark humor, unpleasant home life, intense longing (on eddie’s behalf). oh yeah, and murder.

a/n: so i lied, this is actually longer than the first chapter and i accepted my fate. we’re getting to the fun stuff, though. next up: more vigilante justice, eddie lore and emerging feelings for a certain dead man walking. hope you like it!

light dividers ℗ cafekitsune ♡

“C’mon, over here.” You gestured to your open doorway, watching your new zombie pal hobble up the final step and round the staircase. His movements were harsh, stiff as hell and made your bones hurt to watch for whatever reason. Every over limp was accompanied by an inhuman grunt, and you wondered if moving his limbs might actually be painful for him.

You were never particularly skilled in the art of masking your emotions, so your eyebrows were furrowed, mouth parted and upper lip tucked up to clearly display your phantom discomfort.

Once he was close enough, you crossed over the threshold, standing a little in front of your bed as he wandered in, large eyes immediately raking over everything on your walls. After beckoning him further in, you moved around the filthy corpse standing in your room to close the door.

“Despite your deadly good looks, we can’t risk anyone seeing you. No one else can know you’re here.” You informed him, trying to stress the seriousness of the situation without seeming too controlling. While you had waited for The Zombie to struggle up the stairs, you’d determined there were three possible ways this town would react to discovering a member of the dead had risen—that only seemed to be socially acceptable and celebrated in the form of Jesus Christ:

1.) Pitchforks and Torches.

2.) News, Military, and Government attention, which would no doubt mean you’d have to break him out of some lab.

3.) Pitchforks and Torches, News, Military, and Government attention, which would mean you’d have to save him from an angry mob before inevitably losing him once News stations picked the story up, causing subsequent Military and Government interference and the scientific study of your undead friend in some high tech/high defense lab, leaving you to figure out how to break into and get him out of it.

Or, he could just not leave your bedroom. A beautiful alternative.

The Zombie didn’t even pay you any attention, stumbling forward—and banging his foot against the leg of your bed frame—to take a better look at your things. He was grunting and groaning, though this time it seemed to be a little different. It almost sounded like he was talking to himself. Or maybe to you.

Zombies in film seemed to be able to voice their demands for brains. Could he? Did he have the same urge or need to eat brains? How would you even feed a zombie?

“Can you talk?” You asked, leaning back against the door, eyes on him as he had to hop in place in order to turn his body to face you, “Like, speak? With words?”

He seemed to consider your question for a moment, eyes darting to the side.

“Uuuuuuunnnggghhh.”

“So, that’s a no. Do you…do you need brains? Because I’m not sure I can get you any of those—and if you think for one second that you’re gonna eat mine, you should know I fall under fight when it comes to fight or flight responses. I’m like an alley cat, I’ll fuck you up.”

The Zombie stumbled back, rocking from side to side. It took you a moment to realize he was trying to shake his head, no.

Interesting.

“No brains?”

Again, he rocked from side to side, “Uunggh-uunghh.”

“Oh. Okay.” Your defenses dropped immediately as you played with your hair, pulling gently at a section of it, “Well, what do you eat?”

He did the choppy shoulder raise he’d done in the livingroom earlier, “Unnhh unnhh.”

Your lips curled into a small, fascinated smile. Okay, you knew he had been once alive, once a human being existing on this earth with blood pulsing through his veins—and now he was dead.

Yet, he wasn’t dead. He was dead but standing in your bedroom, amongst your girly things and not so girly things, staring at you in his grotesque form, and shrugging I dunno, like some alive person. A full blown, supernatural one-time (to your knowledge) occurrence only depicted in Sci-fi films and horrors.

Why you? What did he want with you?

You hadn’t realized you’d voiced the question until he hobbled back around to your bedroom wall, raising his left hand, and the only one he seemed to have, up to one of the tombstone etchings. His fingers were all sorts of fucked up, frozen in the most uncomfortable looking positions as a result of rigor mortis in whatever position he’d died.

“What? That? It’s just an etching I made of a tombstone.”

He craned his head around, and you tried not to be freaked out with the way his neck hadn’t turned enough with it, tapping his crooked pinky finger against the craft paper and then moved it to his chest.

Your eyes zeroed in on the etching, trying to understand what he was attempting to tell you.

It was MUN’s tombstone—no, Eddie Munson’s tombstone.

Your jaw dropped. Had to be somewhere around your feet, on the floor. Holy. Shit.

“That’s you? You’re Eddie Munson?” It was rude, but you openly pointed at him.

He didn’t grunt in response this time, rather, he began to cough and gag as he jerked his body around to get his hand in his dirty jeans.

While he did whatever it was, you took the time to take him in even further. He wore black jeans, but under his leather jacket he seemed to be wearing a discolored dress shirt that had once probably been white. You had a feeling the sneakers on his feet, while horrendously dirty, weren’t all that worn out. Dress pants were pricey, you knew that much after buying some for your father when your mother would take you to outlets and malls with her. Dress shirts were a little cheaper and new shoes were seen as a staple in big events for peoples’ lives, such as graduations, birthdays, dances, weddings and funerals.

You had a sneaking suspicion this lively carcass hadn’t been from this part of town when he was alive.

“UUUUUUNNNNGGGHHHH!” The Zombie moaned out, almost victoriously as his stiff arm stuck straight up in the air. Dangling from his curled fingers, was your mother’s pearl necklace. You’d seen it last when you’d entrusted MUN with it yesterday.

You gasped, reaching out as he lowered it into your furled palm.

With the proof in your hand and his corpse before you, you knew you were speaking to Eddie Munson. He was, without a doubt, the grave you’d been running to.

“Holy crap, you are Eddie Munson!” You gripped the pearls in your fist, eyes wide and blinking rapidly to try to make sense of it all, “You were murdered and now you’re not—I mean, you were, but you’re back from the dead, standing in my—ooh, standing pretty close actually.”

You tried not to flinch as you became aware of just how close he’d stumbled over to you. Definitely within arms-length. He didn’t exactly stink, his flesh looked much too leathery to actually smell (you weren’t about to lean in and sniff to test the theory), but the scent of wet dirt was strong and the smell of whatever he’d spat on you earlier seemed to be lingering.

Zombie Eddie was in desperate need of a shower.

“So, this is all pretty cool and bizarre—I’m a fan of both—but uhm, why are you here…? Like, in my house.”

He slouched even further into your space, this time you did flinch a little as the most muffled whimper sounded from him. Reminded you of the Tin Man from Wizard of Oz when he couldn’t speak properly because he was all rusted up.

Eddie held eye contact as he struggled to grab hold of your hand and the minute he did, dirt from his skin pressing into yours, you knew what was coming.

Because of course it would. This is something that would only happen to you.

Shakily, Eddie tried lifting your hand and your mouth puckered, brows furrowing before you sucked your lips into your mouth as you watched him prepare to kiss your hand with his filthy, dead, dried out lips that still had bits of that green goop he’d spat up around it.

You were a nice person—a relatively decent human being, but you weren’t that nice and you didn’t wanna have to go to the hospital on the off chance that you caught something from a corpse. Explaining that one would send you straight to the psych ward and probably end in some sort of abuse of a corpse charge, so you quickly pulled your hand out of his grasp, rubbing your fingers together to roll some of the dirt off of them.

“Okay, okay, I see, mhm—alright. You’re here because—when I said I wished I was with you, I didn’t mean like, I wanted to have your dead body…y’know, pressed up against mine. I meant like…in the grave. Next to you. Like buried there because I’d be dead. It was a moment of intense angst—I’m nineteen and my life is in the fucking gutter. I’m surrounded by terrible people in this town and I have the rest of my life to live out this way.

“I didn’t mean to lead you on or something, and I’m pretty sure it’s a crime to do literally anything with a corpse, other than bury it.”

The two of you stood there, just staring at each other. He still hadn’t moved out of your space and you were still kind of leaning back, away from him, so you added, “So. Just a little recap, I wanted to be dead. Did not mean I wanted to be with you. Romantically. Together. Like a couple.”

And then you felt a little guilty because that wasn’t entirely true.

“Well, not with you as a cadaver.” Because you had fantasized about the person in the grave being a source of comfort to you, “Or—or, you in general. ‘Cause…’cause I didn’t know it was you given how fucked up your shit was, and I didn’t know you when you were alive.”

God, you were messing this up. Rather than continuing your ongoing word vomit, you flashed him a tight smile.

Finally, you got a reaction out of him. He creaked back, those little whimpering sounds coming from his lips before that same nasty ass green shit from before started leaking out from behind his eyeballs.

You’d made him cry.

“Oh, no. I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings—I just moved here a couple of months ago and you were already dead by then! I’m sure you were a lovely person and I would have liked y—y—yo—ECH!”

You gagged, hand flying up to cover your mouth and nose as you felt the contents of your stomach start to make its way back up. While your hand was in that position, it squeezed the tip of your nose, cutting of the assault currently taking place against it.

Whatever it was Zombie Eddie was secreting instead of his tears, stunk. It was the most putrid scent you’d ever had the misfortune of knowing. Nothing could compare to it, not literal shit, not vomit, not pasta that had been left out to cook in the sun for several weeks, nothing.

You were sure one more sniff of it, and your nostril hairs would either shrink and curl up, or disintegrate.

“MOTHER OF GOD—your tears smell horrendous—I’m gonna throw u—ECH!”

You gagged again, tears flooding your sight and you hurried over to the bathroom, gesturing for him to follow behind you.

Chrissy had left her door to the bathroom open, so you skidded across the tile to shove it closed, desperate to make sure the scent didn’t reach the room and wouldn’t linger in there.

She’d drive you straight to the ER to get checked out, because nothing you could possibly shit out should ever and would ever smell that bad.

You yanked the shower curtain back from the tub, setting Chrissy’s products to the side and out of the way, “You need to bathe like two years ago, my dead guy.”

You stepped to the side, pointing into the tub with a finger as your other hand rested on your hip like you were ordering a misbehaving child in.

Eddie groaned, and you got the feeling that he was unimpressed with your theatrics. Unfortunately for the both of you, you hadn’t been dramatic about it. His stank tears had to be an actual biohazard and you didn’t want to think about the fact that very same biohazard had been projectile vomited onto your face a couple of minutes ago. You were so gonna scrub it raw.

Begrudgingly, he hobbled over to your tub and struggled over the edge until he was in—his upper half slamming into the tile wall.

You didn’t say anything about him being fully clothed, shoes and all, because everything he wore needed a good rinse off. If not, you’d have to hose his clothes down in the yard before subjecting the dryer and washer to them.

“There’s my soap.” You pointed out the pink bottle of pomegranate and berry scented shower gel, “And my shampoo and conditioner—those two are very expensive and a little goes a long way, so don’t waste any.”

You eyed him for a moment, mouth twisting in consideration, “Nevermind, it’ll take half the bottles to get your hair clean, I’ll just have to replace them a little earlier than my budget expected.”

This time, Eddie’s mouth parted rather wide as he moaned out, “UHNNNGGHH.”

He was probably telling you to fuck off already, but you were distracted by whatever insect was currently in his mouth, on his tongue.

“SPIT IT OUT!” You shrieked, and he aimed his head down, the large thing with too many legs falling right out to crawl around on your bathroom floor.

You screamed as you began to stomp around, trying to crush it beneath your remaining slipper but it kept evading it! Finally, your foot flattened it with a satisfying crunch.

The evil had been defeated. You were nearly panting, shoulders rising and falling as you calmed your breathing and another sound registered.

Eddie was croaking now, it sounded almost like the most painful gasps someone would let out on their deathbed. You stared, puzzled for a moment before it dawned on you.

“Are you laughing at me?”

He did it again, stiff body leaning completely back on the shower tiles now.

“Oh my god, you are! YOU DICK!” You slapped the side of his arm and then quickly yanked it back, frowning at the mud now caked to the back of your fingers.

“Ugh,” you tried to shake some of it off over the tub, your head shaking as well—and despite the predicament, you found the corners of your lips twitching but you refused to smile. Wouldn’t let him get that over you, “You’re gross. That better be the last living creature to come out of you, you Zombie Headbanger, take a shower.”

You didn’t give him a chance to moan, groan or croak at you again, yanking the curtains back to shield the tub and it’s undead occupant.

You rolled your eyes, almost fondly, and gathered too much toilet paper to wipe up the remnants of the bug and toss it in the trash. Should’ve been in a different corpse’s mouth if it wanted to live.

“You know how to work a shower, don’t you?” You asked aloud as you approached your bathroom counter, taking notice of the bathroom mirror as you uncapped a room spray and gave your bathroom a good burst of it. The mirror had already been replaced, looked like Laura couldn’t stand to know there was something imperfect in the house—aside from you.

You heard the tub start to run before the shower stream took over. At least he still remembered that much.

“You wanna listen to some music?” You asked over the loud stream of the shower.

“Uunngh.”

You took that as a yes and leaned over the counter to tweak the knob of the radio you and Chrissy always left on it. Immediately, a country station started playing and you quickly switched the station.

“That’s not one of mine! Chrissy listens to Country whenever she misses her ex-boyfriend, I don’t know why.”

You kept twisting the dial through various stations. When you hit a station midway through Disposable Heroes, you turned the knob again only for your companion to voice his outrage.

“UUUUUUNNNGGHHHH!!!”

“What?” You switched the station back, “You like Metallica?”

He grunted from behind the shower curtain, and the scent of your body wash began to fill the bathroom, much to your relief. You could hear him banging around in there, probably not the easiest to wash up with a bad case of rigor mortis.

“They’re alright, I liked Ride the Lightning, but Master of Puppets is good, too. Their last album was good, too, but it felt kind of different. Not the same without Burton.”

Eddie made a sound of confusion, hand with the fucked up fingers reaching out to push the curtain back so he could poke his head out.

You met his gaze through the mirror, “You don’t know?”

He just blinked, almost owlishly.

Shit. He must have died before the fall of ‘86. You’d have to ask Chrissy when exactly Eddie had died.

“The bass player, Cliff Burton? He died in ‘86. Bus accident.”

You watched as Eddie’s gaze dropped, and the groan he let out sounded remarkably sad as he ducked back behind the curtain.

Unsure of what to say to make him feel better, you let the radio play out the rest of the duration of Eddie’s shower and took diligent care in washing your face and brushing your teeth. Once he was done, smelling amazing and just like you, you’d had him shed his clothes for one of your nightgowns and dragged him back to your closet.

You knew he was quite literally stiff, but he seemed extra unenthused with his choice of ensemble, so you were going to let him choose his own.

“Alright, take your pick.” You yanked the doors of your walk-in closet (as in you could take three steps in and that's it) open and he flinched back at the amount of pink seeping out of it. When he made no move to look through his options, you selected one for him.

An even gaudier nightgown you tried to shove in his arms. And he let you, before purposely dropping it to the ground while holding eye contact.

“Well, I thought you would have looked great in it.” You mumbled as he creaked down to pick it up for you. When Eddie hobbled into the closet to hang it up, you shut the doors behind him, “Pick something else and then you can come out!”

Your closet doors didn’t lock though, so you were just banking on him assuming they did and you heard his offended zombie groaning. While you waited, listening to him no doubt bang into the walls as he struggled to dress himself, grunting and groaning, you twirled around on your desk chair.

Eventually, the closet doors parted and you gasped at the sight of him, standing there in your lavender fluffy, oversized sweater and pair of white pajama pants with hearts all over them. He couldn’t really move his face all that much, not very expressive and yet you could somehow tell he was scowling.

“You look like Grimace.” Was all you said, mind conjuring up Ronald McDonald’s purple monster friend.

The closet doors were promptly slammed shut. When he emerged once more, gone was the former ensemble. Eddie was wearing a neon green skirt, a tight off the shoulder black top, and nothing else.

You wolf whistled at his skinny, severely discolored legs.

He stuck one out, modeling it for you and you realized he was humoring you. You laughed, eyes crinkling.

“You tryna knock me dead, too?”

When he nodded, you laughed again and stood up to rummage through your dresser. You found a band tee you used as a pajama top, and some black pants that looked like they might fit him. Then you spotted a red plaid flannel you had hanging on your bedroom door, waiting to be placed in the closet.

The clothing items were shoved into his arms and you pushed him back into the closet.

When he came out (eheheheh) again, you were practically bouncing in your seat. You’d never seen Eddie alive before, had never seen him in clothes that weren’t his burial ones, and he definitely still looked as much of a Zombie as Michael Jackson had looked in the Thriller music video, but he also looked like a young adult, and very much so in his Metal element. He was stretching your baby blue socks to their limit, but they’d have to do until you could steal some from your dad. You’d scrub his shoes tomorrow, before class.

If Eddie were alive, he’d look…hot.

You smiled to yourself, still taking him in as you realized you were looking at Eddie Munson.

To show your admiration, you clapped for him, “That’ll do real well. What do you think?”

Eddie raised his forearm and you tilted your head, confused. He followed your gaze and groaned, rolling his eyes as he realized that was the arm lacking a hand. Then, he held up his other arm, painful looking thumb finger cracking and popping until he was giving you a thumbs up. You ended up tying a scarf around the wrist without a hand, just to hide the gaping wound.

With the matter of his clothing solved, you moved onto his hair, sitting on the bathroom counter while he stood in front of you as you worked on detangling with a spray bottle and a legion of hair products. It took some TLC, and ignoring the hole where his ear should’ve been, but you brought his curls back to life. You were shocked to even see he had bangs, they’d been plastered to the top of his head when he was the Swamp Thing.

They framed his eyes, looked real good on him and he seemed to enjoy the entire process, eyes slipping shut and little moans (not like that) coming from him.

“Well, I think we’ve got you back in good shape.” You put down the comb, placing your hand on his shoulders to turn him towards the mirror, “Is this Eddie Munson?”

You watched his gaze scan his reflection, before those eyes were on yours in the mirror.

“Unnnghhh.” Eddie held up his arm with the missing appendage and you nervously scratched the back of your heard.

“Well, you see, I don’t really have any extra hands on me, at the moment. Just down to these two,” You emphasized the sentence with some jazz hands to display yours, then immediately felt guilty over still having yours so you hid them behind your back.

Eddie groaned low, lifting his wrist to the side of his head, where his ear should have been and you made a displeased sound.

“Oh. Noticed that, did you?”

His eyes narrowed and even though you had no idea what Eddie had sounded like, you could still hear him in your head, Notice my fucking ear is missing? Yeah, I did.

“I don’t have any extras of those, either. If it’s a body part, I’m out of stock. But—who cares? Plenty of people live without them.”

Eddie grunted, eyes narrowing even further at you.

You winced, “Poor choice of words—the point is, no one will even notice. Because no one is going to see you.”

Eddie’s next grunt sounded disappointed and you felt even guiltier. What were you supposed to do? You’d already made him look as relatively normal as you could, there was only so many ways you could disguise a zombie who walked oddly, communicated via moan, groan and grunt, and looked like he had a medical skin condition.

You were about to try to comfort him when you heard the front door open and you gasped.

“WHAT IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN?” You heard Laura cry out, and your dad shouted your name.

“I don’t mean to sound homophobic, but back in the closet!” You shoved him out of the bathroom and in the direction of his new hiding place. He hadn’t looked very keen as you shut the closet doors on him, but he’d have to wait for now.

Your dad was probably having one hell of a heart attack, staring at the mess of the house, the broken window, fearful a similar situation as your mother’s assault had taken place with you as the victim.

“I’m alright, daddy!” You reassured as you raced down the stairs to your concerned father. He was concerned alright, but not about you.

He had Laura in one arm, who was openly distraught about the shards of her damn plates, and Chrissy, who was staring at the mess with open confusion, in the other.

“You,” Laura spat at you with venom the moment her chilling gaze locked onto your approaching figure, “What. Did. You. Do?”

Wow. You’d seen an actual Zombie—he was upstairs, in your bedroom closet—and still the most unbelievable thing to happen to you was your ‘family’’s ability to immediately blame you. You hadn’t expected Eddie’s corpse to be the first suspect in their head, still, they’d seen your house ransacked—as you tried to escape your friendly deceased headbanger—with you nowhere in sight, and hadn’t been at all concerned for your wellbeing. God, they sucked.

“Me?! I didn’t do this!”

“Then who did!?” Laura screeched back and you found yourself getting angry.

“The guy who broke in!” You shouted back and Laura immediately rolled her eyes. You could hear your dad say both of your names to calm you down, but you were growing tired of him, too. Like Eddie, he seemed to be missing parts of his body. Noticeably, his goddamn spine.

“Really? You expect us to believe that after last night? The smashing of the mirror, my precious moments figurines? Muffin, your daughter is out of control. She destroyed my house!”

“Do you ever use those creepy eyeballs stuck in your skull?” You found yourself blurting out, “Does it look like any part of my body came crashing through that window?!” You pointed aggressively in the direction of the livingroom, where glass littered the floor. It was too much for just an object to have been thrown through and your body had no cuts, nothing to show from possibly jumping through it.

“Mom, if sissy was attacked─” Chrissy tried, her her mother was having none of it.

“Attacked? Who would want to attack her? She’s invisible, taking up space!” Laura was practically hysterical as she gathered pieces of her broken dishes, “That’s why she’s acting out, can’t you see? She’s recreating the crime scene that got her so much attention and you’re all falling for it!”

The woman was crying, mascara smearing around her eyes as her angry glare was once more directed to you, and you found yourself shrinking and hurt at the accusations, “You need serious help. You’re crazy and a danger to us all!”

“I think you might be mistaking me for your psyche.” You mumbled before turning your attention to your father with pleading eyes, “Daddy, there was a home invasion! I tried to call the police, but as soon as I heard him, I ran up to hide in my room.”

“She needs help, institutional treatment.” Laura hissed into your father’s ear as as though she was the devil on his shoulder.

“Daddy…”

“Mom, sissy’s not a nut, we can’t send her to the looney bin!”

You wanted to scream. All this talk about you being insane, and there was a literal walking corpse upstairs who could disprove that. You just weren’t willing to sacrifice Eddie for yourself.

“Dad, I’m not crazy. Okay? Last night was just a mirror, and tonight someone broke in. There’s a huge difference between the two, I’m not crazy.” You tried to reason, desperate to not get shipped off to some mental ward.

Your dad appeared sympathetic, “No one is calling you crazy, sweetheart.”

”I did.” Laura guffawed at your father siding with you.

“She did, I heard her.” Chrissy confirmed, frowning at her mother.

“No, Chris. Your mother’s just upset, she’d never say something like that and mean it.” You watched with disgust as he pulled Laura into his arms. It was more than you could stomach so you stormed out of the dining room, making a retreat for your room.

You were on your own. Your father had just proved that. Laura could say anything to you, treat you like crap, starve you and he wouldn’t ever step in, just continue being his wishy washy self. If it had been him and not your mother that night, you wouldn’t be suffering like this.

You’d have a loving parent.

You quietly shut your bedroom door once you made it in, leaning your forehead against it as a tear slipped from the corner of your eye. Emotions were something you tried to embrace, but crying because of your family felt…wrong. Like something you shouldn’t have to do.

Wiping your face, you realized more tears would be coming. Tonight was meant for crying. So, you slipped into bed, tears leaking steadily down your temples to seep into your hair and pillows. You were so hurt and you wanted to sob, but you were conscious of the dead guy in your closet. What if he heard you?

With a stuttering breath, you peered over at the closet to see the doors barely open and Eddie peaking out at you.

You rolled onto your side, back facing him to hide your tear stained face and weakness as you thought about how loud you and Laura had been downstairs. He’d probably heard what she said about you.

It was one thing to be treated the way you were, it felt extra pathetic to have someone bear witness to it.

The closet doors closed quietly behind you and just as you did every night, you squeezed your eyes shut, willing sleep to come so you could be done with the day and move onto the next, just solemnly trying to make it through life.

Maybe you and Eddie had more in common than you originally thought. Maybe you were a zombie, too.

When your alarm blared from your nightstand, rousing you from sleep—the only peace you ever seemed to get—you stumbled out of bed almost blindly, eyes heavily lidded with exhaustion as you yanked your closet doors open.

A garment was immediately thrown over your head, covering your face and you remembered your current house guest.

With a sigh, you yanked the clothing off your head, balled it up and threw it back at Eddie, “Dude, I have to get dressed. I have class today.”

Eddie grumbled, un-balling the little black dress and holding it up for you. It was the dress Chrissy had bought on sale and then given to you when she came to the conclusion that black washed her out and she looked much better in pastels.

“I’m not wearing that, not so much my style.” You tried to push past Eddie, but he remained planted where he stood, grunting as he held the dress out to you once more.

“Do I look like Madonna to you?” You asked, pushing the dress back towards him. Eddie groaned and threw the dress at your face again, closing the closet doors while you yanked it off your head, again.

“We’re gonna have to have a conversation about your communication skills later.” You called through the door and fiddled with the dress, “Can I get a sweater or something to go along with this?”

The closet doors were quickly opened and a new article of clothing was flung over your head before they closed. You’d just pulled the sweater off of your head when the doors opened once more and a hat was tossed at you.

“Dang—anything else?”

“Uuunggh.” Eddie moaned through the door, and you tried to pull at them but he must have been holding them shut from the otherside.

Resigned to your fate, you swapped out your pajamas for the outfit Eddie had apparently selected for you. He would navigate to the black clothing. You were unsure of it until you saw yourself in the mirror. Normally, your clothes weren't all that revealing. Form fitting—maybe, but never as attention drawing as this. You just figured you weren’t the type that could pull it off.

You were wrong.

The dress hugged your figure in the most complimentary way. It was short, stopped mid-thigh, but it didn’t look awkward or make you feel like your vagina would be on display if you bent over, thanks to the lace of the bottom hem flaring out.

For once, the girl in the mirror looked stunning. And when you did your makeup, taking your time to smoke a dark blue shadow out along your lash line and eyelids, she looked drop dead gorgeous.

You’d walked onto Campus with your head high, body rocking and a new found confidence that hadn’t quite made it’s way to the surface before. The heads turning in your direction were new and you found you kind of liked it, their gazes weren’t uninterested, scowls or looks of annoyance. They were appreciative, even from the straight girls!

“Okay, am I seeing things or does your sister look drop dead gorgeous?” Tina asked, as Chrissy and her friends stood admiring you from the bench they were occupying.

“You’ve got perfect 20/20 vision. She’d be unstoppable if she kept the confidence. Could probably even win pageants. Do you think she’d join cheer?”

Eddie fiddled with one of your shoes, tugging on a shoestring in boredom. He was sat on the floor of your closet, light from your bedroom windows creeping in through the cracks of the doors.

You’d lectured him before you left for class, told him he had to stay put. Laura wouldn’t be leaving for her nurses’ conference until the afternoon, so she’d be lingering in the house and she’d have a cow if she stumbled upon him.

So you’d pointed and lectured until he was creaking and groaning his compliance.

He’d stayed in the closet while you got dressed and, after you’d made sure Chrissy had already left, watched you do your makeup in the mirror while you chatted about the classes you had to take for the day.

Eddie had listened, to the best of his ability with one ear, and stared at your reflection as the heavy sense of longing settled on his chest, crushing the heart that no longer beat but desperately wished to. For you.

Death was not like he’d ever expected. No heaven, no hell. He was just…dead. Maybe it’d been the way he died. Perhaps, the suddenness of it, his lack of peace in life while living, or the fact that he was murdered, was the reason he saw neither heaven nor hell. He’d just been in a dark place. Literally, no source of light, no out of body experience, just darkness. For a while, it was tolerable, he’d heard Wayne’s voice comforting him. Telling him how much he loved him, how much he missed him. Then, nothing.

Nothing for so long. Quiet. Silence, not at all a peaceful kind. He no longer existed in life and yet the silence was still somehow smothering.

Until one day, he wasn’t alone anymore.

You found him.

Talked to him all the time, laid with him, kept him company and said such wonderful things. Eddie had no idea how much he’d appreciate hearing about current news events as a dead guy.

And while you kept him from feeling lonely, there was always a sadness to your presence. Broke his heart when you told him out of place you felt because he just wanted to claw his way out of his grave and tell you that no, you weren’t odd, you weren’t weird, you weren’t out of place. You were unique. You were the type of person he would have admired if he had been alive, different but not desperate to fit in. Just longed to be accepted.

He understood the sentiment all too well.

Eddie understood you. And you had no idea who he was, had voiced as much to him, couldn’t come up with his identity because some fuckers had defaced his tombstone—of course they would—and yet, you knew exactly who Eddie was. Knew him to his very core.

When you visited him, Eddie felt warm. He had no idea he could even feel things, other than the constant loneliness that had plagued him after Wayne’s presence disappeared, and before you.

With you, it felt like you were right there with him, beside him. A warmth, wrapping your arms around him and pulling him in for some much needed comforting. How ironic that he finally found someone who could finally see him, and he couldn’t do anything about it because he was dead.

And when you had come to Eddie that fateful night, the sadness he always noticed about you was heavier. A new despair attached, one that had him desperate to get to you, comfort you as you’d done for him.

I wish I was with you.

You’d said it. Had said what Eddie had wanted to hear you say for so long, even before he was dead. Before he knew you. It had always been you he was waiting for. He was beginning to understand the universe was bigger than anything he could have imagined (and yeah, maybe universal studios was the first thing that came to mind when he was alive), was positive the heartache he went through was necessary if it led him to you. Eddie could have done without the murder—there was no undoing that. Except, there kind of was. And it happened with a strike of lightning.

Unlike the many times he wanted to before, he’d actually been able to open his eyes, break out of his coffin and dig his way out of his own grave.

Eddie had had a major breakdown, freaking out at just about everything regarding returning from the dead after he’d broken through that final layer of thick terrain, minutely softened by some light rain from the storm. He had first tried to go home, only to find himself face to face with an unfamiliar mobile home set up on Wayne’s lot. A peek into the window revealed a couple.

No sign of his uncle.

It filled him with a sense of panic and he’d needed something—someone to stabilize him, keep him grounded.

Eddie was sure he was tied to you. Not only because of the unique bond you shared, he also felt a pull to you. Just some intense instinct.

He knew where to go after.

Your welcome hadn’t exactly been as warm as the grave hangouts—he didn’t blame you, his vocal chords were useless to him for the time being, meaning he couldn’t explain himself as you shrieked and flung dishes at him (and he was impressed) and fled from him. He could make sounds, so Eddie suspected he had the ability to talk, just lacked the healthy cords due to years of non-use to them, what with him being dead and all.

Eddie’s case was definitely not helped when he’d broken your fall—he was freaking the fuck out about you dangling from the roof like that—and you’d pressed on him stomache when you landed on him.

He hadn’t meant to…y’know…spit all that up on you, it just happened and he immediately wanted to die right after, just roll right back into his grave, he was so fucking embarrassed.

Projectile vomited on the girl you’re tryna romance, Munson. Nice.

Then, you hadn’t been attacking him, tugging him along to your room instead where you immediately told him you were just using dark humor to cope and didn’t actually want to be with him.

Probably something you should have clarified for him before he returned from the dead to be with you, but whatever. He wasn’t mad about it. Just a little bit heartbroken. Definitely didn’t stink up your closet with a little cry sesh while you were at college. Totally didn’t smell like Cherry Bubbles (how is that a scent?) from the bathroom spray he’d had to limp out to grab in an effort to hide the scent of his rotting body tears.

Now, he was just confused. Had no idea what the hell to do. Thinking on it, it had obviously been stupid as fuck to think you’d want him when he was literally a dead body. Couldn’t exactly stroll down the street, holding his one hand without garnering a few odd looks and arrests.

So, what could he do now? Sit in the closet and think about everything. Try to remember everything about his last moments alive—and when it had him wheezing in the closet, cowering in the dark, he’d switched to thinking about his uncle. Concerned. Wondering what had happened to him. When that subject, too, began to promise a panic attack—he switched to thinking about you, and oh how he ached in a different way. You were right there, in reach for him and yet the two of you couldn’t be.

The most frustrating part is how good the two of you could be for each other, and Eddie literally couldn’t talk you into giving it a chance, couldn’t even flirt with you.

He had some mad rizz when given the opportunity, a body that wasn’t stiff as hell and a fucking voice. Eddie knew he’d be able to get you all shy and cute, similar to how you were when you talked about what you thought he was like back at the cemetery.

FUCK. What the hell? Life wasn’t fair to him, death wasn’t fair to him, now life as some zombie wasn’t gonna be fair to him?

What kind of fucked up existance was this?!

All because of some stupid fucking lightning that—

Lightning. Eddie perked up, theories racing through him. If it had brought him back from the dead, maybe it could do more. Before he could think on it further, he heard your door open and froze.

It was too soon for you to be home. You said you’d be back in the afternoon, after Laura had left.

Eddie heard a scoff.

“How has it gotten even worse in here?” Laura mumbled to herself.

Eddie scowled, as he heard her footsteps enter your room, could hear her padding around.

The fuck was she doing in here?

It was a risk, Eddie pushed the closet door open, just enough to give him a crack to peep through.

Your stepmom was in some sort of jazzercise outfit—ugh, of course she did jazzercise. The blonde woman was currently rummaging through your drawers, looking amongst your belongings.

She was invading your privacy.

If Eddie had blood flowing through his veins, it would have been boiling.

He’d heard what she said last night, how she berated you. Accusing you of using your mother’s murder to seek attention.

And the other members of your family weren’t speaking up nearly enough to defend you. He was surprised that Chrissy—small town for Cunningham to be the Chrissy you’d been telling him about—even tried to defend you but she should have been putting her mother in her place. She hadn’t come up to check on you, either.

Eddie had a few things he wished he could say to Laura Cunningham, tell her exactly where she could shove her stupid figurines and verbal abuse.

If she was searching for something, Laura didn’t find it. She slammed one of your drawers shut, eyed your sketches pinned to your wall with disgust before speed walking out of your room. When she passed the closet, Eddie took notice of the headphones over her ears, could hear whatever she was listening to, Walkman probably set to the loudest volume.

Eddie’s mouth chipped up into a smirk that kind of hurt his face. He opened the closet door fully, stumbling out to poked his head out of your bedroom doorway just in time to see your stepmom disappear down the stairs.

Eddie followed, steps loud and uneven. Laura didn’t notice his presence, too engrossed in whatever she was listening to and occupied with her own ego. Looked to be cleaning up the place before her little trip.

Laura disappeared into the kitchen, well out of view of the living room so Eddie stumbled in, eyeing the pristine setting. The place looked impeccable, spotless, antiques everywhere that Eddie just knew the old bat was dying to have people ask about so she could name drop and be as haughty as possible.

Eddie could wreck all of this in no time, and he would if he didn’t know she’d immediately blame you for it. He still felt guilty you’d been chewed out for the mess he made.

Bitch.

Eddie heard her returning, so he hid behind the wall, waiting a few moments before he peered around it and across the foyer, into the dinning room where she was seated after having fixed herself something. Laura still had the headphones on, so Eddie took that as the all clear to continue exploring.

He spotted a family portrait hung over the fireplace, a seemingly picture perfect family was displayed. A man he assumed to be your father loomed over Laura and Chrissy, one hand on each of their shoulders. Eddie barely glanced at them before you pulled all of his attention. You were stunning, light catching the highlights of your face, lips parted just enough to encourage a pout. Your hair was wild in comparison to the other women in the portrait—Eddie loved it. You looked like you belonged on an album cover for some rock band, even with the sorrow swirling around in your eyes. Your unwavering melancholic stare pinned Eddie, and he could feel himself getting protective over you again. You must have been miserable that day.

See, if he had been around, he could have easily cheered you up. Snuck over on the day in question. Laura would have hated his fucking guts—Eddie wouldn’t have minded being the boyfriend your stepmom didn’t approve of. Horsing around behind the little photo shoot set up to get you smiling, get those pretty eyes of yours twinkling before whisking you the hell out of there once they got the money shot.

He rolled his eyes, grumbling to himself as he turned away from the past that never was. Couldn’t have (he’d already been dead), should have (but couldn’t) and would have. In a heartbeat.

His posture worsened under the weight of his own despair, sulking with it until he spotted an acoustic guitar, tucked in the corner and resting on a stand.

“Mm?” Eddie tilted his head in curiosity before making his way over. It was difficult to do, but he managed to settle the neck of it in the crook of the arm lacking a hand, and strummed with his stiff fingers, pleased to find that it was already tuned.

He plucked a couple more chords, stopping once to adjust a peg. Then the doorbell rang and Eddie’s eyes widened. He fumbled to place the guitar back on its stand and plaster himself against the wall as Laura got up to answer it, having apparently been able to hear it ring but not his guitar playing.

“Yes?” Laura asked as she opened the door, impatience soaking through her tone.

“Carpet cleaning.” A man’s voice stated, sounding bored beyond measure.

“Carpet Cleaning? My carpet is so clean you can lick the fibers.” God, was your stepmom ever not insufferable? The carpet cleaner salesman seemed to be thinking the same thing and Eddie figured he had to be annoyed with his work day already to say what he did next.

“I doubt the one downstairs is.” The salesman snorted and Eddie would have snickered if he could as he heard Laura let out an affronted and embarrassed gasp.

“EXCUSE ME?!”

The guy must have turned tail because Laura was stepping out after him, yelling as she closed the front door behind her.

Eddie eyed the bowl she’d been eating from, curiosity getting the better of him as he stumbled over to inspect it. Spaghetti.

He shouldn’t….But what was the point of being a dead corpse if he couldn’t use dead guy powers for good?

It only took a little effort, Eddie successfully gagged and heaved until a warm that had been lurking in his stomach came out, dropping out of his mouth to wiggle around in Laura’s lunch. Eddie watched as it disappeared between the noodles and sauce, satisfaction filling him.

Served the hag right.

With justice served, Eddie made his way back upstairs to your room. He’d just made it to your doorway when he heard Laura return. He waited a few more moments for her to sit down, settle herself, twirl some spaghetti around her fork and put it in her mouth.

Eddie was beginning to think the worm had made its way to the very bottom of the bowl when Laura let out a high pitched scream.

That one was for you.

Eddie smirked and walked back into your room, quietly closing the door behind him.

You had two classes for the day, back to back so as to not have to stay on campus longer than necessary, and both classes were pleasant. There hadn’t been any change in the materials covered or anything, eyes just kept attempting to discreetly take you in, which you caught from your peripheral vision.

While you enjoyed the new attention your attire and the way you carried yourself brought you, you quickly realized it wasn’t something you needed. What you needed was to feel good about yourself and for once in your life, you did.

You were absolutely giddy, and you felt so badass somehow, was this what Chrissy and her friends felt like all the time? Maybe putting effort into your appearance wasn’t just a load of crap dispelled onto ugly people by the conventionally attractive.

Regardless, you were strutting your way to the library, eager to turn in some books, make Steve Harrington’s jaw drop, then run back home to Eddie so you could thank him profusely for not having fugly taste.

Once you made it to the library, you noticed no one was at the front desk. Steve must have been putting some books back on their shelves.

No problem, more time to prepare yourself, maybe run through some possible conversations so you wouldn’t go stupid at the sight of his gorgeous face.

Your bag hit the ground with a thud, thanks to the weight of the hardcovers within it and you bent down at the waist to rummage through it, placing one heavy hardcover book, two heavy hardcover books, three heavy hardco—

“You got the rest of the library in there, Mary Poppins?”

You snapped back up, whipping around just in time to see Steve’s gaze rise from where your ass had been unknowingly on display, to meet your eyes, his honey brown ones swirling with warmth.

Oh, god. Just play it cool.

“Just some tampons and some chips.”

Leave. Walk out. Save face.

“No chocolate for that time of the month?” He asked, leaning up against the desk, rather than going around it to handle your returns. Steve wanted to talk to you. He’d been eyeing your ass and now he was making small talk.

You were going for it.

“Craving a different kind of sweet thing right now.” You leaned in, just as he had at the tailor’s yesterday. You were laying it on thick, sure. It worked though. Steve leaned in, too, and you clocked the tick of his eyebrow. Interest. Holy shit—things were finally looking up for you.

“I’ve got some starbursts in my car,” Chrissy chirped, materializing out of thin air to stand in front of you and Steve.

You almost knocked down the books you’d stacked on the desk, cursing under your breath. “Geez, Chrissy.”

“Hi.” She grinned at you, her darling crooked teeth gleaming before she was fixing Steve with a stern look, “Sorry, I need to talk to my sister. Preferably, alone.”

“I’m not exactly gonna run to the gossip columns about anything.” He mused, exchanging an amused look with you but you couldn’t really hear anything going on around you because Steve Harrington was flashing you smiles around Chrissy, your pretty and practically perfect step-sister, and not her. You’d entered another dimension and you did not want to leave. All you could do was smile back at him, like some infatuated idiot while your fingers reached up to pick at your lower lip.

“That may be so, but I think it’s best if she hangs around a good crowd.” Somehow, Chrissy had wedged herself between you and Steve, standing protectively in front of you with her arms crossed. She was about as intimidating as a pomeranian. Still, it was endearing to have someone act like they cared about you.

“And the library is just full of Neanderthals, is that what you’re implying?” Steve leaned both elbows back on the desk, gesturing out to the few students—most meek in appearance—occupying the area.

“I was thinking more of creepy librarians, high school peakers, and former playboys.” Chrissy shot back and you nudged her, hissing out her name. The protective thing was nice, just not when she was trying to scare away the man you’d be making your boyfriend.

“Golden coming from you, of all people, your royal highness, the Queen of Hawkins High; former head cheerleader and Miss Hawkins of ‘87, but not ‘88 and I’m pretty sure Heather Holloway won again this year, so looks like we both don’t have a lot going on, do we?” Steve was smug, shooting you a wink that made your heart melt and drip down your sternum.

Steam was practically blowing out of Chrissy’s ears, “Shoo fly, don’t bother us.”

Steve rolled his eyes before they fixed on you, past Chrissy’s head, “I’ll see you later okay? Thanks for bringing your books back on time.”

You giggled, still staring at him as Chrissy began to tug you away, “Until the next time, I guess?”

Steve held your stare, smirk softening into a smile, “I’ll be waiting.”

It was easy for Chrissy to guide you out after that. You were floating. Light as a feather and high on life.

“You are the only girl I know who can survive a spiked drink and still want to have anything to do with the guy.” Chrissy sighed in exasperation as the two of you loitered by the drinking fountain, “There’s like at least four other guys here who would date you, sissy! Don’t waste your time on that one.”

Okay. Only four other guys? Ouch. “Steve didn’t spike it. Carol did.”

“And she’s always following him around like some sad little mutt. Better to just stay away.”

You scowled, mood souring. One afternoon. You couldn’t have just one afternoon where you felt good about yourself without someone bringing you down. You knew Chrissy meant well, but in that moment, she was pissing you off.

She seemed to pick up on the shift of your attitude, changing the subject, “After practice, I’m gonna go out tonight. Some of the girls want to go bowling and then have a little kick back. Cover for me?”

How very much like Chrissy to insult you in the name of protectiveness, and then ask you for a favor. She still cared more about you than your own flesh and blood, so, “I thought your mom was gonna be away for a few days in Akron.”

“She is, but daddy’s not. And he’s way too overprotective, I can’t even sneeze without him bursting into my room to ask me what’s wrong. He always wants to know where I’m going, argues with me when I try to go out late—it’s so annoying.”

All you could think about were the many times you’d said goodbye to him as you left the house at whatever hour you wanted while he mumbled a bye and read whatever magazine he was reading or watched TV.

You tried to consider it a good thing that he let you be so independent, yet something in you ached, sure he simply didn't care enough for you. Not like he did Chrissy, and he’d known you longer, all your life.

“Oh. Uhm, I think he works late today, anyway. I’ll cover if he asks, but I’m sure you’re good.”

Chrissy perked up, pulling you into a tight hug, “You are the best! I knew I was gonna love having you as a sister. I’ll see you later, okay?”

Chrissy didn’t wait for your reply, practically bouncing down the hallway and you sighed.

At least you’d have some peace and quiet, maybe you could get Eddie into better shape too, and you’d get to tell him about your day!

With your classes done, you made your way to the parking lot, where Mystery waited for you.

You slid the back door of the Volkswagen open, tossing your bag in before sliding the door shut and climbing into the driver's seat of the bus. Then you started your mantras and manifestations, gripping the key with a sweaty palm before you were sticking it into the ignition and turning it with bated breath.

She roared to life and you sagged back in your seat, bones like jelly knowing you piece of crap bus was still kicking.

It was the biggest lemon of a car you’d ever seen, carried around jugs of coolant in the back because it had to be refilled almost every time you started it.

But it was yours.

When you pulled up to the house to see Laura’s car was gone, you felt yet another weight lifted off your shoulders. You were completely free to be you. Snatching your bag from the back, you made a run for your house, quickly unlocking the door before stampeding up the stairs.

You burst into your bedroom, chest heaving to find it in normal condition and no Eddie around. Frowning, you tossed your bag on the floor, beside your bed, and made your way over to the closet, yanking the doors open.

Eddie peered up at you from his position on the floor, rocking an old feather boa of yours.

“Eddie, I told you you were free to roam once Laura left. You don’t have to stay cramped in there all day when no one is around.” You offered him a hand and helped hoist him when you took it, “You wouldn’t believe the day I had—you’ve got stellar taste, by the way.”

“Uuungh?”

You reached under your bed, snatching an old Easter basket out that you used to hide your snacks. After you settled on the bed, you patted the spot next to you, and Eddie hobbled his way over, grunting as he settled onto the cushy comforter.

“I know I was grumpy this morning. I’m sorry, you were right. The dress was a hit!” You exclaimed, ripping a bag of sour gummy worms open. The pink end was clenched between your teeth as you bit it off, bag of sweet and sour treats held out to Eddie as an offering.

Eddie reached into the bag, attempting to crook his fingers enough to hook one. You watched the leathery skin between his brows pull—if you had blinked, you would have missed it—as he struggled to free his hand from the bag, shaking it a little until you pinched the bottom firmly, allowing him to pull it out.

“Unngh.” He grunted in thanks.

As Eddie moved onto the challenge of getting the gummy worm to his mouth, you went back to telling him about your day, “I mean, god—all I did was put on a little dress and I felt kind of invincible. Not to mention Steve Harrington seemed to like it.”

Eddie froze, gummy worm hanging out of his mouth, “Mm?”

“Steve Harrington, did’ ya know him?” You asked, steamrolling right on as if you hadn’t, “Talk about winning the genetic pool—that man is so fine. We talked a little at that party I told you about, and before I did drugs, he was being so nice to me. And I didn’t look as hot as I do now, so I was hoping for a reaction out of him—BOY did I get it.”

You let out a dreamy sigh, recalling the way Steve had leaned into your straightforward flirting.

“He’s kind, funny, and sometimes he even has good book recommendations. He’s like the total package and I think he might actually like me.”

You paused your ranting to look over at Eddie. If you didn’t already know his face was stuck like that, you would have thought he was scowling.

“You got a little…” Reaching a hand up to cup his jaw, your thumb lifted the gummy worm hanging out of his mouth the rest of the way up. Eddie’s cracked lips parted, just enough for you to press the rest of it in, then he chewed slowly, face not even twitching to clue you in on his emotions.

“There.” Your hand dropped back into your lap as you perked up, “I wanna assume he’s better than the other horndogs who popped woodies just because I wore a dress and flashed some leg.”

You stuck out your leg to demonstrate, the dress slipping even further up your thigh as you held it out, smooth (mostly, she was a little prickly but no one would notice unless they were stroking it) skin on display under some fishnet stockings.

Eddie let out a pained sounding groan, which you figured meant he was agreeing with you about the rest of the male population.

“Yeah. Well, I think everything’s gonna work out perfectly. Even if Chrissy keeps butting into my love life like some fairy chastity-mother. God—I just, I’ve never been close to actually having something I wanted before, you know?”

Eddie whined from behind closed lips, holding up the wrist that lacked his hand.

“What?” You asked, glancing down at the scarf wrapped around it. Eddie reached up with his fucked up fingers to point at where his ear should have been and it clicked for you, “Eddie, I can’t pull an extra hand and ear outta my ass. I wish I could, but I don’t have spare human parts lying around like pieces of a vacuum.”

Eddie whined again and this time you could actually see his lips pulling down, frowning.

“I told you I wish I could, but I can’t! I don't know how to get people parts and I don’t exactly have the black market on speed dial. Besides—you’re fine like this, I mean what are you able to do as walking dead guy anyways?”

“MUUUUNGGGHHHH!” Eddie groaned, loud and obviously upset as he dramatically flung himself back on the bed hard enough to shake it.

“Hey!” You snapped, fearful for your bed frame, “Chill out dude—don’t act all coked out!”

He turned his head, face miserable but before you could continue your scolding, you heard your name called upstairs.

Laura.

“SHIT, hide!” Eddie stumbled up and barely even had the chance to turn around before you shoved him into your closet, shutting the doors.

You’d barely stepped away when Laura burst into your room. She was dressed in her nurse uniform, complete with the stupid hat, yet there was something off with her. Her skin had a grayish tint to it, she looked clammy, eyes and nostrils red with irritation and her mascara was running. Laura Cunningham looked just as terrible on the outside as she was inside.

And for once, she scared you.

“Laura! I thought you were headed out of town for your trip.” Laura’s stare was even colder than you’d ever seen it, unnaturally icy blue eyes both vacant and filled with a deranged sort of rage. You expected her pupils to turn into slits any second, it would be the last physical trait she’d need to resemble a demon.

Stepmother from hell, indeed.

“Mmm, I’m sure you were looking forward to that,” Her voice was soft, almost gentle and nothing about it was kind. It was as if to coax you forward to her, lull you into a sense of ease before striking. You were reminded of the anglerfish, and the glow of their fin ray. They used it to draw unsuspecting prey towards the light before they were devoured.

You took a small step back. She took one forward.

“I suppose I’ll just have to attend next year, I’ll be skipping the conference this year. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to do much learning or networking with my head plastered in a toilet bowl. I seem to have come down with something. Do you know what my symptoms are?” She asked, voice so sugary sweet and thick.

“Uhm. I-I’ve been on my period. Maybe we synced?” You hated how small your voice sounded.

Laura’s lips pressed into a thin, cruel smile, “No. I haven’t been throwing up with a cramping stomach because of my period. I’ve been vomiting non-stop because a little slut under my roof is trying to kill me. And do you know who that psychotic little tramp is?”

Your eyebrows furrowed, mouth parting in shock. Did your stepmother just call you a slut?

“ANSWER ME WHEN I AM TALKING TO YOU!” She bellowed, making you jump and gasp. You’d never heard Laura raise her voice like that, it dropped several octaves and she was staring at you with nothing but pure hatred burning in her eyes.

All you could do was shake your head. You were terrified, but you weren’t about to play her game. You were neither a slut nor a tramp and it was clear, regardless of what you’d say or do, she’d be unleashing her wrath upon you.

Laura chuckled without humor, “You really are just a stupid, insignificant bitch, aren’t you? I open up my home to you and you do nothing but cause trouble every time I so much as turn my head. I have been nothing but kind to you, even after you wrecked my home. I’ve been an angel. But putting worms in my food?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, I didn’t touch your food, I just got home from classes. An—And I didn’t ask for any of this, I didn’t ask to move here.” You could see tears beginning to blur your vision, welling up and threatening to cascade over your lower lashes. They didn’t. You refused to cry in front of her. Refused to give her that satisfaction.

“Oh, please.” Laura scoffed, looking at you in bewilderment, “Did you want to stay in the house where your mother was sliced and diced? Was that a comfort for you?”

“You know that’s not what I meant, I didn't want to start my life over in some town full of ignorant people.” You gritted out, hand clenching the bag of gummy worms.

“Ignorant people, and yet—you still don’t fit it in. Telling isn’t it?”

Despite your fear, you felt your own rage starting to build within you and before you could stop yourself, you spat out “What do you care? You never wanted me here. You just wanted my dad here in your clutches and you knew that wouldn’t happen if we hadn’t moved. He would have never chosen you over my mom.”

Laura sneered, “It’s not much of a choice when she’s rotting in some coffin, six feet under, is it? I’m sure she’s relieved to be done with you and all the disgusting things you do for attention.”

“Shut up!” You demanded, seething now as the devil incarnate dared to speak about your mother in such a disrespectful manner. Laura was only able to sleep in a bed alongside your father—wear that tacky ring on her finger because your mother had tragically lost her life.

Laura wouldn’t be but a mosquito in the room if your mother were alive.

You hadn’t been expecting the strike that came next, hadn’t been prepared for Laura to pull her arm back and swing it forward, cracking your cheek so hard you almost spun. You yelped, hand reaching up to press against the skin of your cheek, feeling it throb and sting under your touch.

She fucking hit you. You gaped at her in disbelief and Laura didn’t look remotely apologetic.

“I am beyond tired of you and I am not going to wait until some maniac guts me to be rid of you. Especially when you’re already a threat to my life. No. I won’t stand for it, so I took it upon myself to begin your admittance to Hawkins National Psychiatric Center.

Your blood ran cold as images of the unsettling ‘center’ flooded your mind. You’d heard of it before, horror stories told amongst your peers. A psych ward. And Laura Cunningham was going to have you committed.

“No, please. No.” You whispered, voice laced with fear.

“It’s for the good of everyone,” Laura began, leering over you. “You don’t belong here. Your place is locked up, solitary confinement where no one will have to see you ever aga—

THUNK.

Laura let out the smallest of gasps.

You watched the unsettling blue of her eyes give away to whites and red veins as they rolled to the back of her head, her body going limp as she tipped forward and fell face first to the ground. Your mouth dropped open as you watched her collapse, gurgling and twitching on the ground for just a few seconds before she went still. Then your gaze flitted to Eddie, who stood tall with your old sewing machine clutched in his hand, a corner stained red.

Your eyes flashed back down to Laura, and they widened in size when the pink of your carpet began to turn a bright red, blood seeping out of her skull to pool around her head and soak into the floor.

Eddie made a grunt that sounded more so like a noise of satisfaction and tossed the sewing machine back into the closet.

You heard them before you saw them. Eddie had found the small pair of scissors included with your sewing machine and clipped them in the air before he bent down. You could only watch, stunned silent and with morbid curiosity as Eddie snipped your stepmother’s ear off.

“Oh, god…” You finally found your voice, eyes darting anywhere else to avoid seeing the skin severed. You breathing became labored, chest rising and falling rapidly as you staved off a panic attack while your undead friend cut the ear from Laura’s dead body.

Eddie held it up in triumph, like it was some sort of medal rather than a human ear.

“Wha─? Why─?” You couldn’t even finish a sentence and Eddie must have noticed how distraught you were. He rose from the floor, stepping over Laura’s body to pull you into his arms and despite what had just occurred, you returned the embrace; arm slipping under his to clutch at the back of his shoulder, desperate for the comfort he was offering. His hand rubbed circles over your back and you leaned your cheek against Eddie’s shoulder, stare never once leaving Laura’s body as you whimpered.

When he pulled back—just enough to be able to look at your face—he held the ear up, towards you.

You knew exactly what he was asking you to do.

”Eddie…I—I can’t. I can’t do that…We have to bury the body first.” You placed a hand on his chest, leaning into him again as you both turned your heads to stare at someone who was no longer a problem for you. For the first time, in a very long time, you felt safe.

Eddie had rescued you.

Moving the body was surprisingly easy. You’d expected Eddie’s limbs to be fragile for some reason, a foolish thought considering he’d so easily crashed through your window that first night. Eddie actually possessed a great deal of strength, easily lifting Laura’s body—wrapped in sheets—and carrying her downstairs.

Movement seemed to be getting easier for him, limbs that had been out of use for years returning to life and unstiffening just as he had. If his arms could support Laura’s body with no problem, you wondered what had happened to his missing hand in the first place.

You made sure the coast was clear before you pulled your bus up the driveway and Eddie placed the body in the back. It obviously hadn’t been strapped down, so while you drove to the cemetery, Laura’s body was rolling around, banging against the sides of the Volkswagen. Eddie just turned up the music you’d been playing.

The cemetery was vacant, thanks to the relatively early time of the day. Most people still hadn’t gotten off of work yet, which made this easy for you and Eddie. It wasn’t the most respectful thing to do—you were just out of options. A grave had already been dug out, for some poor recently deceased soul (not Laura, she could go to hell), so, the two of you had quite literally dumped Laura’s body into the empty hole and covered her with a layer of dirt so she’d go unnoticed when they’d lower the coffin, of whoever’s grave this was, into it.

After the deed was done, the two of you stood side-by-side, staring into it.

“Is death comforting?” You asked, breaking the silence. Eddie didn’t answer, didn’t even grunt, so you turned your head to the side to find him already staring at you.

He shook his head.

“Good. C’mon.” You gave the burial plot, now and forever housing Laura, an extremely and aggressively disrespectful finger, and tugged Eddie back to the bus. He went willingly after kicking some more dirt into it.

When the two of you returned home—after you briefly stopped for ice cream while Eddie waited in the bus—you’d gotten straight to work; Eddie’s head in your lap as you sewed the ear into place.

While you threaded the needle through the skin, Eddie waited patiently, thumb playing with your fishnets. Once you knotted the string and used your teeth to nip off the excess, you admired your work.

Good stitching, secure and it wouldn’t fall off. The coloring was a bit odd, skin appearing obviously more lively than Eddie’s dull gray-green tint. Beggars couldn’t be choosers.

“Done.” You announced, hands resting on the mattress at your sides. Slowly, Eddie rose to a sitting position, head shifting around to face you, “What’s the survey say? Ear any good? Hear anything?”

Those big, deep brown, baby cow eyes of his looked despondent as he shook his head.

“Mm-mm.”

You sighed, feeling a bit despondent yourself. He’d saved you from a life of medicated compliance and padded walls, and you couldn’t even get the human ear you’d stitched to the side of his head to work. You felt guilty knowing you couldn’t make him whole again, as he so desperately wanted to be. Couldn’t be his blue fairy.

You reached your fingers up, tips brushing alongside the soft outer edge of his ear. How funny that an appendage that had once belonged to the nastiest person you’d ever encountered, a woman who hated your very existence, was now endearing because it was a part of the guy before you. Your friend. Your protector. What had taken place that afternoon would no doubt lead to trouble, but you knew Eddie hadn’t acted out of malice.

He’d simply wanted to help you. And—okay, yes, he got an ear out of it, but it didn’t work. What mattered is that you weren’t alone anymore. You had someone that actually cared about you. Enough to kill for you, even.

It felt…like you mattered to someone.

“I’m sorry.” You mumbled in disappointment, “I really did think it was gonna work, too. Guess Laura’s still useless, even when she’s dead.”

Your hand dropped back into your lap as the two of you simultaneously heaved out sighs.

“At least you have something there, you know?” You tried to see the positive side, keep Eddie happy, “Like nipples with boob jobs. The dial doesn’t work but you can still turn the knob.”

He made a humming sound, contemplating the analogy, weighing it as his head tilted this way and that way.

“Maybe it’ll catch up with you later, like the rest of your body. Don’t think I haven’t noticed you getting better at moving around.” You teased, nudging your shoulder playfully against his.

Eddie stiffened and you thought you might have offended him, “I mean—I’m not paying super duper close attention or anything, I just like to watch you—It’s not like I see a living dead guy every day.”

“Unngh.” Eddie seemed to pay no attention to your word vomiting, pointing at a sharpie on your nightstand.

“What? This?” You reached over and snagged it, offering it to him. He carefully took it from your hands, his hardened fingers brushing over your soft ones, and awkwardly popped the cap off with his thumb.

Your eyebrows shot up as Eddie began doodling on the skin of your hand near your thumb and index finger.

“Why did I think you were illiterate?” You mused aloud and Eddie briefly stopped to glare at you and grunted, unamused, “You can’t blame me, you could have picked up a pen and paper this entire time, hell—I have an Etch A Sketch you could have been using instead of making me decipher your ‘uuunnngghhss’.” You did your best impression of his zombie grunting and he put the sharpie between his thighs so he could flick the cap at you.

Like an expert dodger, you lifted your hand just in time for it to bounce off your palm as you giggled and he went back to finishing up his little doodle.

A lightning bolt.

Your lips pulled into a soft smile as you admired it, something warm pooling in your belly. It was cute and there was something very attractive to you about walking around with Eddie’s little sketch on you.

An Eddie Was Here, if you will.

And then it hit you. Lightning.

“OH.”

Eddie grunted, pleased that you’d picked up on what he was trying to convey.

“But how are we gonna…” You trailed off, brows furrowing as a montage of the two of you played in your head; sticking a metal rod in the ground with Eddie holding onto it as you waited for some approaching storm to electrocute him. The only problem was the weather forecast for the week predicted nothing but sunshine and clear, starry nights. No electrocution for the week. Unless…. “Oh my god.”

You turned to Eddie, grinning almost maniacally, “I’m a genius.”

Forty minutes later, you found yourself staring at your reflection in the vanity mirror Chrissy had set up inside the tan shack. It was softly aglow with pink and warm hued fairy lights, and neon blue coming from the tanning bed. One of her beauty pageant crowns was placed on your head, and you had to admit, it did make you feel pretty. It looked good on you, too. Huh. Maybe you should have done pageants, could have won one, even.

Sparks flew from the tanning bed, some feet away, with Eddie inside of it.

It was the next best thing to actually being struck by lightning. Well, it was either the tanning bed or electrocuting him in the small pool with a plugged in radio, but you didn’t want to get wet.

You grabbed a little fairy wand, no doubt part of one of Chrissy’s pageant costumes—probably Galinda—and posed with it, pleased with your reflection. Your hair was frizzy and it somehow added to your allure.

You could rock with this confidence thing for a while if it made you not hate yourself like usual.

The tanning bed’s buzzing whirled down until it was silent, save for a few random sparks, and the bed opened up, top lifting to reveal Eddie laying in a cloud of smoke, wearing those little goggles you’d insisted on to protect those pretty eyes of his.

You got up to check on him, tapping his chest with the end of the wand, “You baked enough?”

He groaned as he sat up and dinged his head on the top of the tanning bed and you flinched, dropping the wand.

“Ooh, yeah, I’ve been there too.”

Grabbing onto his hand, you helped pull him out of the tanning bed to sit on the edge and sat beside him, pushing the goggles up his large forehead and pinning away his bangs.

Eddie didn’t say anything, just blinked sluggishly. He was baked alright, that voltage was no joke.

“Eddie,” You leaned in to whisper in his ear. “Can you hear me in there?”

No reaction.

“EDDIE MUNSON, CAN YOU HEAR ANYTHING I AM SAYING?!”

To your amazement, Eddie flinched away from your shrieking, and with his face turned to you, you noticed he looked different, skin more…skin like. Not the leather you’d noticed before. He still hadn’t answered you, so you kept going, “IS THAT A YES—YEAH?”

Eddie groaned out, face affronted as you continued to scream at him and your shrieking turned into screams of excitement. Eddie joined you in yelling (well, he tried, it was very loud groaning) when it dawned on him.

It worked. Eddie Munsons had two working ears.

“Oh my god!” You flung yourself at him and immediately jolted away when you got shocked. Eddie reached out for you, resting his hand on your shoulder, “No, it’s okay, that was on me. I got too excited, but oh my god! Eddie! It worked! We got you a working ear!”

You were beaming, felt like you’d cracked the secret of life. And it looked like Eddie was trying to smile at you, corners of his lips pulled up just a tad.

The two of you looked ridiculous, you with your frizzy hair, crown and fairy wand, and Eddie with his electrocuted hairdo, tanning goggles making his bangs look insane and a slightly discolored (actually, it was looking more like his skin tone now, bizarre) ear, with one earring and one hand.

You glanced down at your arm; specifically, at Eddie’s arm resting against it. The one that lacked a hand.

Well, you’d already started.

“I think I know someone who can give you a hand.”

#Eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson x y/n #Freak like me #lisa frankenstein #lisa frankenstein inspo #Zombie!eddie munson #dead!eddie munson #undead!eddie munson #eddie munson fic #eddie munson fluff #eddie munson au #Eddie munson angst #eddie munson fanfic #Eddie munson fanfiction #eddie munson #Steve harrington x reader #eddie munson x black!reader

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ahhhwomen · 4 months

Text

The calm before the storm.

Vampire Empire

Part 7.1

Pairing: DarkVamp!Wanda Maximoff x DarkVamp!Natasha Romanoff x Fem!Reader

A/N: Well... here it is. I changed the graphic parts, but it's still violent. This was supposed to be a hurt/comfort chapter, but it just turned into hurt, so I divided the chapter into two, this is the hurt part... and I will try my very best to make the next one a comfort... Writer block hit me like a truck with this one so please excuse bad writing...

AU Warnings: Human pets, abuse, violence, possessiveness, probably incorrect vampire lore, angst, panic attacks, hurt/comfort, kitten play (?), also this is not a Carol positive fic (I have nothing against her, but I needed a villain), death Minors DNI 18+

Word Count: 3k

CHAPTER WARNINGS: Extreme violence, slightly explicit violence, talk of torture, scars, violence against a child

Taglist

(26 hours before the slaughter)

“Come on pretty girl, I know you can do it, keep your head above the water baby.” Gentle hands try to coax you, pushing against the back of your neck in an attempt to force your muscles into action.

It’s strange, the only other times you have been in the bath is when they were drowning you, perhaps you enjoy this more. It’s hard to tell, you can’t feel much of anything anymore.

Her grip loosens for a moment and your head lolls to the side, foamy bubbles collide with your left ear, the earlobe barely having made contact with the hot water before soft hands return with full force to catch you.

“Hmph.” A frustrated sigh gets drowned out by the insistent buzzing inside your mind. The sound consumes you from the inside, eating away any emotion that slipped past the initial reaping.

A creak slices through the still air as Natasha grits her teeth together, white bone clumsily gliding against itself, barely missing the inside of her cheek. She has been hunched over for the better part of half an hour, but she can do nothing but uncomfortably shift the pressure from one knee to the other, her hands occupied with you.

Wanda had insisted they set you into a routine. So, every night Natasha was tasked with bathing you, though you weren’t making it easy for her.

As her rolled-up sleeve dips into the water for the fourth time while she adjusts, Natasha debates yet again if she should call on Wanda for help, but as her eyes drift over your empty ones, she thinks better of it.

Guilt eats her alive as she works on finishing up your bath and tucking you in.

Three days ago (96 hours before the slaughter):

A wet washcloth is continuously dragged across your forehead as Wanda wipes the sweat away, her fingers follow the path of the moist trail as she feels your temperature and sighs in relief.

After two intense nights, your fever finally broke, but you had yet to wake up. She is just about to tuck you back in when her wife’s voice rings through the spacious room.

“How is she doing?”

Natasha leans against the doorframe while she watches her wife care for you. The wood digs into her shoulder blade, but she ignores it in favor of keeping her distance. As much as the younger redhead craved to be near you, she was cautious to interact with you when Wanda was there.

After the fever gave them quite a scare the day before, Natasha came just as close to losing her life as you. Wanda had fallen asleep with you clutched in her grip after an hour of settling your shaking frame from a nightmare. After a while, Natasha attempted to remove you from Wanda’s possession.

She was merely concerned about Wanda’s heated body irritating your flushed skin, but after almost losing an eye to a sleep-deprived redhead, she left the primal care to her other half.

Wanda hums, her fingers stroking your hair delicately as she kneels beside the plush guestroom bed. As she rakes through them, your hair strands lay clumped together, loosening them strand by strand she soothes herself.

“She needs a bath,” her fingers move from your hair to your face, gently tracing your features. When the pad of her pointer hits a sensitive spot beneath your jaw, you let out a breathy giggle in your sleep, and Wanda can’t help the lift of her lips into a pleased grin.

However, her smile is quickly wiped away as a familiar jingle of metal rattles against your throat as you shift in your slumber.

Natasha hummed her agreement, unaware of her wife’s fleeting attention.

The layers of filth that covered you had to be weeks, if not months, in the making. She was aware that you got a weekly hose down by the shelter, but depending on when Carol loaned you out, you could very easily have missed it.

“Should I get one started?”

With a huff, Wanda nods slowly. Her irritation radiates off of her as she looks you over.

Natasha tilts her head, at her wife’s strange reaction, her shirt gliding against her cheek. “Is there an issue?”

The older redhead looks down for a moment. The sheer uncomfortableness that settles within her very bones is not without reason. Her skin is cold with prickles and goosebumps. Perhaps it’s a ridiculous reaction, but the significance of what she is about to do is crucial to you, she knows that.

However, as the filth and stench of a certain blondie coats itself around the stark leather surrounding your neck, she knows it needs to be done.

She needs to remove your collar.

“Her collar. It needs to be removed.” The words are sneered, almost growled, as Wanda wills the uncertain into existence.

Natasha stiffens, her clothes which were perfectly fine a moment ago now feel disgusting against her soft skin, every stitch piecing it all together feel wrong and patchy.

A collar is a safety net in the power dynamic between a vampire and a pet. It’s always been a part of vampire tradition that the collar is a reminder of good faith. Removing the collar, without the owner’s specific request, means punishment.

If you wake up without your collar, you will never forgive them.

“I will do it.” With her head hung low, Natasha closes the distance between herself and you, crouching down beside her wife. Her knees creak as she sinks into position, her hands reaching toward you.

The sorrow that builds and sinks within her is laughable. They barley know you, and you definitely don’t know them, yet the pull between yourself and them is undeniable. In a lifetime of grief, Natasha was hoping it could symbolize a new beginning, a lifeline of sorts.

Perhaps it wasn’t meant to be.

Just as her fingers struggle against the metal clasp, smaller, softer hands glide over her own and hold them gently.

“No.” The clan leader sighs out calmly.

Natasha furrows her brows in confusion.

“But-“

“No. I need to do this.” With a sad smile, Wanda removes her wife’s hands and holds them to her lips, “She likes you.” It was the simplified truth.

To be frank, Wanda scares you, she can tell by the way you never find peace around her, even while you are asleep. You wouldn’t trust either of them when you wake, but at the very least she could lessen the burden that will lay on her wife’s shoulders.

With her tail tucked between her legs, the younger girl nods silently and raises herself into a standing position. The loose thread beside her zipper takes over all of Natasha’s attention, she refuses to watch.

Wanda removes your collar in an almost medical procedure, leaning slightly over your tiny frame surrounded by plush pillows and warm blankets, she finds the point of no return and she places her fingers lightly against your skin as her fingers work on opening the clasp.

She knows immediately.

As soon as the back of her ring finger touches your neck.

She knows she will beat Carol Danvers until she is unrecognizable.

“Oh.”

The leather feels rough and scratchy as she clutches it in her grip while looking you over.

“So that’s why she is leased,” Wanda mumbles in a monotone voice.

That finally catches Natasha’s attention again. With a curious glance over Wanda’s shoulder, Natasha falls void of any emotion but one. Pure, unfiltered, hatred.

Back in the day, rouge vampires had a specific way of marking their property.

They called it The Noose of Misery. A name bound in irony, a mockery, as they scarcely felt sorry for this sort of thing.

It was deemed a form of entertainment.

The noose of misery; was to slit your victim’s throat repeatedly, leaving gruesome slashes through thin skin. The first slice was always the same, they would cut the vocal cords. It wasn’t precise, nor pretty, it was merely a rouge slash against vulnerable anatomy.

Due to this, they would often miss their target.

Which would prompt them to hold down their victims until they were satisfied, it wasn’t hard to tell when they succeeded as their victims would fall silent. Or a form of silence as they attempt to refrain from drowning in their own bodily fluids.

The vampires found it most entertaining when their prey ran around like headless chickens, choking and gurgling on their blood, trying their best to scream for help.

Despite the intensity of this game, their food would rarely pass away from it.

A vampire’s blood has a certain healing ability, and contrary to popular belief, drinking the blood of a vampire does not turn you into one. Only a clan leader could sire a new vamp.

So, the youngsters would often find new and innovative ways to watch their victim suffer, and only when the life seeped out of their eyes like the blood did their body, then and only then would the vampires slash their wrists and force it down their preys partially slit throats.

However, even with its healing ability, the blood of a vampire is considered poison. The pain that would sear through you after consumption has often been compared to being burned alive.

That never stopped them.

The ritual would be repeated until the owner was satisfied. Then the last round of slashes would be healed with a singular drop of blood, enough to keep them hanging on by a thread, but no more than that.

When the nasty gashes healed to raised scars, it would be proof of ownership.

In 1898, The Noose of Misery was banned across all clans.

Wanda Maximoff made sure of it.

Yet, there were always those select few that never listened.

Given the scarring, you couldn’t have been older than nine.

Nine?

Nine…

Nine.

There is an audible *click* as two sets of sharpened canines force themselves present as the two redheads look down at the horror.

There was a difference with yours; the first slash was precise and professional, cut right through the vocal cords. It was a given who ordered it to be done, but it was clear she was not the one to do it.

Or rather, she was not the one to do the first slice.

That also explained why you were a less permanent commitment to the shelter. It must have taken place during the trial.

There is a trial period when it comes to buying pets. Some test them for a week, others for a year, it all depends on the customer and how much money they are willing to pay. If they deem the pet unfit, they can return them for half price.

However, shelters and kennels alike have a strict policy against marking their brand. If the pet is marked before being sold, the responsible party is banned from buying said pet, and they have to pay a heavy compensation.

That whore must have paid half a fortune to make up for what she did to you.

Leased pets are damaged goods.

They will never be bought.

Anger crawls like ants within the older redhead.

“And so, the war begins.”

Her expression is blank as she speaks clearly. The anger within her digs in deeper until it mends with her very being. She means every word of it.

Just as the last syllable was worded out, Wanda looked down to see your scared eyes staring right back at her.

There is no telling how long you have been awake while Wanda was preoccupied with staring down at the scars, willing them to dissipate before her very eyes.

With a sigh, Wanda pats your head one last time before you cower away from her touch.

It hurt, but she knew what would happen once your only line of defense was taken away from you. The redhead stares down at the collar held firmly within her hands. She wished she was stronger, that she could return it to you and pretend as if she never knew.

But as you both glue your eyes to leather almost as old as you, the ants turn into giants, a soundly crack can be heard as the dirty material is ripped into pieces right before you.

And with it, you too fall into a disarray of pieces that will never fit back together.

That collar was all you had.

It was all you were.

Without it…

You are nothing.

Nothing but hers.

“Romanoff.” A chill runs down Natasha’s spine at the tone of her wife’s calling.

“Contact the Thor clan and inform them that they have 96 hours to give over Carol Danvers or I will kill them all.”

The command was said so bluntly Natasha could hardly believe her ears. But as she looks over to Wanda’s hunched frame, her nose snarled and her eyes a dangerous glowing red, she breaks out of her trance and excuses herself.

She can comfort you later, but there won’t be a later if she does not obey her wife.

Current time (24 hours before the slaughter):

Wanda has woken up screaming in terror many times in her lifetime. It’s not easy to live as long as she has, to see what she has seen. The same horror burdens Natasha.

So, the older redhead has lost count of the timeless times her slowly beating heart has broken at the sight of her wife crying and screaming in her sleep.

There was nothing more painful.

Or so she thought.

What she could never imagine was how it would make her feel to watch someone attempt to sob their long overdue sorrows, only for them to flail and choke against their own vocal cords silently. Nothing but weak gasps and hoars coughs, the sound itself making her wince in pity.

Breathing through her nose slowly, Wanda has to close her eyes to collect herself before turning toward her wife, who carries an expression not far from her own. With her lip peeled back and her eyes narrowed, Natasha cringes at the sound of your tiny frame fighting the bedsheets.

As her eyes glue themselves to the nanny cam, she set up on their bedside table, Wanda thinks of what limb to start with.

Carol seems awfully attached to those claws of hers…

She is quickly brought back to the present time when a loud gasp emits from the speakers, followed by a heavy thud as you fall off the king-sized bed.

Wanda is on her feet and halfway down the hallway before Natasha can get a word out.

You saw more of the ceiling that night than you did the floor.

Your hands swipe against empty air. The sounds around you are like a cold hollow inside an unexplored cave. Nothing but echoes of lies surround you as you desperately try to grasp the situation in a literal sense. Like a zombie, you growl and groan as your hands seek the source of your misery.

You can’t see her. With your neck split in half, you would have to use both hands to hold your head up.

However, it doesn’t hurt.

Not yet.

So, you fight.

You are far shorter than them, Master is almost double your height, and the other lady isn’t much shorter. If you could just get closer, your hardened hands may be able to grasp them and beg for forgiveness. You can’t really talk though…

The side of your vision darkens as the blood gushes and pools beneath your feet. You can’t see it, but you feel it, it’s like ice pouring down your body.

Streams like rivers, split and thicken into canals, as they cascade down your stomach and glide down your thighs.

Like a switch-

A sneaking wave hits you, suddenly the adrenaline is gone, and the crash is horrendous.

Your knees crash into the floor, your body following behind shortly. The weight of your own body fights against you as you attempt to push yourself upward. With your hands grasping and slipping against amber liquid, your elbows give out under the pressure, and you fall into a heap.

Cracks of a weak child’s bones bounce off the wall as you lay defeated.

Soon, your mind and body become self-aware of your soon-to-be decapitated head, and you can do nothing but gasp and flop like a fish out of water.

It’s really scary.

The small hands of a nine-year-old child claw and paw at the cold floor as two adult women watch for the fourth time that night as a young pet watches Death seek her out.

They break your jaw open, then a wrist is forced into your mouth.

You are scared.

The blood hurts.

It hurts a lot.

“Again.”

“Aga-“

*GASP*

On the other side of town (96 hours before the slaughter):

Carol learned at a very young age that vampires like Wanda Maximoff and Natasha Romanoff think they are invisible. And they were, not a single creature, human, vampire, or otherwise, ever came close to breaking them.

Weren’t you just full of surprises.

A puff of smoke surrounds the blond woman as she leans against the truck. With one leg crossed over the other, her pants rustle against each other as she swishes lightly to one side.

Men and women alike continue to shout and argue in the back as they finish loading up their gear.

Just as she flicks the cigarette to the ground and her boot crunches it against the pavement, her phone chimes.

BabyBoss:

You have 96 hours to give yourself over to the Maximoff clan or I will personally slaughter your entire hometown. Including your fucking childhood dog.

Read 2:13 am

Rolling her eyes, a chuckle builds up within her.

God, you really are full of surprises.

“You ready boss?” A gruff man in his late thirties asks her as she walks over to the back of the truck.

Throwing in her own bag she nods. “Lead the way.”

21 hours. 54 near deaths. 198 slashes. 32 scars.

Nine years old.

(This chapter really wasn't written well, I'm sorry.)

Taglist:

@thinking1bee, @tobiaslut, @esmeseasle, @skittlebum, @tia-thesimp, @maximilfsworld, @leenasayeed, @scarlethexelove, @itsalwaysskorpioszn, @observeowl, @tekanparadiae, @adelareys, @anqyuicka, @ichala, @thalia-is-not-ok, @lovelyy-moonlight, @wandamaximoff-simp, @opossumking03, @confidant-thoughts, @delivery-bird, @esouliie, @geydumbbetch, @dorabledewdroop, @mousetheorist, @herwagonempathkid, @mommysfavouritegirl, @auroraromaximoff, @roman0ffsheart, @morganna-la-faye, @kaosrsing, @marvelwomenarehot0, @lizzieswife101, @og-kxsh-420, @chibilauren, @sgm616, @cyber-juipter, @falloutboy-lover, @xxxtwilightaxelxxx, @likefirenrain, @cole2907, @rahhhha, @taliiiaasteria, @dehydratedcoffeeaddict, @viktoriaromanovaa, @julz2000, @ahintofchaos, @consti-ss, @broimjustadepressedlesbian, @rowiebear, @crispychaosmaker, @mary-20, @romanoff101, @alexawynters, @dinno-nuggets, @riddlesknot

(Does it work when I tag yall like this?)

#wanda maximoff x reader #dark!wanda maximoff #natasha romanoff x reader #wandanat x reader #dark!natasha romanoff #vampire!natasha romanoff #vampire!wanda maximoff #dark!wandanat #vampire empire

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love-of-the-red-star · 13 days

Text

That time I got reincarnated as an Aeon

(Series)

Chapter five: Discovery Channel (In which you find out you have fans)

Warnings: Idk sort of Hi3 lore spoilers? Void Archives is his own warning

Why the hell did you even bother to think you could fix the absolute red flag that’s the divine key sitting on the chair next to your bed?

The more the Kirschtaria look alike spoke, the more you were convinced he should have been booted off the train. Too bad you couldn’t let your intrusive thoughts win in the meantime— Welt doesn’t know just how worse this guy could get, shared goal be damned.

“Okay so uhh, you were with Welt to fight a bunch of people in the sky right?” You said, trying to go along with whatever the fuck he was saying— it wasn’t like you didn’t know what they were doing beforehand, but it was easier to pretend you didn’t know shit.

“Yes, and we were in luck because Himeko had saved us.” He said, smiling. For a moment you would have been utterly bamboozled but you knew better.

You thanked your new brain that functioned as fast as a supercomputer, because you knew everyone in this train would be dead meat if you were slow.

“I see… that’s good to know she managed to get to you in the nick of time then.” You told him with a light hearted laugh, you swore that the more he looked at you, the more suspicious he became. If you were going to kick this man off the train it would have to be a vote of majority, but since he wasn’t acting up just yet you were going to postpone that meeting.

He was still on your watchlist, though.

Void Archives opened a bottle of expensive looking whiskey and poured it on a cup, and then another, and handed one to you.

“A toast.” He said, but you heard “An offering of friendship”. It was at least good to know he knew he shouldn’t fuck around with you.

You accepted the glass, drank it and grimaced.

“Not a fan I see.” He shook his head as if to mourn your lack of taste in the finer things in life. But what would he know? He’s a cube.

“I don’t like it, but I can drink it.” The taste of the whiskey burned in your throat. “Tastes a little funny though.” You murmured, Void Archives didn’t react much to your statement and continued to drink til he emptied the bottle.

It took him an hour, but at least the empty bottle signified he overstayed his welcome in your room.

“Let us meet again tomorrow morning, I want to speak with you soon.” He told you before he left.

Good grief, what a creep.

———————————

You never did end up speaking to him, instead heading towards Welt Yang, who you want to vaguely warn.

“I know you knew Void longer than you know me,” you began, but you already know Welt was more likely to believe you than the cube. “But keep an eye on him, he gives me a bad feeling.” Plant the seed of doubt, slowly but surely, so that the damage to the express can be minimized.

“I’ll.. keep that in mind.” Welt inhaled, stiffly nodding at your words as you patted him on the back.

“Great! Also, if things come down to it, you have my say in kicking him off this train.” You grinned, waving before disintegrating into particles as you returned to your original body.

Famous last words to be spoken.

Because five years later, on a Christmas Eve of all occasions, shit happened. And Void Archives was booted off the train like the red Amogus on a community vote.

Was it chaotic? Yes. Was it like a court hearing than an actual community vote? Also yes.

You had plenty of evidence presented, including the first instance you invited him to your room— because what do you know, the whiskey he gave you was drugged.

He did plenty of horrible shit, and even Himeko, poor patient Himeko, had enough.

You felt a little bad for Welt though having to deal with the aftermath, needless to say, everyone, except you, needed therapy on that train.

On the upside, someone better did replace the blonde and that was Dan Heng who joined you a few weeks before Void Archives was booted off the express.

“Well,” you blinked. “That was something.” You said out loud as Dan Heng shook his head. “Sorry you had to meet that guy.”

Dan Heng brushed it off, instead focusing on staring at the Christmas dinner that Pompom prepared for everyone and poked the turkey on his plate with a fork, before properly digging in.

It wasn’t exactly an ideal way to start your holidays and welcoming someone in the crew properly in a celebration, but you supposed it’d have to do.

It was at least one less toxic bitch off the train.

——————

You didn’t expect you’d deal with your own information being displayed in the databank though. Dan Heng wasn’t creepy about it at least, not that he knew you were an Aeon— specifically, the Aeon that ate Akivili (you still feel bad about that).

“Libertas, huh.” You let out a snort as you read your own little book. In there, it was written on how you were discovered, and what you stood for, along with a group that eventually became your followers.

You hummed, thinking it was rather endearing to see the Avgin there as some of your believers. It was interesting on how you got a following, no matter how small, in the few decades you existed in this world.

It wasn’t just the Avgin, there were others who you did not know too who believed in you, and others who you did see when you had peered into planets to see what people were up to.

It was sweet in a way, for them to cling to you for belief as they sought true happiness in the way of freeing themselves and others.

You wanted to keep it that way.

You read into the pages more, finding out what kind of worship people dedicated to your path; there was a statue of you in one city in some planet hundreds of light years away, in another planet there was you in a tapestry, in another you had a statue and a painting inside of a massive church akin to the ones you saw in photos of Rome.

It was a little overwhelming, and you felt a little shy at the recent discovery of all of this.

You closed the book and put it back on its shelf, exiting Dan Heng’s room to ask Pompom for tea after helping them with their chores.

—————————

Unbeknownst to you, Dan Heng knew you were an Aeon— and an Aeon he believed in in some way when he had heard of you in the whispers of the guards in the recent years he’s stayed in the Shackling Prison. It wasn’t exactly difficult to piece things together with the context clues around the place, not to mention, Himeko did end up telling him.

You wouldn’t be angry about it, she said to him. You were apparently rather human-like, and kind.

Himeko wasn’t wrong, and Dan Heng was going to trust that judgement. Is he wary? Yes, you’re an Aeon after all, you were plenty big of a deal.

But Pompom didn’t seem to be scared of you, and Welt spoke to you with a sense of respect. You regarded everyone in this train with a certain familiarity— Dan Heng did feel like you were a bit strange due to the feeling of “uncanny valley” you gave him, but you were kind to him and you were welcoming.

He was welcome in this place, he had a place to stay, and a purpose, as meager as it was.

Dan Heng thinks things would be alright from now on.

————————

Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, Part VI (HERE), Part VII, Part VIII

Yeeeee this took a bit!!! Thanks for the wait yall, I know it’s calm rn, but it’ll get rowdy again at some point I promise.

#aeon reader #himeko x reader #honkai star rail x reader #hsr x reader #reader insert #welt yang x reader #yaoshi x reader #boothill x reader #aventurine x reader #honkai star rail #dan heng #dan heng x reader

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lqfiles · 7 months

Text

SCORE THAT GOAL! — 51. be your boyfriend?

previous — master list —next

notes ; a short chapter but one more official chapter after this !!!

BONUS — wc: 494

“okay, so next time i’m not letting you choose what we’re watching.” jisung placed the laptop aside before stretching his limbs on his bed. from beside him, you let out a laugh as you stretched your arms as well, leaning towards jisung by the end of it. “i’m sorry, but i love the winx club, i’m just trying to familiarise you with the lore.” jisung turned his head to look at you, stoic expression changing to a soft smile.

“right, because watching a movie made halfway through the series definitely helps me get familiar.” jisung chuckled before sitting up with his hands stretched behind him. “well, i thought of binge watching the first season but i didn’t wanna overwhelm you with all of that.” you continued to lay on jisung’s bed, playing with the hem of your shirt.

“by the way, i told jeno to not tell anyone about what happened friday.” jisung revealed, looking back your way to watch your reactions. you shrugged. “that’s okay, mark wouldn’t go around tattling so i don’t mind keeping it a secret. but i don’t know how long i’ll be able to keep it a secret from ningning, im sure she’ll find out.” you continued to play with the edge of your clothing and jisung hummed.

“let’s just not say anything at all? let them find out themselves.” jisung decided to lay back down next to you, gazing up at his ceiling. “so what now?” he questioned. “this is the part where you ask to be my boyfriend.” you grinned, turning sideways to look at jisung’s side profile. caught of guard, a slight blush crept up his neck before he moved up a bit, turning his body sideways after.

“alright, i don’t even know how to do this.” jisung awkwardly laughed but the look of endearment on your face made him feel much more comfortable. “it’s okay, i can do the honours.”

“no need, just give me a second.” jisung breathed in and out before taking ahold of your hand. the small gesture made you want to hide your face and you couldn’t look up at him anymore. “look at me?” jisung requested in a whisper.

you looked up to see jisung stare right at you. whether it was the lighting or his eyes itself, the way they glimmered as they looked into yours made you feel almost under a trance. jisung squeezed your hand to bring your attention back to him.

“(—), this will sound cliché but i truly do believe that i’ve never liked someone this much before. the thought of you being with anyone that isn’t me sounds wrong and i’d rather that possibility not come true, so.. will you let me be your boyfriend?”

jisung’s proposal put your mind into a frenzy and your heart did a thousand flips. nodding your head profusely, you wrapped your arms around jisung’s neck before pulling yourself closer to him.

“i’d love to more than anything else.”

TAGLIST ; @rksbae @222brainrot @severefireangelprune @violetvoo @prdshobi @kikookii @haechansbbg @en-dream @bbxnny-bbxtch @cvpidxo @jaeminslattes @90s-belladonna @softieluvsyou @wenjunblossoms @be0mluver @jeongintwt @myhaechan @love1again @ckline35 @cassie6392 @hibernatinghamster @starboys-gf @rllymark @mfaal @snflwrhaerecs4u @sunflowerbebe07 @ahnneyong @enhalovie @galacticpurpl3 @manooffline @luv4jeno @mikadorbs @1moo7 @ksywoo @ohdudehesflirting @savluvsmingi @finnydraws @invumi @crvzy-fujoshi @peterparkerluvvbot @hrjunluvs @i2kittenz @jisungji @http-peachie @jisyng @sweetcandycum @giaccolo @shotaroswifeyily @sinsgaybutthatsokay @be-my-sunrise @syzavxy @kyusqult @mxlly143 @o-schist @bigjishirt @snuglyjwi @hyunniesvlog @shuaadmirer

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apt502-if · 3 months

Note

What do the diamonds mean next to the options where you choose how MC feels about people watching them and Rainn having a 'private conversation'?

Oh! I meant to explain that in the intro! Essentially that’s a choice that will have permanent flavor text (like a personality choice.)

saying you hate attention means that it’s now part of MC’s “lore” if that’s the best way to explain it :P and will come up throughout the story, the variable is going to be more utilized when I fix this chapter for the next update because there’s definitely more opportunities to bring that up :>

#mail #gameplay

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captain-joongz · 1 month

Text

On the wind of morning; Dragonheart ch.1

Pairing: OT7 dragon!BTS x knightess!reader

Genre: dragon rider AU, high fantasy, soulmate adjacent, slight enemies to lovers (if you squint), angst, fluff and humour, eventual smut

Chapter summary: The capital is as unwelcoming as ever, father as disappointed as one can be and the new unit dynamics are challenging, but you finally meet your dragon.

Word count: 22.1k

Warnings: some bad family dynamics, toxic father shenanigans, some displays of slavery, talks of slavery, there's a pov switch near the end so watch out for that, otherwise not much

Series masterlist | Next part | Lore | Dictionary

A/N: here comes the first chapter!! i hope it meets the expectations and you enjoy yourself while reading! don't be shy, tell me what you think and how you like it! <3 PS: the words that are underlined are linked to chapter notes with explanations and a dictionary ;) they're a little messy atm but i'm trying to find a way to make it easier

I disliked the royal castle. It was a dark hulking mass of stone that blocked out all the sunlight and drained all warmth from everything and everyone inside. It casted a massive shadow over its surroundings, and you were never free of the feelings of oppressiveness as soon as you were in its vicinity.

The moment you stepped in, you shivered and with every passing second you’d be colder and bitterer, sitting in a dark hallway feeling your fingers slowly freeze while the silence crushed you from all sides. The atmosphere was always sombre and tinged with the sour note of fear, you could see it in the way no one dared to speak, no one felt like smiling and all the servants were walking briskly with their heads down.

I disliked the castle, and I hated staying in it.

While of course, it was sitting on a big black rock by one of the rockiest and coldest shores in the empire, and the weather often reflected that with harsh winds and heavy rains; but the worst were the occupants, who managed to be colder and more inhospitable than the heavens themselves. They were the ones who made the structure so unwelcoming, who made you feel uncomfortable and who enjoyed belittling others until no one laughed unless it was at someone else’s expense. It was a hard world of ruthlessness and survival, but it was us who made all the beasts and the prey.

I disliked the castle, but I hated the people within even more.

You could almost taste all the blood and suffering soaked into these thick stone walls, the centuries of atrocities that took place inside looming over you and constricting your lungs, making you fight for every breath of stale joyless air.

But with my father being needed here so often, I couldn’t escape it no matter how much I wanted that. And now finally earning my acceptance between the elite ranks, I would be spending even more time here, would have to come to terms with moving onto the castle grounds, into the secluded barracks away in the farther corner of the royal training grounds.

I had grown up far away from the capital city. When I was born, it was still at the old house in the north, where there were just as many plains and meadows as there were mountains, and the summers were pleasant and warm and winters freezing and cruel.

Those were our lands and our estate, gifted to my great great-grandfather for his achievements in battles against the northern invasion, as he was considered a well respected general close to the emperor – and that’s where our family legacy began. We have always been a military family, but since then the Kang generals have always stayed as close to the royal family as possible, climbing the ranks and sticking their claws in deep.

And as fief lords, our patriarchs have never been particularly benevolent either, which might be a reason for why they got along with the nobles so well. The cruelty and coldness ran in their veins, just like all the powerful men that shared between each other the same arrogance and feelings of superiority, supporting each other in their worldviews and their own dominance.

It all was very embarrassing to witness – the pride of old men strutting around like peacocks and preening under each other’s compliments of their evildoing.

And my father was one of them.

He was one of the three generals closest to the throne, one of the right-hand men and a monster, much like the man with the crown himself. I scoffed at the image of him in my head – the pompous ass that thought he was infallible and carried himself like he was god, ruled his fief and his family with a cruel unforgiving hand and expected infallible loyalty and subservience of his children.

All of the men that were currently sitting in the room next to me, holding a meeting and discussing war, they were all cut from the same cloth. Power hungry, back-stabbing. And they wouldn’t hesitate to devour each other alive if the opportunity rose no matter how much they pretended to be allies.

Footsteps down the hall drew my attention and I looked up from my miserable little corner by the massive dark double door to see a small group of knights walk in. They crossed the hall in several quick strides and soon were knocking on the door by my left, giving me the opportunity to observe them for a moment.

They were the kingsguard, the white tiger insignia embroidered on their black and white uniforms giving their position away. It wasn’t that unusual seeing big clumps of the soldiers running around the castle, as the emperor was extremely paranoid about his safety, but these men seemed to be escorting someone else.

In the middle of the group there stood a beautiful tall man, elegant and lean with long silvery white hair. He didn’t even have to turn towards me for me to know he was a dragon, but when he did and I saw those cold steely eyes with vertical slit pupils, centuries of wisdom and pain reflecting through them, I knew for sure he was one of the sovereign’s own.

I nodded at him solemnly in sympathy, offering him at least a little decency, but the dragon just regarded me expressionlessly before turning forward again and waiting for the order to step in. I turned back to lean into my chair to give him peace, and only listened to the creak and shuffle of the opening door and the thunder of iron clad feet. Then the door slammed shut again and I was once more left alone in the hall.

This time it didn’t take long though, only a few minutes later the door opened once more, and this time stayed opened. With a long deep breath, I stood up and made my way in. I saw other young hopefuls slowly trickle in, filling in the counsel room and finding their way to their benefactor’s sides.

While the counsel is in a meeting, no one else is allowed inside, but after they are dismissed, usually there is some socialising and many of these men take the opportunity to flaunt their children or disciples. It’s all very boring and humiliating for the younglings involved, being paraded like a piece of meat or a trained monkey, but it was all to give these men face – the only thing they really cared about. Especially when it came to their children.

“Y/N, stop with the dilly-dallying!” a thunderous voice sounded from my right. It was the kind that demanded respect and attention, and the man knew very well how to use his aura to intimidate and break people into obedience. After all, confidence was half of the trick, I thought bitterly.

Taking a second to right my uniform, I steeled myself and turned, coming face to face with my father. His face was in that grimace that I’ve already come to know meant he was very close to getting angry because he thought my behaviour to be humiliating to him. I fought the scoff off of my face and walked over with confident strides.

My brother was already standing by our father’s side, face an unreadable mask and back as straight as a rod, only his eyes shooting subtle warnings my way. Great, that meant that the general was already in a bad mood from the meeting, and I was bound to lose no matter what I did.

As soon as I made it over to them, a hand clasped onto my shoulder in an iron grip and wrangled me to father’s side, as his face melted into an aggressively polite grimace, his smile turning almost shark-like.

“Gentlemen, I believe you haven’t been introduced to my daughter officially yet,” he started towards three men of similar age as my father, “she has just entered the Academy.” I sighed internally at the way their smiles turned sharp, sensing the weak spot in my father’s impeccable armour.

You see, I was somewhat of a disappointment to him. Well, I’ve been for a really long time, but back then it was a private affair. Now he had to face the ridicule in public, as I was a little bit of a late bloomer.

“Oh?” one of the men perked up, mean smile playing on his lips as he looked me over with condescension, “Congratulations, General Kang. What unit is she with?” Sensing the game the man was playing, I felt my father’s grip tighten until it was painful, constricting the movement of my wrist.

I winced, hoping I was able to keep the hurt expression off of my face, but nobody was really watching me anyway. Everyone was focused on the general, waiting with bated breath for his answer. The sounds of chatter from the room around us flowed freely around the tense atmosphere of our little corner, making the silence sound even louder.

Then he turned to me, stormy dark eyes signalling me that this was my battle to win. I forced my face into a similar polite smile, feeling kind of rusty at pandering to men I didn’t care about and hoping people couldn’t see how much I despised being here.

“I am with the Qinglong unit,” the answer finally fell out of my lips, my voice slightly weak and scratchy after sitting in silence for such a long time and I cleared my throat, embarrassed. The several sets of eyes jumped to me for a second, before redirecting to my father again.

“Ah, the dragon riders,” a different man stated, and I couldn’t tell from his voice whether he was impressed or not, which very obviously ruffled my father’s feathers. This was one of the few things he could boast about when it came to me, he’ll be damned if others didn’t recognise that.

“Yes, she will be attending a banquet very soon,” he supplied quickly, grip still strong on my arm and keeping me in place when I started nervously fidgeting. I looked to my brother, but he stood there without a single care for the conversation, eyes trained somewhere else in the room. Before I could follow his gaze, I was pulled back.

“Well, that is incredible,” the first man spoke again, the smirk still plastered on his face, “You must be so proud, you’ll surely award your daughter well with her 22nd birthday coming this year.” There were some snickers around and I knew we were in for something. This here was the killing point.

As many young people in this empire, I entered the military with my 16th birthday, which was the earliest one could start training at a base. While for me it was inevitable with the nature of our family, many other people chose to join just for the basic reason of needing food and shelter and soldiering was one of the easiest and surest ways to earn a stable keep for yourself and your family, so the input of fresh blood into the system was never-ending. The empire fought many wars and never had enough of willing knights, so entering the military was also very enthusiastically encouraged, leaving behind generations of mourning parents and social problems.

And yes, there were many opportunities for a knight to rise in ranks without ever stepping foot off of their mother base, they could climb quite high between the regional officials. But only a few dozens ever made it to the true top – and the only way there was through the Academy, situated in the capital and each year accepting only a handful of lucky knights.

There were several elite units, amongst which were the kingsguard and dragon riders, or the shadows as they were known – spies. Those who made it into this room were only the ones that went through there.

And the earliest age you could enlist into the Academy was 22. My brother was 27, therefore he’s been training there for 5 years now, which gained him quite the recognition in these circles (enough to allow him to listen in to these council meetings to learn). He of course made in on the first try, which was enough to not absolutely embarrass our father. Something, I wasn’t able to achieve.

The Qinglong unit, or as it was colloquially known as the horns, was one of the more elite and exclusive ones, harder to enter and harder to stay, just like shadows were, but that wasn’t something our father was interested in hearing.

And I failed in enlisting. Twice. I was now slightly over 24 years old, still young and still fully capable of making a name for myself, but not good enough to make my father proud to be associated with me.

As the highest standing general and one of the closest men to the emperor himself, he couldn’t afford to have children that didn’t succeed in everything on their first try. And of course, once the other elites caught the wind of this, it became a constant point of mockery for him. The only flaw in this man’s otherwise perfect life.

Which is why he was currently shooting daggers in my directions, the hateful stare burning into the side of my face as the question of my age was brought up. Once again, he made it clear that this was my mess to clean up, so I took a deep breath and turned back to the three men.

“Well… I uh- I have actually been training at the mother base for two additional years,” I stuttered out, trying to ignore my father’s embarrassed angry face. It was the nicest way to say that I wasn’t accepted two years in a row, but it still stung his pride, especially when the others started smirking.

One of them soon after launched into a story of how his daughter was actually accepted while she was still 20 years old, because they just had to make an exception for her, which then prompted all the others to share their own stories of success and talent coming from their protégées. It was absolutely disgusting, and I felt my father fuming next to me the whole time, in my mind begging the men to stop as I will have to face the consequences of his anger once home.

The jealousy and envy ran so thick that even the slightest sight of imperfection was shamelessly mocked and inspected over and over again, as everyone latched on the one thing they could feel better at than a general that climbed far higher than they could ever hope for. That’s why my father’s embarrassed anger burned even more – I knew he blamed me for this behaviour, since if I hadn’t failed, he wouldn’t have to face these things – he’d stay at the top, untouchable.

I silently swallowed, no longer daring to speak, knowing it would make the aftermath of my official introduction into high society less heavy.

The rest of the afternoon was painful and dragged on as I was forced to stay by my father’s side and listen to the mindless chatter and the occasional bragging about my brother. The general ignored me after the initial conversation and tried his best to pretend I wasn’t there, immediately derailing any enquiries that were raised about me and changing the topic before anyone could find the opportunity to make him admit my shortcomings again.

It didn’t particularly hurt, and it wasn’t especially punishing; I was used to such reception from the man, but it was painfully awkward and I wasn’t allowed to leave.

Instead I focused on catching glimpses of the silver haired dragon and the man whose side he similarly wasn’t allowed to leave. In contrast to his companion, he was clad all in gold, his robes heavily embroidered with leaves and other floral motifs, hands clasped elegantly in front of his stomach as he conversed with the crowd that was formed around him. His hair burned with a golden glow, but that might have been partly due to the crown sitting high on his head, adorned with blood red rubies. He was young, just two or three years older than my brother, freshly appointed but just as cruel (if not more) as his recently deceased father. You could see it in the lines of his face, in the cold glint in his eyes, the arrogance written into his every gesture and the permanent slip of a smirk.

Just from seeing him I knew he wasn’t a person worth knowing. How lovely that he was the one that sat on our throne.

The dragon by his side looked on with a practiced vacant glaze over his eyes, corners of his mouth weighted down by shadows only he knew of and carried in his heart and soul. My eyes slipped to his neck where a tattoo sat. It was in a spot that would always be visible, no matter how hard you tried, it was too high up to cover by clothing comfortably, forever showcasing who you were. A branding, a mark of slavery – a black chain wrapped around the neck. Every dragon bore it, some were even born with it. It was what bound them to the royal family and enforced their loyalty, what made them nothing more than unwilling puppets.

The man shifted and I quickly averted my eyes, not wanting him to see me looking at his mark. It was incredibly sensitive for dragons, and it brought them great shame when people ogled it, knowing this was what took away their freedom and bound them unconditionally to an uncaring master.

My heart bled for him, and it brought feelings of uneasiness about my own banquet that was about to take place in a few days. There I would choose my own dragon to bond with and start my formal training, but the queasiness about putting similar shackles on another being never quite ceased to bother me, no matter how much I knew my heart. I could treat the dragon as nice as possible; it wouldn’t erase the fact that formally we were a master and a slave.

Snippets of memories of my childhood resurfaced to my mind – a brown-haired man with warm eyes and a blinding smile, little slips of magic that endlessly fascinated me and all the lessons I’d learnt with him. The first dragon I ever knew. The kindest teacher I ever knew. The moments of warmth, love and laughter in the meadows and the forests up in the north.

A hand clasping my shoulder jolted me from my daydreaming and I flinched, a gasp leaving my mouth as I turned to the source of my sudden panic – coming face to face with my brother.

“Come, sister,” he said with voice neutral and a stone mask, the perfect picture of a promising young captain, “We’ve begun moving to the dining hall for dinner. You’re not paying attention again.”

I couldn’t even find it in me to be irritated by his slight jab, so I simply tightly pursed my lips shut and gave him a curt nod. He wrestled me into position so that he was leading me on his arm, trying to prevent any more delays and potentially adding to the long list of reasons why our father’s day was going as badly as it was. Bonus points for flashing our strong camaraderie to the lords.

“Don’t push him anymore, today’s been hard for him,” the young knight whispered lightly as we joined others slowly moving through the castle corridors. That had me ruffled a little, but I swallowed any remarks and nodded. Some days you truly did need to choose your battles and today was such day. And deep down I knew my brother was trying to look out for me in his own way, but that didn’t make it sting any less whenever he chided me in favour of our father.

“Yes, brother,” came my faux demure reply before I sealed my lips shut once more. That earned me a side-eye from the dark-haired man, who knew I was the furthest one could be from a quiet obedient lady, but chose not to call me out on the obvious piss-taking. He only sighed, shoulders sagging lightly, no doubt grateful I at least agreed with him so readily.

There’s been some dramatic scenes in my past as I reached my “rebellious phase” as father put it, but quickly that fire died within me when I realised it made everything only worse. As I grew, I chose silence as the survival method – causing scenes, screaming matches and throwing tantrums only served to humiliate us both; and perhaps I did have a little piece of my father in me – I also cared about my face.

Once I entered the base, it reflected on me badly amongst peers and instructors, giving me the reputation of a spoiled little brat. No matter the emotional turmoil I had been going through at that time, I knew it was time for a change of tactic – I needed respect to survive in the military and I would get it. Not for my father, but for myself.

Upon entering the room, I looked up and immediately found the eyes of the man himself trained on me, some new vague warning reflecting in them trying to keep me quiet and not causing any problems.

I sighed and resigned myself for the worst evening in recent history.

The reflection in my mirror stared back at me as I tried to push my clothes around to look as presentable as they could, the uniform still a little foreign to me. It was black silk cheollik with silver embroidery and it was tied at the side into an elegant bow. As tradition dictated, my father had given me a gift for the successful entry into Academy and it now adorned my waist – a deep red intricately woven string with a prosperity knot and grey jade pearls at the end – they jingled lightly at every nervous shift of my body.

This was the ceremonial uniform, as I still haven’t gotten my unit’s specific one – not until I bonded with a dragon – and it was brand new, it still smelt unworn and fit strangely over me, still adapting to my physique.

I would keep this one, but wear it rarely – usually there weren’t many instances when people wouldn’t take the chance to flaunt their unit, especially if they were at the top of the food chain, but I liked it. It was simple and elegant, and while the Qinglong also wore a similar one, it wasn’t embroidered and had azure details, and I found it a little too eye-catching.

Giving myself another look, I ended up sighing deeply, hands smoothing over the cold silk for the thousandth time in a last attempt to make it look a little more natural, thoughts finding their way towards the image of my mother. My sweet mother, who if she was here would tell me everything would be alright, that it looked perfect and I would do well. I imagined the feel of her gentle hands in my hair and on my shoulders, letting the memories of her soft voice soothe me.

The train of thought pierced my heart with pain that always manifested itself when I fell down this rabbit hole, my eyes naturally sliding towards the table which held all of her kind-hearted words in the form of letters she’s send over the years I haven’t seen her. But as always, everything I ever felt left a little aftertaste of rage towards my father, so I quickly abandoned this line of thought as well. Syphoning all the emotions out of me, I turned back into my numbed self that always surfaced around the family home.

Picking up the ceremonial dagger I finally set out, swiftly moving through the house in hopes of not bumping into the man himself. What rotten luck I had, as always.

The moment I stepped foot into the inner yard, there he was, sitting on the terrace by his study, sipping tea and watching me with his critical eyes. I could feel them sliding over me, making sure everything was in place. I said nothing, steadily returning his gaze while I wordlessly worked on the dagger strap, fashioning it under the red string.

“Remember what I told you last week, Y/N,” the general spoke, his face impassive even though there was fire underneath it all, and I could feel it all too well, “You are to make good impressions. I expect you to excel in this unit. Your brother is already being considered for corporal, do not stain this for him. Your unit has higher ranks too. One of them better be of my blood.”

I kept my mouth shut, just bowing to him in lieu of answer, but I was sure he could see the cocktail of anger and resentment brewing in my eyes. Choosing not to address that, he waved me off as if I was waiting for his permission to leave. Without a second glance I bowed again and promptly walked out the main gate.

If tonight went well, this was potentially one of the last times I walked out this specific house – our residence while we stayed in the capital city of Wuyun, close to the castle and royal grounds with the Academy in tow. If tonight went well, soon I’d find myself in the barracks, and I dreaded that day.

Unfortunately, family legacy tended to follow us all, no matter where we went and what we did. Children often went in their parents’ footsteps, making the Academy the breeding ground of resentment and generation long slights and fights. And there was a lot accumulated against the Kangs.

Back when my brother first joined, before he turned into the man he is today – while he still talked to me, he told me how disliked he was for the simple association. No matter what he did, he couldn’t escape his father’s shadow. I was next.

I would be able to walk over the distance from our house towards the main entrance of the castle blind-folded, and it passed quicker than I was ready for, suddenly finding myself standing at the foot of the entrance hall. Just at the end was the entryway towards the throne room, where the emperor accepted hearings, and I made sure to avoid it at the off chance that the man was present there currently.

It took me little time to arrive at the Eastern Grand Hall, but I found that most have already gathered there. It was a flurry of black and blue robes with the occasional splash of colour from other present lords, the hum of chatter and clinking of cutlery on metal plates that were typically used for military events, as if we were a bunch of animals that couldn’t be trusted with porcelain. I couldn’t spot anyone else wearing the plain Academy robes and I had no idea how many were accepted this year, so I slowly inserted myself into the frenzy hoping to blend in.

Turns out, it’s hard to do that when everyone either knows you’re the newbie or even realises which family you belong to, and I was getting a lot of looks as I leisurely walked along the table laid out with foods and drinks pretending not to notice. Some were mocking, some were apprehensive, and some were calculative, either way I had no interest in socialising.

It felt like ages have passed while I quietly ate by the end of the main table, gaze trained on a painting on the opposite wall, high above everybody’s head, but it wasn’t even time to officially begin the banquet yet. I was already feeling tired by all this, hoping this would be over with quickly so I could leave.

“I see that you’re getting some attention as well,” a cheery voice from my left shook me out of my reverie as I traced the golden lines of the knight portraiture for the thousandth time, and I turned somewhat dramatically, eyes open wide.

A woman stood there, it was hard to gauge her age, but she wore the same black and silver uniform, signalling she was also a first-year. Her pretty face was split by a friendly smile, eyes crinkling at the corners and her chestnut brown hair was shoved into a messy bun, clearly without a care for propriety. Her joy was quite disarming and before I even realised what I was doing, I was shaking her outstretched hand, still in shock. Her grip was strong, hands sure and decisive.

“Im Hwa-young, nice to meet you,” she said confidently, and I gaped at her slightly. Im was a disgraced surname, and no one who still had the curse of bearing it said it out loud anymore for fear of being recognised as a part of the Im clan after its fall and near annihilation. Whispers about treason and God’s punishment still followed those who survived, and many of the family disappeared from the public, hoping to escape the burden.

“I know, in the flesh,” Hwa-young continued with good spirits, obviously used to people’s reactions, “he was my uncle, before you ask.” I saw a flash of annoyance in her, something maybe like disappointment crossing her face as she began to withdraw her hand. In a split-second decision I grabbed it again, just as hard as she did before.

“Kang Y/N,” I gave her my name, making sure to look into her eyes, “and I wasn’t about to ask.” Hwa-young beamed at me, relief seeping into her as she sidled over to me almost as if we’ve known each other for years.

“Good to know I won’t be suffering here alone,” she remarked with a conspiratorial lilt, “I was afraid I’d be the only outcast in this unit.” I scoffed at her words, bringing a biscuit to my lips to mask my amusement from the others who were watching us with rapt interest.

“I never disappoint when it comes to disappointment,” there was something bitter creeping into my voice, tainting the joke with a smudge of reality, but Hwa-young was a good sport. She laughed lightly, head tilting back, looking so care-free it was helping me wind down.

Just as my shoulders begun to untense, a gong sounded through the Hall, tearing me away from the budding conversation. We both jolted and looked towards the head of the table where a greying man stood, his stance proud and strong. Light stubble decorated his wearied face, but it didn’t hide the handsomeness of an experienced warrior. I could feel the authority and respect radiating off of him, as everyone in the room turned to give him their undivided attention without needing a single word.

“Welcome novices,” he said simply, his voice was a little rough, but it held stead-fast and strong, booming through the silent hall, “to your first mating banquet. May your hunt be successful.” Clearly a man of few words, he quickly raised his glass and drank it in one go, a thunderous clap tearing through the space before the hungry faces turned to those who were the main interest of the evening.

I quickly scanned through the room, almost breaking my neck with how much I strained to see everywhere, hoping to catch a glimpse of other first-years. There was a young man standing alone by one of the entrances, and another group of two guardedly conversing closer to the head of the table, where the silver-haired man sat now completely uninterested in anything except for his food. To his right sat a dragoness, watching him with amusement and playing with her bright red hair, lips moving in what seemed to be teasing manner.

I watched their interaction for a moment longer, before Hwa-young turned my attention back to her, hand lightly grabbing onto my forearm as the woman leaned in closer to whisper: “The dragons have arrived.”

Snapping my head back towards the crowd, truly I could see newcomers – men and women with strong stances and shackles around their necks, faces either very carefully neutral or openly scowling at being paraded so openly. They mingled through the crowd, not really entertaining any looks or conversations.

“How many of us do you think there is?” I asked her, no longer being able to see the three students I discovered before. Hwa-young hummed, but ultimately shrugged her shoulders – I could feel the motion of them against my side more than I saw her.

“We should probably split up,” she whispered in the end, leaning away once more and slowly taking a step back, sending a cheeky smile my way, “See you around, fellow outcast.” With that she disappeared into the crowd so quickly I was actually concerned for several seconds before snapping out of it.

Left alone again, I had no other choice but to face the most challenging part of this event – socialising with my peers. All around me, people were conversing freely, some dragons even joining in their circles (most probably with their own bondeds) and the mood started rising again; though I could see some still watching me like vultures, curious who I’d choose to talk to.

For the moment, the most suitable strategy seemed to step back and observe, so I quickly manoeuvred myself through the throngs of people until I was leaning against a back wall. Right across me, across the whole hall, was the high-table where people tended to congregate more.

A flash of black and silver uniform alerted me to a novice that was conversing with a group of older students, but I couldn’t recognise whether it was one of the few I saw before or not. Slumping against the cold stone, I started searching through the crowds for someone that would be easy to approach.

I had no idea how much time I spent standing there, but at some point I started feeling the soreness and pain in my legs and feet crying for me to sit down. Shuffling slowly by the wall to the side towards chairs, my plan was suddenly thwarted by two men who made short of the distance with quick long strides, situating themselves into the corner.

Lucky bastards, the lot of them.

I stayed where I was, sighing tiredly and still undecided, when their conversation started up again.

“I hate that they call it a mating banquet,” the bigger of the two grumbled with a pout, “that’s clearly not what this is.” His head was shrouded in a very messy black bob haircut and small dark horns were protruding from his forehead, standing proudly with some strands tangled up around them and sticking out in weird angles. I held back a chuckle, bringing a glass with some sweet drink I’d managed to grab from the table to my lips quickly.

The other man sat more angled towards me and when he looked up, I had the best view in the entire room at his otherworldly beautiful face. I couldn’t hold back the gasp when I laid my eyes on him, the elegance and beauty he was exuding was truly almost too much for a mere mortal to handle. At first it seemed like his face actually glimmered, a slight shimmering catching my eyes constantly, before I realised his cheekbones and temples were covered in silvery blue scales. They blended into his skin perfectly and I found myself fighting a blush without him even having to look my way, that kind of effect he had on his surroundings.

Time to get it together, I told myself, slowly shuffling away and reprimanding myself internally for being a weirdo. And then he spoke.

“Bonding banquet doesn’t have such a ring to it, I suppose,” a melodic voice piped up, fading into a slight giggle at the end, “Though, something tells me if you were to show them what mating looks like, they wouldn’t be very entertained.” The horned dragon grumbled some more, clearly over this whole thing already.

“I wish Yoongi hyung came,” his voice sounded really pouty and whiney, making me silently snicker to myself again, “I bet he would have found a way to leave already. Or he’d terrify people enough to leave us alone.” At least we clearly were in the same boat, cheers to that.

Before I realised what was happening, because I was not so discreetly watching the two interact with a slight smile on my face like a dummy, there were quick heavy footsteps heading my way. I quickly snapped out of it as soon as I clocked that the person was aiming at me, and cursed under my breath when I saw Lord Kim with his fake predatory grin.

“The Kang youngling, what a surprise to see you here finally,” the man spoke loudly enough to have everyone in our vicinity snapping their heads to him and pushing all the attention to me. I pressed myself harder into the wall, the polite smile somewhat malfunctioning when he barrelled all the way into my personal space.

“Baron Kim, to what do I owe the pleasure?” came out through gritted teeth, the man clearly not understanding the meaning of boundaries. With every step away I took, he came closer, leaving us in an awkward shuffling match.

“Well, of course I have to welcome General Kang’s daughter to our unit, he wouldn’t want it any other way," the elderly man said sleazily, a disgusting grin plastered on his ugly mug. I had to fight not to laugh at his words – our unit? He’s never been a part of Qinglong, but he always wished for it – so instead he bought his way in. As a benefactor he was always invited and properly talked up with sweet, honeyed words, he even managed to wheedle a dragon out of them (though from what I understand, he didn’t ride as he was afraid of hights). I could only imagine what that poor man went through with this lowlife as his master.

“I’m sure my father would be happy to know I’m in such good hands,” I punched out of myself, the lie almost causing me physical pain. With most people who tried to gain the Kangs’ favour, it was hard to tell whether they really admired my father so much they turned insane or whether they secretly hated him and hated that they had to simper up to him; and that much could be said about Lord Kim as well.

Who knows where that old man’s loyalty lied and what his goals were, but the truth was that my father despised him and thought him to be an idiot.

While he started poetically voicing his well wishes and praises of the unit, I had a goal. Just a few metres away from me was an arch with glass doors open wide. As the second part of this event would take place outside, the garden there was already prepared and all I had to do was slip out and disappear quietly.

But between me and the open door sat the two dragons I had been listening to earlier, both of which had shut up now and watched my plight with varying degrees of interest and amusement, much like many others around us. When I glanced at the door again and happened to see the dark-haired dragon badly covering a cheeky smirk, clearly laughing at my expense, my eyes narrowed at him in faux anger.

The man had whole three seconds to realise I had seen him and take in my expression, before I side-stepped with the brightest smile I could muster and gestured towards the duo. Both of them froze like I just caught them stealing my grandma’s jewellery, wide eyes regarding me.

“Well, I was just about to come speak with these gentlemen, would you mind introducing me?” the overly sugary tone of my voice made the dragon’s eyes narrow at me in turn and when Lord Kim wasn’t watching I turned to him with a shit-eating grin. Truly, the baron was a curse that had to be shared, who was I to deny them the pleasure of his company?

The old man was clearly surprised with me jumping into his monologuing, eyes hopping between the three of us with his mouth hanging open slightly before he recovered and put on another polite smile.

“But of course!” he took it in stride, immediately sliding to the horned dragon’s side and clapping him on the shoulder lightly, which made the young man straighten. The obvious strength of his muscles and the wideness of his shoulders stood out even more like that, and it looked almost comical next to the stuttering Lord. He looked mildly afraid, but soldiered on, like a cursed auctioneer.

“Only the best for the general’s daughter, I see,” the flattery slipped out of his mouth with practiced ease before he once again gestured to the two young men, “these are two of the members of the Bangtan thunder.” Now it was my turn to freeze as those words poured over me.

Everything screeched to a halt and my eyes involuntarily jumped to the dragons who looked significantly more smug, sending cheeky teasing grins my way at having the rug pulled from under me like that. I could only imagine what kind of shock displayed on my face, but they seemed to be thoroughly enjoying it.

After the emperor’s personal thunder of dragons, which wasn’t a true thunder due to the fact that he was the one who collected them instead of them bonding naturally, Bangtan was the second most known. They’ve been mated for as long as anyone currently alive (and many generations before that) could remember and hosted seven of some of the most powerful dragons known to be currently existing. And while they’ve had riders before, everyone was aware that the sovereign himself didn’t like to see when people bonded them due to their strength and unbreakable pack loyalty.

Thus some of the dragons from the thunder were known as their own entities, based on their powers and achievements, turning into a sort of living legends that walked among humans but could rarely be seen or touched. Really, I should have known the second one of them mentioned Yoongi, but I didn’t even realise that was the name uttered.

Everybody who was interested in dragons knew of these seven, even if the chances of seeing them were low.

“This one here is Jungkook,” Lord Kim continued completely unperturbed, clapping the bigger dragon on his back again, although much more hesitantly, and then he pointed at the ethereally beautiful man, “and that one is Jimin.”

The blush was back under the intense scrutiny of the silver-scaled man, and all I could think of while I put the face to the name was that it made perfect sense. Of course he was someone this unreal, with all the stories about his charms and seductions that were being told by people who encountered the thunder.

He seemed to be satisfied with flustering me, a small smile setting onto his lips in victory.

Now that I thought about it, it was true that people naturally avoided these two, and there was a circle of empty space around the armchairs as even now people hesitated to move closer and join in the conversation. Everyone seemed to be aware of their identity.

I mentally face-palmed myself. I was supposed to be a knight, perception was supposed to be one of my strong suits.

“Come on boys,” Lord Kim drawled out again, “Greet the young Kang.” Silence followed, stretching between us awkwardly while the elderly man became more wooden with each second passing, red setting into his face in embarrassment and indignation at being ignored so blatantly. Then, both of them nodded slightly.

I bowed to them fully, bending at the waist in a (hopefully) perfect 90 degrees angle, hands clasped in front of my chest in a gesture of respect.

“It is an honour to meet you, sir Jimin and sir Jungkook,” it’s obvious my politeness shocked them, as the moment I come back up their eyes are wide and staring at me. Lord Kim started grumbling something about ungrateful dragons, feeling ashamed at such a lukewarm welcome from the boys, and the moment he wasn’t looking, I flashed them a teasing smirk.

Thankfully Lord Kim got interrupted once again in the middle of his tearful tirade and with many apologies he rushed off, the relief visible as his shoulders sagged the moment he wasn’t anywhere near the Bangtan dragons.

The three of us watched him for a moment before our eyes redirected back to each other, a strange but not unpleasant atmosphere hanging over us. Before I could start feeling the silence turn awkward, Jimin’s eyes narrowed at me, but there was still a slight upwards curl to his lips.

“Now, that wasn’t very nice,” he drawled out in his melodic hypnotic voice, eyes dark and stormy. I flushed from head to toe, thoughts stuttering, still not used to being perceived by someone like him, and it still served to amuse him greatly as he leaned back into the armchair.

Jungkook over at his chair watched me with a mischievous expression, his big dark eyes making him seem so innocent if it wasn’t for the cheeky curl to his lips. I realised there were several piercings all over his face and ears, strangely fitting his persona quite well, and as he squirmed in his seat, I could see tattoos peeking out of his robe’s sleeves. His tongue peeked out a little as he smirked at me, preparing to speak as well.

“You were laughing at me,” I beat him to it, batting my eyelashes in faux sweetness, “Of course I had to repay you for that.” The two dragons scoffed, making themselves more comfortable and I could see the exact moment the apprehension bled out of them, and I wasn’t deemed a threat anymore.

“Well, welcome to the unit newling,” Jungkook said, and it hit me that even though he looked very young for a dragon, he was still most likely hundreds of years old, and I choked a little on the smart retort. The man must have realised that’s what happened, because he was smirking up a storm like a little shit.

To my surprise, I also found myself relaxing in their presence, the ease with which we interacted never really came to me this readily. I was mostly stiff and nervous and dancing around topics and words in fear of offending or giving people excuses to spread rumours and mock my father. Not that I particularly cared about his image, but because I knew I would be the one to reap the consequences if something uncouth started making its way through the high society. I didn’t feel such pressure with these two, who watched me with curious but frank eyes.

“That is most definitely a nicer welcome than Lord Kim,” I muttered absent-mindedly, half-way lost in thought, wracking my brain for the last time I talked with someone with this much elation. Jimin giggled at that, drawing my attention back to him with a little bit of a leftover fluster from before.

“Don’t worry, everyone in this room shares that opinion,” he said leisurely, laid back in his chair elegantly, “He tends to annoy everyone he speaks to. Especially our kin.” Jungkook nodded at that, something dark and solemn creeping into his eyes.

“He doesn’t know the meaning of manners,” the horned dragon supplied darkly, face hard and unfriendly as he caught sight of the older human man again. I nodded in sympathy, knowing very well how the man could get.

“Lord Kim is one of those people who never leave you alone once they realise they can benefit from you,” I added to the conversation, moving a little closer to the armchairs so that I could lower my voice and make sure none of the nosey onlookers caught onto our conversation. The man might be generally disliked, but I still wouldn’t be taking any chances while gossiping like this.

“He’s been trying to get into my father’s favour for years, but he absolutely despises him,” I shared with them, the open secret not really something that had to be kept hush even though no one normally said it out loud, “Father thinks he’s a right dunce.”

The boys grinned. “Well, he’s right about that. I’ve known the man for decades and he hasn’t changed a single bit,” Jimin added his two cents, once again reminding me that I was speaking to nigh immortal beings that have been around for far longer than I was able to comprehend, “He’s a snake. A rat.” I hummed and nodded again, the conversation dying down after that.

I looked through the room from my new vantage point, finally far enough to observe as no one really wanted to approach the corner with the two Bangtan dragons.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t just about them being powerful and dangerous, but the emperor’s habit to control who rode them in fear of losing his power over them generally scared people away from interacting. Therefore, the only ones that were bonded to them were either recruited by the ruler himself or found themselves under his intense scrutiny. Because of that, riders tended to stray away from the Bangtan thunder, too afraid to bring unto themselves the sovereign’s ire.

My eyes were caught on a flash of black and silver, messy bun now somehow even more messed up as Hwa-young cheerfully conversed with another woman. The power was radiating off of her powerful stance and proud straight shoulders, dark charcoal hair falling freely over them and sometimes giving off dark green flashes when the light reflected off of them just right. Their stance was relaxed, and it seemed that their chat was going well and amicably.

“Your friend is conversing with Yong,” Jimin intercepted my shameless staring, and I realised both of the dragons were watching me raptly, “She is a righteous dragoness. A good one, strong and brave, even though a little hard-headed.” Jungkook snickered at that, hiding his smile behind his hand as the dragoness threw the subtlest little amused look their way, and I realised she must have heard them all across the room with her enhanced senses.

“The old ones always are,” the tattooed man added with a teasing lilt to his voice and both dragons watched giggling as the one called Yong discreetly flipped them off while pretending to dust off her shoulder. Hwa-young at this point seemed to catch on, I saw her confused face as she turned around and immediately brightened up the moment she noticed me, waving her hand enthusiastically. I returned it, just as amused as my companions.

“Are you not interested in ‘the hunt’?” Jimin asked me suddenly, something bitter creeping into his expression as he signalled air quotes around the word. I gazed at him for a few quiet moments, taking in the abrupt tenseness in his posture.

“I was trying to observe and find someone easy to approach,” I answered truthfully, “but then Lord Kim found me. I never got around to walking up to someone.” All three of us focused back onto the place swarming with people, the boys now amusing themselves by pointing out dragons that weren’t talking to anyone and had “good potential”.

“Are you trying to get rid of me right now?” I asked laughing, jumping into Jungkook’s long monologue about a young fire dragon standing alone in a corner few metres away from us. He halted in the middle of a word, giving me a cheeky glance and I already started recognising the mischievous glint in his smile.

“Well, I wouldn’t want to keep you from finding your dragon,” he drawled out in a playful manner, looking like he was two seconds away from batting his eyelashes at me, “and since you didn’t officially declare your intent to try a bond with us, I assume you must be wanting to be on your way to meet another one.” That took all the wind from my sails, the witty retort dying on my tongue as the dragons both looked at me with mischievous eyes.

“I honestly didn’t know that was an option,” came out a little scratchy and quiet, immediately making my cheeks burst into flames as the two dragons regarded me with teasing eyes.

“Well, there’s only one way to find out,” Jungkook proclaimed cheerily and stood up abruptly. Suddenly he was towering good two heads over me, his wide sturdy shoulders almost casting a shadow over my form. I gulped, seeing him now in his full glory, it suddenly made sense as to why people thought him to be intimidating. Even though he seemed to be a little goof.

Jungkook then did something that shocked not only me and Jimin, but also everyone standing around keeping an eye on the interaction – he offered me his hand, free of gloves that dragons always wore. Stunned speechless I eyed the outstretched appendage for a few tense moments, out of the corner of my eye noting Jimin’s mouth hanging open, face wearing an expression of such open surprise it was almost comical. There were some gasps and whisperings from behind us, Jungkook’s gaze ever so often jumping over my shoulder and levelling someone with a glare.

The reason for such reaction was a quite simple one – this plain action was the whole purpose of this banquet. Well, at least partly.

I for once wasn’t expecting to get a handshake this easily, usually dragons guarded themselves and needed a lot more persuading before they even considered taking such a step with the potential riders, but here we were – Jungkook’s hand awkwardly hanging in the air between us as he grew exponentially more nervous with every second I didn’t take it.

The easiest way to describe the link between a dragon and its rider would be to call it a magical bond, one very similar to that of mated pairs and thunders. Bonds like these linked the two beings together closer than most humans could imagine. It was very important to cultivate the bond and grow it strong, to intertwine the two hearts and support the care and trust that needed to exist between the two, otherwise even strong bonds could easily deteriorate or the connection wouldn’t reach its full potential.

It also allowed the human part of the bond to benefit from the dragon’s magic (while vast majority of humans weren’t magic, we were pretty compatible with it if borrowed) – it enhanced the rider’s senses and strength, established a mind link and enabled telepathic communication, which was sorely needed while on dragonback (believe it or not, it was hard to talk to someone while flying at high velocity sitting on their back).

And a bond like this, like any other, required a certain compatibility. Dragons, as the higher level magical beings of the two, were mostly the ones who felt the potential someone carried to successfully establish a bond, but the easiest way to find out was physical contact. Once you touched, the potential would most definitely be felt (according to what I heard, it felt a little like an electric hum passing through the place of contact) – or not, based on the situation.

That’s why they usually wore their hands covered, to avoid accidental connections and half-way there bonds.

A dragon could have several potential bondeds, it wasn’t exclusive until one was chosen to take the next step, but once this compatibility was discovered, it was crucial to try and learn the person to aid in the process of decision making. It was slightly similar to the process of courting.

Due to these reasons, it was quite rare for a dragon to offer someone the opportunity to touch them – and find out whether they were potentially compatible.

This banquet, even though it was called the mating banquet (as the boys pointed out it should be more of a bonding banquet as mating happened exclusively between couples and thunders), this banquet was more of a getting to meet your options kind of deal. Rarely someone offered you their hand after only a few exchanged sentences.

Thus, the stunned silence stretched between the three of us and an expectant kind of hunger reflected in eyes of those around us. Had I been more in the headspace to take notice of my surroundings, I’d have realised the hum of conversation somewhat lulled as people noted the situation and kept one eye on us while they pretended to keep the chatter up.

Jimin sat frozen in his chair, his face mortified, as if Jungkook committed some cardinal faux-pas (which he probably did to be honest, dragon etiquette was a little bit different than the human one), and I would almost take offence to it if I wasn’t completely stupefied myself.

The cheeky dragon in question though seemed completely unperturbed, even as nervousness started tugging at his handsome smile, but he valiantly tried to withstand it, keeping the hand hanging and his face a picture of mischief.

And I found that I quite liked the total disregard of rules he presented.

Finally gathering my bearings, I felt my own face stretch into a sassy grin and without a moment more of hesitation I grabbed his hand and squeezed it firmly in a sure handshake. And the rumours were in fact true, though the extent was sorely understated – our energies merging in a single burst of raw potential felt like a shock of electricity running from the tips of my fingers all the way up to my shoulder, the aftershocks buzzing through me like I got hit by lightning.

I gasped, a little too loud, and instinctively went to rip my hand away from the grip, but Jungkook didn’t let me. His eyes were trained on me, subtly glowing with a dark purple haze, grin turning a little sharper. But it didn’t put me on edge, quite the opposite – it felt like I won something.

Then our hands let go and the spell was broken, the remnants of a shimmering haze setting into my mind and bones. I could still feel the phantom tingles in my fingers, and they flexed almost subconsciously, trying to chase away the foreign sensation.

“Wow,” came a quiet breathless exclamation from Jimin, the smaller man still sitting in his place but now looking at our hands with wonder and disbelief, “that was strong.” The flush immediately flooded my cheeks once more (truly, it was starting to be embarrassing, I’d never been like this around anyone, though it could have something to do with the fact that I generally liked dragons a little more than I did humans) and I took a tiny step back, fighting my lungs to expand and take in more breath, my whole body feeling like I had to manually haul it back into working order.

Though one look at my now potential bonded showed me that he was similarly blushing, cheeks a healthy pink colour, lips pursed in a shy smile and eyes watching me full of emotion that was entirely too fragile and tender.

Before I could blurt out something that could potentially either embarrass or straight hurt the man, Jimin immediately jumped in, probably sensing his mate’s emotional state.

“Sorry about that,” he told me, gently looking over his lover, “Bonds of this strength can sometimes put us into a strange mindset. He’ll be back to himself in a few moments.” The silvery dragon’s mouth opened and closed a few times, the man deliberating whether he should speak more or not, but ultimately he only gave me a tight smile and started manhandling Jungkook back into the chair.

I felt that there was something crucial that wasn’t shared to me, but if Jimin thought it too personal to say, I didn’t want to push him. I myself still felt the little bursts of our energies merging, the aura around my hand suddenly feeling cold and empty, as if it was missing a significant piece.

Leave it to me to be the one person that even has a clingy aura. I glared at the offending appendage as if scolding it, quickly folding both my arms behind my back and trying to make is as natural as possible. Even my hair felt singed with the potential bond manifesting, and I swore I could smell something burnt, only hoping it either wasn’t something visible or my mind was just playing tricks on me.

“I’ve never felt anything like that before,” a hushed whisper made it to me and I was torn away from my own musings, attention now back to the two men who seemed to be locked in a very private exchange, both leaned towards each other and whispering so that nothing but a hum could be heard.

Realising the words weren’t meant for me, I cleared my throat and took another step back, the singed hand quickly thrown in the direction of the buffet table in a last hail mary attempt to find an appropriate escape. “I am going to…” I started, voice still a little breathless, “I want something to drink, would you also like something?”

I could see on Jimin’s face before he even opened his mouth to speak that he was going to decline, but Jungkook quickly jumped in, his volume rising a little more than he was anticipating.

“I’ll have water!” the horned dragon seemed a little embarrassed by the outburst too, but when Jimin stared at him incredulously he seemed quite unapologetic. I nodded slowly, taking another step, then nodded again like the words just registered in my mind.

“Sure.” With that I woodenly walked over to the main table that dominated the Grand Hall.

I felt the looks, some curious, some envious and some outright raging, but I ignored them all. This, for now, still meant nothing. Even though the power of it shocked us both (all three if counted Jimin), it meant nothing. I was still one of many that could vie for the young dragon’s attention.

The thought left a bad aftertaste in my mouth, a strange uncomfortable feeling setting in my stomach at the prospect of someone else trying to be Jungkook’s bonded, and I quickly pushed those feelings away, grumbling to myself.

I thought I knew what to expect, but no one told me a bond felt like this. No one warned me it would mess with my head and with my mind, send my heart racing when I faced the image of losing the chance to bring this to a successful end. I only knew the man for barely an hour, for fuck’s sake! He didn’t even express an intention to pursue this!

I slowly begun to understand why it was generally more accepted to wait to know the person a little bit more, if this was how the link manifested.

Giving myself a metaphorical slap I swiftly wrangled the reigns safely back into my logical side’s hands and fully focused on finding a cup and water.

I more felt than saw a presence at my right, someone sidling up to me closer than necessary with how much space this table took up. Still a little emotionally charged, when I turned to confront this person, I was already irritated.

What greeted me was a sleazy smile on a middle-aged face, a greying stubble and a mop of dark slowly silvering hair. The man was human, that much was obvious, and there was a woman with a judgemental look on her face hanging off of his arm, most probably his wife. I gave them both a once-over, trying to take in as many details as possible to clue me in to the man’s identity, but he would no doubt introduce himself.

My eyes promptly caught on an insignia with a burning rising sun, meaning he was one of the councilmen – he must have been very well acquainted with my family, though his name continued to escape me. I sighed, shoulders slumping and then I forced on a polite smile.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” despite the words, my voice didn’t speak of pleasure nor joy, instead the annoyance bled in quite heavily, almost to a point of being rude. The duo didn’t seem phased, the man’s smile maybe even brightening at my words and the woman’s face still in the same grimace as before.

“I don’t think we’ve been formally introduced yet,” he started immediately, ignoring my words and tone completely, “Please, call me Lord Lee.” He offered me his hand and I had a very brief but a very intense flashback to Jungkook’s, before I shook it off and very reluctantly took it.

“Are you perhaps the Duke of Western territories?” I enquired, forcing my attention back to the table to show him I wasn’t interested in him and his words, trying to sound as bored as possible.

A chuckle came from him, the woman still completely silent, before he shuffled even closer.

“The one and only,” there was a showman lilt to his intonation, and I felt a wave of distaste towards this man so strong I almost visibly shuddered. He thought he was so charismatic, the poor sod. I only hummed, hands now moving onto one of the few untouched platters of small desserts and quickly plating some.

A moment of silence, then more shuffling – this time thankfully not closer to me as that would entail him brushing my side, though I wasn’t entirely sure he wouldn’t do that even in the middle of a room full of armed knights.

“I just felt that congratulations were in order,” he said finally, a lot more bite to his words now that I’ve managed to offend him, “We all saw you with that dragon.” My hands paused minutely before resuming their actions. The disrespectful address to Jungkook didn’t escape me neither.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Lord Lee,” I answered sweetly, “It was just an introduction. It can still go in a very different direction. Nothing is set in stone. Yet.”

It seemed that the man didn’t come over to suck my father’s dick as my sass was very much not appreciated by him and I could see his face turn into an unfriendly scowl.

“Well, of course that the Kang family cannot disappoint by not aiming straight at Bangtan,” the hostility in his stance suddenly doubled as he spit this out, forcing me to take a step back from the unfiltered fury, “Only the best for the general’s daughter.” He was mocking me, but the anger made it hard to decipher it as anything else than pure envy.

I tried to keep my face neutral, even as my own anger and resentment resurfaced. Father made many enemies, and thanks to his attitude we as his children often caught the brunt of resentful disgruntled councilmen and their offspring trying to cope with their bruised egos by punishing us instead of the untouchable man.

And we were expected to just go with it, lest our behaviour reflects badly on him.

I stared at the duke for a moment longer, trying to look as unimpressed as humanly possible, until the fire died down within him a little and he started shuffling on his spot. “Lord Lee,” I started, channelling the disappointed teacher energy that my father often had whenever we displeased him, “as I said, and you should know this, anyone can come up to them and strike up a connection. I might not be the only person this year compatible to them.”

The man pursed his lips and didn’t speak any further, though the unspoken rebuttal hung in the air between us. And I knew that the words stuck in his throat were true, but he couldn’t say them for they were too daring.

Anyone couldn’t, I did because the emperor approved of my father. I would be allowed near Bangtan thanks to my father’s position.

I raised my eyebrow at the suddenly silent man, challenging him to speak his mind, but he knew if he said those words, it would be speaking out against the crown just as much as against my father. And that could cost him his life.

“Let’s hope the most suitable person wins this race, then,” he settled on finally, and without even looking for my reaction he turned on his heel and walked away, dragging the still quiet woman with him. I scoffed loudly, not bothering to hide it as everyone saw our interaction anyway, and finally was able to leave the table.

People moved out of my way cautiously as I walked through the room, trying to pretend that they weren’t paying attention to me and still making sure to clear the spot as soon as I neared them like I had some terrible contagious disease. It was quite ridiculous, and it left a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach.

My feet carried me across the room without any clear goal in my mind, not quite ready to return to the two dragons, especially since everyone saw the scene now. Them two no doubt also heard it with their strong hearing, and it would be too awkward to speak to them now.

The moment I spotted a slender figure talking to a green-haired dragon, I immediately swerved to go talk to them for a moment, hoping to escape the situation for a moment longer.

Somewhat clumsily crashing into their conversation, balancing two glasses and a plate of sweets, that most definitely got their attention, Hwa-young turning to grin at me while the dragoness kept her face a carefully sculpted mask of aloof interest.

“Cake?” I blurted out abruptly, raising the plate between us like an offering, instantly feeling the heat in my cheeks in embarrassment.

“Oh my god, please,” my schoolmate groaned in joy, hand already reaching for one of the small chocolate treats. The dragoness, Yong as I learnt, was watching us, face impassive, but I could see a glint of something soft in her eyes when her gaze fell onto the cheerful petite woman currently stuffing her face next to us.

Even though I met Hwa-young maybe an hour ago, I was glad Yong seemed to be interested in the young woman’s well-being.

But then her eyes suddenly jumped back to me, boring deep into my soul.

“Bangtan are honourable dragons,” she said finally, her voice a little lower than I anticipated, but smooth as velvet, “They strive for good, maybe more than most.” Her words brought a little smile to my face, reminiscent of the earlier conversation that went basically along the same lines.

My eyes flitted over to the corner where the two men sat hoping to catch their reaction to her words, only to find it empty and the dragons nowhere to be found. I frowned instinctively, hands tightening over the glass of water that Jungkook asked for with heart squeezing, but quickly tampered those thoughts down.

The connection must have been really messing with my head.

I ended up trailing after Hwa-young and her dragoness after that, like a lost puppy, until the greying man stood up once more and announced it was time to move outside. With a deep heaving sigh I abandoned the glass and plates and steeled myself for the true pinnacle of the afternoon.

Hwa-young, once she noticed my uneasiness, gave me an empathetic smile, hand patting me a few times on my shoulder, before she confidently walked up to the glass door and out to the patio, followed by Yong with her curious eyes trained on the knightess.

While the first part of the banquet was mostly for introductions and fraternising, the second part moved outside – that’s why the perfect weather was needed for the day of the event and the court seers and astronomers worked hard to pick an auspicious date to ensure that.

Now the attention from the dragons, a novelty to some and a delicious masquerade to others, the spotlight would shift purely on the novices as we were to partake in several “friendly” competitions to show off our skills.

It was all also a part of the bond creating process, as the show was mostly for the dragons to see their prospective riders and help them choose who’d they like to approach – basically a talent show under the guise of some silly little sportsmanship.

It was also the part I was, surprisingly, even more nervous about than the talking.

When I got outside, most people were already sitting around on the prepared benches, leisurely chatting with the poise only the bored and the filthy rich could have. Five people were already standing in the designated area, fiddling with bows and quivers full of arrows. Quickly, I made my way towards Hwa-young, grabbing my own weapons on the way.

So there was six of us this year. I tried to steal glances at the others to see if maybe I recognised someone, but all of their faces were escaping me. I might have seen them somewhere, but I couldn’t put any names to them, nor their factions or alliances or families.

One man stood all the way in the other corner by himself, air of pompousness and arrogance so thick around him I could sense it all across the field. It bled into every single one of his movements, into the expression on his pale elegant face, even into the way he flicked his long straight black hair out of his face.

Two others stood a little away from him, closer to each other but not interacting in any way. Their faces were carefully sculpted cold expressionless masks as they held the bows in their hands ready for the contest, not talking, not looking out into crowd, nothing.

The last man stood the closest to us, all by himself but with his shoulders relaxed and a positive aura surrounding him. His hands were casually drumming a rhythm into the wood of the bow, foot tapping happily into the dense dirt compacted by thousands upon thousands of armoured shoes walking over it every day. When he noticed me looking his way, he suddenly brightened and gave me a happy smile.

That was enough to shock me into turning back to my own bow and I ignored the cheery man, not that he seemed very offended by that. Instead he immediately changed targets to Hwa-young standing next to me and the two fell into a hushed conversation after a few smiles exchanged.

The bow in my hand was worn, it wouldn’t be impossible to use it, but it was obvious they were some old weapons taken from some forgotten unloved storage. The royal palace insisted that we would use the military’s tools to ensure fairness, but I truly wasn’t expecting them to pull out bows that were probably older than half the men standing around the edges of the training area. And there were dragons present.

Speaking of which, on my next cursory look over the gathered crowd I was able to spot the two Bangtan boys (men?) standing on one side a little bit away from everyone else, eyes already trained on me.

In a split second I noticed and realised three things – Jimin’s hair was actually a really deep dark blue, he was looking at me with a much unfriendlier look than before and Jungkook sent me a shit-eating grin before waving cheekily. I scoffed, kind of amused by his attitude, but also significantly weirded out by the change in vibe in his companion.

While yes, it was very unusual to be dishing out handshakes left right front and centre, but I just kind of assumed Jungkook was one of those who didn’t really care about propriety all too much. He had a vibe of a man that loved to see the world burn, and I had to deeply respect that. His whole aura screamed of youth and mischief, so I chalked up his unusual behaviour up to that. But it seemed that Jimin wasn’t exactly impressed with him, as he eyed me with mistrust like I brainwashed his mate into bonding with me.

Loud clinking brought my attention away from those two and my eyes slowly drifted back to the greying man and who I presumed was his dragoness. That was another mystery to me – it was obvious he was in some sort of position of power, but I’ve never met him nor seen him before – I knew he wasn’t in charge of the unit, and he wasn’t even between the teachers that we met during the trials – and I went through them a few times, as we previously established.

He stood up, the same detached expression on his face, and cleared his throat. “Let the games begin,” he proclaimed simply, “We will start with a shooting competition.” Then he shuffled a little under all that attention before sitting back down. I hid my smile behind my palm while watching his bonded laugh at him. You had to love the way he didn’t want to be here as much as everyone else.

The mirth quickly drained out of me though when I realised with our positioning I would end up going first. I cursed under my breath, my hands growing clammy and shaking, desperately gripping the bow and attempting to look as collected as possible. If we at least started with sword fighting, but we had to jump straight into shooting.

This was exactly what I was afraid of, the mounting shame of what was about to come already drowning me and pulling me under the sea of emotions, leaving me helplessly gasping for air. My lungs painfully constricted, but I got into position nonetheless.

There was a reason for why I struggled to enter this unit in particular, even when I was hell-bent on joining the horns. Growing up with a general for a father, I had been trained from small age – I knew how to properly hold a sword before I learned to use the toilet on my own, but my father was a master of heavy weaponry. He was known for his massive bagua-dao swords, occasionally reaching for scimitars or sabres – not too much for his marksmanship. He was still an incredibly efficient archer, but he preferred not to be stuck with a bow and arrows where there could be blood spilt.

Therefore I somewhat gravitated towards those weapons as well – and well, I wasn’t as sufficient with long-range attacks. I’d always achieve a ‘just close enough’, but I rarely hit the mark precisely. But on dragonback, you had no choice but to aid your troops with ranged attacks.

As one of the trainers back during my first trial put it – ‘A dragon rider that can’t shoot a bow and arrow is like a whore without a pussy’. Truly, what a charming man.

I’d improved a lot, enough to manage to weasel my way into the elite unit, but still my shooting wasn’t perfect. And when you wore a name like Kang, that was a social suicide.

My ears all out of nowhere picked up how the crowd quieted, through the roaring blood and the anxious thoughts, and I realised they all hungrily anticipated my performance. Taking a few stabilising breaths, I tried to reinforce my hands and stop their shaking.

Through the bundle of nerves lodged into my throat and the stones slowly setting into my stomach, I fought to empty myself – my heart, my head – to bring about that one-track focus to the centre of the target that stood off to the distance.

Time slowed down, my heart pumped wildly and my head spun and I let go. The arrow elegantly swished through the air, faster than many were able to see, and embedded itself deep into the straw target, just shy of the red circle dominating it.

Even anticipating those results, my heart still sank knowing that everyone saw. Murmurs rose and the pit of humiliation threatened to swallow me. I hated how I was already berating myself for not doing better, how I was already fearing what would my father say once I got home, how I was too scared to turn around and face their mocking eyes and sneers.

I hated the castle, and I knew that I was on the precipice of getting devoured whole by it.

With shaky sweaty hands I stood there and watched all the other novices hit perfect mark, the waves of polite ovations reaching my ears through the cotton of my inner turmoil.

The second round came, all the eyes turned to me again, and I knew the moment I released the bowstring that the nerves won over me, barrelled through my psyche and I was lost to the chant of insecurities going through my head.

The arrow hit a little to the left of the first one, a tiny bit further from the centre than before.

The weight on my shoulders was pulling them down and I was tenser, more uncomfortable, but I kept my composure. It was crucial that I showed no weakness now, that would be inviting even more trouble. I felt bile rising through my pharynx but swallowed it down and instead forced myself to stand tall with head held high.

I didn’t gather the courage to turn around until the last arrow was released.

I let myself be ushered towards a different area prepared for us while the target practice was moved around and prepared for the final spectacle of the afternoon. In the meanwhile, we were to fight with swords. That was more of a stable ground for me.

Perfectly there was just the right amount of us to compete in twos and I was already hoping that I wouldn’t end up with the snotty kid from the end of the line lest I might try to kill him for sure. Trying to avoid any polite chatter between us and also pointedly not look towards the crowd, I started perusing the weapons offered, thinking of what the best strategy would be to take.

A shortsword was a classic, but nothing too impressive. A longsword a similar case. Though if I had to choose, I’d preferred the two-handed longsword, I had a tendency to get a little too swingy with one-handed weapons. There was a scimitar, which was a solid option even though more suited for horseback – but once again, I’d prefer two-handed weapons.

All the way at the end of the prepared rack (it didn’t escape my attention there was only one for all of us) sat a dadao and bagua-dao right next to each other, glinting in the sun like cruel smiles. As far as I was aware, no one here would actually reach for those – they weren’t standard weapons people were taught to operate.

They were there for me. For family legacy.

That was enough for me to make my choice.

While the others just made it over to the rack and started paying it more attention, I grabbed the plain longsword and moved towards the area fenced off for a duel. I sensed the confused, surprised and mocking gazes rolling off of my back, but I didn’t let their disappointment muddle my already arguably shitty day any more.

I wasn’t here to give them a show. I was here to bond with a dragon.

When everyone had chosen their weapons (I was right, no one went for the dao swords), we all stood there for a moment, too nervous to actually say anything. The arrogant prick was acting like we were all beneath him, but the rest of us eyed the others apprehensively, trying to gauge with who we’d like to end up in a duel.

The puppy boy was now hanging about Hwa-young, the two of them seemed to make fast friends, and honestly, I understood that. I was also drawn into her aura quite quickly, though my current stress prevented me from relaxing around anyone at the moment.

Taking notice of the weapons others chose, I started realising that something didn’t add up. There was only one of each, and it would be impossible to have a proper duel if one person has a longsword and the other a scimitar. It wasn’t that unusual for the battlefield, but in duelling it wasn’t done.

Looking around, there was another rack of weapons on the other side of the fenced area – where we wouldn’t be able to go at the moment due to the fences. It all started clicking in my mind just as Lord Kim of all people stepped up on a little platform and gestured to get the attention of the slowly quieting crowd.

“As was tradition for the second discipline,” he started pompously, chest puffed up and face painted with a sleazy smile, “the novices would duel each other. This year we chose to make a little change for the entertainment of those watching.” I could see a few of us looking confused or slightly uncomfortable, and my own heart tightened for a moment.

Lord Kim gestured somewhere behind him and six people walked up to the rack of weapons on the other side. Three men and three women, all looking coldly towards the baron, standing side by side and anxiously awaiting the order to grab their weapons. It wasn’t that hard to deduce they were all dragons.

Silence fell over us while the crowd clapped happily, the vile joy reflected in their gazes, while we exchanged worried glances. Hwa-young’s face was drawn into a tight serious expression, a stark difference to how she was just a few minutes ago, while the guy by her side shuffled from foot to foot wordlessly.

The only one that didn’t seem to be bothered by the revelation was the smug bastard who stood a little away from us, serenely holding a sabre in his hand and looking straight at a man with flaming red spiky hair, who steadily ignored his attention.

How curious.

I watched as Kim gave the order with a flick of his wrist and the selected six moved with a purpose straight to their chosen weapons. The redhead without hesitation reached for the sabre, eyes glued to the ground and trying to blend in as much as possible, not stand out at all.

I felt a simmer of rage bubble up inside my chest and turned to stare daggers at the newbie only to see that he was already looking at me with a stupid smirk on his face.

So he already knew. He must have been close to someone high up in the unit then – that would make things difficult.

Swearing to myself to find out who was his patron, I made my distaste known on my face all for him to see and then turned back to our chosen opponents, searching for the one with a longsword. Eyes jumping from one to other, I finally found the weapon in the hands of a tall dragoness, her curly ginger hair falling down her back all the way to her tailbone. She as well was already watching me, but her eyes were unreadable, her lips a thin straight line.

The baron’s chuckle had our tense eyes drawing back to him. He stood there, with an awful sharp grin on his face, arms thrown out in a grand gesture, gaze jumping around our faces.

“Well, let the second discipline begin,” Lord Kim announced, “Happy fighting!” He laughed loudly, gestures dramatic and over the top, and then leisurely made his way back to sit next to… Duke Lee. What was it… birds of a feather?

I scoffed at the two men sitting there and acting like old chaps, all chummy and cozy next to each other. Baron Kim was really getting better at dick sucking, look at him, making his way all the way to the duke. Talent had to be recognised.

“Young mistress Kang!” the exclamation of my name startled me into stumbling to turn around, suddenly aware that everyone was looking at me. The dragoness was standing in the middle of the fighting arena, sword hanging from her hands limply. There was a touch of annoyance displayed on her face, but it was obvious she was trying to tamper it down as to not get into trouble.

I flushed lightly but diligently moved into the arena without any more stalling. Of course I’d go first again, we were probably going to keep the order from the first discipline. My nerves were skyrocketing, and I held the sword in my clammy hands.

Fighting in a duel against a same-aged human wasn’t something that brought too much stress to me, it was actually the one discipline of the three I was very confident in and looked forward to. General Kang never went easy on anyone, including his small children even during the first years of our training and I knew I could probably take on half the people from the military and be fine.

Duelling against a centuries old dragon with so much more strength and sharper senses though, that was a completely different story. Defeating a dragon, even in a sword fight, was virtually impossible. It took a lot of training, mostly with specific dragons, and most people resorted to underhanded tactics to gain an upper hand.

So the desired effect of this duel was most likely to present well with tactics, endurance and skill, not to actually aim to win. It was hard entering a ring knowing you will lose the fight, hard to muster up the courage to the absolute most to win when you know it’s a done deal from before you even stepped in, but this, like many other things, was mostly about appearances.

With a sigh I took my position and gestured to my opponent that I was ready. She did the same immediately and in a second a whistle sounded through the air, letting us know the match had started.

Nobody made a move at first, both of us holding our stance and slowly circling the arena, gauging the other and calculating the best approach.

I admittedly wasn’t the type to jump in headfirst into offensive, it usually took me a while to attack. Sometimes it was to psych the other out, sometimes I just wanted to see what they would do first and adapt to their strategy accordingly. But she seemed to be doing the same thing, so for a few long moments silence enveloped the crowd as they watched us with bated breaths.

I held the sword in a front guard, tip pointing right at her neck, and I just had a split second to register the tightening of her hands on the grip before she was suddenly lunging forward with a straight strike, aiming for my abdomen.

The habit kicked in and I cockstepped to the side, sword immediately flying in a circle guard to parry her attack before I retreated again. There was determination in her face, and she didn’t seem to be terribly appalled by my stance, so I counted that as a win.

This went on for a long while, one of us suddenly lunging forward in an attack to surprise the other, then parry, counter-attack and then retreat, circling around the edges of the arena. I couldn’t hear anything from outside those fences, I had no idea if people were entertained or not, if they watched or not, if they even said anything at all. All my attention was poured into the form of my opponent, watching her every single move.

Longsword was about agility, being quick on your feet and keeping your contender appropriately far to be able to land a hit but not close enough for them to land it back, and I used my small stature and quickness to my advantage a lot when fighting, but even though I was able to stand my ground, I felt the disparity in our strengths.

She was taking it easy on me, I was aware of that. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to parry that easily against a blow with full dragon power behind it, and while she was able to keep her composure, I already felt my body faltering. There was sweat streaming down my face, I felt it soaking through the uniform and making my grip sloppy. My legs were starting to get tired, and I stumbled a few times while side-stepping away from her attacks.

Her movements stayed effortless and fluid, her sword steady and sharp. I started to slip up.

As our patience ran out, the number of attacks increased and finally we were giving the audience what it wanted – an offensive after an offensive, barely giving the other time to counter. She must have tested my strength, because suddenly her blows became much more heavy-handed – she aimed to end this match soon.

She almost overpowered me with a diagonal cut, and my ankle twisted as I turned. Pain burst through me, face turning into a grimace. Her face reflected sure victory, sword already aiming for abdominal horizontal cut.

Last minute I turned my sword into downward guard, turned around it and swung for her right side. There was a split second of surprise on her features, the edge just a hair away from her clothes when she managed to jump away, and I gambled.

Turning my legs into a stable stance I lunged forward, ignoring the throbbing in my ankle. The dull tip aimed straight at the side of her lower abdomen, sword flying through the air. The element of surprise did a lot for me, but she managed to evade.

I cursed, sweat slipping into my eyes and making it hard to see. I didn’t even have the moment to wipe it away. The dragoness disappeared from my field of vision, and I fought my own body to turn quickly, but it wasn’t enough.

When I turned, sword already in position to take upwards diagonal cut at her, there was a tip aimed at my neck. I felt it prick the skin when I stumbled with the momentum, eyes trained on her hands on the handle.

Everything froze for a few seconds, few long seconds during which I only heard my own heaving breath and the roaring hum of blood in my veins. The heat started catching up with me and I shivered under the sudden wave of hotness over my whole body.

Then a thunder of clapping broke through the trance, and I looked up to see her eyes. They weren’t as cold anymore, but I wouldn’t dare to guess what she was feeling. She gave me a curt nod and stepped away, swiftly lowering her sword. Almost involuntarily I let go of my own and my glove went with it, hands too wet to stick to them.

I was still trying to catch my breath, the heavy intakes jerking my whole body and all I wished to do was to tear this stupid uniform off and jump into a cold creek, but I was suddenly grabbed by Lord Kim who materialised on stage and dragged me closer to the expectant crowd.

On instinct I started bowing, dragoness in tow even though there wasn’t even an ounce of the usual winner’s joy in her being, and then we were both sent away.

I stumbled over to our side again, wondering if I could maybe be suffering from heatstroke, when two small but very strong hands pulled me into a hug. Hwa-young squealed right into my ear, but I was too sluggish to actually recoil from the sound.

Before I even fully clocked in the situation, she was already pulling away with a huge grin, hand now patting me on the shoulder.

“That was amazing!” she exclaimed, visibly vibrating in excitement, “It felt like nobody was breathing for the entire time you two fought, the tension was insane!” A single syllable laugh fell out of my tired mouth, a somewhat slanted smile pulling at my lips, before I gestured back inside.

“I need water,” was all that came out of me, very eloquently might I add, and then I steered my shaky knees in the right direction and walked off. With every step I retained a little bit of my previous strength, my body finally acclimatising and slowly pumping the brakes on the excitement and pain.

As I was stepping in, the strangely happy guy from before was just stepping into the ring with his shortsword firmly clutched in his hands and a face full of determination.

Thankfully, no one bothered me while I was inside replenishing my strength, and I re-emerged a few minutes later in a much better shape. The fact that there was one more discipline left already drained me in advance. If I could at least take one layer off, that would make it much better, but it would be improper.

I must have been inside for longer than I thought, because it seemed that two matches have happened in the meantime, with the third now already in motion. The only ones still waiting for theirs was Hwa-young and the peacock with a sabre, both standing next to each other but ostentatiously ignoring the other.

Sitting down in the shade, I watched on. During Hwa-young’s turn I appreciated her form a lot. She was a great fighter, and it was obvious she put her absolute best into the match. Her opponent seemed to be a measured laid-back fighter, and he balanced her energetic offensive very well. When she lost, it was after a good fight and she went down honourably. The dragon even accepted her offered handshake (gloves on, of course, to prevent any skin-to-skin contact and accidentally establish a potential bond) and then they both moved to their respective sides.

The last man stepped in, flaming red hair reflecting the sun and making him almost shine in the middle of the summer garden. Peacock walked up to him and immediately took his stance. Once the whistle was blowed, he flew into an attack within split second, and the match from then on was a wild mess of heavy offensive.

While the dragon seemed to be surprised, like the others he didn’t have much trouble standing his ground and matched the energy given well. As much as I disliked people who valued offensive over anything and expected to win fights just by endlessly swinging their swords around without rhyme or reason, the display of power between the two fighters was quite fascinating to watch.

Their forms were beautiful, and their sabres met with loud clinks, almost hard enough to see sparks flying about. It was a wild flurry of movement, of red and silver flashes and fast footwork that would be hard on even experienced knights.

And that was exactly what got him in the end. The peacock was extremely confident in the first few minutes of the match, but as it dragged on, the dragon refusing to concede and dealing back just as much power, the toll it was taking on the human to keep up started to be visible.

I watched his legs increasingly more stumble and react slower to the attacks and for a brief moment I wondered whether I looked the same when I started losing the fight.

But then he suddenly threw himself at the redhead, sword pushing his to the side and body slamming into him full force. There were a few gasps around in the audience as confusion set in. Aside the fact that this was a sword duel, he definitely couldn’t win against him in a fistfight. And once they got this close, the dragon could really knock him out with a single blow. It was pure insanity.

And I could see the redheaded man preparing to do just that, hand dropping his sabre and body twisting in preparation to take a full swing, when the bastard shot his hand out and grasped around the dragon’s neck.

I was on my feet faster than I could comprehend doing that, dread making my heart stop beating and my stomach to drop all the way down to the ground. His hand was bare, he must have shucked the glove off somewhere during the lunge.

The poor dragon froze under the touch, body going into panic. He tried to twist out of his grasp, and I saw the hand visibly squeeze the flesh tattooed with shackles.

“Kneel!” the human’s booming voice carried over the shocked crowd without a problem, loud enough to even scare off some birds off of the nearby trees.

The redhead locked into place, eyes glazing over and shame seeping out of the very pores of his skin. Then he slowly kneeled, mechanically like he was fighting against his body every step of the way. Once he was on the ground his head hung low, whether it be in humiliation or obedience, and it was a terrible heart-wrenching sight.

The boy let go and then victoriously turned to the audience, smug grin wide on his face, leaving the dragon sitting in the dirt. Then there was an abrupt wave of cheering and clapping, a thunderous sound that swept through the whole garden and Lord Kim was running towards the arena, screaming praises for the only one of us who managed to defeat their dragon.

Shock, disgust and dread kept me frozen in my place, heart squeezing painfully in my chest and lungs constricted. I felt like I was going to be sick, like all that was going to come out of me would be black poisonous sludge from the display we bore witness to.

I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the lone being shamefully kneeled there, unable to stand up until another command came. A wave of emotions swept through me – rage, compassion, pain – and tears almost sprung into my eyes, but I quickly blinked them away.

When my eyes swept through the crowd, there wasn’t enough horror in people for this to have taken place. Most were sitting around, pleased and happy and talking about the champion. The dragons looked uncomfortable, eyes avoidant and their postures tense. Hard and frozen.

I saw Hwa-young, her face serious and troubled, lips a thin line as she stared at the man who was happily conversing with a bunch of good-for-nothing lords.

It was hard to compute he did something like that. And even harder to compute that it was allowed, in a friendly duel, against a dragon that wasn’t even his bonded.

Even though people liked to pretend that dragons were here all on the accord of their own free will, pretend like they weren’t forced and enslaved, pretend like they wouldn’t get punished if they didn’t go along with their whims, the shackles still remained a stark reminder of their status.

And while the only person who could directly command them was the emperor, or the dragon’s bonded, anyone could really force the dragon into obedience by grabbing their neck. The shackle was a ‘mark of magic’ (among others) – it showcased the place where the dragon was touched with a curse.

And this curse forced them into obedience to humankind. They couldn’t fight against a human and wish him serious harm, they couldn’t go against the emperor or anyone in the position of power, and they couldn’t not obey direct commands coming to them. The magic in their blood enforced their behaviour and there was nothing they could do about it.

So if you wanted to command a dragon and have him be coerced into listening to you, all you had to do was grab their neck where their shackle was, thus activating the curse.

That redhead wouldn’t be able to stand up until he was similarly commanded to do so, because he couldn’t break the order to kneel. It was absolutely disgusting and barbaric.

The conversation really seemed to have moved on, no one paying attention to him. Peacock left with Lord Kim, along with some other novices. Hwa-young and puppy boy stood frozen by the fence for a moment before they guiltily avoided their eyes and moved towards the fray of festivities too. Not that I could blame them.

I didn’t know anything about his background, but Hwa-young certainly couldn’t make a scene about a dragon given the precarious situation she was in.

At least one thing my stupid fucking surname was good for. Sometimes I could get away with being untouchable (sans the consequences my father would give when I got home, but that was a private affair – what they don’t know… can’t hurt me).

Not being able to take it anymore, I steeled myself and made my way towards the arena displaying much more confidence than I actually felt. Presentation was key, I endlessly told myself, in a voice that suspiciously sounded like my father. Subtly checking my surroundings, it seemed that no one was really paying attention to me yet. Which was good, but it would change quickly.

When I got to him, his shoulders were slumped, head still down and refusing to look up. The dragon probably assumed I’d come to mock him, and it broke my heart a little. Once more looking around to make sure nobody cared what I was doing, I kneeled in front him too.

I heard his little gasp of surprise, but he didn’t move in the slightest.

People considered it to be humiliating to kneel in front of a slave, which is why he probably didn’t see often people drop down to his level instead of commanding him to look up. I cleared my throat somewhat awkwardly.

“Pardon the intrusion,” I mumbled softly, making sure he was the only one who heard me, “Don’t panic, I’m going to touch your neck in a moment, okay?” For a few silent moments I waited for him to nod, and he finally realised that as well when no touch came after my words.

After his confirmation I brough my hand to his shackle gently, trying to be as unintrusive as possible, but no matter how much I tried this would always be a violation of them. I felt the magic come alive under my fingertips, thrumming violently through my blood. It was an ugly kind of magic and it made me sick when it filled my being with its aura.

Swallowing the noise of protest at the sensation, I didn’t want to stress him more, I quickly said: “You can stand, and you’re free of commands.” I saw his shoulders relaxing, and he shivered lightly. I quickly tore my hand away from his skin and stood up again, knees protesting at the swift movement.

I offered him my hand, but he ignored it as he himself stood up. His knees must have been in even worse shape after sitting on the rough ground like that, but he carried himself gracefully, shame persistently seeping in at the edges. When our eyes met, he curtly nodded my way and then swiftly walked off, leaving the gathering behind him.

I couldn’t blame him.

A good half an hour went by before I heard Lord Kim’s voice exclaim: “Oh no! Where did our dragon disappear to?” By then I had already moved closer to the shooting range and watched servants bring out and prepare the six horses that would be involved in the next discipline.

There were some general gasps, people looking around with disappointment painting their faces, but no one spoke out against me. No one looked at me, or even cared that I still sat by the side, leading me to assume that my actions haven’t been noticed, thankfully.

As the commotion slowly quietened, I willed my heart to calm down, body sagging lightly against the stone bench.

While I was looking forward to the last discipline, horseback shooting at moving targets, the atmosphere hung heavy over us after the last match, and it was hard to have any enjoyment from anything taking place. Peacock of course was in great spirits and the two expressionless guys that haven’t said a single word as far as I was concerned didn’t seem to care at all, but we the remaining three all showed different signs of uneasiness, the good mood sapped out of us in the blink of an eye.

We stood in a hushed group, still processing everything, while the others were already claiming horses and preparing their bows.

“I was kind of expecting it and it still caught me off guard that he’d just… go there,” finally Hwa-young broke the silence, looking at me solemnly. I gave her a confused look, tilting my head slightly.

“What do you mean ‘expecting it’?” the question fell out my lips and it drew the attention of the boy.

“The blond one tried to reach for the neck, but got quickly overpowered,” he jumped in to explain, “I thought it was more like a tactic to scare her or psych her out, at the moment it didn’t look like he’d really go for it.” His gaze was pointing to one of those silent two, a tall blond with cold blue eyes.

“Oh!” he suddenly exclaimed, hand flying to me in an offered handshake, “I forgot to introduce myself! I’m Choi Siwoo, of the southeast clan.” I only hesitated for a split second before I took it, attempting a small smile even with my heart still heavy.

I was kind of already beginning to like Hwa, her story and attitude made me trust in her good side a little more, and this guy seemed to be just a ball of sunshine. She evidently got along with him and for the moment I’ve decided to tentatively trust her judgement.

God knows I’d need as many allies on my side as possible and I trusted that Hwa-young of all people wouldn’t have a problem with me based on my clan. Plus both of them most probably had the same opinion as me about the violating display peacock put on.

It was quite sad, but once you found people who actually believed dragons to be real beings with real rights, you’d better hand onto them and not let them go. I myself was painfully aware of how meagre the numbers of those were.

Siwoo’s face brightened with a toothy grin, hand briefly squeezing mine before he pulled back. There was a little bit of relief on his face and I wondered whether he was worried I’d reject his friendship offer. He and Hwa exchanged a short happy look, she nodded a little, and then turned to beam at me. A little snicker escaped my lips at their shenanigans, but I didn’t stick around to see their faces split with wide smiles.

Instead I finally started making my way towards one of the still available horses, choosing a white one with black and brown spots, absentmindedly picking up the bow and quiver with arrows. Once we were all on horseback and ready, Lord Kim once again climbed up to a little platform and with a few pompous words blew the whistle.

I was miles away in my mind, just going with the flow of the horse’s movement. I’ve always loved horses since little, and anytime I found myself on one I usually relaxed very quickly, which combined with my troubled heart and mind had me escaping away from this awful little banquet, my mind carrying me to the green pastures and meadows of our fief.

Thus I ended up missing my first shot, just breezing past the target without even pulling out my bow. A quick shout of my name later I was confusedly looking around only to see Hwa-young’s worried face. She gestured to her bow and I immediately realised I must have not even seen where I was supposed to be shooting.

The discipline went on, and after a few circle arounds I even managed to hit a bullseye, more or less on accident. The crowd gave me some polite applause, but I found myself as shocked as half the people sitting there on that garden.

By the time they finally called us back, I was already prepared to disappear home the next second I could. I was over all this, mentally and physically drained and I hated the audience watching our every move, my skin crawling with every curious or hateful glance.

Of course, we were meant to be socialising more, but I planned to slink off the moment people stopped paying attention to me. Having led the horse back to the stables, I was back in the crowd, slowly making my way inside to grab some more refreshments. I ignored the hum of murmurs around me, mocking my score or whispering about my father.

When someone threw a glare at me, I returned it with a polite smile, the tiredness pulling the attitude back onto the surface. Today had quite enough of diplomatic and courteous encounters, now I was done.

Making it over to the almost empty buffet table, a scowl was already pulling down at my lips, making me look even more unfriendly than usual. When somebody’s presence suddenly made itself known behind me, I was ready to snark at them until they left. They couldn’t even let me eat in peace.

For a few moments I continued to ignore the person, even though I knew they were messing around with something on the table, hoping they weren’t here for me after all, but all those hopes got shattered the moment they walked up straight to me and tapped my shoulder.

I started turning around, a smart retort already about to slip off of my tongue when I came face to face with a broad chest and shoulders, tattoos peeking from his tunic and pierced lips, and it promptly withered and died in my throat. He had tattoos there as well? How did I miss that?

Lightly flustered I quickly snapped my head up, searching for the dragon’s eyes. Jungkook was grinning at me from up above, gaze sparkling just like before. I stumbled a step or two back, putting some more space between us to make the height gap less blaringly obvious. He snickered at me, but stayed put, leisurely leaning with his hip on the table.

“Looked like you were booking it, so I wanted to catch you before you disappear,” the dragon explained with a knowing smile, “just to set some things straight.” A soft questioning noise left my mouth, a mixture of anxiety and confusion hitting me. Sudden fear that he’d come here to let me down gently gripped me and I desperately tried to temper it down, not even recognising myself and the strange behaviour I’d been exhibiting since I accepted his handshake.

Jungkook seemed blissfully oblivious though and kept cooly leaning on the table, completely relaxed in his stance and expression. My calculative gaze slid from his head to his toes, trying to gauge what he’d feel the need to tell me this urgently. Preparing myself for the worst, I invited him to speak with a gesture of my arm.

“I want to reserve your noon three days from now,” the dragon told me, body language still quite laid-back, lulling me into believing that maybe this wasn’t bad news after all, “A personal training, after that we’ll talk.”

Even though I tried to keep my expression in check, I couldn’t eliminate the chance that he heard my heart happily jump in my chest and skip a few beats. The expression on his face was earnest when I lost to myself and checked it just to be sure, but I also noticed a light dusting of a blush over his cheekbones while his fingers tried to detangle his bangs from the little horns coming out of his forehead. With a start I realised that his hair actually wasn’t black, but there was a deep purple metallic sheen to it that gave off little coloured flashes when it was hit by the light right.

He cleared his throat, somewhat awkwardly, and started shuffling. Immediately I realised I haven’t actually answered to him and instead just stood there staring at him. I couldn’t help the rush of colour to my cheeks and briefly I wondered whether his blush meant he was feeling similar effects of the established connection.

I’d have to research bonds a little, I’d never known it could influence you like this. Wistfully I thought back to the memory of my teacher, the desperate desire to know where he was or that he’d be still here with me manifesting again. He’d tell me everything, answer all of my questions without hesitation.

But before I could get too off track in my thoughts and leave Jungkook even more hanging, I cleared my throat as well. “Does- Does that mean you are interested in pursuing the connection?” I squeaked out, throat a little dry and my flustered state making it hard to speak seriously.

The dragon grinned at me, boyish and free with a hint of mischief, and it did make me thaw a little in face of such a display. It made him look young and on top of the world, and I couldn’t stop my eyes from briefly jumping to his shackled neck with a painful pang to my heart.

“Of course!” he exclaimed loudly, “You seem pretty cool.” I raised my eyebrow at him, but ultimately chose to not answer to that. Taking another step back I let food be food and returned an impish grin of my own.

“Sure then, see you in three days.” Jungkook seemed very satisfied by that answer and without further ado turned around to leave.

I watched him go with my heart quivering in both hope and nerves as I found myself so close to the edge of something great. Of something meaningful. I couldn’t mess it up now.

Of course my father would be beyond overjoyed that I’d managed to catch the attention of Bangtan, as it would catapult me straight to the top. It would cement me as something special from the very beginning, and that was all he ever wanted of us. The emperor would surely allow me to ride him, because I was a Kang and that was all that mattered. I’d finally make myself useful and aide my father in his power-hungry ways.

But that wasn’t what I wanted.

No. I wanted to change the world. Change would always have to start at the top.

And I would bring this empire down, once and for all.

With a true genuine smile I also turned on my heel, in a completely different direction, and swiftly left the banquet behind me. It was time to learn how to impress a dragon.

Jungkook was slowly getting fed up with Jimin’s disconcerted looks thrown his way, the older dragon making it well known for the several past hours just how upset he was with the youngest.

“Okay, god, I get it, can you stop staring at me like that?” he grumbled out, flinching at his mate’s disbelieving expression. The smaller man had basically smoke rising from his head with how angry he seemed to be, and that was a feat considering he was a water dragon.

“Excuse me?!” he exclaimed wildly, “So dare you explain to me what the hell was that?!” Something strange and tense settled between them the moment Jungkook offered the Kang girl his hand, and he knew this was long time coming, the blue-haired man very obviously just looking for an opportunity to have a private chat with him.

Jungkook shrugged, and in hindsight, that wasn’t the best reaction judging by the frustrated noise he got from Jimin in answer, but he himself didn’t really know. Honestly, he was just as confused as everyone else, but something just… compelled him?

“I- I don’t know,” he quickly remedied, not wanting to provoke the other dragon even more, “it just felt like the thing to do.” That earned him a frown. Jimin stopped in his tracks, turning to look at his youngest mate with something slightly alarming making itself home in his eyes.

“What do you mean?” he asked quietly, gaze imploring and looking for answers, “Jungkook, this wasn’t just ‘something to do’, you could have made a huge fool out of yourself. Not to mention that you don’t just go around offering handshakes to riders! You skipped several steps of a whole process that’s there for a reason!”

Jungkook shrunk under the barrage of Jimin’s upset words, the inkling need to start defending himself and get upset back wiggling into his bones, but on a rational level he knew his mate was more worried than anything.

“Bonds are fickle things, you don’t simply jump headfirst into it with a complete stranger!” the water dragon continued, determined to let it all out now that they were gone from public and had space to hash it out, “It could have made you sick, it could have felt awful, it could have connected you to a terrible person. It’s not as simple as introducing yourself, bonds are strong and deep and they can influence you. You don’t go around doing that with everyone, you wait until you meet a person that feels right to offer it to!” That was Jungkook’s opening.

“But didn’t you feel it too, hyung?” he whispered, knowing he succeeded in worming some doubt into his hyung’s mind, “It was there even before we touched. That’s what I meant when I said it just felt… right to do. I can’t explain it, I just knew it was meant to happen somehow. And you know how gullible I am to instincts!” He threw in a good pout as well, grabbing onto Jimin’s sleeve and selling the cuteness to the max.

Jimin gave him a chastising look, but it was obvious his resolve was breaking and he was fighting his own smile at the cute display.

“I saw how you reacted, hyung,” Jungkook whispered again, hand sliding down to lock their fingers together, “I know you felt something.”

Both dragons were very well aware that something about this bond was strange, but neither knew how to explain to the other the sensations and feelings that ran through them in that moment they touched. Jimin pursed his lips, not finding the right words and feeling in way over his head.

“Let’s get home, I want to talk to hyungs about it,” he simply murmured and started dragging the other with him through the silent dark streets of the capital city. This part was always dead quiet in the middle of the night, the proximity of the royal palace scaring all nightly activities away into more shady parts. The shadow of the empire just always hung over this district, turning its atmosphere into something rotten and heavy.

It wasn’t far to their town house, the building that they reluctantly used whenever they needed to stay over in the capital as opposed to flying two hours back to their den, and both quickly found themselves enveloped in a much warmer aura of their combined scents. Even this deep into the night there was a hum of activity heard, signalling that the whole thunder was still awake and most likely waiting for their return.

Tae was sitting with Hoseok outside in the tiny yard, but they immediately moved inside the moment they heard the two sets of footsteps. The rest of the mates were all already sitting by the dining table, small refreshments waiting for them while Yoongi peacefully read something, and Namjoon was intensely staring at a couple of glowing rocks.

Seokjin’s head suddenly popped into the room from the adjacent study, warm smile already in place.

“How was Jungkook’s first choosing?” he asked eagerly, quickly padding over to the table and sitting down along with a very interested Tae and a smiling Hoseok. And as shaken as Jungkook and Jimin were from the whole afternoon, they noticed a small strain in their thunder’s expressions as well, deepening the concerned feelings already swirling through their own chests.

“We have to talk,” jumped Jimin straight in without a preamble, choosing the least comforting words anyone could ever say. The other dragons in the room didn’t seem to be very surprised though, only indication of the statement being heard was Jin’s soft sigh and the soft thud of Yoongi closing his book and putting it away.

Five sets of eyes trained on them, waiting for the explanation, and Jungkook helplessly looked towards his hyung to start.

“Jungkook found a potential rider,” Jimin started, eyes never leaving Jungkook’s face, his own troubled when he finally turned to the others.

“Isn’t that sort of a happy occasion?” Namjoon tested out, but as they all noticed before, the hyungs already seemed to be aware of something happening during the afternoon.

“Well, he just stuck his hand out to her within ten minutes of meeting her,” Jimin suddenly snitched petulantly, leaving Jungkook standing there with his mouth hanging wide open at the betrayal.

“Hyung!” he whined out at the same time as Jin’s horrified “Jungkook!” floated through the room.

“It felt right!” he shouted frustrated, feeling like he’s been endlessly repeating himself forever now and everyone just ignored that and focused on the more blaring fact of him completely disregarding age-old rules and making his potential bond into a public spectacle.

But despite his expectations, Jimin didn’t protest, or even got into a needless fight with him about it. Instead, he looked towards the older dragons, unsure and nervous. All of them were suddenly shifting in their seats, drawn closer by Jimin’s obvious distress and ready to jump in and comfort him at the drop of the hat.

“That’s the thing,” the water dragon whispered, “it did. I felt it too.” Silence set over the room. The rug’s been suddenly pulled from under his feet as he thought back to the moment, to the lighting of pure energy zapping through his entire being, feeling as if his fingers were about to burst into flames. To the moment he finally tore his eyes from Y/N and saw his hyung’s horror and shock, immediately pulling him close to whisper if he was okay as Jungkook just stared and tried to comprehend what happened.

It explained a lot.

“What?” was what came out of his mouth though, “You felt the bond through me?” The man in question silently nodded, opening his mouth and considering whether he should speak more. In the end he sighed and resigned himself to this conversation fully.

“Yeah, I felt it through our bond,” Jimin explained closely, “It was strong enough that even I felt the power of it. It’s never happened to me before. I’d never felt any of your bondings, let alone the first contact.” The troubled expression on the faces of the other dragons doubled and the two finally noticed it.

“Do you know what that means?” the question was aimed towards Yoongi and Namjoon who had arguably the most knowledge on most things, and if they didn’t know it currently, they definitely had a book detailing it, but everyone at the table shifted uncomfortably. Jungkook started having the sense of what must have happened.

“You felt it too, didn’t you?” he whispered, the disbelief creeping into his tired voice. There was a beat of silence, a slight hesitation and then Yoongi nodded.

“Yes, but it wasn’t anywhere near as strong as what you said,” the black-haired man explained, voice soothing to attempt and calm the rising emotions, “it was more like an echo of what you two were experiencing.”

For a moment they all just let that information sink in, exchanging nervous glances. Hoseok released a long deep breath, drawing the attention to himself.

“So Jungkookie felt a pull towards someone, immediately went ahead and established a connection and everyone felt an amount of an echo of it through the bond,” he summarised, gesturing towards the two solemn bookworms sitting at the head of the table, “and I’m assuming you’ve also never heard of anything like that happening.”

Both of them shook their head at the same time, and their synchronisation would have been adorable if it wasn’t for the heavy atmosphere in the room.

“What do we do then?” Tae broke the silence tentatively, looking around everyone with his deep soothing eyes.

“Well,” Seokjin sighed again, slapping one hand on the table and startling poor Yoongi that was up to that point lost in thought sitting next to him, “We keep an eye on the bond. Jungkook, you just go about it as normally as possible. Jimin, you tag along with him and observe. Yoongi, Namjoon, please tell me you know where to dig up information about this?” Namjoon hummed thoughtfully, golden eyes glazing over in the same way they always did when he started mentally going through the never-ending catalogue of books they’ve managed amass in their hoard over the centuries.

“I’m certain we have a whole section of the library about bonds, it is a very researched subject, but I don’t remember ever encountering a mention of this,” he said finally, determination setting into his shoulders along with excitement to tackle something that was potentially unknown to them. Even though he’d prefer if this completely new phenomenon happened to someone else and not to his own packmate so he could study it in peace and not worry about them all the time.

Yoongi suddenly stood up, back cracking from being slouched over the table for god knows how long, and he started slowly making his way for his usual travel backpack.

“We have to go back to the den to go through all that though, are you all going to be okay here?” he said, face turning a little softer when he threw a look at his thunder. He was always worrying about them, and they all threw him fond looks back, bringing a slight reddish tint to the top of his ears.

“Of course, the universe won’t fall apart if you’re not here all the time, Yoongi,” Jin sassed him back, but making sure to throw him a little wink in teasing. The black-haired dragon smirked. “You don’t know that,” he rumbled back and then he was swiftly walking out onto the street, leaving Namjoon to scramble out behind him, shouting some apologetic goodbyes as he ran after his hyung.

As the situation settled a little bit and the remaining five sat around the table and played with the prepared food, there was still tension hanging over them. Jungkook especially was lost in thought, wondering about what this meant for him and his fate, and the fate of his mates.

He’d never had a bonded before, he was so far out of his zone here, and it made him nervous that his all-powerful, all-knowing hyungs seemed to be just as surprised by the situation.

His thoughts inevitably carried him to the image of his potential bond, to the expressive eyes screaming out even through the carefully crafted mask of indifference, to the memory of her fighting in the ring. To her kneeling for a dragon and whispering to him softly to make him more comfortable.

He knew Jimin didn’t catch that, too busy being lost in thought and upset about Jungkook’s blunder, and it felt wrong bringing something like that up, but it helped him feel that this person was right to bond with. Jungkook has always been close to his instincts, and currently they were telling him this was where they were supposed to be.

His thunder would disagree, they would scold him and call him too naïve, but against the better judgement of his hyungs, he already felt the beginnings of trust establishing between him and who he hoped would be his rider by the end of the week.

He knew he would go along with this, he only had to persuade the others to believe in him and his instincts too.

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seraphinitegames · 28 days

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The Wayhaven Chronicles— Update 30/August/2024

So, I totally forgot it was a bank holiday on Monday here in the UK, lol!

But it did actually get me thinking about public holidays in Wayhaven. One of the main ones being ‘Rooting Day’—which is the day that the group of people who saw the potential of Wayhaven decided to turn it into the community it is today.

You’d think it being called ‘Rooting Day’ would mean they planted a tree or something to honour it, but no, they laid the first stone at the Cornerstones! I kind of liked the irony in that, hehe. Thankfully, they only developed on the buildings already there and didn’t cut into the nature surrounding the town.

Anyway, apart from me reminiscing about lore for Wayhaven I came it with sooo many years ago, I also got a ton of editing and rewrites done! Though I did at one point rewrite a whole scene for Adam/Ava’s romance…only to realise it was supposed to be for Nate/Nat’s, lol! That was painful to get rid of! But I love what came out of the bones of that scene and sprung to life on rewriting!

I want to do a couple more playthroughs, just to check the new stuff doesn’t bring up any weird bugs or complications, then I’ll be sending it over the editor, which means I’ll be starting the next chapter tomorrow!

One of my amazing patrons did suggest an elegant solution for my conundrum over the randomisation of the unit for the Chapter 3 scene—having the first playthrough be randomised and then having it as a choice for subsequent playthroughs. Really clever and perfect solution!

So, I worked really hard on finding out how this could be achieved! I know in Ren’Py you can use like a ‘global’ or ‘persistent’ variable, I think, to make that work, but I just can’t find anything for Choicescript that would achieve it except changing the ending stuff and setting variables there, which I don’t think would work when it comes to publishing. Which is a real shame, as I think that would have worked! If I can’t find anything after another search, then I’ll be seeing what readers favour, either choice or random for that still.

If anyone has anyone thoughts on coding for this though, I’d be very grateful to learn!

Next week will be social media days before diving into the next chapter!! Social media days will take a while as it’s the Character Q&A on Patreon throughout this whole month, which starts on Sunday. Got some interesting questions I’m excited to answer for that, hehe! ;D

Hope you all have the most amazing weekend! We’ll be offline as usual, so I’ll update you all again next week <3

#the wayhaven chronicles #interactive fiction #unit bravo #twc detective #romance #vampires #update #choice of games #hosted games #interactive novel #choicescript #twc book 4 #the wayhaven chronicles book 4 #lore #the world of wayhaven

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a-aexotic · 6 months

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𝐛𝐮𝐛𝐛𝐥𝐞𝐠𝐮𝐦 𝐛𝐢𝐭𝐜𝐡, chapter 1

𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭 ! 3.5k

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 ! familial issues, underage drinking, tension (between literally every LOL), blair/serena hating each other, you/blair and you/serena being besties lol, a lotta winfrey lore

𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐬 ! ahhhh im super excited, as always please lmk your thoughts !!

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PRESENT DAY.

Hey, Upper East Siders, Gossip Girl here, and I have the most surprising news ever. Y/N Winfrey spotted back in town after she disappeared for almost 6 months. But where has she been all this time? Sources tell me she's been living it up in the City of Love, Paris. Oh la la! But what brings our darling Y/N back to the Big Apple after all this time? Could it be a scandalous affair, a family feud, or perhaps a fashionable rendezvous with the elite of Parisian society?

Rumors are swirling as to the reason behind Y/N's sudden return. Some say she's back to reclaim her rightful place among Manhattan's elite, while others speculate that she's returned to stir up trouble in the already turbulent waters of Upper East Side.

But what of Y/N's infamous entourage? Will her loyal subjects, Nate, Isabell, Kati and Blair, welcome her back with open arms, or will there be whispers of betrayal and backstabbing among the ranks of Manhattan's elite?

Will she pick up right where she left off, ruling the social scene with her signature grace? Or has her time away changed her in ways we can't even imagine? So grab your designer handbags and your most scandalous gossip, Upper East Siders, because things are about to heat up in the city that never sleeps. XOXO, Gossip Girl.

As the sleek black limousine rolled to a stop in front of the towering building, the door swung open with a soft whoosh, revealing the figure of Y/N Winfrey stepping out into the cool Manhattan air.

With a flick of your hair, you cast a cool gaze towards your old home, a grand penthouse that stood as a testament to the wealth and power of the Winfrey family. The familiar sight of the elegant facade stirred a flurry of emotions within you, memories both bitter and sweet flooding your mind as you took in your old home.

You were too focused on the old home to hear your mother come up from behind you, putting a hand on her shoulder as she examined the home as well. She hadn't been there since the divorce, which was almost a decade ago.

"I know you're nervous, Y/N. But don't let any of them get to you, okay?" Her voice rang in your ears as you nodded slowly. You weren't sure who she was referring to; your father's new family or your old friends. Or maybe, all of the above.

"Okay," you whispered, your voice barely above a whisper. "I won't."

With a reassuring squeeze of your mother's hand, you gathered your resolve and stepped forward, ready to face whatever awaited you within the walls of your old home.

Your new family met you with open arms and it felt strange to be back home, the same home you'd left; except, everything inside had changed. There were no more pictures of you anywhere, they were all replaced with wedding photos or pictures of your new stepsister, Charlene. It made your stomach twist in disgust, you couldn't believe your father had a brand-new, shiny family. The perfect family he'd prayed for, you were almost happy for him. Almost.

"So how was Paris, Y/N? Did you like it?" Josie's voice brought you back to real life. You turned your gaze up to meet hers, a tight smile on your lips. You were sat in the living room of the penthouse, alongside your mother and stepmother.

"It was... fun," you reply carefully, your tone neutral. You couldn't bring yourself to admit just how much you missed Paris, how it had felt more like home than this place ever did. Instead, you plastered on a facade of indifference, hoping to shield yourself. "It's too bad that we left."

Your mother let out a light laugh as she glanced back at you. "We'll be back as soon as we can. I just missed New York so much and I'm so happy to be back." What she didn't mention was that the only reason she was back was for her business, she wanted to open more shops in Manhattan.

"Yeah, it's nice to be back," you replied, forcing a smile. Despite your mother's attempt to lighten the mood, you couldn't shake the feeling of unease that settled in the pit of your stomach.

Josie, your stepmother, chimed in, her voice cheerful. "I'm glad to hear that. I'm sure you'll adjust to being back in no time. Especially with Eleanor's party tonight, you'll be attending that... right?"

"Yes, yes she will." Your mother answered for you. You knew that your mother wanted to reintroduce you back into Manhattan society but you didn't even have time to adjust back into New York time, you were jetlagged.

You didn't want to even think about why you even left in the first place. When you decided to leave, you promised that when you'd come back, you'd leave it in the past. You'd leave him in the past.

Nate. The mere thought of him sent a shiver down your spine, a reminder of the heartache you had endured before leaving for Paris. You had promised yourself that you would never allow him back into your life, that you would move on and leave the past where it belonged.

Lost in your thoughts, you barely noticed as your mother and stepmother continued to discuss the details of the upcoming event, their voices fading into the background as your mind wandered back to memories you had long tried to forget.

──౨ৎ──

"And if they ask you about the business, what do you say?" Your mother quizzed you as she put on lipgloss, looking into the mirror of the hallway of the building that Blair's penthouse resided in.

You tore your gaze away from your own reflection to meet your mother's eyes, a sense of unease creeping into your stomach. "I'll say that things are going well," you replied, your tone carefully neutral. "That we're expanding and looking for new opportunities in Manhattan."

Your mother nodded in approval, her lips curving into a satisfied smile. "Good," she said, her voice tinged with a hint of pride. "Just remember to keep it vague. We're a family, and we need to show the world that we're strong, no matter what."

You forced a smile, though the weight of your mother's words hung heavy in the air. The facade of unity was fragile, and you knew that beneath the surface, tensions simmered, threatening to boil over at any moment.

Your mother finally finished her lip gloss, focusing now solely on you. "Remember, confidence is key. You're representing not just yourself, but our entire family."

"Got it." You answered, the words coming out as more of a reassurance to yourself than to her.

Her words echoed in your mind as you followed her towards Blair's penthouse, the anticipation of Eleanor's party looming ever closer. The elevator dinged and the door opened, revealing the glamorous penthouse of the Waldorf's. Your mother's hand found yours as she squeezed it, reassuring as you two walked back into Manhattan's elite society.

"Priscilla Winfrey! You made it!"

Your mother's head turned to meet Eleanor, a charming smile enveloping her lips as she walked toward her.

"Oh, and is that Y/N?" Eleanor gasped as she studied you, taking every little detail in. "You look absolutely stunning, sweetheart. You're starting to look more and more like your mother every passing day."

"Thank you, Ms. Waldorf," you replied graciously, offering her a polite smile. Despite the compliment, you couldn't shake the sense of unease that gnawed at you.

Eleanor's gaze lingered on you for a moment longer before she turned her attention back to your mother, engaging her in conversation. Left momentarily alone, you scanned the room, taking in the familiar faces that surrounded you.

Your eyes landed on your old friend group, all seated on the couch. A sense of nostalgia hit you as you examined their faces, all the nights you'd spent partying with them playing in your head. Isabell, Kati and Chuck sat as they spoke, talking about God knows what.

You couldn't help but wonder where Blair was, it was her party and she wasn't with her friends. And of course, Nate.

Chuck's eyes finally met yours, a wide smirk on his lips as his eyes fell on your body before back to your eyes. But before you could go up to them, you heard an excited squeal behind you.

"Y/N!"

You recognize that voice anywhere; it was Blair. She enveloped you in a tight hug, her excitement palpable as she pulled back to study your face. "Oh my God, it's been too long." she exclaimed, her eyes sparkling but there was something you couldn't quite place. "You look amazing, as always."

You were nervous, it had been so long since you'd seen your old best friend. Your stomach twisted in guilt as you gave her a tight smile, her hands squeezing yours. "Thank you, Blair. You looked stunning but I'm sure you don't need me to tell you that."

Blair's smile faltered for just a moment before she regained her composure, a flash of something unreadable passing through her eyes. "Thank you, Y/N," she replied, her tone warm but tinged with an undercurrent of tension. "I'm just glad you're here. Like, really here."

You and Blair had been close since you were kids, your families being close since the beginning of time, basically. Your mothers were best friends in school and now, you are too. Before you left Paris, you told Blair and Serena and made sure to give them calls whenever you could. But soon, Serena stopped answering your calls and according to Blair, she just disappeared to a boarding school in Connecticut.

Blair still didn't know the real reason you fled to Paris and that gulit chipped at you everyday, even more now as you saw her lips curve into a rare genuine smile.

"I've missed you, Blair," you replied, your voice tinged with sincerity. "It's good to be back."

"It's good to have you back, Y/N." Blair gave your hand a squeeze before she spoke again. "Excuse me for two seconds, I have to go to the bathroom."

"Of course, Blair," you replied, offering her a reassuring smile as she excused herself.

You let out a sigh before turning your focus back to your mom, who was now in a conversation with a person you weren't sure you knew the name of. You knew you couldn't bother her right now, she was networking.

With a resigned sigh, you resigned yourself to the role of observer, content to blend into the background as your mother worked her magic in the world of Manhattan's elite. It wasn't the first time you had found yourself sidelined in favor of your mother's professional pursuits, and you knew it wouldn't be the last.

You couldn't blame her, though. After the divorce, her career had become more than just a family business—it had become her lifeline, it was the only thing she still had.

You remembered the days that followed your parents' separation, the way your mother had thrown herself into her work with a fervor bordering on obsession. It had been her way of coping, her way of escaping the pain and heartache that had threatened to consume her. You didn't blame her, her high school sweetheart had left her for a woman almost half her age, closer in age with her daughter than her.

You found the drinks table quickly, grabbing a glass of champagne and taking a sip of it. As you lifted the glass to your lips, the cool and crisp taste of the champagne washed over your tongue, distracting you from the emotions swirling within you. With a sigh of contentment, you leaned against the table, letting the hum of conversation and laughter wash over you.

As you scanned the room, your eyes fell on a familiar brunette. Your heart skipped a beat as you realized who it was; the person you'd been wanting to escape since you left for Paris. His bright blue eyes met yours and you felt a rush of conflicting emotions flood through you. It was Nate, your once-close friend, the one person who had been a constant presence in your life before everything changed.

His gaze held surprise as he caught sight of you across the room, and for a moment, you found yourself unable to tear your eyes away from him. You were frozen, unable to move as he approached you.

You couldn't escape him now.

Nate's lips curved into a smile as he took you in, with all your glory. "Y/N, you're back. It's, uh... good to see you."

"Yeah, you too." You responded, giving him a short answer.

Nate's smile faltered slightly at your response, a flicker of disappointment flashing across his features before he quickly masked it. "So, uh... how have you been?" he asked, his tone cautious as though treading on uncertain ground.

"I've been good. And you?"

"Me too. I'm happy you're back." He looked down at the glass of champagne as he let out a chuckle. "I'm glad you still have that taste of champagne, some things just never change."

You couldn't help but smile at Nate's attempt to lighten the mood, the tension between you easing ever so slightly. "Yeah, some things never change," you agreed, a hint of warmth creeping into your voice.

"Nate!" Blair's voice echoed as she came up to the two of you, grabbing his arm. "You don't mind if I steal him for a second, Y/N."

You and Nate exchanged looks before you tore your eyes from him and back to Blair, a forced smile playing on your lips. "Of course not, he's all yours." In more ways than one, you thought to yourself as the two walked away, leaving you alone once again.

Before you could relish in being alone again, your mother's voice rang behind you. "Y/N! Blair! Look who's back."

You turned to meet the blonde you'd once called your best friend. Serena. Her gaze held excitement as she found yours, you began walking toward and engulfing her in a big embrace.

You didn't know why she left for Connecticut but you knew she would tell you and Blair eventually. You, Serena and Blair had always been close and tight-knit, no matter the circumstances.

Serena pulled out of the hug and put her hands on your shoulders as she studied your face, a grin on her face. "You're glowing, Y/N."

"Says you. How did you get even more blonde since I've seen you?" You teased as she let out a laugh.

Serena's laughter echoed through the hallway, a sound that filled you with a sense of warmth and familiarity. Despite the time that had passed since you had last seen each other, it felt as though no time had passed at all.

"I've been spending way too much time in the sun," Serena admitted with a playful grin, her blue eyes sparkling. "But enough about me, tell me everything. How was Paris? Did you meet any cute French boys?"

You chuckled at Serena's teasing. "Paris was amazing," you replied, a smile tugging at the corners of your lips as you recalled your time. "And as for French boys, well, let's just say they definitely live up to the hype."

Serena laughed, nudging you playfully with her elbow. "I knew it!"

"Serena?"

You both turned to face Blair, a unreadable expression on her face before she quickly masked it with excitement. She pulled her into a tight hug but you could feel the tension, what the hell did you miss when you were Paris?

"So good to see you, how are you?" Blair pulled out of the hug as she looked in between you.

"Oh, look! The girls are back together, my heart is gonna burst." Eleanor gasped as she observed the scene in front of her, oblivious to the tension in the room. "Are you staying for dinner, I'll set a place next to Y/N and Blair!"

"Yeah, um, there's somewhere I have to go." Serena looked in between you, a guilty expression on her face.

"You're leaving?" Blair's voice sounded hurt as she looked back at Serena.

"Yeah... I don't feel well, I-I just wanted to come and say hi. I'll see you guys at school tomorrow." Serena responded as she slowly began to back up, before she turned away.

Blair's expression dropped immediately back to a bitter expression, looking back to you. "At least you're staying. Who needs Serena anyway?" She whispered the last part as she turned away and began walking away.

You began following behind her, "What did I miss?"

"What do you mean?"

You caught up to Blair and you two began walking toward the couch. "I mean... with you and S?"

"Serena." She corrected. "And nothing except all you know. She left without saying a word, to none of us." Blair sounded bitter but you knew deep down, she was just hurt.

"Well, maybe something happened."

"With what?" Chuck joined the conversation as Blair glared at him. You could feel Chuck's gaze on your dress as he smirked.

"Mind your business, Chuck." Blair spoke as she rolled her eyes.

You caught Chuck's gaze, his smirk igniting a spark of annoyance within you. "Chuck, it's not polite to stare," you retorted, your tone sharp as you shot him a pointed look. Some things never do change, you thought.

Chuck's smirk widened at your words, a glint of amusement dancing in his eyes. "Forgive me, I couldn't help but admire the view," he replied smoothly, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "You did some growing up in Paris, I could tell." His eyes were focused on your dress as you scoffed.

"Paris does wonders for a person," you replied dryly, refusing to give him the satisfaction of seeing you flustered.

──౨ৎ──

"I'm pregnant! Surprise, Y/N!" Josie shouted as your father pulled her in closer, your jaw slowly falling. She's... what? Your fork clattered against the plate, the sound echoing in the tense silence that followed Josie's announcement. Pregnant? The word echoed in your mind, disbelief and shock washing over you in waves.

Your head was pounding, you got home around 12:30 last night because the party lasted a little longer than expected. You were just trying to enjoy your breakfast before school, but then they drop this bombshell on you.

"Wh-what?" You finally managed to stammer out, your eyes wide with disbelief as you looked at Josie. "How does, uh, Charlene feel about it?"

Charlene was Josie's daughter from her previous relationship, she was about two years younger than you and... well, you couldn't stand her.

"You can ask her yourself!" Josie's gaze moved behind you and you turned to face Charlene. Speak of the devil.

Charlene's lips curved into a smile, though there was a flicker of something else in her eyes. "Super excited. I mean, I can't wait to be an older sister."

There was awkward silence before you got up from the dining table, clearing your throat. "Well... I have to get ready for school. This was really nice."

You got up and began walking up the stairs, ignoring their stares. You wanted to stay with your mom but she was staying at The Palace and your father insisted you stayed with them and his shiny new family.

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