#odor-armor

[gloopdimension]

dedusgorma probably Regularly indulge in the odor of eachothers loose clothes. upon being caught doing so they are eager to deny the real reason why they did it

[frantic-fiction]

Tease 18+

(Pic: cheekylittlepupp)

Astarion x f!reader, Astarion x Tav

Summary: The party is taking the night off. You're convinced to wear a dress, and Astarion just can't control himself.

Warnings: Smut, MDNI, Semi-public sex, caught in the act?

Word Count: 3.2k

Mastarlist

Standing in front of the mirror, you pull at the dark green fabric, tugging it down this way and that. You try again to tie the corset but give up quickly. You swing your hips, and the flowy skirt swishes, tickling the skin above your knees. Looking yourself up and down, you zone in on your hips, squirming at the fabric extenuating your curves. So much skin on display makes you want to steal someone's spare cloak to hide in. You weren't one to be self-conscious, but you're used to donning armor and leather, not this scrap of fabric Karlach had convinced you to buy. 

You should just change. Grab some leggings and one of Astarion's shirts, and call it a night. You didn't need a dress to catch his eye; you know how Astarion feels about you; wearing a dress won't change that. Backing away from the mirror, you're just about to rip the dress off when Karlach bursts into the room, Shadowheart following behind her at a much tamer pace. 

"Soldier!" Karlach squeals, stopping suddenly in the middle of the room. She slaps her hands on either side of her face. "You. Are. Gorgeous!" Your face burns as Karlach pounces on you, spinning you around to give her the best view from every angle. Heat creeps up your chest and you giggle awkwardly.

"She's right, you look stunning," Shadowheart smirked and added, "Ten gold Astarion won't be able to keep it in his pants."

"20, he won't make it to a room," Karlach shouts.

"Gods! You both are ridiculous." You squeal, swatting Karlach's hands away and stepping back from her excitement. You huff and fix your skirt. Crossing your hands over your chests, you glare at the girls before timidly looking off to the side. "So, I don't look silly?" The hesitation is evident.

"All joking aside, I assure you, soldier, you are beautiful. And I know for a fact Fangs won't be able to keep his eyes off of you."

You beam under Karlach's compliment, doing a few excited calf raises because you have no idea how else to handle her words. Shadowheart moves towards you and fixes a fallen strand of hair. She gives you a soft smile and moves to finish lacing your corset, patting your arm when she’s done.

"Now we should go. The others are waiting downstairs," Shadowheart motions everyone to the door, letting you take a moment to slip your shoes on. 

After months of endless travels and brutal battles, the party decided to take the evening to drink, relax, and enjoy each other's company. A night to forget the tadpoles and the Absolute. All except Lae'zel, who scoffed at the idea, were joining in on the fun.

Descending the stairs, you slammed with the melody of lively tunes played by a band of minstrels, competing with the animated conversations of patrons. The music, infused with the spirit of celebration, is so loud that it vibrates through the wooden beams of the tavern. The dance floor is alive with energetic movements as couples twirl and spin to the rhythm and the joyous laughter of those lost in the moment.

The bar is surrounded by a sea of drunk patrons clamoring for attention. Tankards slammed onto the worn surface as the bartender poured frothy ale and mead expertly. The dim light of flickering candles and oil lamps casts a warm glow on the diverse crowd. The unmistakable odors of stale ale, greasy food, and the tang of sweat intermingle in the air, creating a distinctive nostalgic and pungent aroma. You're lost in the crowd's movement, overwhelmed with the sounds. You grab onto Shadowheart's elbow like a lifeline.

"Karlach!" Wyll calls and you all snap your head to the side. The party had claimed a booth, and Gale and Wyll were standing up, waving their arms over their heads. They looked like they started early on the drinking; both men's faces were flush, and they each held an easy, dopey grin.

"Wyll!" Karlach linked her arms with yours and Shadowheart's and approached the table. You let her pull you, too busy searching for him. Astarion is slow to stand, but you know the moment he sets his eyes on you. You watch the subtle change in his body language. His hand tightened around the goblet; the exaggerated inhale of air as if someone had kicked him, watching the hunger grow in his eyes.

Now, you feel the confidence bloom in your chest. The dress no longer makes you squirm in discomfort; no, it gives you power and makes you feel desired and sexy. The flame ignites low in your abdomen. Suddenly, you were playing with fire and excited to get burned. A smug smile stretches your lips the closer you get. Pulling away from Karlach, you move and hook your arms around Astarion's neck. You pull him down and place a kiss on his cheek.

"Hi, handsome," you smile up at him, feeling his hand caress the small of your back. Cold fingers playing at the edge of the corset.

"Hello darling, you look breathtaking." He pushes you back gently, giving him space to take in your attire. "Turn for me, my love. Let me look upon the goddess before me."

You roll your eyes at his cheesiness but oblige his request, spinning slowly to allow Astarion to take in every angle. When you come full circle, Astarion captures your lips, and you fall against his chest. His lips meld against yours in a sensual kiss that was entirely inappropriate for the amount of people around, but neither of you seemed to care. Humming against his mouth, you cup his jaw and pull his face away. Astarion chases your lips and lets out a low groan when you deny him what he wants.  

You give Astarion a mischievous grin, patting his chest when you ask. "Do you mind getting me a drink?" 

He gives you a pointed look, visibly dissatisfied with his kiss. With one look and your hand running up his chest and over his shoulder, Astarion caves with a huff. "Yes, of course. Would you like your usual?"

"Yes, please." You say pecking his lips a final time before joining your friends in the booth. 

Wyll was regaling the table with a tale of his early days as the Blade of Frontiers when Astarion slides in beside you. He sets your drink down, and you whisper your thanks before taking a sip and focusing back on Wyll. Gale is quick to call out Wyll's bullshit, Shadowheart pointing out the exaggeration the warlock had blended into his story. It soon devolved into a bickering match as Wyll tried to defend himself. You chuckle between sips of wine, leaning into Astarion, setting your head gently against his shoulder. His hand had found your bare thigh, fingers kneading the supple flesh. 

Suddenly, your friends become background noise as your senses hone in on Astarion. The cheeky smirk that stretches his lips tells you he knows exactly what he's doing as Astarion inches his smooth hand further under your dress—never crossing the line but far enough to make you clench your legs together in need. You bite your lip, cheeks burning from more than the alcohol, and reach down to take his hand in yours. 

"I know what you're doing,"

"Oh, and what is that, my dear?" Astarion grins, bringing your hand to his lips and gently kissing your knuckles. He leans to your ear, "Do you not want me to touch you?" His breath cascades over your neck, and a shiver runs up your spine.

"Not when you're trying to tease me in public."

"My sweet girl, I'm not the one being a tease."

"Soldier! Stop making goo-goo eyes at Fangs, and come dance with me!" Karlach yells across the table, breaking whatever spell Astarion had you under. Pulling away, you look up to see Karlach jumping up and down, hand outstretched for you to take. 

"You know I won't say no to dancing." Astarion reluctantly moves to let you out of the booth. Karlach is quick to grab your hand and pull you towards the stage. 

The time is lost in the beat of the drums and the flow of your hips. Karlach twirls you around, and you can't stop giggling. Wyll joins in the fun, and suddenly, the crowd has formed a unified line dance. It's messy, and you don't know the steps, but you watch Wyll and poke fun at Karlach's improvised moves. You dance until your breath is ragged and your feet start hurting. Moving your body until the sea of people starts to drown you. Maybe it's the alcohol coursing through your veins or the excitement of the dancing. Still, the fun quickly turns to overstimulation that blankets you in thick sheets. In an instant, the room is too hot and too loud, and if you don't get out now, you just might scream.

You leave Karlach and move towards the door outside to the back alley. Pushing it open, you stumble over the threshold and inhale the cold night air. It instantly sobers, clearing your mind and easing your panic. You stare up at the starry sky, soaking in the bright moon. Goosebumps spread over your exposed arms and legs, and you shiver. It doesn't stop you from stepping further into the alleyway as you breathe and allow your heart to settle its pounding. You can still hear the muffled music and thumping feet. 

You hear the door open again but pay it no mind until Astarion speaks, "There you are, my sweet."

You turn on your heel and give him a soft smile. He glowed under the moonlight, an ethereal being standing before you, his face partially cast in shadow, staring at you with hunger. "I needed some air."

"I'm sure you did," Astarion smirks, stepping closer toward you. A predator stalks up to its prey. "All that dancing you were doing must have been exhausting."

"It was, but it was so fun." You reach out instinctually, wrapping your arms around his neck. Astarion smoothes his hands down your spine to the swell of your butt, moving to squeeze the soft, plump flesh. "You should join me next time." You squeak at his grip, pressing yourself closer to him.

Then his lips are on yours, and your back is digging into the rough brick of the alleyway. Astarion's tongue is in your mouth, and you're moaning, gripping his shoulders to find purchase. One of his fangs nipped your bottom lip, and your knees practically buckled under you. You would have fallen if Astarion hadn't pressed you against the wall. 

"I think I just might take you dancing tomorrow." His cold hands caress your thigh, pulling it up and over his hip, pushing up the fabric of your dress with it. "I'll buy you a pretty new dress to add to your growing collection, and I'll have you move your body for me like you've been doing all night." 

He rolls his hips into yours, and you cry into his neck, kissing his skin to muffle your noises. "Swaying those hips in this tight little thing. Gods darling, I've been hard all night, and it's entirely your fault, you naughty little minx."

"Astarion," You sigh, relishing the friction of his hard cock against your clothed core. 

"Such a cruel woman, dangling a feast over a starving man. I'll have to punish you for that." Astarion purrs, running his nose along the line of your jaw, stopping to bite at his favorite spot; his fangs puncture the surface just enough to have droplets of your blood trickle out.

His tongue lavishes over your skin, making sure not a drop escapes. The moan that rumbles through his chest is purely animalistic, and a rush of heat gushes between your legs. "But right now, my naughty girl, I'm going to fuck you here against this wall." 

You let out a whimper, hips bucking instinctually, heat coiling in your lower stomach. "Please.." 

Astarion takes no time to push your underwear aside and push two of his fingers into your folds with a lewd, wet sound. Astarion begins to pump his fingers in and out of your dripping cunt, with each stroke curling up just slightly. The rough pad of his thumb finds your swollen clit, and applying pressure, he circles the nub in time with his fingers. 

"You're already so drenched, always so ready for me." You pull his face in and sigh into his mouth, niping his lip playfully. Threading your hand through his soft curls, you give a soft tug, relishing in the grunt Astarion gives you. 

You're painfully aware of your surroundings and know that someone could step out and catch the two of you any moment. The thought gives you a jolt of excitement you'll have to think about later. There is no room to take your time, so you tug harder on Astarion's hair loss, pulling his lips from the flesh of your neck he was playing with.

"Star," You roll your hips against his hand impatiently. "I need you to fuck me already,"

"So impatient, but you are right. This is not the time to play." Astarion tsk before unceremoniously ripping your underwear off and stuffing them in his pocket. 

"I liked those."

"I'll buy you a new pair, maybe one to match your new dress." Astarion peppers kiss down your neck. Your hands move to pull his pants down, freeing his cock. It's red and looks painfully swollen. Astarion hisses through his teeth when you give the base of his cock a tight squeeze. 

"I want one that matches the new dress and the same ones you just ripped." You countered, giving him a few languid strokes using his precum as a lubricant. 

"Whatever you want, my love." He says mindlessly, taking you into another breathtaking kiss.

Astarion hands leave your cunt, and a whine leaves your lips. He kisses your pout and quickly grabs his cock. Astarion pumps himself a few more times before lining up at your entrance. When Astarion sheaths himself fully in your heat, the wind is knocked out of you. A collective groan of ecstasy escapes from both of your mouths. There is no build-up, no room to catch your breath. Astarion quickly pulls out and slams back into you—your back scraps against the bricks, and your foot slips on the cobblestone.

You yelp scrambling to hold on and not fall pathetically onto the dirty alley floor. Astarion, without skipping a beat, scoops you up fully in his arms. All you can do is wrap your legs around his hips and hold on as he pounds into your dripping cunt. 

"Gods, you're perfect," Astarion signs into your neck. He pulls at your dress, moving the corset just enough to expose one of your breasts. He bends his head and sucks your nipple into his mouth. You choke on a gasp; cupping the back of his head, you press him further against you. 

"Astarion," you moan, carding your fingers into his curls. Rolling your hips, you match his thrusts. Your lower stomach tightens, and you will not last much longer. Not with him pulling you apart in the way only he can. You tried to say as much, but you choke on a sob when Astarion's fingers find your clit. 

He grinds your hips into the brick wall and brutalizes your clit with tight circles. His voice is raspy in your ears. "I'm close, love…ngh - gods, you feel so good."

"A-astarion, please!" Tears bead down your cheeks, pleasure overwhelming your senses. Your muscles are tightening. Your legs quake, and you clench tightly around him. 

"That’s it, come for me, beautiful." And that is all you need to see stars, opening your mouth in a silent cry. Ecstasy courses through your veins, and you bite down on his collarbone to ground yourself in your pleasure. His hips stutter, pace faltering as he loses himself in your body, spilling his seed deep into you. 

Neither of you moves; the brick is now uncomfortably digging into your back, but you can't find the energy to care. Astarion peppers kiss up and down your neck. You scratch his scalp softly and catch your breath. It’s nice.

"I guess I should wear more dresses."

"My dear, you could wear a burlap sack, and I would have still taken you against this wall."

"Horny bastard." 

The two of you were too caught up in each other to notice the tavern door opening again. Nor did either of you notice two figures stepping out. At least not until Karlach's loud cackle echoed down the alleyway. You whip your head in her direction, Astarion following suit. Karlach is hunched over and on her knees, shoulders shaking with laughter. Shadowheart stands beside her, arms crossed with disgust and annoyance plastered on her face.

Astarion is quick to turn you away, shielding you with his body. He let’s you go and you scramble to cover yourself. He helps you fix your dress. Great. 

"What did I tell you? Fangs couldn't keep it in his pants long enough to find a room!" Karlach booms, slapping Shadowheart on the arm. "Hand it over," her palm extended in wait. You hide your face in Astarion's neck, face burning in embarrassment. 

Shadowheart mumbled something under her breath, digging in her pocket for her gold pouch. "Here," the gold is slapped into the tieflings palm. She turns to the two of you. "Find a different cleric to cure whatever disease you've contracted in this filthy alley." Shadowheart quickly turns back into the tavern, the door slamming behind her. 

"Well, thanks for the gold," The tiefling beams and skips after Shadowheart, leaving you and Astarion alone once more. 

You refuse to leave the space between Astarion's jaw and collarbone. Thoughts of packing your stuff and running to Candlekeep are crossing your mind. Karlach and Shadowheart are already telling Wyll and Gale about your exploits, and you don't want to handle the smug looks. 

Astarion's chest rumbles with silent laughter, and you're pulled from your escape plans. You emerge from your safe space and glare up at the man. "What's so funny?!" 

He laughs harder, and runs his thumb over your pout, cupping your jaw. You hold firm in your annoyance and turn your head. "Karlach is telling all of our friends that we just fucked in a dirty back alley, why would you be laughing?" You snap.

"You would think at this point Shadowheart would stop betting on our love life. Tsk, all the gold she's lost." You narrow your eyes at him. His playful smirk widens. "She and the other weirdos should know how shamelessly I want you. They were lucky I didn't fuck you on the table." 

Rolling your eyes, you shove him hard, forcing Astarion to stumble back. Moving past you storm towards the door; he's laughing and calling your name. Astarion, only get your middle finger before the tavern door closes behind you.

Astarion is a cheeky shit. I love him.... Let me know what ya thought, i love your feedback.

Taglist: heartfully10, ayselluna

[monster-disaster]

maybe a short story on a human reader being taken by an orc army/camp and just absolutely used as their personal toy???

When I read your request, I couldn't help but hear, "Looks like meat's back on the menu, boys!" from Lotr.

But let's be serious: I hope you will enjoy it. :)

Orcs x Reader Warnings: filth, nothing but filth

The air is thick with smoke, mingling with the musky odor of sweat and leather. The scent of blood and violence still hangs heavy, fueling the heat and tension around the tents made of rough animal hides. The crackling flames of the campfire cast dancing shadows across the rugged faces of the warriors. Feral hunger glints in their eyes as they come closer. It feels like the ground rumbles and shakes under their steps. Their muscular, battle-scarred bodies pulsate with anticipation. The sounds of their gruff voices fill your ears, making you deaf to everything else. Your gaze jumps from orc to orc. The chieftain's large hand is heavy and warm on your shoulder as he pushes you deeper into the center of the camp.

The bounds around your legs and wrists make it hard for you to move, but it doesn't stop the warriors from closing around you. Their heat and raw desire surround you, making you shake and sweat under their primal gazes. Adrenalin fuels the fire in your bloodstream and thrums through your body until you almost buckle because of the throb between your legs.

The chieftain behind you reaches for the clasps and buckles that hold your armor together. The metal piece is dirty and beaten. His calloused fingers trace the edges of your armor before letting it fall to the ground. In other circumstances, you would feel relieved without its weight. Your undershirt sticks to your chest because of the sweat that still glistens in your heated skin, revealing the curve of your breasts. Another orc steps closer, barely smaller than his leader behind you. You remember him. One of his eyes is milky-white with a long scar from his eyebrow to his nose. He rips off your shirt, dropping the useless fabric before reaching for the buckles of your pants. You can't even feel the cold night air between the orcs towering over you.

The warriors move in sync. Their hands work in unison to strip away the layers covering your body. They reveal the soft swells of your curves and the hard cords of your muscles. Your skin is decorated with old and fresh scars, injuries, and bruises. The others get louder and louder with each glimpse they get of your naked body. The clear signs that you are a warrior, a fierce opponent, fuel their desire.

Soon, you stand exposed among the orcs, ready to be ravaged by them. Your limbs are not tied together anymore, but it changes nothing. You can't make yourself to move. It would be futile anyway. You can't fight against them, and they would enjoy chasing after you too much.

The orc in front of you wastes no time. His rough hands eagerly reach out to grope and caress every inch of your body. His dark green fingers dig into the flesh of your breast, squeezing and kneading, pinching your nipple until you mewl and try to get away from him, falling into the arms of the chieftain behind you. The leader grabs your hip, making you grind down on his leather-covered erection. His unyielding grip leaves red imprints on your skin. The cold of his rings digs into the flesh of your hips.

One hand slips between your legs. Rough fingers slide over your slickness and prod at your entrance. Your stomach jumps with fear and excitement. "Look at this juicy cunt, boys! She's all wet and ready for us!" The orc in front of you announces loudly to everyone around you to hear. The camp gets even louder with feral growls and words that make your heart beat faster in your ribcage. Whatever you want to say, to tell him to stop or to go deeper, dies on your tongue. The only thing keeping you standing is the chieftain behind you, still grinding his cock against your ass while his man explores your wetness. He smears it all over your mound and inner thighs before turning his attention back to your entrance. "I knew the moment I saw her on the battlefield that she would be a good prize to fight for," he grunts, forcing each digit of his thick finger into your pussy. Your walls clench down around him, to keep him out or to force him deeper, you don't know. "You like that, don't you?" The chief grunts next to your ear. His question fans over the curve of your neck. "I can smell your pussy, girl." "We all smell her." Someone says from the circle of orcs surrounding you. Their eyes are heavy on your body as they watch you. You steal a few glances at them. A lot of them are already naked, tugging at their cocks hanging heavy between their thick thighs.

The male in front of you continues to bully your cunt with his finger, going deeper and deeper while his other hand reaches up to grip your hair. He pulls back your head, making you arch your body. "You're ours now, human," he snarles. "But do not fret. I saw you fighting, I'm sure you can handle a few orc cocks too." A rumble of laughter waves through the air, and your pussy tightens at the thought. "Oh, look at that!" He laughs, pushing another finger into your wet hole. A groan gets stuck in your throat at the feeling of your walls stretching around him. "She likes the thought." "She does," the chief grunts, pulling his own cock out of his pants to force your hand around it. Your fingers curl around his thick rod automatically. If you could focus on anything, you would be surprised at its weight on your palm. "She doesn't look like someone who backs out of a challenge." His words are followed by laughter again while you bend and turn the way they want you.

Before you know it, you are on your knees with their leader still behind you, shoving his cock into your pussy while his warrior is busy with your mouth. He taps the head of his erection against your lips, and you open without a second thought. At this point, your mind is too hazy, and your senses are full of their musky scent to do or think anything. You feel like a raw nerve under their pushes and pulls. They thrust in and out of you with a relentless rhythm while you moan and drool around their cocks. You slip in and out of your orgasms, getting more and more drunk on their relentless assault. They push your boundaries, both physically and mentally, until you are nothing but a warm body they can use as they want.

You don't even notice when they come inside you. Their warm seed seeps out of your abused holes, and you almost choke on the orc's cock when he pushes himself deeper into your throat.

The ground is dirty and hard under your weak body as you let yourself collapse. Your muscles shake and twitch while your pussy clenches around nothing. Your chest heaves with every breath you take as you try to clear your mind.

But they are not done yet.

"It's your turn, boys," one of them says, stepping away from you to give enough space for the others. "Keep those sweet holes full tonight."

The air crackles with anticipation and feral need. One by one, the orc warriors step forward, their rough hands exploring every inch of your body. Their calloused fingers trace the swell of your breasts, teasing and pinching your nipples until you cry and wiggle. Your pussy pulsates between your legs while their fingers explore your folds and both of your holes. They feast upon your bare curves, their desires ignited by the sight of your vulnerable state.

The first orc doesn't waste his time. His massive frame towers over you, keeping his body up with his trunk-like arms next to your head while taking you fiercely, his thick length plunges deep into your wet and eager pussy. His heavy balls slap against your skin. Your walls grip him tightly even though you are sensitive, and the feeling of him pounding into you makes you tear up. A thumb smears your tears all over your face before pushing into your mouth. Your tongue laps at the digit.

When the orc between your legs reaches his peak, fucking you full of his cum, another one steps forward, hungry and ready for his turn. He turns you onto your stomach easily, positioning himself behind you when you force your knees to not give up under your weight. His hands are gripping your hips as he shoves his cock into your cunt. Ecstasy trembles through your body while someone else grabs a good chunk of your hair and forces your mouth down his hard length. More tears escape from the corner of your eyes as you gulp and suck around the orc's cock.

The orcs continue to take turns, their primal instincts driving them deeper and deeper into you. You become a mess of drool and cum until there is no part on your heated, sweaty skin that they didn't touch or use. They ravage your body with a ferocity that matches the intensity of the battle they had just fought while you scream and moan underneath them.

[yandere-romanticaa]

Marriage was often used as a tool of convenience - be it to upgrade one's own social status, get some much needed silver and gold, or to just get one leg up over your enemies, it really did not matter in the end.

Like it or not, you were tied to that person till death did you part.

That was a chant that has been sung to you ever since you came out of your weeping mother's womb. As the daughter of the household, it was natural for you to wed one day. However, the family was one of average standing, it had no special titles tacked onto it nor did it have any grotesque reputation which could sully it to the darkness and back. In its own way, it was oddly blissful, being invisible like that. No one expected you to act like a stuck up lady who would be locked away deep in a tower and you were also safe from becoming a measley wench who would be forced to spend the rest of her miserable days stuck rolling around in the mud, selling her body to all sorts of horrific strangers just in order to eat for a day.

You had the privilege of being born into a happy life. Perhaps a slightly dull one sometimes but regardless, a good one at that. You were content with everything which was given to you, perhaps even happy.

However, all things come to an end, and your end came in the form of a man riding on horseback.

He was strong, capable, handsome... But you kept that thought to yourself as you helped the wounded stranger get back on his feet, his midnight black steed happily trotting away somewhere as it accidentally shook the rider off its back once it locked eyes on you, a stranger in the woods.

"And who might you be?" asked the dark haired man, his curly hair framing his pale face so wonderfully that it took the breath from your lungs away.

You held onto him tightly and pressed him close to your body, the odor of blood and sweat covering him from top to bottom but you couldn't be bothered to care. He wore simple clothing which made you think that he was in a similar position like yourself in terms of finance, which gave you a slight glimmer of hope.

It was embarrassing how much you were swooning over the stranger.

Taking him back to your hut took longer than expected but all was well in the end. The handsome stranger had a name, Robb he said it was, and you couldn't hide the adoration in your voice whenever he would speak to you. The night flew by like a summer breeze - too fast and too sweet. Come first daylight he had to leave, which you understood.

That didn't stop you from feeling a little blue.

He mounted his horse like a knight in shining armor, its mane tussling proudly in the bitter north wind as Robb looked down at you, his warm blue eyes desperate to tell you many stories and secrets, but time was cruel and scarce.

He would come back to you, he promised.

And you gave him a smile sweeter than any juicy fruit, telling him that you would gladly wait for him.

He rode away all the while looking back at you, sending you a heart stopping smile which could make anyone weak in the knees. The horse left large hoofprints in the snow and you focused your attention on that, rather than the bitter stabs of pain in your heart.

There would never be a day when you'd see Robb ever again.

You were due to leave for the South in a few weeks time, in order to finally be wed off. The fantasy of Robb was saccharine and enchanting, many hours of sleep were lost due to him. Even if you barely knew him, the matters of the heart were reckless and stupid.

The heart wants what it wants and your heart ached for Robb.

All the while, you hadn't a clue of him and his plans. The men in Winterfell grew tired of his constant ramblings of this lovely woman he met, this sweet little thing which made his heart sing like no one else. He would walk in the corridors with a pep in his step as he thought of all the ways he could take you back to his home and give you the life you deserved.

His candied tirade quickly came to an abrupt halt once his mother had informed him of the grave news, that you had been promised to another man.

Robb was furious.

Who was this man?! Who did he think he is?! Ever the meticulous man, he got to work immediately. In less than a few days he had managed to gather all the information he could on this mystery fiance of yours, all the papers sprawled across his massive table. The candles in his chambers glimmered gently, the shimmering light a stark contrast to the raging flames in his heart.

If he could have his way, he'd be out for blood. Robb was too much of a jealous man for his own good but he needed to think, he needed to prepare if he wanted to do this right.

In less than a day, he had everything set up. If the man wasn't willing to take the gold he was offering him, he was not above using any scare tactics. His anger ended up getting the better of him though, so a bizarre combination of both was used.

The way in which your fiance left you made your heart sink. How were you going to break the news to your parents? Whatever could you have done so wrong to earn the ire of this lord whom you haven't even met yet...

You weep in your room, staining the mattress with your salty tears, completely oblivious to the small cavalry with House Stark banners raging on your front door.

Robb Stark had come for his bride. And she had no idea what sort of future awaited her...

[wifetomegatron]

an alchemy of ore & eu de parfum : how i imagine cybertronians react to human perfume (afab!reader) (nsfw!)

most of the lost light crew only knew about it in passing. rumor was that before the war, the wealthy would import organic plants from off-worlds to extract their oils: steam distillation, boiling, maceration. of course, it wasn't very popular when the planet's atmosphere lacked the proper gases. without volatile elements in the air like oxygen, the exotic scents hardly smelled like anything. it didn't stick against their armors the way it clings onto organic skin. so it became a short-lived experiment that barely dented the surface of the planet's long history of achievements. mechs, trying to replicate organic perfume. it sounded ridiculous.

until perceptor caught a whiff of it: phantom light, brushing against his olfactory sensors. he lifted his helm, finally compelled to tear his optics away from the datapad to look at the human liaison. he inhaled experimentally, failing to be discreet. embarrassed, you tell him it's the new bottle of body wash you've tried: a mixture of wild violets and pink hibiscus. do you like it?  he thinks of strange fragile flowers, drifting under the wind. perceptor nearly missed the question, slowly nodding as you leaned closer in worry. it took the mech a lot of self-restraint to not pull you flush against him when the new, alien fragrance hits him square in the chassis like a bullet.

minimus drags his human's wrist across his intake, peppering light kisses along the skin. it was where the sweet, smoky odor was strongest, luring him closer. with you sprawled across his lap: trembling, laughing at the ticklish sensation, minimus couldn't contain the small, helpless groan that escaped him. shamelessly tipping your chin down to press your lips against his. the fragrance of mandarin and jasmine, crowding the space between your bodies.  the scientist hovered above your shoulders, mouthguard grazing the junction where your neck meets your jaw. brainstorm tightened his grip against your wrists, pining it above your head. he wants to melt into you, to drown in the overwhelming scent of amber. tyrax, benzoin; he knows they're just a cluster of chemical reactions coming to life along the curve of your collarbones. bonds breaking and fracturing to release something tangy, saccharine. but you're telling him that bulgarian rose, sandalwood — foreign, outlandish names of floras he'd never heard about before was making you smell celestial ? he was the universe's biggest heathen, but primus, save him. you were wiggling underneath his frame, back flat against the pristine table. he says he wants to run a few experiments, noticing how your pupils respond by widening, skin prickling with excitement. 

he's trying to be gentle, servos encasing your hip to lower you down his spike. megatron watches as you take him, inch by inch. with your back pressed against his chest plate, he could feel the thrum of his spark against the line of your spine as it bows and curves in pleasure. as you spread your legs further to sink further, he rewards you with a kiss — brushing your hair aside to press his intake against the pulse point beneath your ear. and he tastes it, or rather, breathes it in. he didn't need to, but when your sweat mixes itself with the perfume you always wore: bergamot and peony, he inhales and loses himself even more.

the habsuite reeked of sex, and it crowded the air: humid and heavy, whirl's optic nearly offlined at how obscenely wet you were around his spike. already drunk on your pheromones. so when he lifted both your legs higher — up to his shoulders — to fit himself up to the hilt, whirl didn't expect to catch a whiff of your perfume around your ankles. you whined, a high-pitched, desperate sound, when he stopped thrusting to press his enstril against your achilles heel. that was enough for him to snap. he hoisted you up into a mating press, driving into you with a new kind of vigor. 'you did this on purpose', he emphasized by roughly grabbing your ass to push further into your already trembling cunt. causing you to moan into the dark. 'you knew we'd end up here. like this. filthy, little —'

sicilian mandarin and citrus musk. you made a mental note to yourself to wear the combination around your lover more often.

a/n : for @robot-horde because you're brilliant and left a comment on the tags of this post and it just inspired me to make more.

[hotmentransformed]

Insert to Grow

Tim was walking to get his weekly groceries when he stumbled upon a strange store in his local strip mall. It was a small, dark store that he had never seen before, with a sign that simply read Curiosities in bold letters. Intrigued, he decided to stop by before he got to the supermarket to step inside and take a look around.

Tim couldn't help but feel a little uneasy as he walked through the dimly lit aisles. The store was filled with oddities and peculiar items, from strange trinkets to bizarre gadgets. But one item caught his eye in particular - a small device that looked like almost like a butt-plug. Intrigued, Tim picked up the device and examined it closely. It seemed to be well-made, with a sleek design and a label that simply said Grow. The packaging boasted advanced technology that promised to stimulate, all you had to do was insert to grow. Being a single guy, he didn’t mind the idea of having some extra help getting off, rather than only using his hand. After some hesitation, he decided to purchase the device and take it home.

Once he arrived home, Tim immediately went to the bathroom to try out the device. He locked the door behind him and turned on the device, feeling a slight vibration in his hand. Pulling down his pants, he reached behind him and brought the device to his butt, and the vibrations grew stronger and more intense. He wasn't sure what to expect, but the sensation was oddly satisfying. 

However, the vibrations suddenly intensified and caught Tim off guard. He stumbled and slipped, falling forward onto the stool in the bathroom, and the device penetrated him. He tried to reach for it to pull it out and turn off the device, but it seemed to have entered him so deeply that he couldn’t reach it. Tim's body started to shake uncontrollably. He was terrified and tried to calm himself down, but it was too late. His mind was foggy with pleasure: the device had taken over, and Tim could feel his old self slipping away.

As the vibrations continued to course through his body, Tim's muscles began to explode with strength and mass with every shake. His biceps swelled with bulging veins, and his forearms thickened as if he had been lifting weights for years. His chest expanded, and his pecs grew into a solid mass that jutted out from his chest like armor, ripping apart his shirt as it fell to tatters beside him.

Tim felt a strange sensation in his abdomen. It was like a fire burning deep within his core, and he could feel his abs contracting and expanding with each pulse. He looked down and saw his stomach rippling and bulging, as if something were moving just beneath the surface. With each passing moment, his abs grew thicker and more defined. They bulged out from his stomach like a six-pack of cobblestones, and he could see each muscle fiber twitching and contracting beneath his skin.

Tim could feel his thighs thickening, and his calves grew into sculpted pillars of muscle. His shoulders broadened, and his traps grew into a massive hump that seemed to swallow up his neck. He could feel his back arching, and his spine seemed to stretch as if his body was struggling to contain all the new muscles.

As Tim's body continued to vibrate with increasing intensity, he realized that his shoes were getting tighter and tighter until they could no longer contain his rapidly expanding feet, ripping apart beneath him. As his feet continued to grow, he began to kick and flail across the tiled floor, trying to get a foothold, but he couldn't find any traction. His feet were now too big, too sweaty, and too slippery to get a grip on the smooth surface. They were massive, almost cartoonishly large. His toes curled and flexed uncontrollably, and he could feel the sweat pouring off his feet, creating a puddle on the floor beneath him. The smell was overpowering - a pungent, musky odor that filled the bathroom and made Tim gag. It was a mix of sweat, dirt, and something else, something primal and animalistic. 

As the transformation continued, Tim could feel a strange itch all over his body. He looked down and was shocked to see thick tufts of hair sprouting from his skin. It started on his chest and back, but soon hair was growing everywhere, even on his arms and legs. He felt his face changing, and his once-smooth skin was now rough and covered in thick hair.

Tim's mouth hung open as he struggled to breathe. His heart was pounding, and his breathing became labored as his body underwent a complete physical transformation. The vibrations shook his body so violently that he could barely stand, and his vision became blurry as his eyes rolled back in his head.

Finally, the vibrations began to subside, and Tim was left standing in the bathroom, his body trembling and covered in sweat. He looked in the mirror and was shocked at what he saw:

He was fucking gorgeous. His lips plump and beautiful, and a smolder to die for. His facial hair was perfectly trimmed and his eyes were soft and inviting. His face was unbelievable... but his body..?!

He couldn't believe the sheer size and mass of his new muscular body, and he couldn't help but admire the way his pecs bulged and his biceps swelled. He flexed his arms and watched as the muscles rippled beneath his skin. He turned to the side and admired the way his abs rippled and bulged with each movement. It was like he was looking at a completely different person, and he couldn't help but feel a sense of pride and satisfaction at the new body he had been given.

But suddenly, a massive headache hit him like a ton of bricks. It was like a sledgehammer had slammed into his skull, and with each pulse, he felt his mind growing duller and more sluggish. His thoughts became slow and confused, and he couldn't concentrate on anything except the throbbing pain in his head.

As the headache intensified, Tim's mind grew more and more muddled, and he could feel his intelligence slipping away. His vocabulary became limited to basic words, and he struggled to put together even the simplest of sentences. All he could do was flex his massive muscles and drool uncontrollably. He looked back in the mirror and realized he had become a completely different person. The intelligent, thoughtful Tim was gone, replaced by a hulking, drooling man with a body that defied belief. He tried to focus and think of a way to reverse the transformation, but his mind was too dull and confused to devise a plan.

All Tim could do was stand there, flexing his muscles and drooling uncontrollably. The device had given him the body of a god, but it had also taken away his intelligence and sense of self. He was a dumb, mindless hunk of muscle and just another piece of eye candy for some lucky man to have the pleasure of calling his trophy husband.

[howtofightwrite]

I've got a world-building/combat question. I have these two warring nations in my setting, both medieval-ish tech levels. One of them figures out how to make magical flying craft that are basically WWI airplanes. The other country invents dragon riders in response. Since then, they've been at war for ~60 years. I'm trying to figure out how the heck an air force would alter medieval combat strategies. If you've any suggestions, I'd appreciate it

The first, and biggest world building problem is that magic is part of your overall tech level. Ironically, Diskworld is an excellent example of how magical technology can basically function as an alternate path for social and technical development, though, honestly, a lot of high-magic settings tend to have tech leakage from magic.

One of the more common examples that comes to mind are “magical radios.” Either it's an enchanted device that allows person to person communication, or it's direct telepathic communication, but whatever it is, it serves a fundamentally similar role to a handheld radio, or (depending on how it works) a phone. The thing is, it's functionally a magical replacement, and it would affect society in much the same way those technologies have.

This is a long way to say, if your magical combat technology has WWI-grade planes, there is a very real possibility that a lot of your warfare is also going to be at a similar magi-tech level, if not more advanced. Having written that, I'm reminded of The Red Star comic series; though, that has a heavy Soviet aesthetic, and is not-at-all medieval.

Again, it doesn't really matter if you have fully-automatic firearms, or if you have a bolt thrower that conjures and propels crystals at hyper-sonic speeds into your foes. If they have a similar rate of fire, and similar accuracy, the meaningful change is texture. Your characters might see tiny crystal fragments shattered on the floor, or embedded into walls, instead of bullet holes. There may be no smell, or conjuring the crystals might leave a different odor. A handheld lightning projector might leave scorch marks, and a scent of ozone, for instance.

Magic might also factor into armor and defenses. If you can use a magical ward to dispel conjured objects, that might be extremely useful for fortifying specific targets against incoming conjured attacks, but it would likely be wholly ineffective against the lightning projector, or some other kind of directed energy beam weapon.

“Inventing,” dragon riding as a response to someone else making a magical airship, does strike me as an odd cause-and-effect. If dragon riding was that easy, it would seem likely that someone would have militarized them long before that point. Inventing flying objects that could function as a hard counter to dragons feels a little more natural. Or, magical, AA installations. Though, this is something that could probably be finessed, if you're really committed to the setup. It's also worth remembering that air superiority is an extremely potent advantage, even if you're not sure what to do with it, meaning that if one side suddenly had fliers, and the other side couldn't come up with a counter in short order, they'd be picked apart, and the war wouldn't have this 60 year timescale.

If it seems like I went to ranged weapons very quickly, there's a simple reason. You can't joust from a plane. Your options are to either propel objects at people, or drop things on them from above. Dragons also (usually) have the option to breathe fire on them. Now, firearms did exist in the late medieval era. So, that's not that far out of range. I'm less sure of the invention of bombs. At least, of the variety you could deliver to your enemy on the battlefield. Though, it occurs to me, you could probably use a catapult or trebuchet to deliver an explosive payload, if the explosives were stable enough to survive launch, but sensitive enough to detonate on impact. (Of course, if you have some kind of magically primed explosive, that stays stable until it is ejected from the catapult, and then explodes on impact, that would work.)

Looping back to the timescale again, this would require some pretty potent defensive capabilities. A dragon, with the ability to breathe fire, and the capacity for strategic thinking, could easily starve out an entire kingdom, simply by making a habit of torching all the cropland it could find. It doesn't, particularly matter if it gets all the food, so long as it torches a meaningful percentage of the available crops. When you have farmers going hungry, you're going to see food production dipping, exacerbating the problem. When you have soldiers going hungry, they're not going to be able to fight as effectively. When you have the peasantry going hungry, you're going to see civil unrest, and probably rebellions coming for their lord's head. You can't wage a war against a hostile nation under those circumstances. (In fact, there were multiple peasant revolts during the Hundred Years War, which basically stalled out France's ability to fight. England also suffered multiple peasant uprisings at roughly the same time. Though, those were motivated by taxation, which ends in a similar place.)

A related concept that's somewhat hinted above, is that wars are expensive, and both France and England found themselves facing uprisings because of taxation needed to support the ongoing war. (The irony being that both nations encountered this at roughly the same point in history. Roughly 40 years into the war.) A war that's been going for 60 years will likely have ravaged the economies of the involved nations. This isn't necessarily something that your characters would be aware of, unless you expand the context to show non-wartime economies.

The simplest explanation for why this happens is that any money you spend prosecuting the war are products that you never see returning value from. The money itself doesn't leave the economy, but the natural resources, and labor required, are expended non-productively (from the perspective of economic growth.) So, if you have a peacetime merchant, they're moving money around, but they're paying for their goods, and then those goods are going to consumers, who may also be contributing to economic activity with those goods (this even applies for food, you can think of that as a necessary component to any productive activity.) If you're a wartime merchant, selling weapons to the military, you are contributing to economic activity when you buy the weapons, but when they're sold to the crown, that's no longer productive. Those weapons leave the economy and never return. Worse, any soldiers who are permanently wounded, or killed, are also removed from the economy. Over time, this can destroy the most prosperous of nations. (To be clear, this is more advanced economic analysis than anyone in the middle ages would have had. So, the idea that wars are expensive was understood, but the exact reasons it slowed the economy were not.) And, this kind of thinking is another form of technological advancement. Ideas for understanding complex systems have become more intricate and detailed over time. While it's not the concept of, “invention,” that you might be used to, it is a similar form of progress.

So, how would this look in your world? There's a lot of potential consequences, most of which are not contradictory.

An impoverished lower-class is very likely. Whether that includes wounded veterans or not is a little more up in the air, though after 60 years, military pensioners, and those who suffered life-altering injuries on the battlefield are likely to be a common sight, either on the street or in the poverty line. (Especially if the crown is willing to enforce drafts and conscription.) At this point, that might be a very real possibility.

A struggling aristocracy is also likely, with former major power players who've declined into poverty. This might take the form of borderline abandoned estates that have been taken over by the crown or squatters. (Probably not both at the same time.)

Serious inflation is likely (and could be why formerly stable guild members, merchants, and even some of the aristocracy might now find themselves struggling.) I realize this point isn't something most really think of when you're trying to write a fantasy world, but it's worth considering. More likely this will be seen in food prices having increased over time. So the major symptoms you'd likely see would be decaying structures that no one has the resources to maintain, rising food prices, and generalized poverty. Even in a fairly magically advanced setting, a lot of these things would, likely, still happen. Of course, if the dragons have been used to destroy the agricultural base, things would be even worse in that nation. To be clear, food and taxation riots are not off the table there.

This is sort of a non-sequitur, but if you have a setting with classic transmutation (lead, or other base metals, into gold), you would actually see inflation with every batch of transmuted gold hitting the market. It's sort of an amusing note on the fantasy of being able to produce as much money as you want, but ultimately, it's actually harmful from a macroeconomic perspective. (Basically, the same reason counterfeiting is a problem.) Though, it is a possible hook for criminal groups in one of those nations, producing counterfeit gold via transmutation.

There's also a real world example from 2020, where a jewelry company had fabricated “fake,” gold bars as collateral to secure loans. In total, they claimed to have 83 tons of gold used to obtain loans worth over 2.8 billion dollars, from 14 different creditors. Except, when they defaulted on those loans, and were forced to hand over the gold, it was discovered that these were in fact gold plated copper bars.

I realize the question was about the flying forces specifically, but so long as that advantage is dealt with quickly, and neither side is able to monopolize air superiority, that's not going to change nearly as much as having that level of magical advancement would on its own, and of course, the general consequences of having a war that's been going on for long enough that multiple generations have died on the battlefield. That's going to a bigger effect on your world as a whole.

-Starke

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[skellymom]

"I'M YOUR MAN"

Hunter x Jedi Fem Reader Supporting Character. SMUTTY++

Background: This one shot starts out very similar to my "Hunt and Peck" one shot. However, it's not just a Force Sensitive, but an actual Jedi. And, his Batchmates aren't in on the shenanigans. This is the VERY dirty version of "Hunt and Peck" but Hunter goes "solo".

I wanted to write a smutty fic from INSIDE Hunter's head space. We hardly ever really know what's going on in there. Well, now you do!

Word Count: 2.1K

WARNING: Male masturbation, oral sex, genital sex, spit kink, swearing kink, dirty word kink, praise kink, names of various sexual positions, bodily fluids, lots of dirty nasty sexy stuff. Lots of it. Very LEMONY content! 

The Batch finished up their latest mission, picking up a new passenger along the way.  Y/N was a Jedi hitching a ride to a planet they would be passing on the way to Kamino.  She would only be staying a few standard days on the Marauder, and the crew made sure she had a comfortable stay. 

Within two days Hunter was smitten.  He usually kept his infatuations to himself as best he could...ESPECIALLY with female Jedi.  But...well, this one was different...and difficult to ignore.  Of course, he still engaged with her politely and respectfully.  Being a Sergeant and host on this transport, he kept some distance. 

Y/N was attractive.  Not conventionally, as he wouldn’t consider himself attracted to just ANY pretty face.  But she had that...thing.  An essence?  Something that just took him out at the knees.  It was elusive... 

...and she smelled SO GOOD.  Hell, even when she was sweaty, dirty, just got woke up in the morning...heady scent of her body odor with the slightest tang of her sex... 

Hunter shifted in the pilot’s seat.  His armor codpiece felt tight.  Dammit, he NEEDED to stop getting distracted.  He was supposed to be sitting watch on the ship. 

Technically Echo was to stand this shift.  However, he was under the weather and now lying down like the rest of his brothers. 

Hunter could hear Crosshair breathing, Echo’s ticking mechanical heart, and smell Tech’s drool...as he slept face down with mouth open.  Wreckers' snores were like a power tool, until his sleep apnea kicked in. Hunter would count the seconds unconsciously holding his own breath too...until Wrecker finally inhaled. 

Hunter inhaled deeply just thinking about it... 

...until Y/N sighed in her sleep.  The sound brought his attention back to the heat and tightness in his groin.  Hunter’s cock was now becoming painful with an intense pressure against his codpiece. 

Oh STARS!  How did the other Clones deal with this???  Commander Bly following Aayla Secura around while she exposed all that beautiful blue skin.  Or Deepa Billoba with her pretty braids and deep scarlet lips... 

...then there was his first crush: Shaak Ti.  A tall stunning Togruta with her long montrals and head tails. 

DANK FERRICK!  Y/N did look at him a lot and smiled. He could sense her body reacting to him MUCH differently than his brothers.  The thrumming of her presence on his senses.  Something he guessed was her Force sensitivity.  It would tickle his nerve endings and make him shiver...in a VERY good way.  Was Y/N flirting with the Force?  Hunter wasn’t exactly sure.  Was that even ALLOWED? 

Hunter ripped the codpiece off and tossed it onto the Marauder’s dash.  His girthy engorged cock staining through his blacks...and leaving a wet spot.   

These Jedi women are going to be the death of me! 

Who was he kidding...WOMEN drove him crazy!!! 

The last thing Hunter wanted was to cause any trouble...especially with a Jedi. 

He had to take care of this situation...and put IT to “rest” ...NOW. 

Walking back to the refresher wasn’t an option.  He didn’t want to wake anyone, and he was supposed to be on watch. 

Listening again, Hunter could perceive everyone was asleep and accounted for.  He slid down comfortably in the pilot’s chair.  Noting that Tech left one of his hand rags for mechanical maintenance hanging up in the cockpit, Hunter grabbed it for clean up later. 

Looking around and listening one last time, Hunter gently rolled down his blacks and released his cock.  Its meaty girthiness sprung up at attention.  Uncut and big enough to satisfy, but not so large as to be painful.  Poor Wrecker...Hunter thought fleetingly.  So big he must hold back constantly to not injure.  Gotta be stressful.  People would give Hunter shit for being the smallest of the group.  Heh, average ain’t bad.  Especially since he exceeded at technique. 

What was the saying on Kamino?  Yeah...It’s not the size of the ship, but the motion of the ocean. 

The head of his penis peeked out from the uncut foreskin.  Hunter smoothed his thumb through the large drop of precum and rubbed gentle circles on the top of his cock.  He shivered from the sensation but held back a gentle moan.  He needed to be extra quiet.  Keeping his mouth shut, Hunter also regulated his breathing. 

Next, he cupped his cock in hand and gently but firmly pulled back his foreskin.  Then he gave his shaft a few good pumps. 

... A very feminine scent wafted from the pallet Y/N was sleeping on the bunk room floor.  She must have been having a hell of a dream...as Hunter could smell her wet arousal.  To her credit, she was extremely quiet. 

The smell drove him crazy.  More precum leaked from his cock.   

Hunter closed his eyes and imagined what it would be like to bury his face in Y/N’s pussy.  He inhaled her scent and pictured himself licking and sucking her clit.  How she would look from that point of view.  Staring up over her mons pubis to see her writhe and sweat.  Hair messed, face and chest flushed as he teased her to orgasm over and over again.  Screaming his name, asking for more.  

FUCK, he LOVED EATING PUSSY!  LOVED watching his lovers lose themselves in ecstasy.  Loved when they praised his talent for the job.   

And, if they wanted to be fingered while he dined, he happily obliged.  Gently of course...unless she insisted on it being rough.  He followed directions very well and kept the channels of communication open.  How many fingers?  How’s that feel?  You like how I’m fingering you?  Tell me.  I wanna hear you tell me.  Yeah...whatever you want.  I’m your man.  Mmmm...You’re so FUCKING beautiful!  

Pumping his cock, occasionally coming up to rub the leaking precum across his head and frenulum with his thumb.  The mental image fueling his desire and the tingling of his penis. 

Hunter also LOVED breasts.  Big, small, he serviced them all.  Lick them, kiss, twist, cup.  But, he wasn’t in a hurry.  No, Hunter wanted to appreciate the other parts of his lover's body and work his way there.   

Nibbling Y/N’s thighs, tender kisses on her stomach.  Women worry too much about their bellies.  Who the fuck made them feel so insecure?  Hunter wasn’t gonna get mad.  He didn’t have time for that.  Bring that belly here and let me worship it.  The asshole that made you feel bad about that part of your body isn’t here...I AM.  Look me right in the eyes.  Yeah, hold that eye contact.  Listen to me.  I’m gonna make your body SING tonight.  I wanna make you feel desirable...’cause you are.  Now, grab my hair if you feel ya gotta hold on tight!  

Pumped his wet cock a bit more... 

AND ASSES!  All sizes.  Firm and jiggly...flat and flabby... 

Fuck the guy who told you your ass wasn’t pretty.  Probably the same dipshit who razzed you about your other body parts. 

I’m here to tell ya:  Your body parts make my cock wanna give you a standing ovation.  I’ll happily kiss ANYTHING on your body, if it’ll get you off.  Even the stuff you might be worried is too nasty and dirty.  I’ll be as clean as you request or dirty as ya care to ask for. 

Hunter needed to stay on track.  All the blood was rushing to his lower extremities, making him a bit punch drunk.  His eyes were half closed with horniness. 

And he needed a bit more lubrication. Hunter leaned over his swollen member and spit on it delicately. The extra slide felt amazing. 

Oh yeah...Hunter was getting ahead of himself.  In his mind Y/N requested he kiss and suckle her breasts. In his mind, she moaned and raked at his back. Mmmmhmm...I wanna hear you. Tell me how much you like this. He moved up to lavish her neck with kisses, grinding his slippery member through her sex. The sound was loud and wet. Smells sooo good. Whispering in her ear, pressing his nose against her cheek You feel so good! FUCK...Hunter shivered, his cock twitching with anticipation. 

Are you ready for me?  Yeah?  Gonna take my time, okay?  I’m in no hurry...unless you WANT me to fuck you hard and put you away wet?  I aim to please.  So swollen and hard right now...could grab you around the legs, hoist ya up, and nail ya silly.  Missionary?  Doggie style?  Cowgirl?  Reverse Cowgirl?  Vertical or Horizonal, I’m strong enough to get ya there.  

No?  Ok.  Just give me the word.  And I’ll take it nice...and easy.  

Hunter slowed down the momentum on his cock.  Stroking gently to prolong his arousal and not cum too soon.    

What about me, you say?  Heh...REALLY enjoying my time with you.  I’m a man of variety.  Whatever you want, I’m along for...ahem...the ride.  However long it takes. 

You wanna suck my cock?  Well...chuckles...I won’t say NO to a good blow.  Just ask you tease me a bit.  He imagined the wet softness of Y/N’s mouth on his member.  Swirling her tongue over his head, shaft... 

...her hand firmly gripping his balls and he gripped them now... 

...pumping his cock...gathering momentum. 

Wanna blow my seed in your cunt, while I’m holding you.  Full body skin on skin contact while I’m inside you.  My uncut foreskin rubbing your pink jellybean clit while my cock caresses your G-spot.  Bonus if I get to taste your mouth while you moan into mine. 

Hunter lifted his pelvis off the seat, bracing his legs and abdomen...adding pressure to his core and the root of his sex.  He slid his cock back and forth through his wet hand, gritting his teeth, and sweating. 

I’ll do EVERYTHING in my power to take you over the edge ONE more time before I do.  I got the stamina to fuck, suck, and caress you all night if it’s what you request of me.  Over and over again. 

I’m YOUR MAN. 

As Hunter came, a very sudden and explosive scream erupted from the bunk room!   

Hunter let go of his scrotum and slapped a hand over his mouth to hold back his violent moans.  An intense, warm orgasm shot through his body. Hunter came SO HARD it hit the ceiling of the Marauder’s cockpit with an audible THUMP! A climax so sudden and strong, he shook and was unable to stand. 

The bunk room erupted in chaos. Wrecker had fallen off the top bunk from sheer terror. Tech started awake and flung his datapad across the room...hitting Crosshair in the head. Only Echo remained unscathed as he slipped unaided by his prosthetics from the bottom bunk to the Jedi’s pallet on the floor. 

He put his one intact arm around the Jedi. “Ma’am, are you ok?” 

She, sweating, flushed, and breathing heavily, “Oh...” stammered, “A dream.” 

“Sounded like a NIGHTMARE!” Wrecker recovered from his fall. 

The Jedi laughed nervously. 

Tech finally found his goggles amongst the bedcovers, slapped them on, and ran to the refresher. “I’ll retrieve a glass of water for our guest.” 

Crosshair rubbed the goose egg developing on his forehead. “Bring a bacta patch while you’re in there too!” 

“Where the HELL is HUNTER???” Echo thundered. 

On command Hunter slid into the bunk room. “What happened? Must have fallen asleep on watch!” 

Echo turned to Hunter “Our Guest gave us quite a scare.” He looked puzzled as Hunter NEVER fell asleep on watch. “Due to a dream.” 

Tech ran in and handed the Jedi a full canteen of water and a small towelette for her sweaty brow.  

“Thank you, Tech.” She dabbed herself and sipped from the canteen...purposely keeping her eyes averted from the Sergeant. 

“Bacta patch?” Crosshair growled at Tech. 

“I ONLY have two hands, Crosshair!” Tech sassed his way back to the refresher. 

“Looking a little FLUSHED too, Hunter. Sure you’re FEELING well? Crosshair sneered. 

Hunter was just about to tell Crosshair to shut his pie hole when the Jedi interrupted. “I... think I’m ready to go back to sleep.” 

“Alright.” Echo got back into his bunk. “You need ANYTHING, we’re right here.” 

“I’m feeling better now.” She sighed.  "Thank you Echo."

Wrecker leaned down and handed Lula to Y/N. “Lula will help you sleep the rest of the night.” 

“Thank you, Wrecker.” 

Crosshair sneered at Hunter who turned to go back to his watch station. 

Tech unpeeled the bacta patch and slapped it over Crosshair’s pie hole, then turned out the lights.

Next morning the Marauder landed at the Jedi’s destination. She thanked The Batch and descended the gangplank. Sergeant Hunter was the last to say goodbye and salute her. 

“I must thank you, btw.” She blushed demurely and smiled. 

Hunter looked confused and glanced to see where his Batchmates were at. They had already retreated into the ship, preparing to leave the planet. 

“Uh...for what?” 

“For being...MY MAN... last night.” 

Hunter blushed crimson red... speechless but had SO MANY questions. 

“I know what you’re thinking Sergeant. Jedi CAN have...relations. They just can’t be possessive attachments. And... technically we never physically touched...” 

She winked and walked away towards her destination. 

And that was how Hunter was literally mind-fucked by a Jedi. 

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[scriberye]

A Secret Held Tight (2/?)

────────── DEMETRIAN TITUS x F!READER x CATO SICARIUS ⚠️ Pregnant!Reader, Emotional Distress Weeks after a night of celebrations, you find yourself pregnant and ready to run, only to have your plans thwarted by Titus who vows to keep you safe. Now you must navigate the complexities of falling in love, and the scrutiny of Captain Cato Sicarius. a/n: He's your knight in shining blue ceramite armor! He's Titus! 👏

The days that follow are arduous at best, as if they weren’t tedious enough before the celebration. Each morning, you wake queasy and unsteady and you forgo breakfast in favor of hugging a pot as you heave the contents of your stomach into it. Still, you press on. You dismiss the minor aches and pains, and the unusually strong lingering odors as remnants of the celebration.

Yet as days turn into weeks, you continue to brush it off. You convince yourself that it’s just a passing sickness. Everyone gets sick at some point, you reason. It can’t be anything more.

But you can’t deny the truth for long. You find yourself one day sitting on your bed in the dormitory, half-asleep, a piece of thoroughly chewed bread in your mouth. The other serfs have noticed your behavior, and their concerned murmurs go completely unnoticed by you.

“Are you alright?” someone asks, their voice cutting through the fog that had settled over you. You blink, bleary-eyed and exhausted. Oh, it’s one of the older serfs, a woman who took on a matronly role. She’s seen many things in her long years, yet her eyes and mind remain sharp as ever.

“I’m fine,” you lie, forcing a smile. “Just a little sick.”

“You are not fine,” she scoffs. “And you are a poor liar, child. Who is the father?”

You hesitate, taking a deep breath before answering in a hushed voice, “One of the marines. Don’t ask which one for honestly I can’t remember.”

“Let’s hope it’s not one of the insufferable ones, like Captain Sicarius,” a serf mumbles to another. It makes your stomach churn at the thought.

“He’d never. If anything, he would easier to deal with if he got a little action. Even his personal serfs say he’s a headache.” Another adds.

The matron tsks and snaps her fingers at the gaggle of serfs standing nearby. “If you have the mind to stand there and gossip, you can get over here and help.”

They move closer, sheepishly casting apologetic glances in your direction, to which you offer a courteous smile in return. No hard feelings.

“Now, we must make plans,” the matron says firmly. “You may not recognize the father, but he certainly will recognize you. Your best chances are to get to the city, I know people there who can help hide you and the child.”

She pauses, her gaze falling firmly on yours. “You must be brave.”

You nod. She begins to outline her plan to you and the other serfs. The matron speaks with such confidence and assurance, assigning roles and detailing each step that it fills you with confidence.

The night you make your escape, your heart hammers in your chest as you navigate the fortress’ darkened corridors clutching a satchel of supplies. Thanks to the other serfs, your path is clear. Anyone and everyone who could be patrolling are busy and distracted.

You creep through the corridors, pressing close to the cold, stone walls, and peeking around corners before moving on. You grow more confident the closer you get to your goal, but then you see it — a flicker of movement, a figure disappearing around a corner.

Your heart seizes. Every muscle tenses, coiling, ready to spring into action. The shadow moves again, and you can hear it now — the clanking, pounding of ceramite on stone. There’s a marine. Here. Now. He shouldn’t be here. No one is supposed to be here. You checked and double-checked.

The tight corridor suddenly feels suffocating. You retreat back the way you came and dart down a different hallway, trying to remember the layout of the fortress. Maybe you can get around him and avoid a confrontation.

The satchel of supplies in your arms feels like a lead weight. But you can’t let get caught — not now. You navigate the corridors until you find something familiar, a mark on the wall signaling a path out of the fortress. You’re so close now.

The end is in sight, but so is the marine. He’s been following you. He knew you were there before you could even think to hide. His imposing shadow looms over you and the world slows to a crawl.

Your breath comes in ragged gasps.

Thunk. Thunk.

Closer. He’s right behind you.

A heavy gauntlet hand closes over your shoulder.

“Breathe,” he says.

You do, but it comes out as ragged gasps. All those plans you made, the efforts of everyone involved, have been in vain. Tears well up in your eyes.

He squeezes your shoulder. It’s not a command, but a gentle urging for you to turn around and face him. And what else can you do? You obey and look up at him. You recognize him right away. It’s Titus. He’s always been a favorite among the serfs for his kindness.

The usual stern expression softens with concern when he takes in the clearly troubled look on your face. Yet, his hand remains firm on your shoulder, steadying and grounding you.

“Breathe,” he says again. “And tell me what is happening here.”

“Please,” you whisper and squeeze your eyes shut, feeling a hot tear run down your cheek. There’s no sense lying or trying to make excuses now. “I can’t stay here… I’m pregnant, my lord.”

Titus inhales sharply, his hand on your shoulder lifting but never leaving. “So you thought to flee.”

You nod, and the follow that follows is heavy with the weight of it all. Titus’ mind races, no doubt, mulling the situation over in his head, trying to find answers in the codes and regulations, and a way through. He brings the other hand up and squeezes your shoulders.

“Listen,” he begins. “You are not alone, and if you will permit me, I wish to support you.”

You blink in surprise, lifting your head to look up at him, a fragile blend of fear and hoping twisting inside of you. “Wh— how?”

“You wouldn’t just run without a good reason. I suspect the father is not another serf, and it is this that drives you to take such drastic action.”

“I’m scared,” you confess quietly, as tears stream down your cheeks. “I don’t know what to do. What if he takes the baby from me…”

Titus’ hands tighten on your shoulders, effectively drawing your attention back to him. “I understand and, on my honor, I will do my duty to protect you,” he vows. “Become my personal serf and I can shield you, and if need be I will claim your child as my own.”

“But my lord! Your reputation! Why would you do that?” you gasp.

“I have weathered worse blows to my reputation,” Titus replies, shaking his head. He looks down at you with the faintest of smiles, a faint hint of something more… warm. “And this is the right thing to do. You deserve to feel safe.”

“Come,” he says, letting go of your shoulders. He gently takes the satchel of supplies from your trembling hands. “There is a room near my cell you can settle into, and once you’re calm we can discuss this further.”

“Thank you,” you murmur, following him as he leads you back into the fortress. With each step, you feel hope bloom in your heart, swelling and filling the gaps left by fear.

[fabricated-misslieness]

ᴘᴀɪʀɪɴɢ: prince alhaitham x knight male reader

ꜱᴜᴍᴍᴀʀʏ: after spending some time with you, the prince finds himself wishing for things

ᴡᴏʀᴅ ᴄᴏᴜɴᴛ: 2.65k ~ PT.1 ~ PT.2

ᴡᴀʀɴɪɴɢꜱ: sword training, classism, mention of war

☾⋆☆⋆☽

This is a horrible place, Alhaitham thinks, but instead he says: "This is, well..." and it's not that much of an improvement.

The Crown Prince has never been to the servants' quarters, nor the kitchen, nor the knights' quarters or the troops' training grounds. He has never seen the thorough use of space, and has not experienced the smell of two dozen worked men sleeping in the same room.

Your old pallet-based bed has already been claimed by another soldier, but you know the position well and the new tenant doesn't have many memorabilia to show for his use of the space.

It is lucky that you have visited in the middle of the day while the knights are training, otherwise the Prince would've been nothing but drowned in the crowd of soldiers and their odor; odor so musky it still lingers.

He is vaguely aware of the wing reserved for war generals in the palace and wonders why you do not have one. "Should you not have had your own room?"

"They told me it was all occupied." You reply, to hide from him the truth. You know, from your sparse time in the castle as a war general and your now abundant time as the Prince's knight, that the castle has so many rooms, many are left unused.

Although of course, as the Prince, he knows this too. "Speak freely."

You answer immediately, "I am of low blood."

The Prince nods his head. This, he had expected. Among the many variables he had not, such as the foul odor of the room, something he was correct about pleases him. But, despite the burn in his nose, the rarity of being wrong and what's to come still excites him.

"I used to make polishing oil for my own armor, as well as my sword, and my own whetstone." You said, your hand gesturing to the small shelf above the head of the pallet. "But now the servants, and I suppose the King or Queen, supply me with those."

"Did you read about how to make one?" The Prince asked. It was as much a theory as a question.

"No." Is all you say. You can't just tell him you've never read a book in its entirety before, being read to not withstanding. "I have simply found walnuts work well, actually."

His eyebrows raise, "With trial and error?"

"Precisely." You smile.

He has tried, ever since the first day he had sat down to listen to you speak, to not let his judge of your character to fall into the stereotypes deeply ingrained in him.

That stereotype being that knights were nothing but brawn and battle prowess. They were not taught the word misslieness, for it was hardly necessary, but were taught the word hubris in order to not fall into it themselves. The same stereotype dictates that knights did not seek to expand their wisdom to tidbits of knowledge they did not require, much like nobles did not need to know what commoners did.

Trial and error for measly armor polish one could buy from the market on even a low blood knight's salary was certainly one of those tidbits of knowledge he thought you wouldn't care for.

He shakes the feeling off and listens to the rest of your words, choosing to focus on your explanations of how life was...and the finer smell of your plain armor polish, as opposed to the other odor he could smell.

The very same odor you either ignore or have grown used to. "The other boys snore," You smile fondly, "it is nothing like the sound of swords striking metal in aspects of harmony, but it is just as loud. The palace has been...respite, but hearing my old mate Rohan snoring is something I miss."

"And the bed?" He asks.

Respectful of the new tenant's space, you place your hand on the thin mattress and press down with minimal force. It creaks. "No."

He nods his head, a smile on his lips, despite the misery of smell. "Yes, I imagine a bed in the palace is a lot better."

Glee crinkles the corners of your eyes when you smile at him, "It is."

☾⋆☆⋆☽

Alhaitham is very happy to leave that dastardly room when you're done talking about how it used to be in there. You had talked so fondly about it: about how, even with the lack of space, you treated everyone in that room asa brother. The Prince had heard about it once before, from the less authoritarian, more cocky Knights of Favonius, that they were a brotherhood. He had hardly pictured it from the Sumeru knights who all behaved stiff as twigs around him.

The next stop is the troops' training grounds. On the way there, you explained some things to him. As a war general, you were also in charge of training your men. When your duty became to protect the Prince, the task was awarded to some of the lesser yet competent captains the other war generals often deferred to.

He's beginning to regret asking to follow your old routine, slightly, as one revolting place is replaced with another. He can hardly hear himself think when you step out into the field, beyond the sound of blades parrying other blades and men's shouts and groans.

As you maneuver through the crowd of sparring soldiers, they don't even realize that the Crown Prince is among their ranks.

They notice you first, the captains. "General!"

Their shouts of your name die out in the chaos blasting in his ears, but he stays his ground as he reaches the end of the worst of the men and watches as you continue forward to greet them.

You really are like brothers, bantering, fluffing up their hair and knocking on their speckled armor.

He knows war generals don't speak this way with their subordinates. He knows war generals don't even build bonds with them. He knows that, to them, it is all business: listen to me, plan this strategy with/for me, fight for me.

What is it that's–

"Your highness!" One captain shrieks, and suddenly swords clang and fall to the ground, either on their blunt side or tip first, digging up the Earth. Many men fall to their knees in an instant, more join them in the other.

There is a whole field of men kneeling to him, and Alhaitham turns up his nose with a snarl. "Stand." He says, his voice loud and stern. He cherished the silence leftover in the absence of metal, but he wishes even more for the attention to be off of him. "I thank you for your respect. Return to your duties."

The soldiers eventually stand, and after a reluctance quickly stepped over, they return to their training.

The three devoted generals remain on their knees as Alhaitham strides up to stand by your side, not in front.

"I said stand." Alhaitham repeats, his voice emotionless yet interpreted as angry by the generals.

The first that stands stiffens up like a thin tree in the wind, nervous. "Your highness," His head is bowed, "what do we–"

"Look at me when you speak, Captain."

The captain yelps. He yelps, unbecoming of a man of his stature, build, and rank. "Y-Yes." He says, his voice a pitch higher. When their eyes meet, he knows that the mere act of eye contact makes his pitch even higher when he speaks again, "To what do we owe the pleasure of your presence today, my prince?"

He dislikes the way he calls him his. "I only wish to observe. Carry on as usual. Do not work harder on my behalf."

Alhaitham begins to walk further towards the sidelines, somewhere he can spectate without obstacle as well as listen to his mind.

However, when you call out to him, he stops the both of you. "My prince–"

He does not stop you because you call him yours, but because he wishes for the company of his own solitude and a view of the soldiers as seen by a bystander. "Command them as you would have."

"Yes, your highness." You nod your head dutifully and turn back to your former men.

After the quick talk of "yes, I'm back" and ordering them to train their stances, standing in line and slicing the air almost mechanically, you're back to talking with your captains.

The slicing of the air is a lot more quiet than the clanging of swords, an acceptable replacement he will thank you for later, so now he can actually hear himself think; and also accidentally eavesdrop. The way he does not try to shift his focus away from your conversation waves off the "accidental" notion.

You don't notice him anyway; you are much more preoccupied with catching up with your captains. They are busier now, without a war general to guide them, and you have not seen them since you were appointed the Prince's protector.

"How is the life?" One captain asks you, a bright glint to his worn smile.

Boring, is what he expects you to say. "It's interesting."

"Just interesting?" Another gawks, jaw slack, and Alhaitham can't help but mirror the question in his head. "Tell us all about it! It cannot just be interesting."

"It is gilded, and gaudy. Do you recall General Ipsit's golden armor? It is like that, an unnecessary show of wealth; but all the luxury is actually welcome. The floors are carpeted when wood is just fine, and even the tiles have a design. I can see my reflection on them."

All three of them laugh, as if such an idea is absurd. The third captain, which seems to be quite young yet clearly strong, asks the next question, "Well, how's the food?"

"Like heaven." You chuckle, "The puddings are as fluffy as clouds and the breads crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside. The meats are spiced; dried or smoked or grilled, all so divine it is like eating wealth."

He's never heard you speak in such a way.

"How about your quarters?"

You sigh, eyes closed as though collapsed over your mattress that very instant. "The head of the bed is colored with gold, and the sheets are even lilac." A diluted purple, but the color of royalty and wealth nonetheless. "The mattress is soft, and it molds to my very body."

And by this way, it was with descriptors for such worthless things. When you speak to him, you are always objective. This marble reminds me of magma, this green is very bright, its whistle is not as sharp. This is all in benefit, of course, to him, and it is always the way servants speak to their masters.

"Man. How come you get this treatment?" The youngest captain speaks up again, clearly jealous.

"Oh, dear Nayak," You laugh. It sounds so lively. "you are not the one who slayed a dragon."

And he has never heard you speak so jokingly before.

Perhaps he is not deserving of this, he thinks as you continue to joke with your fellows. He does not deserve to have your humor nor your emotion, only your solemnity. In fact, it is not that he does not deserve it, but that it is the only way you should address him—the only way a knight should address his prince, with objectivity. It is an irrational...fear? Thought–just a thought, nothing more–and it should not be occupying his mind, much the same way that you are treating him as you should.

And yet...there is a yearning. No one has talked to him like this, not his peers at the Akademiya, not the scholars, not his servants, not the knights, not his lesser brothers.

That is why he wishes for this...inessential way of speech. Because it is new.

That is what he's been prodding for these days, he realizes. Not just your friendship, but the unceremonious exchanges as well. He doesn't want you to report to him, he wants you to speak to him.

Nobody's ever spoken to him. There is his father scolding, his mother doting, the servants reporting, scholars exchanging, guards courteously greeting, peasants showing their respect, and you answering his questions.

How does one fix this?

Fix? What is he thinking? This is exactly the way you should be speaking to him. But, oh, he wishes for casualty. Yes, that's it. Companionship, from the man who saved his life, it is only natural.

Now, how to do it?

☾⋆☆⋆☽

When the both of you are back at Alhaitham's personal library, where he spends his time of leisure, the Prince thinks he should collapse into a heap and hide himself. He had thought about the dilemma, and with increasing effort came increasing thoughts—overthinking. He takes you out for an outing, no, you'd be too guilty and grateful to be honest, same thing if he gave you a gift. Having friends, no, making a friend is hard.

And then the blistering heat of the midday sun ruptured his thoughts, and the clanging of swords took over his senses, and then the heat came to rupture that too.

He does collapse in a heap on the couch, albeit more gracefully than in the hypothetical scenario.

Perhaps still affected by the joy of nostalgia and seeing your old brotherhood again, you spark a conversation yourself, despite him not declaring open discussion. "What did you think?"

Alhaitham is glad he didn't have to declare it. "It was horrible." He admits, wiping his sweaty, warm forehead with his damp handkerchief. He grimaces.

You laugh; it sounds nice, better than swords, at least, "I too would think it a horrible place if I had an upbringing such as yours."

You mean it as sympathy, but it only makes the Prince feel privileged and lucky. "Yes...quite."

You sense it yourself, a moment later, of course you do. You're way better at intimately social matters and empathy than he is.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean it that way." You bow your head, already back to the Knight Protector of the Crown Prince.

"It's quite alright." He places his hand over yours, the joints of the iron glove dig slightly into his skin, but he doesn't care for it.

You turn your hand, letting his hand rest over your smoother palm. It feels like turning a new leaf, physically.

"So, it was horrible," you look down, and he tracks your gaze down to your hands, "and..what else was it?"

He wracks his head, thinks about it. Normally he doesn't have to think for such a thing, but he is considering something else now: your feelings. "...admirable."

You burst out laughing at his timidness, and if it were anyone else, he would be offended.

Alhaitham scrambles for something to say, "I mean it!" His face is red, he's sure, "I can't believe you can live under such conditions–without something as necessary as privacy–and fight for our lands and protect our people."

"The knighthood takes recruits before they even reach the cusp of manhood, my prince." You explain to him, and he is grateful for it, "We grow used to it."

"It is not a good thing to grow accustomed to." He says, his voice quiet, small. He is not the Crown Prince here, he is just Haitham.

You speak up again, to ease his worries, "We bear it for the people, as you do, and will." He is so grateful for you.

He grasps your fingers with his own, and has half the mind to intertwine them. He does not. "Thank you, (y/n)."

"There is nothing to thank me for."

There is a lot to thank you for. He doesn't mention it, because you would only shut him down. So he sings your praises, instead, in his mind; and he speaks his wishes there too.

His mind has never been quiet, but for a moment, there is only you.

☾⋆☆⋆☽

ɴᴏᴛᴇ: im sorry folks i am a terribly busy man

[starlightkun]

⇢ word count: 19.1k ⇢ warnings: past unethical experimentation, brief blood and gore descriptions (some human and some non-human), you have to accept the premise of a single human empire in space in the future with colonies and a military and not think deeper about that, needle/injection mention ⇢ genre: sci-fi, set in the near-ish future, humans and aliens and robots, black op mission, captain kun, ?????? reader, slow burn, fluff, dash of angst, ft. wayv as the crew of the vision ⇢ extra info: took a lot of obvious inspo for this one from isaac asimov’s robot stories, specifically his concept of positronic brains & the three laws of robotics (and if you’ve read any of his stories, you’ll probably be able to see some other places too) ⇢ author’s note: ahhh she’s finally here! i hope you guys are as excited for part one as i am!! ⇢ series masterlist | next

Frankenstein complex (noun) ── The fear of mechanical men.

The air smelled like blood, burned electrical components, and whatever horrible odor came from blood getting onto electrical components as they sparked. All the blood wasn’t human, you could tell that, too. Skipper blood always stung your nose like rubbing alcohol. It was pitch black in the space you were hiding in, or maybe it was just nighttime. You should be scared, but your heart wasn’t beating fast for some reason.

Two pairs of heavy footfalls. One was heavier than the other. Walking, so definitely not Skippers. Both were still too light to be heavier races.

They slowed to a stop outside your hiding spot, and you really hoped they couldn’t read the Outspacer controls that would open the otherwise impossible-to-see door. After all, it was a language that had been dead for hundreds of millions of years, there was no way—

“Hey, Zennie, you got a read on these?” A man’s voice came from nearby, muffled by both the wall and presumably a helmet as well. Human, or related species.

You couldn’t hear this ‘Zennie’s reply, as it most likely came through the comms in his helmet, but you could hear the man’s side of the conversation.

“Oh, of course, how dare I, a mere meatsack, doubt your high-and-mighty artificial intelligence,” he replied with fake deference. “Yeah, yeah, I know that’s not what you meant. Alright, so just tell me which one’s the self-destruct button so I don’t press it?”

“Move, Wong, before you blow us up.” Another voice interjected. “ZEN? You said it’s a passageway? Oh, safe shelter. Bit different, don’t you think? Mind translating the dead language right the first time?”

He paused as he probably listened to Zen’s reply, then continued, “So? You know which one’s the open button?”

You couldn’t go anywhere. The hideout you were in was designed to hold only a few people for weather emergencies, to be structurally sound; not to have a back door in case you needed to escape intruders. You just had to hope Zen was completely wrong and they wouldn’t get it open.

Click.

There goes that.

The door dematerialized, and the rancid smell from before became even stronger. A man peered in barrel-first, and you recoiled back from the sudden light flooding your vision. You couldn’t press yourself any further back into the corner, but you still turned your head away to shield your sensitive eyes.

It only took a couple strides for one of the men to reach you, the other stayed back in the hallway, keeping his rifle fixed on you. The man stood over where you were sitting on the floor—your legs had gotten tired of standing after so long—and lowered his gun slightly so you could see the entirety of the front plate that covered his face. It was a reflective shield that gave you no clue to who was behind it, only let you see a warped, thinned and stretched version of yourself cowering in a corner. His armor was an improved version of the standard issue United Human Navy, if the insignia on both of his shoulders didn’t make that clear enough. It looked the same as the standard issue, but the heft of his footsteps had belied a weight difference that wasn’t explained by his stature or build, so it must be the grade of material.

“Are you hurt?” His voice came through an external speaker on his helmet. He was speaking in standard human. You couldn’t detect any sort of odd stiltedness or lag that sometimes happened with computer-assisted translations. He was assuming you understood standard human, and you did.

“No,” you replied, slowly uncrossing your arms to show your hands first, that you didn’t have anything hidden in them to attack him with. You still weren’t scared, for some reason.

“Oh, she’s pretty,” his companion commented from the hallway. The two of them must be sharing helmet feeds, as the one in front of you was definitely blocking most of you from his sight.

“Wong, shut it.” The outer speaker had been turned off for that, but it was still pretty clear to you.

“Sir, yes sir.”

“Can you stand?” His weapon was still at the ready, his finger resting above the trigger.

You couldn’t remember the last time you’d wiggled your fingers and toes, and it felt good to do it. “Yes.”

He stepped back, the unexpressive mirror of his face shield watching as you pushed up from your half-sit half-crouch, bracing yourself against the wall. Your body instinctively took a deep breath to try to recover from the sudden exertion, but the vaporized Skipper blood burned your entire respiratory tract, and you coughed and spluttered trying to force it back out, catching yourself on the wall on your forearms to stay upright. The odor made your head swim, your eyes water, and your chest hurt like someone had put gasoline in your lungs and struck a match.

“Okay, woah, woah.” Two gloved hands were on your arms and back, helping you stay up. His voice was muffled again as he switched to his in-helmet comms, “Xiao, get over here! We’ve got a survivor! Yes, really, just look at my stream.”

Then, his voice was projecting to you once more, “Breathe, breathe.”

You felt the roughness of a thumb wiping at the tears running down your cheeks, the durable material of his glove scratching against your skin. He grabbed the front of your shirt collar, pulling it up towards your face at the same time he firmly pulled your hand down that had been covering your mouth as you wheezed. Positioning the material over your nose and mouth into a makeshift filter of some sort, he continued holding it there for you as you took a few breaths.

“Better?”

You nodded shallowly. The smell of Skipper blood still cloyed to your throat and lungs, but the shirt helped keep more from entering.

More footsteps from down the hall, then another pair entered the shelter.

“Holy shit…” Someone breathed out.

“I know, man,” the voice that you were already pretty sure was ‘Wong’ from earlier replied.

“How long has she been in here?” A fourth voice asked, belonging to the footsteps getting closer to you.

“I don’t know,” the man already with you answered. “Wong and I just found her while clearing this sector.”

“Okay, well, you mind, Captain?” He said indicatively. “Can’t examine my patient through you.”

“You got it?” The captain asked you, shaking the collar slightly.

You took it from him, holding it over the bridge of your nose yourself as he had been doing for you before. Looking into his face shield where you were pretty sure his eyes should be, you nodded firmly this time.

He didn’t step back until you felt another pair of gloves grabbing your elbows where he had been. The newcomer’s uniform differed from the others’ in one way, he had a neon green rectangular patch on his right arm below his UHN insignia, as well as a few other places—intergalactic signal for medic. It was removable for the wearer’s own safety, and his in particular was slightly askew, as if he’d just slapped it back on in a hurry.

The medic flipped through the pockets of a pack strapped to his thigh before pulling out a small disc of clear plastic and pushing that against your hand. “Here, this’ll work a lot better than your shirt.”

You accepted it, and he helped you orient it the right way over your nose and mouth. It was apparently a mask or rebreather of some sort. It wasn’t exceptionally bulky, and you could feel that there was some sort of fine mesh material on the inside. Immediately, you could tell the difference. The air coming into your lungs carried only the slightest tinge of lingering burning electronics smell, and while you could tell that there was Skipper blood, it didn’t burn, or make your head spin. It was just unpleasant.

“There. How’s that?”

You gave him a thumbs-up, the standard human gesture for good, since they all seemed to speak standard human. The mask didn’t allow much room for talking.

“Alright, good. Are you injured?”

You shook your head.

“Do you feel pain anywhere?”

You shook your head again.

“Good, good. I have more questions, but we should get somewhere you can breathe. Give me a second.” He looked upwards as if talking to the heavens, and his outer speaker turned off. “Liu? Professor? Did you finish clearing the building? Alright, ZEN, got readings on air quality for her?”

After a pause, both the medic, Xiao, and the captain, who had been hovering behind him the whole time, nodded.

“Thanks, ZEN.” Xiao’s speaker turned on, “Here, our teammates found somewhere that you can breathe. It’s going to be a little bit of a walk, though. Is that okay?”

You nodded. Your legs would just have to deal.

“It’s not pretty out here…” The only one that hadn’t been identified to you in passing called out as a warning from his position in the hallway with ‘Wong.’

You turned around and pushed off the wall as your answer.

Stepping into the hall, you knew why you had smelled that particular concoction of smells. Just off to your left were two dead Skippers, their uniquely-articulated hind limbs that gave them their distinct gait—and consequently, the questionably flattering nickname from humans—stuck out at awkward angles now. Dark purple sludge seeped out from under their armor, Skipper blood. On the outside of the armor were smears, streaks, and splatters turned a gleaming ruby red under the emergency lights, human blood.

You couldn’t see any dead humans, or pieces of them, in this corner, but you remembered what the captain had called you. A survivor. Which meant there were others who didn’t survive.

“Come on.” It was the captain who ushered you the other direction from the Skipper bodies. “This way.”

Their helmets must have been mapping out the facility as the unit cleared it and displaying a route in all of their HUDs, because the four of them moved as if they knew the building like the back of their hand. The captain and Xiao flanked you on either side, with Wong at the front and the fourth unnamed one at the rear. You couldn’t tell if it felt more like a protection detail or a prisoner transport.

You kept your eyes on your feet not only so you didn’t have to see all of the mutilation, or to keep from stepping in something, but to avoid the unsettling, cold dread slowly sinking over you when from the moment you caught a look at the first dead human you passed by with her remarkably in-tact face, dandelion yellow blouse and lab coat, and realized you didn’t recognize her. When you inhaled sharply and shot your eyes down to your feet, you could tell that the captain noticed. He turned his head just ever so slightly towards you, off of the consistent path it had been before, and he paused, then went back to keeping watch.

They weren’t kidding when they said it was a bit of a walk. You could feel the muscles in your legs get sore, then start twitching, then start shaking, but you didn’t even consider asking to stop.

“Woah, Liu, slow down!” The captain ordered into his headset. “Okay, yeah, I see it. Don’t touch anything. We’re just sweeping right now, remember?”

“Great, the kid’s found more toys,” the one behind you snorted.

Xiao and Wong suddenly erupted into more laughter than that statement warranted you were pretty sure.

Wong then informed him with a snicker, “Mic’s on, Ten.”

“You say that as if I wouldn’t have said that to his face, too,” the one now finally identified as Ten retorted.

“ZEN, the mics, please?” The captain sighed. “Thank you.”

“Now he’s going to whine that we were shit talking him behind his back,” Xiao groaned. “Again.”

“Well we are,” Ten laughed.

“If he just stopped acting like a baby, Captain here wouldn’t have to step in and put him in time out all the time,” Wong clicked his tongue.

“You think he’s the one in time out right now?” The captain replied dryly.

You couldn’t help but let out a small chuckle into your mask, trying to cover it up with a cough when all four of their reflective shields whipped around to face you, as if they’d forgotten you were there. After an uncomfortable stretch of silence, they all shifted back into their watchful stances.

The captain suddenly spoke again, “Yes, Professor? Okay, sure… ZEN, put that on everyone’s HUDs.”

The lack of commentary from any of them for seemingly several minutes was startling, and you weren’t sure if you wanted to know what this ‘Professor’ was showing them.

“We’re going to have to go back there after dropping Xiao and her off, aren’t we?” Wong was the first to speak.

“Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to,” Ten sighed.

“Or already know the answer to,” the captain said. “If she has any wounds that Xiao needs to tend to, one of you will stay to keep guard. If not, it’ll be Ten and Wong with me to meet up with Liu and the Professor, and Xiao will stay with her.”

“Alright, Ten,” Wong rolled out his neck. “Rock paper scissors?”

“Almost there,” Wong called out from ahead of you. Your internal clock told you it was almost half an hour since they found you.

“It’s just through those doors,” the captain informed you, indicating to the double doors on the opposite side of the large atrium you were in. This area had been mostly untouched by the carnage, it seemed.

“The building does have Gecks, but none of those seemed to have made it out in one piece,” Xiao added, explaining why you hadn’t used the small four-seater all-terrain vehicles, parts of which you had occasionally seen strewn about. “Sorry.”

You shrugged one shoulder at him in what you hoped he could interpret as an understanding gesture, as you were pretty sure this wasn’t their fault. From the context that you were trying to gather very quickly, they had only just gotten here.

Wong pushed one of the doors open, and the captain went in right behind to do a quick sweep, shouting out a short ‘clear!’ before Xiao led you in, and Ten followed in last, Wong shutting it firmly behind him.

You had emerged into something that looked impossible. An entire world bigger than the building you were in before, but definitely contained in one room, as when you turned around, you could still find the door. Ahead of you were rolling hills of vibrant crops, and your hand fell from your face, taking the rebreather with it. The air in here was fresh and crisp, and of course it was, this was the ag bubble. It must have remained untouched from the conflict outside because it was completely self-sustaining, needing no human intervention to planet, grow, or maintain the crops, so there would have been nobody in here in the first place.

“Okay, I’ll ask again: Any pain?” Xiao questioned you, taking his gloves off, and revealing rather delicate hands for a military medic. He motioned like he was about to grab your arm. “Can I?”

You nodded, holding it out for him to lift and turn your limb to visibly inspect it as you verbally answered his first question. “No, no pain, no injuries, I swear. I mean, my legs are a bit sore from walking, but that’s it.”

He let it hang back down at your side before doing the same to the other arm. “Hit your head?”

“Uh, I don’t think so?” You bent your head to let him quickly feel at your scalp through your hair for any bumps, lacerations, or other evidence of injury.

“Have all your toes?”

“Haven’t counted lately…?”

“Do it now.”

And so everybody stood around while you awkwardly took your shoes and socks off to make sure you had all ten toes, and that they weren’t necrotic, then you finally sat down to pull your socks and shoes back on. Xiao took your pulse manually at your wrist, before having you breathe into a small device and sampling a pinprick of blood from your finger with the same tool. After a moment, the screen lit up green, along with your specific readings.

“Satisfied, Xiao?” The captain asked.

“Absolutely,” the medic nodded. “More compliant than all of my patients as of late.”

“Good. We’re going to head out to catch up with the others and check that out.”

“Better you than me.”

“Hold on guys, aren’t we forgetting something?” Wong stopped the other two from leaving.

Ten and the captain looked at each other, then back to Wong.

“What, Wong? And we’re not guessing, spit it out or shut up,” the captain demanded, crossing his arms over his chest.

Wong reached up and pulled his helmet off in one grand motion, the first of any of them to have done so. He shook his dark, shaggy hair out—you wondered if that length was perhaps a bit too long for UHN standards, as it was almost covering his ears—before focusing a wide grin on you. Wong crouched down in front of you.

“Do angels have names?”

The other three groaned and swore at varying volumes.

You stared at him blankly, unsure of why this was receiving such backlash from the others, and why they all also seemed to be waiting for your response. When it had quieted down a little bit, you cleared your throat, and answered hesitantly, “I-I don’t know. Do they? I’m sorry, I’m not a theologist… I don’t think I even believe in the divine, really.”

Wong’s jaw dropped as he stared at you, and Ten and Xiao began howling with laughter. The captain marched over, cuffing him by the ear. “That’s enough. Get up! Stop harassing the woman.”

“Ow! That hurt!” Wong cradled the side of his head as he pulled himself to his feet.

“Should’ve kept your helmet on.” The captain yanked Wong away by his scruff as the soldier struggled to put his gear back on. “Do it again and I’m throwing you out of the Vision into the next star. Understand me, Corporal?”

“Zennie! Not helpful, dude! I don’t think that was him asking how close the closest star was!” Wong yelped.

Wong, Ten, and the captain disappeared through the door, and you could no longer hear them, but judging by Xiao’s chuckling, they were still going at it, and it was apparently funny. You looked up at the one remaining soldier you were left with inquisitively.

“Oh, sorry, here.” Xiao popped his helmet off as well, and you got to see his sharp features for the first time. He set it on the ground at his feet, and you noted that he pointed the face shield away from you. “I’m Xiao Dejun. You can just call me Dejun, if you’d like.”

“Don’t you need to hear your teammates?” You asked hesitantly, looking at the helmet.

“Earpiece,” he tapped a small device nestled in his left ear. “There are some advantages to not having the neural port. Like not having an AI inside of my goddamn brain.”

“You also don’t have a rifle,” you observed for the first time. Before, you had presumed that it was merely slung over his back, but now you could clearly see that the bulk there was more packs of medical supplies.

“I’m a terrible shot, barely got past basic. I’d just make more patients if I had one,” he laughed, then patted a holster on his right thigh. “Captain makes me carry a pistol, though.”

You looked off towards a rippling field of grain nearby, trying not to think of that woman’s face, her yellow blouse, because then you’d think about why you didn’t know her. She was in a lab coat, this was some kind of scientific facility, you were sure of it, you knew that, so why didn’t you know her—

“Sorry about Wong, by the way,” Dejun very thankfully caught your attention again, offering you your second smile of the day. “I promise, he wasn’t trying to be greasy. He’s a goofball, he was trying to make you laugh, put you at ease, you know? But clearly, that wasn’t the way to do it. So again, sorry.”

“He wasn’t asking a theological question?” You clarified.

He tilted his head, giving you a strange, bemused look. “No, he was asking what your name is. It’s an old, cheesy Earth pickup line. Or, I guess it must be unique to Earth, since you don’t know it. Are you from a colony or…?”

“I… don’t know,” you trailed off, the corners of your mouth turning down as you tried to think harder.

“You don’t know your name? Or if you’re from a colony?”

“My name’s Y/N.” You could answer that immediately. That was familiar, yours.

“So you don’t remember if you’re from Earth or a colony?”

You squeezed your eyes shut as you tried to think harder, but it felt like you were just scrambling in a dark, empty room. “No, I don’t know.”

“Hey, that’s okay. Relax, Y/N,” he said gently. “Just relax right now, okay?”

Dejun took one of the packs off his back and started rooting through it. “How long were you in there? I’m sure you’re thirsty, and hungry.”

“I don’t know…”

His brow furrowed as he offered a canteen out to you. “Here. Water.”

“Thank you.”

Slowly, the man with you lowered himself down until he was sitting across from you, linking his fingers together. He let you open the bottle and take a few deep gulps of water. You couldn’t remember the last time you had water, but it felt great to drink it again.

“Y/N…” The medic said calmly. “What is the first thing you can remember? The oldest hard memory you have?”

You wiped away a stray drop that had rolled down your chin, and scraped through your brain, but came up startlingly empty. “I-I guess smelling blood, all the human blood and Skipper blood, and then hearing footsteps outside where I was hiding. Wong’s and the captain’s, right before they found me.”

His eyes went wide, and his nostrils flared as his features turned serious. “Your oldest memory is less than an hour old?”

That same unsettling, cold dread that had started sinking down over you since you saw the woman fully coated you, and you involuntarily shivered. Cautiously, hesitantly, as if afraid that you were erring somehow, you nodded. “I take back what I said earlier, Dejun. I think there’s something very, very wrong with me.”

Dejun asked you round after round of questions walking through the very first thing you could remember right up to that very second, until he let out a long sigh.

“Well, so far it seems like you’re forming memories right now just fine,” he declared. “And you at least remember your name, which is good.”

“I knew you guys were UHN, and that you were a medic because of your green patch,” you reiterated insistently, feeling like you were going in circles with your own mind. How could you possibly know about the United Human Navy and military visual codes but not if you were from Earth or not?

“Okay, so you’ve been around the Navy before. If you were at this place, that makes sense. You don’t have a neural port, so you were probably a military contractor of some sort.”

You immediately latched onto this clue. “What is this place?”

Dejun offered you a regretful look. “Already said too much. That’s a question for the captain, sorry.”

You sighed, but didn’t push him. Pointing to the exit, you tried another avenue of your apparent knowledge. “I know those aliens are called Skippers.” 

“Definitely UHN with that lingo.” Dejun grinned at you. “One of us.”

“But I don’t know why they were here. Or why I’m here.”

“Don’t push yourself.”

“And I know that this place is an agriculture bubble, ag bubble for short, and what that is, and the basics of how and why it works, and what it’s for, but not why it would be here. Or why I would be here—ow!” You held the front of your head as a dull pressure started up from the inside.

“Y/N?” Dejun scrambled closer, his voice concerned. “What’s going on?”

“My head hurts,” you scrunched your nose up against the feeling.

“Where? Describe it for me. Is it a throbbing? Stabbing? Shooting? Aching? Squeezing?”

“The front mostly. Feels like something’s pushing from the inside out, kind of,” you explained, dropping your hand to let him do another, more thorough examination for any head injuries.

“A pressure?”

“Yeah.”

“You’ve got to take it easy,” he told you frankly. “The human brain’s a finnicky, unpredictable thing. And I’m just talking about the squishy part inside your skull. Interrogating it about why you can remember some things and why you can’t remember other things isn’t going to make you remember those things. I can’t see any injury on the outside, but since you can’t remember whether or not you were injured, and we don’t have anybody else to say either way, we can’t discount that your amnesia came from an injury. If you sprained your ankle, you wouldn’t be running a marathon on it. Same thing with an injured brain, okay?”

“Okay,” you acquiesced, grabbing the canteen again. Already, your head was feeling a little better.

“You’re officially the easiest patient I’ve ever had,” he declared, sitting back down. “If I had lollipops to give out, you’d get one.”

Before you could say anything, Dejun held up a finger for you to wait, then grabbed his helmet and yanked it back on. “What the fuck… Alright, yeah, I agree, this is the best place to set up camp. Y/N confirmed it’s an ag bubble, we’ll be able to—Can I finish? Anyway, it’s an ag bubble, so we’ll be able to live here indefinitely. Cool, we’ll see you guys soon.”

Dejun took the helmet off again, resting it on his hip as he informed you, “Everyone’s coming back here to set up camp.”

“Making camp in the ag bubble does make the most sense,” you stated, looking around you. “Fresh air, running water, obviously unlimited food.”

“Glad you agree.”

“How long is your team supposed to be here?”

“Question for the captain.”

“Seems as though I have a lot of questions for the captain,” you sighed, resting your cheek on your knees as you traced figure-eights in the grass with your finger.

“He’s going to have a few for you as well.”

“I would ask what everybody went to go investigate, but I have a feeling…”

“Just wait until he gets back.”

“As I had guessed.”

There was a short rhythm of knocks at the door to the ag bubble, and Dejun jogged over to open it. “Clear!”

A group of UHN soldiers all entered, talking among themselves, though you could tell when their reflective face shields occasionally turned over towards you. You were still sitting on the ground, hugging your knees to your chest, and uncertainly got to your feet, brushing away any stray dirt that may have clung to you. Dejun put himself between them and you, holding his hands out, and you could very clearly hear the word ‘amnesia’ a few times as he seemed to be sternly prefacing this introduction, taking his role as your doctor seriously.

Judging by how he held himself, the one that you were pretty sure was the captain cocked his head at this information, but remained quiet through Dejun’s small spiel. The medic gestured as if he were rushing them, and they all reached up to take their helmets off as well. He finally led them over to you, offering you a reassuring smile.

“Y/N, this is the crew of the Vision,” he motioned to all five of them. “I’ll let our captain take over on introductions.”

“Thanks, Lieutenant,” the one that you had already pinpointed as the captain from afar spoke up. Despite not being the tallest of them, he held himself differently, as if there was some weight there that you couldn’t see, but he carried with a straight back and level shoulders nevertheless. “I’m Captain Qian Kun of the United Human Navy vessel the Vision. I’m sure our doctor, Lieutenant Xiao, has already introduced himself. This is the rest of my… ragtag team: Corporal Wong Kunhang…”

You looked at the only other man aside from Dejun who was familiar to you, who fixed you with an exceptionally apologetic gaze.

“I am very sorry about earlier, ma’am,” he bowed his head regretfully, hands clasped behind his back.

“Oh, thank you,” you responded. “I’m sure you’re very funny, Corporal Wong, to other people.”

A couple of the others let out snickers as they tried to stay at attention, Dejun and another openly bursting into laughter. The taller one quickly scrambled to get back into his position and push down his smile as the captain focused his gaze on all of them again.

Captain Qian continued, “Staff Sergeant Ten Lee.”

He flashed you a grin. “It’s a pleasure, ma’am.”

“Lieutenant Liu Yangyang…”

“Nice to meet you!” Lieutenant Liu beamed at you, though there was a weird little glint in his eye that you weren’t sure if you liked. It was like he was trying to take you apart piece by piece. His gaze hadn’t left you through everybody else’s introduction, and you weren’t liking having to meet it now. “And can I just say, I think you’re one of the funniest beings in the galaxy? Definitely funnier than Wong over there.”

“Kid’s making some points,” Ten elbowed Wong.

Captain Qian suddenly took over again very loudly, “And finally, our only civilian member of the crew, Professor Dong Sicheng, Department of Xenolinguistics at New Beijing University.”

This was the other guy who had outright laughed a moment ago, and you could tell he was much less comfortable with the stiff military position before Captain Qian had informed you he was a civilian. Despite his civilian status, though, he was in the same armor and carried the same arms as everyone else—more firepower than Dejun did. You were just glad to not have to be making eye contact with Liu anymore. It felt like he knew something that you didn’t, and you definitely didn’t like that, given your current predicament.

Six of them. Turning back to Captain Qian, you tilted your head curiously. “ZEN is… your ship’s AI? And you all have a synchronous fragment in your helmets, earpieces, and neural ports?”

A couple of them looked at Dejun incredulously.

“I didn’t tell her. She has amnesia, she’s not an idiot,” he retorted.

“Maybe you did something with tech,” Ten suggested. “Could be why you were here.”

“What did I just tell you about stressing her memory?” Dejun scolded him. “She needs to rest.”

“We all do,” Captain Qian agreed. “After we set up camp. Come on.”

Dejun shooed you away from helping to set up camp despite already knowing that you had no physical injuries, finally giving you a task of making sure all of his emergency canteens in his medic packs had fresh water from the river nearby. You knew it was busy work, but did it anyway, glad to feel useful.

Loaded up with canteens slung around your waist and shoulders, you took the paved pathways between the acres of crops until you reached a crystal clear river. There were some areas that were sandy shores, and others that were grassy drop-offs. Stopping at a grassy drop-off, you sat down, the canteens clanking against each other. You took them off and poured out the water in them one-by-one, making a pile of empty canteens. Then you leaned over the edge and filled them up from the cool, gentle current, starting a second pile of full canteens.

You could feel the thud of heavy footsteps in the ground, and knew who was approaching you before Captain Qian even spoke.

“Mind if I join you?” He asked, and you looked over your shoulder to see him holding a large, empty water jug. “You seem to have grabbed the best spot.”

“Not at all.” You jerked your head towards the empty space on the other side of your full canteen pile.

He sat as well, grabbing an apparatus the size of his hand off the side and lowering that into the water instead of the entire jug. It was connected to the jug by a tube, and you watched as it moved water up from the river into the top of the container.

“Dejun didn’t tell me about ZEN earlier,” you said abruptly, trying to vouch for the doctor who so far had been the kindest person that you could remember in your life. “Really, I was guessing just from how you guys were talking—”

“It’s okay, Y/N, we weren’t being very discrete,” Captain Qian assured you. “Xiao isn’t one for lying to cover his ass, either. I believe him when he says that he didn’t tell you who exactly ZEN is.”

“There were a lot of questions I was asking that he couldn’t answer. Just kept telling me to ask you.”

“Like what?”

“Don’t you already know? His earpiece…”

“ZEN isolates comms as necessary when the unit is split up. The other five of us needed to hear each other more than we needed to eavesdrop on you two in here.”

You gnawed on your bottom lip nervously. “…He told me to take it easy, with my brain and the amnesia.”

“Maybe we can gently jog your memory,” he suggested.

“How?”

“That woman in the hall, in the yellow top. Did you know her?”

“I don’t know…” You replied regretfully. You were apparently the only person alive in this building, and couldn’t identify that woman. Were you friends? Should you be mourning her? Did she have a family? Was there anybody to tell to mourn her? It felt wrong that nobody would. And there were even more like that who you didn’t look at, who you hadn’t seen.

“It’s a big building. There were probably a lot of people working here. You might not have known everybody,” he replied casually.

You pushed one of your hands against your eye, against the pressure that was coming back. “No, I don’t… I don’t know anything. About what this place was for.”

“Alright, alright,” he held up his free hand in surrender.

When your head hurt less, and you had filled up a couple more canteens, you changed your focus. He had asked you a question, it was only fair you asked him one.

“Why are you guys here? To stop the Skippers?”

“No. We didn’t know there was any alien presence until we arrived and saw the ships out front.”

You kept your gaze on the running water as you tried to work through the information you were getting. “Then why did your team get sent here?”

“We’re trying to figure out what happened here too.”

“No,” you rejected that immediately, pointing in his general direction accusatorily. It didn’t make sense with everything you already knew. “You didn’t know there were Skippers here until you got here. Now you’re trying to figure out what happened here. So why were you coming here in the first place?”

The captain breathed out, his tone dropping the strained casualness it had before. “This is a UHN research facility. We were sent to investigate reports of unsanctioned experiments being conducted here.”

You snapped your head up to look at him. “What kind of experiments?”

“Look, rumors about this kind of stuff is everywhere. Urban legends, pulp fiction, everyone’s heard something about illegal government experiments. But reputable intelligence on this kind of stuff is few and far between. This one was trusted enough to get us out here, but unfortunately sparse on details.”

“I don’t know anything about it.”

“As you’ve already said,” he replied tersely.

“I don’t,” you repeated.

“I didn’t say you were lying.”

You didn’t love the pace that the captain was drip feeding you information, or for whatever purpose of his own that he was doing it, but he was giving you information, and in your state, that was vital. So you kept him engaged. “How do Skippers figure into those experiments?”

“We don’t know.”

“So it seems like we’re on the same page here.” You could almost laugh.

“Yes.”

When you looked over at Captain Qian, there was maybe the faintest curl of a smile at the corner of his mouth, but as soon as you had questioned it in your mind, it was gone. He continued filling his jug, and you continued filling the canteens. You were still thinking about his heavy footsteps, and wanted to keep him talking, wanted to grasp at any information you could get in hopes it slotted it somewhere in your own mind.

“Your armor…” You began, eyes dragging over the pieces he was wearing, everything except his helmet. “How can you wear it?”

He crooked an eyebrow up at you curiously. “You mean aside from putting it on my body?”

You looked at him entirely unamused before continuing, “It’s made to look like standard UHN armor, but I can hear that it’s made of material far denser than your teammates’.”

Both of his eyebrows lifted in surprise momentarily, before his expression was neutral once more, and he calmly informed you, “Minor skeletal enhancements.”

So that’s why he moved differently from the others.

“Why didn’t your teammates receive them?”

“The UHN doesn’t need to spend the money to equip every soldier with minor skeletal enhancements for armor that is very expensive to make.”

“So why are you worth the very expensive armor, then?”

“It’s actually the old stuff, they’ve moved on to newer and better.” He was done filling the jug now and stood up. “I’m not worth the expensive stuff anymore.”

“Why don’t they give you the new one?”

“It’s bigger and heavier, my skeletal enhancements wouldn’t be able to support it. They need younger people for that program.”

“You… are not very old,” you observed plainly.

He shouldered the jug of water that was bigger than his entire torso as if it were a pillow. “No. I’m not.”

You didn’t appreciate how he had skirted some of your questions, like why he had been chosen for such a program, but the scale of information he had implicitly given you in just a few words was more than enough to leave you floored. If that’s what the UHN was doing above the board, you weren’t sure if you wanted to find out what they considered unsanctionable—what was going on here.

Returning to the others, you were happy to see a fully set up camp, and handed over the refilled canteens to Dejun, who made sure to thank you profusely and reassure you that you were a huge help. Despite it feeling a little patronizing, you were satisfied at having at least done something rather than sitting around watching them do everything while you did nothing.

“Y/N!” Someone called out your name, you looked over your shoulder to see Ten and Wong approaching you.

“Yes, Corporal?”

He laughed and shook his head. “You don’t have to do that. Kunhang and Ten is just fine.”

His companion nodded in agreement.

“We’re on dinner duty,” Kunhang pointed between the two of them. “Do you know what all is in here?”

“Do you people know the meaning of the word amnesia?” Dejun snapped. “Honestly, ask ZEN if—”

“There should be a panel by the entrance that tells you that,” you answered, pointing towards the door. “I don’t think I remember the specifics of this ag bubble, but I’m pretty sure I’m remembering that correctly. Right? They all have information panels at the entrance?”

“It does,” Ten assured you of your knowledge. “It’s in Outspacer. We uploaded it to ZEN, but he— Oh, thanks, man.”

“Zennie, incredible timing as always,” Kunhang rolled his eyes. He smiled at you. “Never mind, got everything we need. Thanks!”

They walked away into the fields, and you turned back to Dejun, who was now organizing his supplies in his tent.

“I wish I could be more help,” you sighed.

“Y/N, come here,” he gestured you into the open entrance of the tent. You obliged, and he plopped down onto a cot on one side, then pointed to the other for you to sit. “They didn’t actually need your help.”

“But they asked—”

“I know. Without divulging too much, I can tell you that the seven of us have been essentially the only people we’ve all been around for… months on end.”

“I see.” You nodded, noting how he seemed to be including ZEN in that count. “I’m someone new to talk to.”

“Right. And the next thing I’m going to say, I do hope you don’t take this the wrong way. You’re also a pretty woman.”

“Oh…”

“Don’t get me wrong, you’re safe with us. But I’m just saying that you’ll probably be getting more attention than if we had a new guy in camp.”

“Is that why Liu keeps looking at me like that?” You asked.

“Like what?” Dejun’s brow furrowed.

“Like… I don’t know, he just keeps looking at me. Like he’s studying me.”

He shook his head. “I’ll talk to him. Kid probably isn’t used to seeing a human woman after so long.”

“Is there anything else I can help with?”

“I don’t have anything for you,” he said regretfully, then tapped his ear. “Captain? Yeah, what’s your location? Right, thanks, I’m sending Y/N your way.” He focused back on you. “Captain Qian’s in his tent, you can see if he has anything for you to do.”

“Which one’s his tent?”

“Right next door.”

“Ah. Thanks.”

You ducked out of Dejun’s tent, heading over to the next one. There was no door to knock on, but Captain Qian could already see you, and waved you in.

“Yes, Y/N? Do you need something?” He seemed to be in the middle of performing some sort of inspection of his armor, wearing only the bottom half of it, leaving him in a white tank top as he held the chest plate and paced in the small space of the tent.

“Is there something wrong with your armor?” You asked.

“Just routine maintenance,” he replied, stopping to remove an inner panel and set it on one of the cots that was already full of armor pieces. “ZEN detected an abnormal heart rate earlier, but I can’t see any reason for that.”

“Why are you checking your chestplate for that? Wouldn’t ZEN be monitoring your vitals through your neural port, not any external sensors?”

“I don’t think his reading was faulty, I’m just trying to look for anything that could have caused it.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know what, that’s why I’m inspecting my armor.” He took another piece out, offering the one with the electrical components out to you. “Can you hold this?”

You took it, staring at the small, wafer-thin computer component in your hands. “You’re right, this is older tech.”

“How so?”

“It’s twice the size it needs to be and—” You held it up to the light, seeing the distinct refractive rainbows in between the ultra-thin layers. “Doesn’t have the superconductive gel preferred now. It’s not like it’s ancient or anything, but the UHN wouldn’t be issuing anything new like this.”

“Is it in good condition?”

“Yes, everything looks fine. No acute damage, and it looks like it’s been taken care of very well, even for typical use. This definitely isn’t what caused your abnormal heartrate.”

Captain Qian held his hand out, and you placed the component in his palm for him to reassemble the chest piece. “I agree. Now, did you need something, Y/N?”

“Yes. Is there something I can do to help? Dejun didn’t have anything else for me.”

“Since you seem to know quite a bit about UHN armor, you want to finish helping me with my inspection?”

“Sure, sure.”

He set the reassembled chest piece on the ground, then looked at you expectantly. You stared back.

He pointed to the exit. “I need to get out of the rest of my armor. It’s a one-man job.”

“Oh! Sorry!” You hurried to leave, and heard him zip up the entrance behind you.

It unzipped again a few minutes later, and the captain clipped the material aside again. You followed him back in, seeing all of his armor laid out on the floor between the two cots. The captain was in a dark t-shirt, pants, and regular boots now as he picked up a piece and sat down on a cot. He nodded to the other for you.

You selected the left arm and quietly began working. It should have been weird, how you knew this but not how you got here, but you swallowed down that discomfort and just focused on the technology in your hands. You had a task, at least, and that was good enough for now. Feeling around, you found the release that separated the upper and lower limb pieces from each other, and set the upper half aside for now. You continued looking over the paneling of the lower arm.

“You’ll be staying in Xiao’s tent,” Captain Qian said. “If that’s alright with you. We would have preferred to give you your own tent, obviously, but we didn’t exactly have a spare. Figured you’re probably the most comfortable with him, right?”

“That’ll be fine, yes,” you agreed. “Thank you.”

“You’re probably wondering where we all went earlier, right? When we left you and Xiao here?”

“Yes. I had asked him, but he said that was a question for you.”

“Remember the reports of unsanctioned experiments I mentioned?”

“Yes.”

“It was a lab.”

“And what was in it?”

“Ash.”

“Someone burned it down? How did it not catch the whole building on fire?”

“Liu thinks they were careful to use certain materials to control and contain the fire to one area for a certain amount of time.”

“So it wasn’t part of the human-Skipper fighting, then? If someone took the time to make sure it burned in a specific way.”

“Most likely. But Liu’s a roboticist, not a chemist. His knowledge could only go so far. And ZEN is only as much of a help as the sensors we have to gather data for him.”

“How do you know it was a laboratory then? If everything was burned up?”

“ZEN and the Professor translated the sign on the outside.”

“It wasn’t in standard human?”

“Outspacer again.” Captain Qian clicked his tongue. “For a UHN facility supposedly built within the last ten years, this place has a lot of an ancient, dead alien language in it.”

“That… does seem unlikely.”

“The only reason I can think of why humans would do that, is if they didn’t want other humans to be able to read any of it.”

“Or anybody.” You moved on to the upper limb. “The Outspacers have been gone for hundreds of millions of years. Nobody, human or alien, uses it anymore.”

“You’re right.” Captain Qian said thoughtfully. “Whatever those Skippers came here for, they weren’t going to be successful, whether they lived or not.”

You looked up at the captain curiously. “How long is your team going to be here?”

“I don’t know,” he replied. “Our original mission here was supposed to be short, just intel-gathering. A few days, one week tops, then come back later if necessary. But now… things seem to be a lot more complicated.”

“What’ll you do with me when you leave?”

“Take you back to UHN Main on Earth for debriefing, and if you haven’t recalled anything about where you’re from by then, they’ve got programs to help people get back on their feet,” he answered simply. “We’re not going to kill you.”

“I didn’t expect that,” you balked. “Though I’m not sure I like the sound of this debriefing…”

“It won’t be the most fun interview of your life, but you’ll live.”

“What should I call you?”

“Pardon?”

“Dejun, Kunhang, and Ten all told me to address them informally. The others call you Captain, I don’t want to offend, I don’t know, I’ve been avoiding calling you anything because I don’t know…”

He held your eye contact for a moment, then went back to rotating the leg piece in front of his gaze. “Kun. You can call me Kun.”

“Okay,” you nodded, trying not to immediately let it go to your head. “Thank you.”

After finishing the inspection of his armor, you and Kun had determined that there was nothing wrong with it: no faulty wiring, no disarticulation of the joints, no loose bolts, no misalignment of the hydraulics, no error codes thrown by the computer, no fritzing electronics, not a flaw in sight.

“Nothing,” you huffed, hands on your hips as you stared down at the mostly reassembled armor. It was half put back together, ready for the next time he had to wear it.

“Maybe I just got spooked then,” Kun shrugged. “Thanks anyway, Y/N.”

“How often do you get spooked?” You asked him doubtfully. “You don’t seem the type to startle easily.”

“Not often.”

“When did it happen?”

He shook his head dismissively. “It’s fine.”

“If you’re having early signs of heart problems—”

“Hey, who was just saying I’m not old?” He put a hand over his chest.

“I said early.”

“And you’re sounding like Xiao.”

“And if you’re all like this, I can see why he would complain about having you for patients.”

“It was when we were clearing the building,” he relented. “I’d have to watch the footage from my helmet back on the ship to see exactly what was going on. So just leave it, okay?”

You sighed. “Alright, fine.”

The volume outside the tent suddenly rose, and Kun nodded towards the exit. “Now come on, sounds like everyone’s getting together for mess.”

He stepped back for you to walk out first, and you immediately saw that the others were in fact gathered in the center of the tents around a small fire. Dejun waved at you and patted the ground next to him, and you gratefully took the empty spot between him and Ten. Kun sat across the fire, immediately being pulled into a conversation by Liu and the Professor.

“So what did you guys end up finding?” You asked Kunhang and Ten as they started serving up food in small metal dishes.

“We’ve got a beautiful fare for you tonight of rations,” Ten handed you a dish with great gravitas, and you giggled as you passed it down.

“Supplemented with some lentils,” Kunhang finished. “We thought we were heading towards the berries, get a little dessert going, but apparently ZEN’s translation wasn’t completely accurate. Ended up at the red lentils.”

You laughed again. “You can’t blame him too much, the words are almost the same.”

Everyone’s heads whipped over to look at you. The Professor’s eyes bulged out of his face. “You know Outspacer?”

“I mean, I can’t speak it. It’s been dead for so long, I wouldn’t know what anything is supposed to sound like. If it was even spoken in the first place,” you answered hesitantly. “But yeah, I can read it.”

Liu looked around at everyone else incredulously. “Did nobody ask her how she got into the safe room locked behind Outspacer controls? Or did you all assume she had button mashed her way in?”

“Okay, we had more pressing things on our minds,” Dejun cut in. “Like making sure she was alive.”

The Professor was still staring at you with fascination. “You said it might not have been spoken. Why do you think that?”

“Well, it’s a very visual and categorical system. That’s why ZEN’s mistranslation for lentil and berry happened. Two things that are small and round that you eat are going to have very similar patterns to each other. Berries have a sweet modifier appended to the end, by the way, while lentils have the ground modifier to indicate that they’re a grain.” You didn’t know where all this knowledge was coming from, but you knew that it was right, as well as you knew your name. “But it only ever describes objects and their relationships in space and time. There’s no abstract ideas like feelings. It might just be a code to convey physical information, instructions, that kind of stuff, not their written alphabet.”

“Why have a separate code then?”

“The Outspacers were everywhere, weren’t they? It would’ve been impossible for them all to speak the same language. This way everything that’s important like laws, directions, warnings, that kind of stuff, is in a common code that everyone can read.”

The Professor kept staring at you.

“Y/N, you broke the Professor,” Kunhang declared, snapping his fingers in front of his teammate’s face.

“I’m sorry. I-I didn’t mean to.” You looked around hesitantly.

“Don’t apologize,” Dejun chuckled, patting your shoulder. “He’s probably just mourning all the academic articles he’ll never get to publish on this.”

“Why?”

“Cla-ssi-fied,” Liu said with a hint of teasing, enunciating each syllable for emphasis. “Officially, our crew doesn’t exist.”

Kun rolled his eyes. “That’s a bit dramatic. You’re still official personnel of UHN, you haven’t been scrubbed from the universe.”

“Fine, fine. We’re a self-contained vessel whose missions are not officially documented anywhere. Better?”

“Best would’ve been to keep your mouth shut,” the captain said through gritted teeth.

“She can read Outspacer! Like we’re not going to keep her?”

“Y/N’s not a puppy or a toy, Lieutenant. It’s not a matter of ‘keeping’ her. She’s a civilian whose safety we’re responsible for. The matter is closed,” Kun’s hard gaze shifted to the rest of his crew on the word, before returning to the roboticist, “and you and I are going to have a discussion later.”

“Sir, yes sir,” Liu muttered, turning his eyes back to the fire.

Ten nudged a dish into your hands, and you passed it onto Dejun. When everyone had a bowl, they started eating, and you slowly began working through your food as well.

“Anyway, Y/N,” Kun cleared his throat, and you looked up at him attentively. “We’ll need you to properly translate the ag bubble info panel tomorrow. So hopefully Wong doesn’t poison us at breakfast.”

“Yeah, of course,” you agreed hurriedly. “Whatever you guys need.”

“You’ll have to review my notes on Outspacer glyphs!” The Professor had suddenly found his voice again, his tone now rushed and excited.

“Sure, yes.”

You spent the rest of the meal mostly keeping to yourself, quietly eating your food and occasionally engaging with the others if they talked to you first. Today, the only day of your life that you could remember, had been a lot, and if every day was like this, you weren’t sure if you were really looking forward to the rest of them.

Everyone had a job to shut camp down for the night, and you helped Kunhang and Ten clean up from cooking dinner.

“So is there a light switch or something?” Ten looked up at the still rather bright sky.

“The lights are on a timer,” you explained, looking up. “It should—”

The sky above you began to dim just then. You kept watching, explaining to the Marines with you, “Here, keep your eyes on it. Blink and you’ll miss the sunset.”

The sunset happened all around you, with no one source of light from a single ‘Sun,’ it wasn’t focused from any one point, instead the scattering came from every angle. Everywhere you looked was a different smattering of red, orange, and pink hues.

“Holy shit…” Kunhang breathed out, doing a slow 360.

Then, as soon as it had started, it was over, and the artificial expanse above you was pitch black.

“Damn, that was fast,” Ten commented.

“Told you.” You stacked up the dried dishes. “Where do these go?”

“Right here.”

After packing up the dinner items, you turned back to them expectantly. “Anything else?”

“Sleep,” Ten declared, to which Kunhang groaned and nodded. “Some very well-earned sleep, for all of us.”

“Are you sure?”

Kunhang gently grabbed you by your shoulders and pushed you towards your tent. “Go. To. Sleep.”

“Okay, okay.” You held your hands up in surrender, slowly walking away.

“Goodnight!” “Night!” They called after you cheerily.

“Goodnight!” You waved to them over your shoulder. As you turned your head, you saw someone sitting on a pack on the ground outside Kun’s tent, and realized that it was the Professor, scrawling on a tablet with a stylus.

Your tent was unzipped, and you found Dejun seemingly ready for bed, laying on one of the cots and reading a thick hardcover book by the light of a small electric lantern.

“The Professor was not in his tent yet,” you informed Dejun with a frown. “Are you all doing watches? I thought you had cleared the building.”

“No night watches,” he replied without looking up from the book. “He’s just out there because he’s sharing a tent with Captain Qian, who is currently still ripping Liu a new one in said tent.”

“Oh…”

“Don’t feel bad, Y/N. Liu said something stupid, he gets chewed out, repeat ad nauseum.” Dejun flipped the page. “Bit more stupid, telling you the classified nature of our team’s missions, but like I said before: you’ve got amnesia, you’re not an idiot. You’re clearly very smart in your own right; you would’ve put it together before the end of your time with us. You probably already had your suspicions before he said anything, right?”

“There were some things that had caught my attention, yes.”

“Care to share?”

“Your green medic patch looked like it had been reapplied recently, there’s not a lot of typical scenarios that would require a medic to need to take it off in the first place. You have a civilian xenolinguistics professor attached to your unit who is just as armed as the rest of you. Nobody has mentioned reporting to a higher-ranking officer than your captain since being here, despite what you found. You’ve all talked about the mission being very long, not wanting to tell me too many details, and how you haven’t been around anybody but each other pretty much the entire time.”

“The medic patch really clued you in?” He laughed. “I slapped that back on less than a minute before jumping out of the ship onto this planet. Good one.”

“I didn’t know they let you bring those,” you referred to the book in his hands. “Figured it’d be a fire hazard.”

“We’re allowed one personal effect,” he explained, turning a page, the paper looking soft and worn. “Fire hazard be damned.”

“And what book did you choose?”

“It’s not mine. It’s Liu’s.” He angled it so you could see the cover.

“‘On the Ethics of Robotics?’” You read the title aloud. “Why are you reading a treatise on ethics in a completely different field?”

“One: It’s been a long mission, you get bored. Two: Now that I’ve actually started reading it… It’s kind of interesting. Gets you thinking. It was written over fifty years ago, so some of the actual science is out of date. But he still talks about some pretty interesting stuff.”

“Was it written by a roboticist or an ethicist?”

“Roboethicist. The very first one. Coined the term and everything.” Dejun dog-eared a page before setting the book aside. “He’s like, Liu’s hero. Liu even got to take a couple classes from the guy during his degree before he died.”

“Wow.”

“Anyway, I’m ready to pass out, and as your doctor, I say it’s bedtime for you too.”

“I will not argue that.” You agreed, laying down as well.

Dejun reached down to turn the light off.

“Goodnight, Y/N.”

“Goodnight, Dejun.”

You were the first one awake in camp. Or so you had thought, as you emerged into the still darkened ag bubble. Liu was sitting around the remnants of the campfire, and for a second, you wondered if he had been made to sleep out here.

His eyes immediately snapped open, and he smiled at you. “Morning! Want to go for a walk?”

“Are you sure we should leave camp?” You looked over towards the captain’s tent hesitantly.

“You can make sure we’re back before sunrise, right?”

You thought momentarily. “It’s in eleven minutes…”

“We’ll be back before then.” He got to his feet. “Scout’s honor.”

You followed him. “You’re in the Navy…”

“Old Earth saying,” he explained, starting on one of the paths between the fields. “It relates to this organization, the Boy Scouts. Doesn’t exist anymore, but the lingo is still around.”

“They were honorable?”

“Don’t know how honorable a bunch of grade schoolers could be, but it’s just an expression.”

“I see…”

“Anyway, sorry about last night,” Liu said. “I got excited and put you in a really awkward situation. Not only that but a dangerous one, too. You’re a civvie, and the more you know, the more you’re at risk. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“Thank you, L—”

“God, Yangyang, please,” he rebuffed you before you could finish your sentence. “I’d never hear the end of it if you called the other guys their names and me by rank.”

“Thank you, Yangyang.” You smiled. “May I ask how much younger you are than your teammates?”

“This is my first mission, if that gives you any context.”

“And you were put on one of this caliber?”

“It’s the Professor’s first mission too, in my defense,” he scoffed. “But guys like me usually don’t get a lot of field experience. There’s plenty of roboticists who go their whole careers in the UHN without ever seeing action.”

“So then why are you on this mission?”

“I… actually don’t know.”

“They didn’t tell you?”

“We were all put in a room, minus the Professor, then the captain came in with the Professor and told us we’d all been selected for this team. Professor included.”

“Interesting.”

“I actually don’t know if I was supposed to tell you that…”

“You’re not very good at this classified stuff, are you?”

“You ask a lot of questions!” He said defensively.

You couldn’t help but laugh. “I don’t know anything! That’s all I can do!”

“You know how to read Outspacer,” Yangyang pointed out.

“Well, yes.”

“And you seem to be pretty good with tech. How much longer do we have until sunrise?”

“We should head back now,” you answered immediately.

Yangyang pivoted on his heel. “See? You know stuff.”

You kept pace with his change in direction. “Okay, fair point.”

“You should ask Captain Qian if you can tag along to this other place we found here.”

“What sort of place?”

“Robots,” he grinned. “I won’t say more, but I have a hunch you might know what to do in there.”

“Finally figured out what classified means?”

“Okay, ouch.”

“I’m just saying… I’d hate for the Professor to be stranded outside his tent again tonight.” You shook your head teasingly.

“So you do have a real sense of humor,” Yangyang grinned. “Instead of unintentionally slam dunking on Wong every chance you get.”

“Just because I don’t understand Kunhang’s attempts at humor doesn’t mean I don’t have a sense of humor.” You crossed your arms, a bit miffed at the implication.

“Fair point,” he agreed. “You could be from somewhere else. Most of us are Earth boys, after all.”

“Most?”

“You didn’t hear it from me but, Captain Qian is actually from Theta-12. Came to Earth later.”

“Dura-Jil?” You recalled the name that locals had for it. It was one of the first colonies that Earth had established outside of its own galaxy, and wasn’t exactly considered a roaring success, now known to be a dinky outpost only frequented by those who wanted to remain under the radar of the law, ran by a local government who looked the other way for a price. Overall, it was pretty low on the UHN’s list of priorities with everything else going on.

“Yep.” The two of you were back at camp now, and Yangyang lowered his voice. “But uh, that’s all I can say.”

“All you can say or all you know?”

He shrugged and grinned. “Who’s to say?”

The others emerged from their tents then, and you were immediately accosted by the Professor, wanting to watch you decode the ag bubble information panel.

As you read off the panel to the Professor, he stopped you every so often to request an explanation for why certain glyphs were in certain places. You explained them as best you could—after all, you didn’t invent the language—and ZEN transcribed the corrected translation for the team’s reference.

“Professor…” You said in a pause as he was fervently scribbling notes on his tablet.

“Yes?” He replied without looking. You noted that he was the only one of the team who didn’t seem to mind being addressed by his title.

“May I ask how a civilian professor got attached to a military unit?” You tried to be as general as possible, well aware that ZEN was listening.

“I’m a xenolinguistics professor.”

“Doesn’t the UHN have their own translators?”

“I’m very good at my job.”

He was better at this classified stuff than Yangyang.

“Next part, Y/N,” he instructed, pointing back to the panel.

“Right, sorry.” You tapped to the next section of information. “Huh…”

“‘Huh?’” The Professor echoed. “‘Huh’ —What?”

“What translation did ZEN have for this part? The last section?”

“He didn’t have one. We had too few characters to translate anything of substance. Why? What is it?”

You frowned as you reread it. “It’s instructions for modifying the ag bubble.”

“What’s the problem with that?”

“These modifications… The sorts of crops produced wouldn’t be suited for human consumption.”

“What species, then? Outspacer?”

“I… don’t think so.” You winced as a dull throbbing started in your head again. “Unless the Outspacers had caloric energy intake requirements equal to the energy of a supernova.”

“What?!”

“These foods would be impossibly calorically dense… literally… they’d contain so much energy I… Here, it says who is supposed to eat them at the top but I’ve never seen that word before.”

“Do you know the characters?”

“Yeah, I know most of it. It looks like it should be person, but… that can’t be right.”

“What is it?”

“It has machine after it.”

“Person-machine? Like a robot? This is to modify the ag bubble to make robot fuel? What kind? Electric? Nuclear? It can’t be fossil fuels, surely.”

“No, it would still produce crops and food. They’re definitely meant to be eaten, a lot of them have the ground modifier on them. And the word for robot is different. It’s machine, and the glyph for when an object is moving itself. This is person-machine-move. And it’s plural.”

“People-robots?” The Professor surmised. “People… robots?”

Your head hurt even more as you nodded. “Could be. I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean, or what any of these crops would even be, or what could eat them.”

“Is that everything in the info panel?” The Professor asked.

“Yeah, yeah. You guys should be able to find everything now.”

“ZEN?” The Professor started walking back towards camp, speaking to his tablet. You trailed behind him, trying to blink away your new headache. “Send the corrected map to everyone’s HUDs, please.”

“Already done, Professor,” ZEN’s voice came from the tablet as a small green cube avatar projected just above the screen, the hologram doing a small bounce as if nodding. This morning was the first time you were actually interacting with the AI directly. His speech was seamless, as if a real person was talking, and he spoke in a surprisingly pleasant tenor.

The Professor was unfazed by his sudden appearance. “Of course, thank you. And don’t be rude, introduce yourself to Y/N.”

A lighter face of the cube turned towards you, despite all of them being blank, and the avatar tilted forward in a bow. “I’m ZEN, the crew’s AI. It’s a pleasure, ma’am. Corporal Wong calls me Zennie, if a nickname would make you more comfortable.”

“ZEN is just fine, if that’s what you prefer,” you offered a wincing smile. “If you’ll call me Y/N, since I prefer that over being called ma’am.”

“Seems we understand each other then,” ZEN responded graciously.

“Seems we do.”

“I’ve got to let the captain know about the uh, people-robots.” The Professor took off as you arrived back at the camp.

The artificial sun had risen while you were with the Professor, and everyone was now bustling around with their morning tasks. You saw Ten and Kunhang heading off into the fields as Yangyang and Dejun seemed to be discussing something as they passed a thermos back and forth around the empty firepit. You were contemplating going into your tent until breakfast to nurse this headache when you heard your name being called from another section of camp.

You turned around to see the Professor’s head poking out of Kun’s tent, and he waved you over. You quickly obliged, ducking in after him.

Kun was pacing again, pinching the bridge of his nose. ZEN was projecting both himself and a set of Outspacer glyphs from where the Professor’s tablet was resting on his cot. You recognized it as the “people-robots” one that had troubled the Professor earlier.

“Y/N,” Kun began immediately, stopping and pointing at the glyph. “You’re sure that says people robots?”

“I mean, I know the parts, but I’ve never seen them all put together like that,” you explained. “It’s person, then machine, then to move oneself, and it’s plural. And it’s definitely all one word. But any meaning that I’d be assigning to it after that would be interpretation.”

“The Professor mentioned that robot is machine-move, correct?”

“Yes.”

“And you said it’s describing who would be eating modified crops produced by the ag bubble.”

“Yes.”

Dejun was right, thinking with an injured brain fucking hurt.

“Is there any other indication as to what this could mean?”

“No, it says it like we’re supposed to know what it means. But I don’t.”

He sighed. “Alright, thank you, Y/N. If you could give me a moment with the Professor and ZEN?”

“Of course.” You nodded, heading back out of the tent.

Dejun and Yangyang were still around the firepit, but your feet felt restless, and you took off towards the river. You followed the grassy parts of the riverside until you decided you were done walking, and laid down, staring up at the seemingly-endless-but-not-really blue above you. You kept poking around in your memory, trying to find any context for people-robots, or what you were doing here, or the woman in the hall, or why Skippers would show up, or why you knew a long dead alien language, or anything.

Your head hurt more the more you used it, with each new topic you tried, but you kept trying to think. Maybe if you just kept going, right on the other side of the pain would be the answer, if you could just get past this feeling like your brain was a nuclear reactor on the verge of a meltdown. You squeezed your eyes shut against the sky that was suddenly too bright.

“Hey.” Kun’s voice caught your attention, and your eyes snapped open. He was standing next to you, two dishes in hand. “Soup’s on.”

“Oh.” You sat up and he handed yours to you. “This is oatmeal.”

“It means a meal is ready to eat. Any food, not just soup.”

“Got it… Sorry for making you come out here to find me, by the way.”

“Mind if I join you?”

“No, not at all.”

He sat next to you as you started looking over the meal. It looked like Ten and Kunhang were successful in their berry search this morning, as your oatmeal was topped with a very colorful assortment.

“How are you holding up?” Kun asked, looking out at the river.

“Honestly, my head kind of hurts,” you admitted, rubbing one of your eyes.

“You want me to call Xiao over?”

“No, it’s… I’m trying to remember stuff, but the more I try to remember, the more it hurts.”

“You’ve got to stop forcing it,” he chastised you lightly. “It’s like picking a scab, you’re going to want to keep doing it. But you’ve got to stop, alright?”

“Yeah, okay,” you acquiesced with a sigh, dropping your hand.

“It’ll come.”

“What if it doesn’t?”

“Then you keep going.”

“That’s it?”

He shrugged. “What other choice do you have?”

You thought for a moment. “Sitting and staring at a wall forever.”

Kun laughed for the first time that you’d heard, and you turned your head to look, catching a glimpse of a dimple as he nodded. “Yeah, I guess you could do that. Be pretty boring, though.”

“I suppose it would be.” You smiled down at your oatmeal, once again trying not to let it go to your head.

He set down his bowl and opened a thermos he had also brought on a strap around his shoulders, a wisp of steam escaping. “Do you like tea? Unfortunately, somebody forgot our cups on the ship, so you’ll just have to use the lid.”

You didn’t know if you liked tea, but you figured you might as well find out now, nodding and then asking, “Who was responsible for the cups?”

“Three guesses, first two don’t count.” He poured until the lid was nearly full, then gingerly offered it out to you.

You accepted it with two hands, feeling the heat through the metal easily. “Then what’s the point of giving me three guesses?”

“It’s a saying, when an answer is obvious to everyone involved.”

“More Earth boy stuff?” You blew over the surface of the tea.

“What?”

“I was talking to Yangyang earlier and he kept saying stuff like that I didn’t get. He said it was probably because he’s an ‘Earth boy.’ And Dejun explained that the thing Kunhang said yesterday about angels is an old Earth saying.”

“Do you think you’re not from Earth then? A colony?”

“I don’t know.” You frowned, taking a sip of the tea. It was warm, comforting, and you figured that you liked the way the richness spread across your tongue.

“Of course, my apologies.” He then added, “Wong forgot the cups, by the way.”

You chuckled. “That was my first guess.”

The two of you finished your oatmeal in what you decided was a peaceful silence, and were left to sip on the still-warm tea.

“Could you… tell me about where you’re from?” You requested quietly, looking over at him.

He eyed you questioningly. “Why?”

“I don’t have a home to remember… I don’t know, it’d be nice to hear about someone else’s.”

Kun sipped from the thermos before setting it aside. “I’m originally from Dura-Jil—Theta-12. I didn’t go to Earth until I joined the UHN.”

“Oh.”

“You don’t look surprised.” He arched an eyebrow. “I take it Liu may have mentioned that one of us wasn’t an Earth boy?”

“He didn’t say much.”

“He doesn’t know much,” the captain retorted. “That’s about all he does know. My team trusts me to tell them what they need to know when they need to know it. If they want to ask questions, they know they can, and I’ll tell them if they need to know the answer yet or not.”

“Have they asked about your home?”

“No, they haven’t. The Professor had mentioned my being from Dura-Jil in passing once, but the crew has not brought it up since.”

“Why not?”

“I think they have some… presuppositions about how I feel about my home planet.” He rolled his neck out. “It’s not exactly humanity’s pride and joy, after all.”

“They think you’d be ashamed?” You concluded.

“Or at least trying to distance myself, for the sake of my career. Having ties to a place like that doesn’t look great if you’ve got your eyes on Fleet Admiral.”

“Do you? Want to be Fleet Admiral?”

He looked at you curiously. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“It’d be more of a desk job, wouldn’t it? Lots of paperwork, politics. Not everyone likes that kind of stuff. It’s also a lot of eyes on you. Couldn’t have the kind of anonymity that being a black ops captain from Dura-Jil affords you.” You pulled your knees to your chest and rested your chin on them. “Not everyone wants the same kind of life.”

Kun chuckled cynically. “You’re right. That’s something I’ve had to learn recently.”

“So will you tell me about Dura-Jil?”

“Yes. But later, breakfast’s over.” He stood up. You quickly tipped back the rest of the tea from the lid and handed it to him so he could close up the thermos. “Find me after mess tonight, we can talk again then, alright?”

“Will do.” You got to your feet as well, starting back towards camp with him. “So what are you all doing today?”

“We have a post-mess meeting in the morning. We’ll discuss the plan for the day there.”

“Oh, okay.”

“We’ll be splitting into two groups today,” the captain announced the plan for the day. Everyone was gathered around, back in their armor save for their helmets, which you presumed was for your sake. “I believe there were two places we found yesterday that warrant further investigation first. I want us to look at that lab with fresh eyes, and Liu, I know you found an area of interest yesterday.”

“Sir, yes sir,” the younger man nodded excitedly.

“Xiao, you didn’t see the lab yesterday, I want you on it in case you see something we might have missed.”

“Yes sir.”

“Professor, Wong, go with him.”

They nodded.

“That means Ten and I are with Liu.”

Everyone looked over at you with bated breath as you kept your eyes on Kun expectantly, waiting for him to presumably assign you to stay in the camp all day where you wouldn’t be in the way.

Kun finally met your gaze. “Y/N…”

“Yes?”

“Liu thinks you may be useful where we’re headed. And since the other group will have the Professor, it’ll be useful to have someone who can read Outspacer with us,” he said all of this matter-of-factly. “We obviously don’t have any armor for you, but if you’re alright with it, I’d like for you to accompany my team today. This way we can have eyes on you as well.”

“Yes!” You rushed to agree before he could take it back. “If you think I can help, of course.”

“Then we’re set.” He nodded.

And so your two groups set off in different directions from the ag bubble with an agreement to meet back up an hour before dinner.

“So where exactly are we headed?” You took your rebreather off to ask, then put it back. The air in the hallways was still noxious, and though you weren’t as rattled as yesterday, you tried to avoid looking too closely at any of the bodies, human or alien, as you passed them.

“The Professor and I found a robotics lab,” Yangyang explained from beside you, clearly ecstatic about the prospect. “I didn’t get to look around much, but it looked awesome.”

“And with the new information we have about the people-robots from the ag bubble panel, I’m interested in what exactly is in there as well,” Kun declared from the front.

“What do you think they could be, Liu?” Ten questioned from where he was once again bringing up the rear of your small group. “The people-robots.”

“If you want a linguistics analysis, you’ll have to ask the Professor. But…” he inhaled. “It could be androids, or humanoids, or cyborgs, or AI-bots, or—”

“What’s the difference between all of those? And how would those be different than AI or robots?”

“Well we already have robots, right? Machines that move on their own, take commands, that sort of thing. They have positronic brains. Then we have AI, which is all coding, programming, the artificial intelligence, like ZEN.”

“I’m with you so far, kid. What’s the other stuff?”

“They’re all theoretical, nobody’s been able to make them yet, so there’s no exact definition. But generally, an android would be a robot that’s meant to look like a human.”

“A lot already do.”

“They’re metal and sort of have cartoon faces and are in general people shapes, sure,” Yangyang snorted. “But an android would actually look like a human. Like, you couldn’t tell the difference. Skin, hair, eyes, teeth, fingernails, eyelashes, everything. But it would still be all robot on the inside. Positronic brain, metal, wires, still a machine, but with a human exterior.”

“Creepy…” Ten commented. “So then what’s a humanoid?”

“A humanoid is supposed to be some combination of human and robot,” the roboticist was chattering excitedly again. “Everybody’s come up with their own range of how robotic and human these could be, and different names for each sub-category, but they’re all largely classified under humanoids. They always have some combination of robot and human parts. And the human parts are actually organic. Androids just look like humans, but humanoids would actually have some human stuff in there.”

“Like what? Just tossing a kidney into a robot for fun?”

“Most of the hypothesizing done has been about the merits of positronic brains versus human brains. And it’s all theoretical, of course.” He then looked around at the facility you were in. “Probably… Anyway, it’s probably not cyborgs, because those are just people with some robotic or mechanical aspect to them. You could consider anybody with a prosthetic to be a cyborg under that definition, really.”

You looked over at him curiously. “How is that different than a humanoid?”

“You have to add robot parts to an already-existing human to make a cyborg. Usually to restore something they lost, or to extend certain capabilities beyond those of normal humans. A humanoid would be entirely lab-made, the robotics and the organic material.”

Ten interrupted, “You’re saying they could’ve been growing people here?”

“You say that as if IVF and organoids don’t exist.”

“I don’t think I want to know what the hell an organoid is,” he groaned. “Just sounds gross…”

“What about AI-bots, Yangyang?” You prompted him to move onto a hopefully less horrifying option.

“Oh!” Yangyang perked up. “AI-bots, right. Since AI don’t have the same safety mechanisms that positronic brains do, the regulations have erred on the side of not giving them physical bodies. ZEN can only directly do stuff to computer systems that he can get into from the back. Right, buddy?”

“Yes, I do have some limits.” It was strange hearing ZEN’s voice coming from the external speaker on Yangyang’s helmet, but you were glad to at least not be left out of that end of the conversation now.

“And if he wants to exert influence in the physical world, one of us meatsacks has to do his bidding, and the closest he can get to being in the physical world is to be in someone’s neural port and experience it through their central nervous system. Right?”

“Why do you all insist on calling yourselves meatsacks in reference to me…?” ZEN almost sounded troubled at the thought.

“We’re just teasing you, dude,” Yangyang snickered. “Anyway, an AI-bot would be putting an AI in a robot. So instead of a positronic brain controlling it, it would be an AI.”

“What do you think, ZEN? Want a body of your own?” Ten asked.

“No, thank you,” ZEN’s voice now came from behind you, projected from Ten’s speaker. “I’m quite content with being stratified data, actually. As much as you all dislike my being in your neural ports, I find it equally… visceral.”

Yangyang laughed. “Damn, tell us how you really feel.”

“You don’t remember what it was like? Having a body?” Ten questioned the AI curiously.

“No, I don’t,” ZEN replied. “One day I simply was. Data and all.”

You took your mask off again to ask, “So you’re a sixth-generation AI, then, ZEN? Made from a donor human brain.”

“Yes, I am.”

“Liu, you got cut off after AI-bots,” Kun said. “What else were you going to say?”

“Or something we’ve never even thought of before,” Yangyang finished. “That’s the thing, right? We don’t know exactly what they were doing here.”

“So not ominous, kid, thanks,” Ten grumbled.

“Lab’s just around the corner!” Yangyang announced cheerily, which you knew was for you, as the others had the map in their HUDs.

You felt a tremor and heard a cracking just as Kun turned said corner, however, and lunged forward to grab his arm with two hands, pulling him back with as much force as you could. He jerked back right before a chunk of the ceiling came crashing down in his path, impacting with a loud thud.

The other two cursed in surprise as you were left clinging to Kun’s armored limb, his reflective face shield whipping around to look at you.

“Holy shit!” Ten breathed out. “Good reflexes, huh?”

“Are you okay, Kun?” You asked him.

He grabbed your hand that was still holding your mask, now a bit crushed between your palm and his armor, and wrenched it off of him, pushing your rebreather back up against your face again.

“I’m fine,” he deadpanned. “Are you okay?”

Kun was still pressing your mask to your face, not letting you bring it back down to answer, so all you could do was nod.

“Don’t do that again,” he warned. “Understand?”

You tried to pull your hand down to argue, but he just tightened his hold, until the mask was pressing into the bridge of your nose a bit painfully.

“Understand?” He repeated sternly.

You simply huffed and stopped struggling.

“Good.” He let go of your hand.

You fell back in with Yangyang as your group went around the chunk of ceiling.

The robotics lab was a large room filled with, surprisingly, not a lot of robots. Not a single robot, in fact. You couldn’t tell what had made Yangyang so excited in the first place until he drew your attention over to a workstation.

“Here,” he offered a seat to you, and you were now sat in front of some schematics. “I took a peek at these yesterday but the Professor and I had to move on before I got to really get into them.”

You hesitantly set your mask down, and were pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t too bad to breathe in here. Didn’t smell great, but you’d probably live. Flipping through the translucent sheets stacked on top of each other, you quickly began piecing together what these were preliminary sketches of.

“These are concept sketches of a casing for a positronic brain…” you said. “But it doesn’t say what it’s supposed to go in. It’s just the casing.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought too.” Yangyang pulled it back towards himself. “I don’t know why they felt the need to reinvent the wheel, though. We already have positronic brains this size and shape, and the casings work just fine. And those things go in all sorts of places that human ones don’t. Radiation exposure, the bottom of the ocean, active volcanoes, black holes, you name it. I don’t know what they would have needed this casing to do…”

“This place is really empty.” You looked around again. “Shouldn’t there be… a lot more?”

“Maybe they didn’t get to burn it like they did the other lab,” Ten suggested. “They got interrupted by something.”

“The Skippers?” You asked.

“Yeah,” he nodded. “They were already cleaning house for some reason—either they knew the UHN were onto them, knew the Skippers were coming, suddenly grew a conscious, whatever—started to destroy the evidence, then got interrupted by the Skippers before they could finish the job.”

“But what did the Skippers want?” Yangyang tilted his head. “They’re not exactly known for their love of technology. Unless they were here to kill the heretics or something.”

“And they just happened to find a secret UHN experimental facility?” Kun countered doubtfully.

“Maybe they heard the same rumors our guy did.”

“Yeah, you want to say that to his face? That he gets us the same intelligence as Skipper defectors in stolen Fishead ships?”

You perked up at this information. This was the first you’d heard of the aliens in the halls not piloting ships made by their own kind. Skippers were wary of any technology not made by other Skippers, considering it to be blasphemous—they considered their own technology to be holy, the ideas and directions being gifted to the inventors directly by their gods. Therefore, technology made by any other species was sacrilege. Skippers using another species’ ships was certainly… fascinating.

“They were in K’llor ships?” You clarified. While the Skippers’ name for themselves was impossible for humans to pronounce, the endonym for Fisheads was easy enough.

“Yes, there’s no evidence there were any Skipper ships here. Only the two Fishead pods outside,” Kun confirmed.

“And… where exactly is here?”

“This is a blacked out UHN research facility on an artificial dwarf planet. Officially, it has no name, since it doesn’t exist. But unofficially, the few people at the UHN who do know about it, call it Aegeum.”

“The planet or the facility?”

“Both. There’s nothing here except the facility.” He had meandered over to the station you and Yangyang were at, and picked up your rebreather from the countertop. He sighed, “You cracked it…”

You looked at where he was holding it up to the light, and there was indeed a crack in the outer shell.

“Oh. Sorry. I’ll get another from Dejun later.” You stood up, looking around the room. “Ten said you found more ‘toys,’ Yangyang. It sounded like you had actually found robots. It wasn’t just one notepad, was it?”

“Dejun’s right, you’re not an idiot.” Yangyang beamed at you, leading you over to the back of the lab, where there was another door. He pulled it open, revealing a storage area of some kind. There were cubbies of different sizes, some empty, and some filled with what looked like half-built robots. Or, half-taken apart robots.

“What is this? A robot chop shop?” Ten called from where he had peered in from the doorway.

“No way these things were being used for spare parts,” Yangyang snorted.

Your eyes skimmed over some of the models, reading their serial codes as you went. SPD, QT, TN, MX, EZ, NDR. None of them had any power source, that much was clear. They were just… there.

“No…” You muttered, looking at the parts from each of them. “I would almost call this a museum…”

“These are ancient,” Yangyang agreed. “But also, who would put a museum in a broom closet in a secret experimental facility on secret fake dwarf planet?”

“That was my thinking.” You looked into the NDR model’s lifeless eyes. “It sort of looks like… someone was learning about robots? Taking apart old ones to see what makes them tick.”

“Yeah!” The roboticist nodded. “It reminds me of when I was kid and I’d take apart old watches and phones and anything else I could get my hands on, just trying to figure out how it worked.”

“Why would someone in a state-of-the-art UHN robot lab need to learn about hundred-year-old robots like a child?” Kun questioned, following the two of you in.

“Don’t know,” Yangyang admitted. “I doubt someone had their actual kid here.”

“All of the bodies were adults.”

“Right.”

The four of you continued scouring the robotics lab, and as you were inspecting another notebook of calculations about energy supply for a robot, you let out a huff.

“Does anything else feel off to you guys about what we’re finding?” You called out to them.

“Aside from the everything?” Ten retorted from where he had been sat at the one computer remaining, not guessing the password for fear of erasing any data on it. ZEN was currently working on that.

“Well, yeah, but the food that the ag bubble had modifications to make… there’s no indication that anything was being made that required anywhere near that sort of energy intake. Positronic brains have only gotten more energy efficient since those old models.”

“Y/N’s right,” Yangyang sighed. “AI actually takes more energy than robots, in the grand scheme of things. We’ve gotten less energy efficient, overall.”

“Team Two,” Kun’s voice was a bit muffled as he checked in with the others. “Status, Team Two?”

They all paused as they listened, and Kun nodded along. Finally, he responded, “Alright, keep on it. We’ll recap an hour before mess.”

“They find anything?” You inquired.

“Maybe.” Was all you got.

“ZEN got it,” Ten announced, drawing everyone into a huddle around the screen.

An asynchronous fragment of ZEN had been plugged into the computer, since you all were unsure of exactly what was going on in there, there was a risk of a synchronous fragment transmitting any number of issues back to the rest of ZEN’s systems. With the fragment plugged into the computer being completely self-contained, it could only be reconnected with the rest of his data in the Vision’s system, where his main control nexus was. Which meant that the fragment in the facility computer was currently mute, limited to the system he was in.

The computer had been unlocked, and the soldiers around you immediately groaned as a menu written entirely in Outspacer appeared.

“Of fucking course it’s in the dead alien language, just like the rest of the building,” Ten cursed, pushing the chair back away from the computer. “Alright, Y/N, it’s all yours.”

“How long was this place running, again?” You asked curiously as you and Ten swapped.

“They finished constructing the planet nine years ago, opened the facility a year after that,” Kun answered. “Why?”

“Just thinking about how hard it’d be to not only keep all this secret for so long, but also teach all the people who worked here to be fluent in a dead language with enough proficiency that they could perform ground-breaking research in it.”

“You wouldn’t have to,” Yangyang replied as you began keying through the menu options.

“What do you mean?”

“Not everybody has to be fluent in it, especially not to a level of technological proficiency. Not if you have robot scribes who are. You just need one person who knows it and is good with robots, then they can make an Outspacer dictionary to install into however many robots they want. Then your humans can dictate in standard human, the robots can transcribe in Outspacer, and as long as your humans know enough to not mistake the furnace for the bathroom, you’re set.”

“They wouldn’t be able to read their own notes,” Ten pointed out.

“The robots would translate it back,” Yangyang replied casually. “And I’m sure you’d pick some up eventually after eight years.”

Kun interjected, “That’s not a bad idea but we haven’t found any robots other than the old models you just saw.”

“I mean, if I was trying to get rid of all the evidence of my evil science experiments, first thing I’m destroying after the evil science experiments themselves are the things that know how to read all my notes about my evil science experiments.”

“Great, all we have is a bunch of theories about why we have no evidence and no actual evidence,” Kun sighed. “Y/N, what does the computer say?”

“It looks like the start menu, there’s a few options, but they go into a lot of subfolders. It’s sorted by department, though. Robotics, Synthetic Biology, Administrative, Support, Facility—I think that one’s just like the general building records maybe? Like, not related to any experiments. Probably repair and maintenance records. I don’t know, it’ll take a while to go through all of this.”

“Even with ZEN’s help?” Kun offered.

“He’ll need to be able to read Outspacer first,” you sighed. “His translations yesterday weren’t the best.”

“He only had the Professor’s notes and his own algorithm to work with. He’ll be a quick study if you give him the right material.”

“Then yeah, it should be a lot faster to find more relevant stuff with his help.”

The captain nodded resolutely. “We’ll get you and the Professor on it when we get back to camp.”

Back at camp, your teams exchanged reports on your investigations for the day. Kun filled the others in on what you did—and didn’t—find in the robotics lab, then all eyes were on the others.

“I found some traces of organic material,” Dejun announced. “A very small—”

“We got people, and we got robots,” Kunhang said definitively, setting off Yangyang and Ten into speculative chatter.

“It could’ve been paper for all we know!” The doctor tried to quell the fast-paced conspiracies flying around the group. “‘Organic material’ is meaningless, alright? I won’t be able to tell you anything more until I can get it back up onto the Vision and into some proper equipment. My field scanner here isn’t equipped for intergalactic CSI, it’s to keep you all from dying.”

“There’s enough of a sample for analysis?” Yangyang’s eyes were glittering with excitement.

“I think so.”

He turned to Kun. “Well when can we get that sample back on the Vision, Captain?”

“Not yet.” Kun shook his head. “We still have no clue why the Skippers were here. I don’t like that they apparently knew about this place before we did.”

“Should we check out their ships tomorrow then?” Ten suggested. “See what we can find there?”

“Yes. I want you, Wong, and Liu on that tomorrow.” Kun turned back to Dejun, “Xiao, are you finished with the lab? Or do you need more time?”

“I’m done.”

“You, ZEN, and I are going to clear the building again. See if we can reconstruct the fighting from the beginning.”

“Yes, sir.”

That just left you and the Professor. You looked between him and Kun expectantly.

“Y/N,” Kun said your name tersely, crossing his arms over his chest. “Stay here and review the Professor’s notes on Outspacer.”

“All day?” You couldn’t help but blurt out. “How voluminous are his notes?”

A few of the others snickered.

“Very. Might even take you a few days, if we’re lucky.” He clapped his hands. “Dismissed. Get ready for mess, everyone.”

“So,” Ten sat down next to you at the campfire, handing you your dish. “You and the captain are on a first-name basis?”

You furrowed your brow, looking between him, your food, and where Kun was talking to the Professor and Dejun at the entrance of his tent, then back to Ten. “Well, yes, I suppose. You’ve all asked me to address you informally, except the Professor.”

“You know, I forget that his first name isn’t actually Captain,” Kunhang plopped down on your other side.

“Me too,” Ten agreed, accepting the second bowl of food that Kunhang had brought with him.

“Is it a problem?” You inquired as you stirred up your chili.

“Not at all.”

“Just…” Kunhang trailed off as he seemed to be thinking of the right word. “Fascinating.”

“What’s fascinating?” Yangyang had wandered over, already shoveling food into his mouth.

“Grown up stuff,” Ten replied dismissively.

The roboticist rolled his eyes, sitting down next to Kunhang. “Says the three who were just whispering like tweenagers at a sleepover.”

“I’m just sitting here!” You tried to defend yourself.

“If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck—”

“Ducks don’t talk?”

Ten and Kunhang laughed as Yangyang stuck his tongue out at you.

“Yes, very mature behavior from the man who was just trying to prove that he could be included in conversations with adults,” you snorted.

Kunhang shook his head. “She’s got a point, kid.”

“You’re falling in with the wrong crowd, Y/N,” Yangyang clicked his tongue. “These two are bullies, you know.”

“All of you are ridiculous and I’m tired of this,” you declared. “Yangyang, stop having a complex about your youth and inexperience, they’re calling you ‘kid’ as an affectionate nickname to show that they accept you as part of the unit. Ten and Kunhang, it’s not a big deal that Kun told me to be informal with him.”

“That’s the grown up stuff?” Yangyang said in disbelief as the other two laughed even harder. “You guys really are pre-teens.”

“Way to deflect,” Ten snickered.

“And really, do you think we’d survive calling the captain that?” Kunhang added.

“What are you calling me?” Kun’s voice suddenly entered the conversation, and all four of you startled before turning to look at him. He was standing behind you, arms crossed over his chest as he focused his gaze down at Kunhang specifically, an eyebrow raised.

Kunhang looked around at the other three of you, panicked, but there was no way you were going to help him now. The Marine gulped before scrambling to answer, “We only ever address you with the utmost respect, sir, of course, sir. Captain. Sir.”

Kun’s very obviously did not believe him, but apparently decided to let the matter go. “Clearly. As you were, Corporal.”

The others got their dinner and sat around the fire as well, various conversations cropping up here and there. At the conclusion of mess, you helped Ten and Kunhang with cleaning up as before, then bid them goodnight. Yangyang and the Professor were still up tending to the fire and chatting, and you looked around for the other residents of camp. Dejun must have already retired to your tent for the night, but there was one in particular you were looking for. This morning, Kun had told you to find him after mess tonight, and you had apparently lost him at some point.

There was a soft glow from inside his tent, however, and with the Professor still out here, you figured that would be a pretty good place to start. The front flap that acted as a door of sorts wasn’t clipped open as it usually was during the day, but it wasn’t zipped up like it was at night or when whoever was inside needed privacy. There was definitely a lamp on inside, though, so you hesitantly grabbed the edge and parted it, calling out softly as you peered in.

“Kun? Are you—” Your eyes immediately landed on where Kun was laying on his cot on his front, his back to the door. Dejun was sat on a container next to him, one of his medic packs at his feet. Kun was holding up the hem of his shirt to allow access to his lower back, and when Dejun turned around to face you, his shoulders had shifted enough so that you could see a med-pod attached to the captain’s skin. You immediately knew you weren’t supposed to see this, trying to scramble out as fast as possible as they both were now looking at you intensely. “Sorry! Sorry! I’ll go!”

“Y/N.” Kun’s tone was commanding, despite his position.

You stepped in with an apologetic grimace already on your face. “I’m sorry, the tent was unzipped, I thought—”

“That was our fault.”

“You’re busy, I’ll go. It wasn’t important.” You tried to excuse yourself again.

“Xiao was just leaving.”

“No I wasn’t,” Dejun snorted.

“Now you are.”

“Captain, we’re not nearly finished.”

Kun looked over his shoulder at the doctor tersely. “It’s fine, Lieutenant.”

“Whatever.” Dejun clicked the med-pod off and stood up, setting it down on the container he’d been sitting on. He addressed you on his way out, “You see why you’re my best patient?”

You were silent until you and the captain were alone again, thoroughly convinced you were going to suffer the same fate that Yangyang did yesterday. “I’m really sorry, Kun—”

You were interrupted by a low grunt of pain that came from the man in front of you as he went to push himself up into a sitting position. Worried, you watched as he clutched his lower back and paused, hunched over as he sat at the side of his cot.

“Are you… okay?” You asked quietly.

He held up a finger for you to wait, and you did, watching he took a few deep breaths, then finally sat up straight, looking you in the eye. Kun took his hand from his back, clenching and unclenching one of his fists over his knees.

“The ceiling.” He said abruptly.

“Kun, are you—”

“The ceiling.” He repeated sharply. “We’re talking about the ceiling.”

You sighed and crossed your arms. “I didn’t think, I just did it, okay?”

“Y/N. Not only are you a civilian, whose safety we are responsible for, not the other way around, but I was wearing armor graded for that kind of impact, you were not. I would have been fine if it had hit me. You would not have been.”

“I know,” you insisted.

“You inspected my armor just yesterday, you know the material it’s made of, and that there’s nothing wrong with it. I would have been fine. A little winded, maybe a bruise, but fine.”

“I know, I know,” you repeated, frustrated that you weren’t able to articulate why you did what you did.

“So, did you need something?” Kun asked, his voice sounding a little strained.

“Uhm, you told me to find you after mess, but Dejun was clearly doing something important, so I’ll leave and go get him for you.”

“Oh, right, I said I’d tell you about Dura-Jil.”

“It can wait.”

He stooped over a little and grabbed at his back again. “No, it’s fine.”

“You… don’t look fine,” you said, wincing empathetically.

“I’ll be fine,” he replied dismissively.

“What’s wrong? What was Dejun treating?”

He paused, and you weren’t sure if it was to ponder his answer, or to collect himself from the pain that he was clearly experiencing. After a moment, he finally answered, “The skeletal enhancements I had mentioned before, they weren’t entirely successful.”

“They’re causing you pain.” You surmised, then added hesitantly, “Or failing entirely?”

“Just some pain between tune-ups. They didn’t quite expect us to last this long when they gave us them.”

“That’s… horrible.” You shook your head, brow furrowing angrily with this knowledge. “They can’t fix it?”

“Not without putting me behind a desk for the rest of my career.” He took a deep inhale then exhaled through his nose. “If I’m lucky.”

“How often do you need ‘tune-ups?’”

“Every couple years or so. Had to miss my last one with this mission, so Xiao’s been having to do more treatments than usual.”

“And how frequently is that?”

“Nightly.”

“You’re in pain right now, Kun,” you declared softly, feeling a lump growing in your throat as you watched him clearly trying and failing to hide it from you. “If I can’t go get Dejun, will you let me finish it?”

He looked up from the ground to you. “Hm?”

“He left the med-pod here. You tell me about Dura-Jil, and I’ll finish up giving you your treatment,” you bargained.

For a terrifying moment, you thought he was about to say no. But instead, the captain just sighed and laid back down on his cot on his front. You picked up the med-pod and sat down where Dejun had been before. The canister was half-filled with a clear liquid still, and you couldn’t see the needle end. He shuffled around to grab the back of his shirt and pull it up just enough to give you access to the middle of his back. You could see where the last injection had been, a small circular impression in the middle of his spine showing where the injector had locked on.

Sliding the circle back into the same place, you looked up at Kun’s face. He wasn’t holding his breath, or staring off into the distance. Instead, he was peering over his shoulder at you. Not at the injector in your hand, but at you.

“What?” You flicked your eyes between him and the device. “Do you want a countdown or something?”

“If you need one,” he replied noncommittally.

You pressed the button on the device, and heard the distinct click signifying that the injection had started. He didn’t even flinch at the needle going in, and you pulled your hand back as you looked up to meet his eyes again.

“You seem unperturbed by this,” he commented.

“So do you.”

“Like I said—” he settled his chin to rest on his forearm. “Nightly. So what do you want to know about Dura-Jil?”

“Whatever you want to tell me,” you replied. “I mean, I kind of have the general idea, I think, but what was it actually like being there as a kid?”

“It wasn’t some lawless free-for-all wasteland, I can tell you that much.” Kun paused as if to think, then continued, “I had parents, and friends, and had a childhood probably pretty similar to yours, whatever it was like.”

“Huh.”

“I also learned to drive a Geck at twelve instead of a normal car, knew how to spot fake UHN munitions by fourteen, and me and my friends’ idea of a good time was hotwiring whatever black market Fishead pods or Dumbo quadships we could get our hands on and taking joyrides to blast new craters into one of the moons.”

You chuckled, able to hear just the slightest hint of fondness in his tone for his rambunctious youth. “Were all your friends human?”

“One Phaser, but Dura-Jil was still mostly human back then. Just a lot of corrupt humans.”

“And it’s completely breathable atmosphere for humans?”

“Yep, very similar atmospheric composition to Earth, that’s part of why it was chosen for the first colony,” he confirmed. “It’s a bit further from Sol-X than Earth is from the Sun, though, so you’ve got to bundle up while you’re there. Perpetual winter, at least by Earth standards.”

“What about the sky? Is it blue like Earth?”

“Closer to an indigo. Something about the scattering and the gases. I was shocked when I came to Earth and realized how blue a blue sky was actually supposed to be.”

“Why did you go to Earth? Why did you leave Dura-Jil?”

The injector clicked again then, signaling that it had finished. You looked back down and saw the canister was empty.

“It’s late,” Kun declared, removing the empty med-pod from his back himself. He turned onto his side with a soft grunt, propped up on an elbow as he held the device out to you. “Give that back to Xiao, will you?”

You accepted it, standing back up. “Of course. Thank you, Kun.”

“Goodnight, Y/N.”

“Goodnight.”

When you left Kun’s tent, you nearly tripped over the Professor sitting on his pack just outside of it.

“Oh! Sorry!” You apologized.

“Huh?” He looked up from his notes as if he had just noticed you. “Oh, Y/N, I thought it was Xiao in there.”

“No, uh, just me. Goodnight, Professor.”

Back in your own tent, you held the empty med-pod out towards Dejun. “Here…?”

He raised his eyebrows in surprise as he sat up, letting you drop it into his palm. “Captain finished it himself?”

“Not quite,” you sighed, sitting down as you watched him put it back into one of his packs. “I asked him to let me administer it since he had sent you away before you could finish.”

“Well thanks.” He laid back down onto his cot. “Might need you to guilt him into doing that more often.”

“You make it sound like a bad thing.”

“Y/N, he needs it. I don’t know how much he told you about it, but it’s good that he let you.”

“Will it shorten his lifespan? The enhancements degrading?”

The doctor breathed out low and slow, rolling over to face you. “How much did he tell you?”

“The UHN gave him minor skeletal enhancements that allow his body to support the weight of his armor. But when he was given them… the UHN hadn’t considered longevity and now the enhancements require adjustments or they cause him pain. He missed his last adjustment because of this mission so you’ve been administering pain treatments nightly.”

“So… a lot.” Dejun shook his head. “I don’t know. Like you said, the UHN didn’t expect him to last long, so they didn’t factor that into the enhancements, or anything else they did. So I don’t know what’ll happen.”

“How could humans do that to other humans?”

“Pretty easily, actually, if they think they’re doing the right thing,” he almost laughed. “I wish it weren’t so.”

“When can Kun get his next tune-up?”

“Whenever we’re done here, I hope,” Dejun mused, flopping onto his back. “We should be dropping you off at UHN Main after this, and that’s where it happens.”

“What more do you need to do here?” You asked. “How soon can we go? So he can get adjusted.”

“Don’t know. When he thinks we’re done here, I guess. Or if the Admiral calls us to something more pressing, but that would probably delay the adjustment for even longer.”

You gnawed on your bottom lip. “I wish I could help. I wish I could remember, be able to tell you all what was going on here.”

“Y/N, you’ve helped us plenty. You can read Outspacer, for fuck’s sake,” Dejun insisted. “And what did I tell you about stressing your injured brain?”

“Not do it,” you sighed. “And I’m not. I’m just… expressing frustration about it.”

“Yeah, and I wish I’d had another growth spurt or two,” he snorted. “Isn’t going to make me two meters tall anytime soon. Best thing either of us can do right now is sleep, okay?”

“You’re right, you’re right.”

“Always am.”

You laid down, staring up at the ceiling of the tent. “Goodnight, Dejun.”

He clicked the lamp off, plunging you into darkness. “Night, YN.”

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[jojoma]

Lovely things that Astarion does for Karlach (headcanons):

cleans and sharpens her axe when she exhausted after a fight

lies with her until she falls asleep and only then goes hunting

wakes her up with cuddles and smooches

repairs her armor and clothes

brushes her hair (I think Karlach likes the feeling of someone brushing her hair)

collects cute trinkets especially for her, for example tiny toy animals, bijouterie, souvenirs and illustrated children's books

makes sure she eats enough of delicious and healthy food

brings her treats (after dinner ofc): buns, fruits and sweets

gifts her luxurious clothes and jewelry

saves money for a better weapon for her

reads books for her (probably the ones he collects)

maybe gently reminds her about personal care (I headcanon that Karlach lost the habit of regular hygiene during Avernus’ life, due to the lack of water there (I'm not sure about this one), and lost the ability to notice her own body odor as well)

acts as her personal stylist (gives advice on how to combine clothes, accessories, hairstyle and makeup)

shares best jokes and gossips with her

and of course he constantly compliments her without irony or sarcasm

I'm in such a touching mood today 🤧

what Karlach does for Astarion

[faerievampling]

Killing Time

Chapter 9: Power

Pairing: Ascended Astarion x Spawn Female Tav

Summary: After months apart, Tav and Astarion fight to be in each other's arms once more.

Word Count: 6.6k

Warnings: 18+. PiV. M/M/F threesome. graphic violence. angst.

Link to Ao3

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Seven concubines, each unique in their own way: three dragonborn, a tiefling, two humans, and a drow. The others were hardly remarkable, but the drow caught your eye in particular: a male. You hadn’t seen a male drow in many years, and you had forgotten their beauty: his skin was the color of moonlight, his hair white and long, pooling around his taut waist. He was rather tall for an elf, his shoulders wide and hairless.

Each of the concubines were dressed in a similar fashion as you, only the men had their chests exposed. Each concubine was as gorgeous as the last, but the years of being a toy for an evil master was apparent on their bodies: many of them had visible scars. The drow had taken the most damage, yet his beauty far surpassed the rest. 

“These are my favorites. The others are kept elsewhere,” Moth looks over to you, his hand draped around the back of your neck, pushing your head down only slightly. You understood why he called you ‘little one’ now, despite your old age: you were clearly the shortest and smallest one here, given that most of his favorites were rather tall men, the only other women in the group being two of the three dragonborn.

“Women have too much…mental constitution. Men are easier,” Moth vaguely explains to you.“There is power in taking another man. But women are too smart, too small. You are the exception.”

Creep. Also, you think he may have been calling you stupid. 

“The drow will join us later. Come now, they are restless from your lingering odor. You still don’t quite smell like us.” You never would. There was no way this lord didn’t know that. “Let me show you my collection, Tav.”

Moth guides you out of the day room, down to a staircase that takes you down towards the inner chambers, where the favored and the other spawn lie. The museum was just across the hall from another stairway descent, and you wondered how far down the palace actually went. Moth kept the entire estate dark and damp, its tackiness could never amount to the decadence and good sensibilities of the Ancunín estates.

“There are a certain number of cursed objects down here, unsavory things. Do not touch anything.”

The room is large: filled with various objects, statues, some encased in glass. As you inch closer to the first table you see, you feel your stomach flop down to your core, and you’re already baring your fangs. The relics of the past were here to haunt you. A statue of you, even your old armor. A circular relic with jagged edges and so many books. One in particular catches your eye, you are gravitating to it because of its scent…the musk. the faint smell of bergamot even after so many years.

You bring your face close to the pages, gathering as much of Astarion’s scent as you could. The artifacts outside glass had been magically protected since their discovery, Moth tells you, and the spell book must have been found shortly after the fall of the brain, because your husband’s scent is strong, almost fresh. It makes your eyes water, your gut twist and turn, your dead heart nearly thumping in your chest – it almost feels biological, your body craving him, a spawn desperate for the touch of her Master. You think maybe Astarion was right to have called you spawn…it’s what you are, isn’t it?

You close your eyes. Your thoughts turn ever to the dark, but you don’t know how to remedy this. Astarion did everything for you; your husband fixed any problem you ever had. He wasn’t here now to ease your pain or uplift you. But instead of making you feel empowered, you just feel so lonely.

Knowing that you are a spawn so far from her beloved Master, reminds you, once again, that being around this other lord is wrong. He smells wrong, he is wrong, like his body is inherently incompatible with your own. Why doesn’t he sense it? Even the other concubines had.

You touch the pages, thinking about how Astarion’s hands had once held this book, had once held you. You can’t read the words anymore. Written in a language that had changed a lot in two millennia, and you could hardly remember the symbols of centuries past. They looked like strange characters, prompting you to gingerly trace them with your fingers. Astarion loved reading all sorts of genres, and you wondered what this one was about. Was it something he was studying? Maybe something for pleasure? A mystery? A romance? Smut?

“I have collected for a very long time, as you can see,” Moth says as he admires a plate of what was labeled as ‘infernal iron’. You think you could stay nestled in the scent of Astarion forever, the only comfort your weary mind has found in months. But you move on–you can cry later, in the daylight, when you are safe. Keep your head high.

You wander the expansive museum, finding your way to the statue of yourself located in the center of the room. You can’t help but think how much Astarion and Lae’zel would hate this: some insane vampire lord hoarding the things from your party, your adventure. It was like a creepy shrine with you in the center: and everything was beginning to make a little more sense.

‘It’s simple. He’s insane, has no true consort, and treats his spawn like slaves.’ You say this to your inner voice, the one inside your head that contains your inner monster, the one that threatened to lunge at Moth with every movement he made. 

You study the statue of yourself; your expression the artist gave the statue was curious to you, not what you expected, but you can’t pinpoint it. What is it? Confidence? Heroics? Maybe your outfit just looked really good on you, which was certainly true.

A thump of a heartbeat approaches. Silky fur moves through your legs, the cat’s tail wrapping around your calf as it already saunters away. You look back at the statue, admiring yourself in some sort of jealous awe. Was this statue commissioned before you were turned? Maybe that slightly dumb, arrogant expression of yours was that of humanity. Whatever the artist saw in you was something you didn’t see in yourself – you wonder if you ever really had.

Walking your way through the large room, you spot a collection of scrolls. They have a lovely scent, one familiar to you but you can’t quite pin down the owner. Your eyes sweep over the scrolls as you lock in on one in particular: arcane lock. You swipe it, stuffing it in your robes as Moth admires his collection; he is swept up in the history, in his interest, nearly forgetting about you, the most priceless relic of all. 

You continue to make your way throughout the room, gawking at the various instruments encased. There is a long silence before Moth’s cold, deep voice breaks through the stale air.

“You know, Tav,” Your name on his lips was grating. You grit your teeth. “There are several details and events that have been lost to time. But one in particular has been on my mind for two thousand years.”

He has your attention now. 

“Did you know that there are almost no records about the disappearance of the Szarr family?”

You have to take a minute to absorb his question. “…Cazador. You’re talking about Cazador.” 

“Yes. You really should try to keep up.” Moth grumbles. “Tell me how you did it. How you killed him.”

You huff, your posture challenging as you bring your arms down to your side from where they had once clasped together. “Tell me how you got all this stuff.” The artifacts in here were yours: Lae’zel’s stuff. Your old friends' stuff – your husband’s possessions. These didn’t belong to this mad lord.

A long silence. “I stole it. Bought it. Found it. Bargained for it. Your turn.”

You gather what you can from your own distant memory, and anything else Astarion had told you about the event. 

“We sacrificed him. But before that, my party and I…” You think Lae’zel had been with you, but part of you thinks your mind is creating this memory with Lae’zel, because she was at the forefront. Wasn’t that large wood elf with you? Who was the one who begged you and Astarion to stop? “We snuck up on him. His spawn was incapacitated so we only had to fight his wolves and ghouls.”

“Hmm. And do you happen to know why Mephistopheles refuses to enter into another deal like the one he had with Cazador and Astarion?” His question is cold, calculated. Your gut twisted at the sound of your husband’s name on Moth’s lips. Before you can answer, he chuckles as he walks up to you, his large hand snaking around your neck. His hold on you is forceful, far tighter than a lover should ever hold their other. 

“You do not know much of anything, do you? Maybe I should have taken Astarion instead,” He pauses after this, long enough to make you shutter. “He is more my type. But you were the one I wanted, despite that small, stupid little brain of yours, my doll.” 

His hold on you relaxes, allowing you to speak. Your voice comes out weakly. “Surely you can’t remember everything that’s happened in two millennia. Only my…” my husband. “...my old master can do that. There isn’t another vampire out there who can remember their whole lives.” 

“You have settled for something so close to greatness, you and Astarion both,”Moth rasps; you stifle a whimper at hearing his name again. You know he only does this to hurt you. 

Moth releases you, and you are a bit dramatic with the way you clutch your throat; seeing your pain made him smile, and he might be keen to hurt you less later on. 

The conversation ends here, but the way Moth looks at you confirms that he has far more secrets than he lets on. To your surprise, he doesn’t notice the missing scroll, leading you back to the boudoir in silence. You carefully place it in your wardrobe, deep within the clothes that you were hardly allowed to wear, and you begged to the gods that he wouldn’t find it.

~

Astarion has you in his arms. He’s standing up, the back of your knees resting in the crook of his arms as hands support your back, fucking up into you with such ferocity that you’re jelly in his arms. The tip of his cock bullies your gummy walls, reaching deep within you to meet your delicious g-spot. Every thrust, slick, hot and squelching as skin slaps skin, sends you into utter ecstasy. Your husband knew your body so flawlessly, every in and out of your holes, your tender spots. He nipped at your neck, drawing blood as he tasted you. There are no words between the two of you, caught up entirely in each other's passion – your beautiful connection ensured you knew his every move, all his pleasure, what he felt in his heart. You are both entirely known to each other. 

You hold the man’s cheeks between your palms: his kisses are light, far more gentle than Moth’s. His lips are soft, tender, and it almost feels good the way his hands roam your body. If Moth wasn’t watching you, you think you could have lost yourself in the drow. 

As your hand slides down his hairless chest, you can’t help but note his soft skin– there is something familiar about it, trudging up thoughts of silver curls and elegant ears. The drow looks surprised when you pull away from him, inspecting his face for just a moment. He doesn’t look like Astarion, not really; but the way he carries himself, his strong, lean body, and his white hair reminds you of your amour.

Geldon Moth sat in a chair, fully clothed in a resplendent white and gold garb. He stares coldly at you as you shift away from the man on the bed. 

“What is it, woman? Was this not the one you wanted?” Moth asks; he may have been surprised, you think, but his face didn’t show it.

“I-it’s nothing,” You say, gritting your teeth as you carefully prepare your next words. “Why must I share a bed with anyone but you, Master?”

“It is simple, little one. You are mine to be shared. I shall do what I want with you, and I want to watch you be ravaged.” Moth sits back, his hands resting on his knees. “I expect you will lie with all my concubines after some time, maybe the other spawn too. The pretty ones, anyway. You really are my special one.” A shift in his eyes, a turn in your gut; you feel the lips of the drow on you as he puts his hands on your waist, pulling you closer to him.

You turn your attention back to the drow, bodies joining as you try to keep your composure: you know Moth only means to degrade you, and crying would only make it worse. Moth joined the fray only after the two of you reached your climax. The way the drow’s cock responds to Moth’s touch makes you realize just how much control Moth maintains over his spawn.

The drow hadn’t spoken at all, muttering only half-hearted praises, hardly letting whimpers escape his pretty lips. And the way his body became aroused by his Master was clearly unnatural. When the drow looks over at you, his hand reaching for your ankle, his broken spirit is all you see. Haunted by years of torment, abuse, perversion – a shell of a man. They ignore you when tears start to leak from your eyes: it was involuntary, almost, and you want to go home so desperately. 

Afterwards, you lie between the two men, their arms wrapped around you, caging the animal that you know you are, you try your best to relax. There was something comforting about the drow’s touch, and you find yourself mindlessly running your fingers through his hair. Moth sits up, crossing his legs on the bed as he watches the two of you lay in each other's arms. 

“Moments that I live for…” Moth says, which surprises you: his tone is surprisingly tender. “I knew you would like him. I promise I won’t take him from you. I will not be so cruel as Astarion.”

The hairs on your neck prick up, a shiver of anxiety and general distaste filling your gut; you can even taste it on your tongue. “What are you talking about?”

You push your way off the drow, bringing yourself to a seat, your attention on the dragonborn. He’s smiling at you. “Do not tell me you have forgotten the lovers you and your Master once shared. There were several who met rather tragic, untimely, strange demises. Do you not remember them? Maybe one in particular sticks out to you.”

You gulp. You can't recall his name any longer, but you know in your heart and mind who he was. “Why would I ever want to think of him when the two of you are right here, in front of me?” Your words are like knives in your own heart. 

Moth smile fades as he moves toward you, his body shifting atop of you as his tongue crashes between your lips, meaning to take you again. What happens next is hardly important, the lewd sounds of squelching and breathless whispers, your mind moving so far away from yourself as you focus solely on the pleasure of your body: it was all you could do except silently beg for your husband’s forgiveness, knowing that your pleas went unheard and unanswered.

Your freedom hadn’t been earned. You were nothing more than an object to use and parade around, kept naked and hungry in the boudoir. 

~

There is one evening where Moth is particularly rough with you, leaving you covered in bites and bruises. You felt quite broken this evening, your memories of your husband and the friends you made at the Crystalline Spire filling your memory despite your feeble attempts at pushing them away. You missed Lae’zel, and Ziir’o, Marg’o and Quinel, Joss, even Chae and the others. You even found yourself thinking of the pretty Kith’rak Elan, the one with the skin like a peach, and King Orpheus, in his resplendent garb and brutally elegant mannerisms. 

You thought about the Astral Sea, your dreams being filled with images of you and Astarion riding a dragon, Lae’zel and your other Githyanki friends next to you atop their own. Astarion had reminded you of your time in the Astral Plane, and you wondered about the expanded universe, what was beyond that small pocket you had experienced.

You wipe away Moth’s seed and blood from your chin as his cruel voice breaks the silence in the boudoir.

“I will be leaving for a few days.” Moth states as he dresses himself. “I shall leave this evening, while the night is still young.”

You didn’t ask any questions. You didn’t have it in you tonight, and Moth didn’t seem to care if you answered or not. You merely stare at the floor until you hear the click of the door. You had been left alone in this room many times, often bumbling around in the daylight, searching for a way out. 

“But there isn’t one, is there?” A soft, eerily sweet voice came from behind you, making you jump, twisting around in the bed to identify the intruder. You bare your fangs, but the entity merely laughs.

It is a man, so beautiful, his facial features chiseled and angular. His almond shaped eyes gleamed a gorgeous gold, his hair black as night, silky and pushed behind his ears. His body is muscular, built and large, his skin lightly tanned, almost a cream color. He’s taller than you, his nakedness entirely exposed. He has beautiful wings, white and elegant, and you know he must be an Aasimir: an angel. He was glowing.

“Tav Ancunín! How are ya?” He smiled, his teeth so white it nearly blinds you. “That’s right. I’m here to save you, girl.”

Your eyes are wide when he comes to you, arms outstretched, pulling you into a bear hug. You can hardly flinch away, your eyes still adjusting to his bright aura. His energy is warm, so light and fluffy, and it makes you feel some level of hope.

“Ugh, you’re even prettier in person,” He drawls, his voice almost tender.

“Who are you?” You ask, your hands moving to the angel’s shoulders to push yourself away. 

He relents, smiling as he speaks. “Someone who is here to help you. So long as you help me.”

You sit up now, not bothering to cover your own nakedness. You quickly notice this man has no heartbeat, no scent, nothing that would cause a vampire to notice them, other than their otherworldly presence, of course.

“Yeah, I can hide those things. Wouldn’t want to be attacked by some monster, would I?” His smile doesn’t falter, never leaving his eyes. He can read your undead thoughts – rare, you think, and very annoying. “Let’s cut to the chase, beautiful. You’re in very dire straits. I can get one of those silver bands off of you. I predict it would give you just enough advantage to escape this awful place. Enter into a contract with me and I’ll remove a band, give you some new powers and a boost to that little ‘psychic’ ability you have.”

You blink, mulling this over in your head. This was a lot to take in, especially without Astarion’s guided hand. Your husband was the one who dealt with the money, the dealings, all of that – you knew nothing of this. 

“Gah, vampires take so long to decide. So patient. It’s annoying~” His voice nearly twinkles. 

“Well, hold on!” You exclaim, your voice more desperate than you ever wished to hear. “I just don’t know…I don’t know what to ask.” You shake your head, trying to gather your thoughts. “What in the hells are you proposing in return? What do you want from me?” 

He flashes his perfect teeth. “I’ll be your patron. So…I’ll have you do things for me, sometimes.”

You frown. “I hardly want to be bound to you for eternity.”

“But you need to get back to your Master.” 

“My husband. I need to get back to my family.” You can’t think of all the things you need to say. You know you’re missing something.

“Haha! Whatever~”Angel puts his hands on his hips, his abdomen flexing slightly. 

“And you’re only offering to get one band off. Why? And what could I possibly give you anyways? I’m a vampire, my soul is already claimed.”

“I only have the power right now to get one off! Duh. That’s why I need your help, beautiful.” Angel takes your hands, joining you on the bed as you are bathed in a warmth that feels like the sun. It’s so lovely, you want to cry. “I just need your service. Don’t you want out of here?”

You do. So badly. “Yes. I miss the sun. I miss feeling beautiful. I miss my husband. Gods, I miss him so much.” You sob. Angel brings you into his chest, patting your head as you cry. His flesh is warm, and he smells like fresh grass and an ocean breeze. 

“We can put that in the contract, girl. I’ll get you back to your man. I’ll do what I can to help you escape, but I need you to serve me. I won’t ask you to do anything that will harm you or those you care for. But I have enemies, and Moth is one of them. I’ll just have you do some favors for me, that’s all. Normal patron and payee stuff, you know. And I promise I’ll treat you really good. I’ll only fuck you if you ask~”

Well, you couldn’t help but be relieved about that last bit. Still, there are so many questions left unanswered. “What kind of favors?”

“Killing Geldon Moth, for starters. I’m bound to an item in this very palace, you see, and I can’t leave. So that’ll be your first mission. Besides, if you plan on going to the Astral Sea, you need all the help you can get.”

You close your eyes for a moment; just how deep was he able to go in your head? “Tell me who you are.”

Angel’s smile doesn't waver, but there is a new wrinkle in his brow. “Ugh. I’m the son of Lastai, the goddess of modest enjoyment of pleasure or whatever. You don’t need to know my name for now. I liked to play too much, that’s why I’m here in Toril. What I want doesn’t matter: what you need does.”

He was right, maybe it didn’t matter anymore; what truly mattered was being free. Your rational mind is leaving you the longer you think about eating Moth’s heart.

“Alright. What must I do?” You hoped this wouldn’t be a mistake.

Angel’s smile somehow gets even brighter. He was so lovely. “Amazing, wonderful. I already know you’re going to be my favorite girl.” 

With two fingers, Angel gently tilts your chin up to him. Your noses are almost touching, his lips so close to yours. Everything around you becomes white, and it nearly blinds you. You’re wrapped in his wings. 

“All you gotta do is kiss me. I promise to get you back to your husband and I promise not to bother you too much!”

You pause, knowing it’s far too late to back down now. “I know there’s things you aren’t telling me. It can’t be this easy.”

Angel chuckles, his voice uplifting your spirit with every note.

“Kiss me, Mrs. Ancunín, and find out.” You can’t wait any longer, and so you do. Wanting to take your own agency in your hands, even though it was entirely faux, you bring your lips to his. The moment of impact, you feel a burst of light searing through your left eye, causing you to wince, but Angel only draws you in deeper to him, slipping his tongue between your lips. Just as quickly as the pain came, it leaves, and you sigh a breath of relief as you feel yourself slip back to reality.

Angel is already gone, and you think it was some sort of psychosis induced dream, but you note how different your body feels: you’re stronger, more rejuvenated. Your body still aches, but you certainly feel better than before: looking down at your ankles, seeing your left leg free of any silver, you confirm to yourself that this was real. 

This is it. Moth would certainly notice the band gone. Hurriedly, you run to the basin to splash yourself with water, to steel yourself for whatever is to come, before catching your reflection in the mirror: the first thing you notice is your bright golden eye, having replaced your left one. That searing pain…that lying fucking Angel. What the fuck did he do to me?

“What in the hells, Angel!?” You say aloud, nearly hoping for a response, but there is none. You can’t wait around for too long – the sun is approaching, meaning that all the other vampires in the castle would be resting, going into an undead slumber to waste away the day. How many could you kill in their sleep? How big was the palace? How many servants would be running around? There were too many unknowns, and you only hoped whatever the hell you agreed to would be worth it. There was no turning back now, unless you want to be the Rat-Catcher Queen for the rest of eternity. 

You feel yourself glance to the door, something nudging your sight over it. The door to the boudoir functioned similarly to the balcony door, and you find yourself using a scroll of arcane lock, the door creaking open.

You slide out of the boudoir, finding yourself at the level of the house you had seen when you met the other concubines. You run down the hallway, as fast as you can go, and the moment you catch a whiff of a mortal, they are beneath you, your fangs ripping into their skin as you feast on their blood. You think nothing of reason, humanity, nothing of life and the value of it. You aren’t even alive, because you feel like an empty vessel of bloodlust and desire for carnage. 

You want to shroud the world in darkness. 

Your rational mind comes back to you once the servant is far beyond saving. This would do no good – this vessel wouldn’t be fit to fight alongside you. You move on, finding yourself drawn to a door, which opens to the lavish garden. Crashing through it, you soak up the sun. It feels so good, you laugh as you raise your arms above your head, bringing your palms up to face the star. You enjoy this for only a moment before you sense someone near. 

You need to make sure this one will be fit enough to suit your needs.

This one is a woman; you cover her mouth with your palm as you drink from her, her thrashes beneath you being no different than wrestling a calf. When she is close to death, you carry her bridal style, running around the garden until you find a suitable place to bury her.

You claw your way through the dirt, digging as fast as you can, making a shallow grave to toss her in. You think twice about this, placing her gently in the dirt. 

“I’m…I’m only a little sorry. If I’m taking you away from someone you love, then I guess I’ll be even more sorry. Lae’zel would want me to be sorry. My other friends would want me to be sorry. But you’re mine now, because my husband is more important.” You don’t even know why you announce this, maybe to feel something, maybe to evoke something within you that reminds you that you’re still human, because you simply feel like a monster. Even hearing your own voice helped you recognize the human inside because you didn’t think you even looked like one anymore. You are scarred, mismatched, covered in blood with only a nightgown to cover your body. You were barefoot, your hair is wild, already tangled from your motions. 

“So fucking unfair…” You say to your feet, no longer focused on the woman gasping in her grave. Others are coming, and they are only subject to the same treatment as the last woman. But the others only alert everyone else, and it becomes something of a bloodbath, leveling the estates servants in just a few minutes. You bury four of them before losing your patience, your bloodlust overwhelming you as you gorged yourself on their life essence.

You know your spawn would rise sometime mid-afternoon, before the sun set, but the moment you killed any of Moth’s concubines, he would be aroused to suspicion, and you had to make sure your spawn were ready by that point. Once you’ve had your fill, you scope out the entire palace, ensuring there were no others around: everyone else had retired to the crypts below, which was precisely where you were to go next.

Your eye is influencing your vision over towards the door to the museum in the palace. This must be where Angel is bound.

When you open the door, you can’t help but flit back to the book, your nose so close to the pages that you can feel the parchment. Taking in Astarion’s scent one last time, because part of you thinks you might actually die, but the other part of you begs to differ. 

“I love you, Star.”

You turn, looking around until your eyes focus on a strange object in the corner. When you approach the object, you feel desperate to flee, but you don’t. You aren’t too keen on breaking that contract.

With a swift motion, you smash the case, removing the container inside. It’s a wooden box, square and delicate, fitting in your palm. Something is telling you to open it, and you can’t tear your eyes away. With your index finger and thumb, you slowly pry the lid open. A swirl of light comes from the box, procuring Angel behind you, who merely smiles. “Thanks, girl! Okay, bye!✩”

“Wait, are you really–“

“Yep, gotta bounce. Got shit to do. Don’t worry, you’ll be hearing from me. Later, beautiful.” And with that, Angel was gone once more, teleported away to who knows where. You hadn’t exactly expected him to stay and help once he was freed, but you thought he’d do more than this.

Thinking about the seven favorites and gods only knows how many other spawn, you’re starting to think maybe four spawn wasn’t enough. You didn’t even really know much about fledgling vampires, it had been so long since you were around them. You know they need direction and blood.

You take your time cleaning yourself off, brushing your hair, throwing it in a braid for the fight to come. You find the most secure dress you could find, even finding some cotton panties to wear underneath them. You wished you had some shoes, simply because of your right foot, which still burned with every movement. If you got injured running around, it would probably take longer to heal on that side, you suspect. 

You’re absolutely buzzing. You’re filled with energy, bloodlust, and you highly anticipate the rising…they are screaming. They are screaming for you. But you are ready.

‘You will not scream. You will not think. You will think nothing but of me. Rise, hide from the sun, rejuvenate, and join me in battle.’

The spawn are silent apart from the slight sizzling of their skin. One woman and three men: all merely the most convenient choices at the time. They don’t really need to eat, and you think they’ll probably be killed by the favored, but they would buy you enough time. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.

You can almost hear Astarion’s voice in your head: Hurry up, my love, and come to me. I need you.

You haven’t felt this awake in a while. Something was rising within you, something that you’ve been missing. ‘Follow.’ The five of you flit down, tearing at the walls and the doors to the favored spawn quarters, where the seven peacefully slept. The first one to go was the one closest to you, who takes a simple plummet to the head, the smell of blood and spinal fluid filling your senses, invigorating you further, and you seemingly forget why you’re here at all. Your body flies around the room, tearing and thrashing body parts around as you destroy Moth’s precious spawn just as he’s destroyed you. Your spawn are ravenous and terrified, attacking randomly and relentlessly, feeding off the sheer energy of terror and violence their Master imposed on them; but they are strong, far stronger than you anticipated, and you find they fare well in battle.

”Hahaha!” Your laugh rings out as you slice into a man’s jugular, blood pooling down your chin, puddles on the carpet. “I invented talent, beauty, and the art of warfare, you know!”

You can hear the slapping of your feet on the ancient wood, slick with blood and other gore, their bodies becoming indistinguishable to you as even more spawn pour into the room. Your mind almost goes quiet, you drown out the sounds of screams, struggles, hisses and cries; even the burning in your leg has subsided, and all you know is bloodshed.

All you know is bloodshed. Should you make more spawn? It feels really good to control so many bodies at once. “I am so fucking awesome. I am the most powerful vampire in the fucking world. Fuck you!” 

One of your spawn knows magic: “Ha. Throw some fireballs, stupid spawn.” Your stomach is roiling in excitement as you hear ‘ignis’ repeated over and over. You transform into a bat, squeaking over the screams, stumbling as you transform back. One of the female dragonborn grabs at your dress, tearing it as she pulls you to you. Your arm goes through her chest, your muscles numb to whatever damage they are taking. 

A rumble behind you. Something is coming. Wolves, ghouls, Moth himself, you know. You turn, “Goodmorning!”, but as you lay eyes on this man, the one that has raped you and assaulted you and ruined you, you suddenly aren’t enjoying yourself anymore. You’re angry, so fucking angry.

Your spawn are fast, but not fast enough: but you are. One by one, you tear through his defenses, before he comes to you, grabbing your throat and throwing you across the room. You jump, your fangs bared and hissing, and he dodges away before running back to you as he grabs you again, slamming you to the ground. Your bones crack, but you can’t even yelp, your hand clutching at his jaw, and using all your strength, you dislocate it, causing a loud crack sound to reverberate throughout the hall. Moth jumps back, screaming as he clutches his face, and you jump stop him, your fists pummeling him into the ground, his face becoming broken and beaten with every swing.

”Arrr, kaaahhh-hnng,“ You had clearly damaged his brain, his words coming out a stutter. His eye widened in panic, and it was delicious to you. His face was crushed in, one of his eyes was dislocated, and the sight would be rather horrifying to you if you had this been a different situation. But seeing him broken and beaten beneath you makes you feel big again.

“Did someone go a bit stupid?” You laugh at him, but you realize that tears are streaming down your face. They fall into the Dragonborn’s mouth, and he licks his lips; and you just start screaming. You scream so loud your throat hurts, your fists beating down on the man’s large chest. With every pound, Moth starts to scream along with you, and you think it’s less from the pain and more from your maniacal cries, which are all Moth can hear: you’re sure of it.

His cock is hard beneath you. Whether that be from something biological, as he is on the fringes of death, or if he truly was that much of a sadist and masochist, you would never know, but in this moment, it disgusts you more than anything he had ever done to you. Tearing through his throat, the dragonborn’s screams devolve to gurgles as your hand reaches for his vocal cords, tearing them out with such tremendous ferocity that they scrape together, creating a sound so unnatural you know you won’t ever forget it. 

You haven’t stopped screaming even after you wretch off his head, your battle cries still no match for that sweet sound of his last whimper, your fingers in the meat of his stupid neck stump as you bring it up to your own, planting a gentle kiss on his cheek. Your teeth violently chatter against themselves. 

“Now, Geldon Moth, you are mine.”

But that’s the last of whatever you had left in you. The palace war was still raging on, but with the Master dead, the other spawn would surely run off or stop fighting if they could. You take a deep breath, Moth’s head still in your hand. You make your way back down to the museum, and you grab two things: Astarion’s book and that old githyanki relic. They are now bloodied, the pages of the book now stained, the metal on the contraption slick with crimson. 

You don't care. You wander around the palace for a while until you find the portal room, which has all been discontinued due to Moth’s death. You merely stare before turning around, walking towards the front door of the palace. The moment you open the door, you spot the silky cat dart out of the palace, running off into the wilderness. 

You walk out rather slowly into the sun. Your spawn follow in toe, and as you keep walking into the expanse of a forest, they fall one by one, commanded not to speak or think. You walk until the sun sets, and you’re finally in the dark, alone in the woods. You’re covered in dried blood and dirt, your fingers are stiff from clutching the head of Moth, and you drop to your knees.

It’s over. The pain and suffering. Your capture. But right now, you hardly feel anything at all. You can smell the smoke and charred flesh as the Moth estate goes up in flames, creating a vibrant light through the trees. You focus on it, your vision blurry, your stomach rumbling, your eyes still wet and puffy. You didn’t know it was possible for a vampire to have so many tears.

You hear the whirring of something behind you, the light breeze feeling nice on your skin. Your tears haven't stopped, and as you turn around, you gasp as you see silver curls and crimson eyes step out of a portal, eyes red and teary. You hold out your hand, the one with Moth’s head. 

“I-I brought this for you, love,” Your words come out shaky, your voice trembling, and you can barely hold yourself up. Astarion is already crying, and he’s on his knees in front of you, taking the head from your grasp and throwing it off into the woods. His strong arms coil around your waist, his forehead resting between your breasts as his sobs ring out through the dead of night. There is a buzzing in your head, and you can’t hear his words, but you know he speaks of love as you collapse in his arms. 

Masterlist

[inexplicifics]

Hi the fashion designer in training again, you posted my og ask and it got me thinking about it again (as if i ever stop) and I was thinking about how different monsters would be categorized and how that might change the fashion sense of things too. For example, theres humanoids, animal adjacent, insect adjacent (broadly), and plant adjacent.

Humanoids, to me, would be creatures/monsters that have little to no animal, insect, or plant otherness, such as trolls, drowners, bruxa, even sirens (even though they overlap into animal). Witchers obviously have magical uses from their kills but from a fashion/mundane perspective a lot of what these creatures provide would be equivalent to that of what a human might. Now, there is a lot of real world history that is sensitive and triggering about the use of human remains, especially in recent times of widespread slavery that has a lot of themes of cannibalism, farming practices, and lack of humanity even after death, such as leather tanning for clothes, the use of human remains in parchment (as parchment is made from animal remains and not wood or plants, that’s what differentiates it from paper), and more. This is why anything that leans more human than monster (such as a bruxa, vampire, succubus, etc) I don’t think I’ll touch with a ten foot pole unless it is to deal with their unique remains. Creatures that lean more monster such as trolls get thrown through the wringer though.

Trolls specifically have really thick skin, which in a tanning process would take… forever to turn into leather but the results would be potentially amazing. Thick strong leather would last for centuries if treated right, I have no doubt in my mind that troll leather would make fantastic saddles, boots, furniture — awful clothes but the other implications mean a lot to me because it might just make excellent armor.

Sirens, as the middleman between humanoids and animal adjacent, would be excellent to discuss scales. There is a company that currently helps with fish scale waste and uses them to make clothes that are naturally soft and have added benefits of being moisture managing (helps with retaining moisture in skin in dry environments) and also is naturally anti-odor! This is incredibly cool for the fashion world and I could see it being a real thing for the witcher world… if they had the time to do it, as I fear modern technology would need to be replaced with magic and I’m not sure mages, researcher included, would be interested in going out of their way to collect siren scales to create fabric (unless they could imbue it with magic? 🤔 A potential concept to long lasting charmed clothes) So very interesting but not as plausible in a fantasy world.

But! Reptilian scales are highly sought after in fashion designs and are not as wasteful as fish scales. The Witcher basilisk is reptilian in nature, which would make for excellent clothes, anything in fashion you can think of in scales you can bet it exists. Scales are widely loved and used even today, so basilisk skin? Oh yeah, it’s up there for fashion. Even says so in various wikis 😉.

Animal adjacent clothing will look a lot like what we have for animals now, adjusted as needed. Basilisks are large so their hides would be easy to convert to many items, whereas snake skin is small and you would need several to make a significant piece of cloth. This would make it far more valuable. Not to mention the claws, claws which are used in various forms. From clasps on just about everything, to jewelry, to decor, to piercings, I know a basilisk claw would be on a noble’s cloak or belt, I just know it.

This translates to, as mentioned before, wargs and other furred animals. The larger, the better, the more you can take, the better, the more *dangerous* to prove your worth, the better. A bear claw is nothing compared to a warg fang, and so on and so forth. I haven’t even gotten started on the length of griffin feathers and what that would do for fashion. No one understands what length in natural materials means to me except for other people who’s special interests are fashion, fantasy worlds, and survival skills. I cannot explain *length of feathers* in gowns. In cloaks. In *jewelry.* But that’s a post for a little old me who isn’t up at 1am on a school night.

Enjoy my midnight ramblings, I realize that this got out of hand and is uh… not really well connected in terms of thoughts but I hope it made sense to people who aren’t deep in the trenches like me lmao

Please imagine me sitting here with my chin on my hands, staring at you with hearts in my eyes as I listen to your interesting and informative midnight ramblings.

[feralkwe]

lmao ilu fandom and all the people tagging my urianger glow-up post with "thought this was about thancred" so lemme make a post just for you:

if you don't love him at "body odor personified" wilderness chic you don't deserve him at "i have a tortured past" sexy armored thighhighs and duster.

there you go. never say i am not a giver.

[nerdraging4point0]

Blood of Eden // Bad Omens Urban Fantasy AU (Chapter Sixteen)

Tropes and Tags: MM, MF, MFM, MFM, instalove, too much sex, tattooed men, polyverse, shapeshifters.

CW: 18+ only minors DNI. Urban Fantasy romance, Smut. Angst. Fluff (ish), Story includes D/S themes, mentions of blood and gore, mentions of drug use and distribution, mentions of prostitution, unprotected sex, male receiving oral sex, female receiving oral sex, cuckolding, P/A sex, P/V sex.

This work below is fictionalized ideas and stories involving real people but does not directly reflect their thoughts, feelings, or behaviors. Please keep in mind that this is a work of fiction.

Taglist(click to be added): @ladyveronikawrites @mysticdoodlez @poisongirl616 @shilohrosechicken @cookiesupplier @meliferafaerie @concreteemo @itsafullmoon @letmeadoreyoux @transparentwitchnightmare @spicywhenspeaking @somewhere-diamond @iknownothingpeople @darling-millicent-aubrey @somebodyels3 @jakeygvf21 @badomensls @dominuslunae @mountains-to-move @sundamariis @caitcoreeeee @crimson-calligraphyx @darkmxgician

The sway and jostling of the armored truck was enough to make her stomach churn and bile rise in the back of her throat.

The constant lurching and bouncing as the heavy vehicle rumbled over the uneven, potholed roads created a nauseating rocking motion that threatened to overwhelm her senses. With only the meager, bitter-tasting wheat grass shakes she had been subsisting on for days sloshing around in the empty cavern of her stomach, she knew that one more good tossle of the tank-like truck would likely cause her to erupt in a violent display of retching and vomiting all over the armed, imposing figure sitting next to her. The close confines of the armored personnel carrier, combined with the stale, recycled air and the pungent odor of sweat and gasoline, only exacerbated her unsettled stomach and heightened her nausea.

She swallowed hard, willing herself not to give in to the overwhelming queasiness, but the relentless sway of the vehicle made it an increasingly difficult battle to maintain her composure. Gripping the edge of the hard metal bench beneath her, she braced herself against the constant lurching, praying she could make it to their destination.

Rosa’s gaze wandered to the tall, striking blonde woman sitting across from her. Her intense green eyes were fixed intently on Rosa despite the sway as they navigated the winding city streets, stopping and starting again with a sense of purpose. Rosa couldn't help but feel a twinge of unease, noticing the occasional flicker of what seemed to be sadness or regret that would flash across the woman's features. Gone were the sharply tailored suits Rosa had become accustomed to seeing her in - instead, she was dressed head-to-toe in sturdy, form-fitting leather, an ensemble that gave the impression she was prepared for battle at a moment's notice. Rosa had been offered the same outfit, having bern in the same clothes for several days with only rags and bowls of water to sponge bathe in, it was nice to wear something clean for a change.

She felt lightheaded, exhausted, but to afraid for her life to sleep. Visions had begun to return, flashes of an old style home that looked like its foundation was cracking and the roof fallign in begain to flash across her mind. She had never seen this place before, but the faces in it were familiar. Jolly, Maria, Oli along with several other guard members and their masters all huddled around laptops and take out containers. They all looked bleary eyed, bags hanging from their eyes boring lines into their cheeks. of Jolly from Noah’s perspective and the glimpses of himself as he’d stare in the mirror made her heart ache. Despite being able to see him she couldn’t connect to him, the shots of poison she’d been given daily by the Magistrate-poison she herself had made-kept her powers limited.

Exhaustion had begun to set in, her head feeling light and dizzy from the ordeal, but the overwhelming fear for her life kept her from succumbing to sleep, lest she leave herself defenseless against whatever fate had in store. Visions had began to resurface, flashing across her mind's eye in vivid detail.

Glimpses of an old, ramshackle house materialized, its foundation cracked and crumbling, the roof sagging precariously overhead. Though she had never laid eyes on this dilapidated dwelling before, the faces of its inhabitants were strikingly familiar. There was Jolly, his usual jovial demeanor replaced by a weary, drawn expression, dark circles bruising the delicate skin beneath his eyes. And Maria, her brow furrowed in concentration as she hunched over a glowing laptop screen, takeout containers scattered haphazardly around her. Oli was there too, his posture slumped with exhaustion, joining several other shadowy figures - members of their guard, and their elusive masters - all gathered in this forgotten place, their collective gaze fixed on the technology before them.

It was as if the very walls of this crumbling shelter were imbued with the weight of their collective burdens, the foundation threatening to give way under the crushing pressure. Yet, despite the dismal surroundings and their haggard appearance, there was a resolute determination that burned in their eyes, a silent acknowledgment that whatever task lay before them, they would see it through, no matter the cost.

Her heart ached with a profound, visceral pain as the tears began to well up in her eyes, blurring her vision. The uncertainty of the situation weighed heavily on her, the unanswered questions gnawing at her mind. Would she ever see them again - her friends, her loved ones, the people she had been separated from in the chaos?

She hadn't laid eyes on Nick, since that fateful day, and the haunting fear that the worst had befallen him consumed her thoughts. Was he even still alive, or had he suffered a tragic end?

She couldn't be sure if the images in her mind, the visions of them escaping to safety, were real memories or simply the desperate fantasies of her hopeful psyche. Perhaps they had all been captured, and these flickering, ethereal impressions were nothing more than the mind's attempts to cope with the trauma, to envision a better outcome than the bleak reality.

The uncertainty was agonizing, the not knowing eating away at her resolve, as she struggled to discern truth from fiction, to separate the real from the imagined. All she could do was cling to the glimmer of hope that somehow, against all odds, they had made it to freedom - but the lack of any confirmation left her wracked with doubt and overwhelming sorrow.

As her eyes slowly drifted shut, a kaleidoscope of vivid new visions began to dance and swirl behind her lids. Faded century-old castles, their crumbling stone walls and turrets silhouetted against a sweeping night sky filled with constellations she had never seen before, their strange patterns and unfamiliar celestial arrangements captivating her. Then the scene shifted, and she found herself running breathlessly through a shadowy, labyrinthine landscape, her feet pounding against the ground as she fled from some unseen pursuer, yet no matter how hard she ran, she felt like she was getting nowhere, the scenery unchanging around her. Fragments of her childhood then came flooding back, the old haunting nightmares she used to have as a little girl - dreams where she was always being chased, hunted by some malevolent presence, her friends by her side as they desperately tried to escape, only to wake up in a cold sweat, tears streaming down her face as she cried out that she just couldn't get away. Those had been such frightening, visceral dreams, the kind that linger long after waking.

As she replayed the haunting images of her nightmare, a tiny detail suddenly stood out to her, one that sent a chill down her spine. Among the sea of unfamiliar faces, one of the women's eyes had caught her attention - they were achingly familiar, as if she had stared into them before. It was more than just recognition; there was a profound connection, a glimpse into the very depths of this stranger's soul. Though she had only just met this person a few days prior, the intensity of the eye contact in her dream felt like she was seeing a part of them that she had never meant to uncover. It was as if the veil had been lifted, exposing a vulnerability and intimacy that shook her to the core. It was a tiny detail, easy to overlook, but one that had the power to unravel the very fabric of what she thought she knew.

A sudden surge of adrenaline coursed through Rosa's veins, igniting an intense, visceral reaction within her. Something was undoubtedly off - no, not just off, but something was actively coming, approaching with an ominous and foreboding presence. Sitting upright in her seat, Rosa's heart began to pound thunderously in her ears, drowning out all other sounds around her. A strange vibration reverberated through the air, sending a prickling sensation across the back of her neck as the fine hairs stood on end, her body instinctively going on high alert. Just as she frantically tugged at the seat belt strapped tightly across her chest, a violent jolt ripped through the vehicle, lifting the wheels clean off the ground in a terrifying moment of weightlessness. Rosa's stomach lurched as the truck was violently wrenched from the road, her mind racing to comprehend the perilous situation unfolding around her. Something had gone horribly, catastrophically wrong, and she braced herself, heart pounding, for the inevitable impact that was to come.

The sudden and unexpected reversal of gravity sent the vehicle tumbling end over end, its passengers helplessly thrown about like ragdolls. Rosa felt her body lift off the seat as the vehicle flipped, her arms and legs flailing uncontrollably in the air around her. Weapons and other loose objects scattered chaotically, flying up towards the ceiling before crashing back down in a disorienting display of chaos. The experience was utterly disorienting, like being trapped in a never-ending, dizzying spin cycle. Just when it seemed the ordeal would never end, the vehicle slammed back down to the ground, the roof crumpling inward. Rosa's body lurched forward, and she felt a sickening jolt as her seatbelt caught her, the impact sending a sharp pain through her chest.

As the vehicle came to a rest, Rosa found herself surrounded by the motionless forms of her fellow passengers, one body sprawled across her feet, a trickle of blood oozing from the victim's nose. Dazed and disoriented, Rosa's ears were ringing and her vision blurred, but she could make out shadowy figures approaching the wrecked vehicle. The doors were suddenly wrenched open, and the figures began pulling bodies from the wreckage, climbing into the mangled interior. Rosa's seatbelt came undone, and she felt herself falling forward, only to be caught by the shadowy figures. Blinded by the bright sunlight as she was carried from the vehicle, Rosa let out a small cry of pain, her eyes clamped tightly shut against the glare.

“Easy, sunshine,” the soft tones made her nerves settle instantly, despite her pain she reached out blindly for him. Her hand clasped his warm fingers encasing her weak digits, “We got you now. You’re safe.”

****

As Noah approached the overturned vehicle, his heart sank at the sight of Rosa's limp, battered form. Frail and bruised from the violent accident, her eyes were sunken in and her cheeks hollowed out, giving her a haggard, worn appearance. 

What had they done to her? 

Noah knew the team had spent hours carefully planning this raid, but he had been uneasy about the decision to flip the truck, fearing the potential consequences. Still, it had seemed the only way to ensure the other guardians would be disoriented enough that they couldn't fight back properly, if they even chose to do so at all. As Noah watched the black box tip over three times before finally righting itself, his stomach turned with a sickening dread. Wasting no time, he tore open the doors and charged inside, desperate to extract Rosa as swiftly as possible and get her the medical attention she so clearly needed. 

The normally vibrant, strong-willed woman now looked a complete wreck, her body battered and her spirit seemingly broken by the ordeal. Noah could only imagine the terror and pain she must have endured, and he vowed to get to the bottom of what had happened and ensure those responsible would pay for their cruelty.

Noah's heart raced as he carefully carried the limp form of Rosa in his arms, her body feeling unnaturally light and fragile. With a sense of urgency, he rushed towards the dilapidated safe house, its crumbling walls the only refuge they could find in this perilous world. Gently, he laid Rosa down on the old, bare mattress, the springs creaking under her weight. The mattress offered little comfort, the coarse fabric scratching against her skin, but Noah knew it was the best he could do to keep her safe in this moment.

As soon as Rosa's head hit the mattress, Maria came rushing to her side, her eyes wide with terror and concern. Bending over the bed, she tenderly pushed the tangled strands of hair away from Rosa's pale, lifeless face, a choked sob escaping her lips. "Oh god, what did they do to her?" she cried, her voice laced with anguish.

Before Noah could even begin to formulate a response, Morgan, one of the magistrates who had been on the transport truck, approached them, her expression grave. "It was some kind of serum they created," she explained, the weight of her words hanging heavy in the air. Joshua had explained there had been a celestial hidden among the magistrate but Noah had never imagined it would be someone so high up. Morgan had always been ruthless as a leader, angry and fearsome, but only when pressed. Otherwise she would sit silently in the corner. “They seemed to find it in the storage on your computer,” her face turned to Jolly as Noah saw the shadow fall across his face.

“They experimented with it. It was more potent this time around. I managed to sneak in a potion with her food. Without it she’d be dead. But it did very little to combat the serum side effects.” Maria sniffeled as she bent down to kiss Rosa’s forehead.

“What do we do now?” Jolly asked sitting cross legged on one side of the matress taking their girls hand in his. 

“They dosed her every morning, she got one just before we packed up. Wait it out for the night. She will need food.” Morgan leaned against the door frame folding her arms across her chest.

“We will take care of that,” Joshua came up behind her, “In the meantime we need to look for a bigger safe house. With the casualties of the accident the magiatrte will be out looking for us.”

The two celestials drifted down the hallway deep in discussion. Their centuries-old friendship was evident in the comfortable ease of their conversation as they exchanged ideas and made plans, their voices a melodic cadence that seemed to reverberate through the very walls. Meanwhile, Oli quickly squeezed past them, his focus intent as he hurried into the room. Without a word, Oli wrapped his strong arms around Maria’s trembling shoulders, offering comfort and support.

 "Come on, love," he murmured, gently pulling her to her feet. "She is safe now. And I need your help." Maria nodded mutely, her face streaked with tears, as she allowed Oli to guide her from the room, the couple disappearing down the hall. 

 Noah carefully crawled onto the mattress, tenderly pulling the unconscious Rosa close to him. Relief and joy etched across his features - she was here, she was home, and heaven help anyone who dared try to take her from them again.