#parallel universe core

[technicallyclassyperfection]

Via print:

[ruvviks]

nathan and lily aren't actually siblings, but at this point they may as well be. everybody wish nathan a happy birthday!!

taglist (opt in/out)

@nistarot, @deadrlngers, @euryalex, @ordinarymaine, @mojaves;

@shellibisshe, @dickytwister, @mnwlk, @rindemption, @ncytiri;

@calenhads, @noirapocalypto, @florbelles, @radioactiveshitstorm, @strafethesesinners;

@fashionablyfyrdraaca, @radioactive-synth, @katsigian, @estevnys, @devilbrakers;

@aezyrraesh, @carlosoliveiraa, @adelaidedrubman, @fromgotham, @wardenevka

[francy-sketches]

daeneighrys

[gilgil-machine]

Since this is a blog not just posting about Fate Gilgamesh but also about Epic Gilgamesh, what do you think about Gilgamesh's design in Fate? Basically, having blonde hair and being so pale is a misconception considering where Mesopotamia (Modern Day Iraq) is on the map.

I remember seeing people complaining about like inaccuracy in Gilgamesh's depiction in fate and I totally understand their frustrations but I personally completely chill about it, because fate was never really like historically accurate despite those characters being inspired by either real historical figures or heroes from legends. And I personally here just for enjoyment, not for accuracy.

And besides there's a lot of different Gilgameshs throughout the media so anyone can choose Gilgamesh to their own taste😊

[zaynes-left-chesticle]

Okay I just read Zayne's "Still in Dark" anecdote, and now I'm crying and also my jaW IS ON THE GROUND, WHAT IN THE FUC-

----

enjoy the tags, I just needed to vent....

And I'm scared 🤣

[littleeyesofpallas]

I have always loved this final(ish) boss design in Wild Arms 2nd Ignition so I'm just gonna babble for a bit here, apropos of nothing. So, spoilers I guess(?) for a quarter of a century year old game --I think it's still available on the PlaystationStore, but obviously emus are always an option. Large flightless Australian birds are crafty like that.

Even though, design-wise, a good chunk of it falls in line with pretty standard JRPG angelic monster/grotesque angel/now-your-teen-hero-fights-god motifs, it was just so out there in terms of lore.

The game starts with you gathering a band of heroes --A fresh faced army recruit, a grizzled war hero, a magical girl, a sacrificial martyr, a brooding anti-hero, and an optional vampire-- to fight an evil organization out to take over the world.

The evil organization, Odessa, declares that the world is changing, monsters are popping everywhere, and the kingdoms of the world do nothing about it, and so they threaten that if kings and queens and politicians cannot or will not do anything about it, then Odessa will conquer their kingdoms, seize their resources and manpower, and they will fix the problem thru unilateral authority.

But while there is a certain righteous anger behind their manifesto, they of course end up attacking innocent civilians, staffing themselves with war criminals and homicidal lunatics, sacrificing people to summon demons, using the monsters they claim to want gone as weapons, and ultimately trying to threaten the world's governments into submission with a nuke that is also a dragon...

So you smack their four generals around, corner their boss in his giant flying fortress, and then when he knows he's done for he tries to launch himself and the heroes into space to kill them all. It mostly fails, in so much as your party escapes the fortress, but the protagonist stays behind like the big damn hero that he is and consequently dies in space... He gets better tho, don't worry.

But then comes the sort of inverted 3rd act twist --instead of all hope being lost and then a reveal saves the day, everything seems like we should be done with the world ending threats and the world should be safe, until it's revealed that it is very much not-- an alternate universe is colliding with this one, and has been the whole time...

What that really means and how that works and how to envision that is left meaningfully abstract. Metaphorically the other world threatens to "devour" theirs, but it's not clear what that consumption even means... The slowly merging realities are actually why those monsters Odessa swore to eradicate had been appearing at all, and as the two alternate realities collide, the shape of the extra dimensional invasion isn't just a flood of monsters, but that the very nature of reality in this other world will come to replace this one.

Also in a cool throw back to the original Wild Arms, in which the extraterrestrial demon invasion the kicks off the game's plot is heralded by the sky cracking and chipping away, when the protag recovers from his whole died-in-space situation, he awakens to a literally unfamiliar, alien sky... a shifting, sloshing, iridescent acid trip looming over a doomed planet.

In fact the terrorist threat that had consumed so much of the heroes efforts until now was part of an elaborate long con by a certain wealthy would-be-hero out to save the world from the existential threat of total annihilation... The same man who recruited your heroes to fight terrorist in the first place.

Convinced that the world governments would be too fickle and petty to set aside their differences and personal interests to combat something as incomprehensible as (another)reality itself, he actually funded the terrorist organization in order to scare the world into cooperation against something much more concrete and straight forward --or, if international cooperation really did prove impossible, then as an owner of the new dictatorial world government, he'd simply make Odessa to save the world for him.

(A Note: The whole thing has strong american cape comic energy running thru it, specifically Watchmen and DC's Crisis on Infinite Earths.)

But then even his Xanatos gambit falls just short of saving the world in the final stages, and he's pushed into a corner. It turns out that even after tricking the nations of the world into allowing him access to harnessing the raw life force of the planet itself, the life force of a planet with a dying ecosystem just isn't enough to contain this hungry eldritch reality. So, in a last ditch effort he turns to the raw energy of creation, the miracle of life itself, to contain the menace and shackle it to a tangible reality in which it can be fought and killed... and so in a prison of otherworldly flesh contained in the belly of the earth itself, you confront the alternate universe in the form of an unborn child, and with his mind speaking thru it he tells you to kill him.

Anyway, yeah, that's you end up in a big red meat room fighting a vaguely angelic baby in an orb.

Immediately the thing that jumps out is, "Hey, that's the Starchild from 2001: A Space Odyssey!" Which is of course, very cool because everyone loves an unnerving weird fetus. But when it comes to JRPGS and weird fetuses, and incomprehensible reality destroying menaces, of course, the first thing to come to mind is Gigyas in Earthbound.

But more over, I really love that --where as, by point of comparison, there have been questionable theories about the layout of the Devil's Machine dungeon map looking like a womb, piggybacking off Giygas's ultrasound looking fetus shadow pattern-- the rest of the boss form surrounding the little Starchild core actually do appear to be modeled off a reproductive system, complete with ovaries and fallopian tubes, even going so far as to include the fimbriae as stylized angelic wings.

And I like the odd little detail that, because most babies develop upside down, the design with the fetus upright seems to have taken that into account by also rotating the reproductive anatomy accordingly? The baby is upright, so the organs are upside down.

Plus, even though it's not how fallopian tubes look in a real body, most anatomical diagram will show them as having this kind of flared arc over and around the ovaries beneath them, but the wings of the Kupier core arc under the two green orbs approximating ovaries. All that just to say that the big metal golden halo structure hanging under the core is technically oriented toward the "top" of the implied anatomy.

Also the game has a whole big subplot about a Christlike martyr --as an extension of the broader themes of heroism, and what it really means to be a hero-- and there is even a moment just before this final dungeon where Irving refers to his sister, the mother carrying this alternate reality made flesh, as "The Madonna of Destruction"... That all being context to support that, although it can be hard to notice or discern meaningful details on, that weird little fetus is definitely wearing what I can only assume is a crown of thorns.(I mean, that or it could be a pair of little devil horns? but I find that a less interesting alternative) Because he was, after all, conceived(although not so immaculately...) so that he could die to save the world.

Also not at all related to any fun themes or anything but I like how there's this big mouth it's seated in, that I only just realized has a "bottom" jaw to it. The top teeth are most noticeable and go around the front and sides, and I always kinda assumed they were a nod to the whole vagina dentata myth, but on a scale and at an angle that would've been imperceptible thru the blur of a CRT, there's definitely 4 little teeth normally hidden by the glare of the little uterus bubble

Oh and I didn't even get into the name itself being named after the Kuiper Belt, the asteroid belt around our real world solarsystem, as a play into some other astronomical terminology the story borrows from; namely the event horizon of a blackhole being referred to as the thing sealing away the mythic evil demon that started the whole world decay thing that makes the setting a desert wasteland in the first place, and became the wrench in the aforementioned plan to harness the planet's life force as a weapon against the parallel universe.(that ancient evil demon is the actual/surprise final boss of the game after this fight, btw...) There's so much more going on just in general, but that doesn't really play into the way this boss mosnters looks or why.

[deadsetobsessions]

Danny Fenton is so damn sick of rich fruit loops. It’s worse now, since he’s one of them.

It’s not Vlad that he’s with, thank the Ancients, but Danny isn’t sure that this is better.

Because he’s Timothy Drake, a baby, and he’s been reincarnated after the Ancient of Reincarnation accidentally drank too much wine.

He’s going to kick their ass so hard when he gets back.

Danny huffs. He rolls over, ignoring the silent manor. Sure, he’s read the comics. Sure, he laughed and imagined being adopted by Batman- come on, Danny had black hair and blue eyes even back then, he was totally adoption bait- when his parents gave him reason to lose trust in their love. But that’s it, that’s all he thought it was. A day dream, a wish for a universe that didn’t exist.

Danny hadn’t understood the reality of the whole Infinite Realms thing, a place he was now the King of. Batman? Real. Danny? Reincarnated. Hotel? Trivago.

Like, this wasn’t what he meant, dammit.

And now he’s stuck as Timothy Drake, and Ancients, he was starting to see parallels.

——

Danny tried photography. He really did. He wanted to at least stick to the source material. But that’s not who he is. Even with the shiny new brain that memorized, catalogued, and put together clues at the snap of his fingers, but Danny’s never been one to take photos. It’s a respectable art, for sure, but Danny preferred to live in the moment instead of capturing it to remember forever. It’s just-

He watched the Graysons fall. He watched Dick Grayson turn into Robin. And Danny can’t and won’t ever betray his Obsession like that, ever again. He can’t let Jason die for his “story” to begin. That’s not how Danny works.

He’s there to protect.

Danny hasn’t ever been just Tim. Danny was also Tim and the Ghost King without a haunt. But now? Gotham is his haunt. He, in lieu of an actual city spirit, is Gotham. He’s also a Drake. And Drakes were meant to hoard.

Batman and Robin? They are his.

He claimed them, as a Drake. But that claim is weak. So he claimed them as their city, and that is a claim that will never be able to be challenged.

Danny’ll be damned before he allows some lanky starved clown beat the life out of one of his Robins. So, for the first time in his nine years on this planet, Tim-Danny goes ghost and flies.

“Who- who. Are you?” Robin slurred from his place in Danny’s hold. He is broken, yes. But not dead. Danny infuses some of his vitality, his ecto, into Jason’s injuries to help them heal.

“Gotham.” Danny replied, layering his ghostly voice with those of the city.

“Goth’m?”

“Gotham. Sleep, little bird. Your city has got you.”

When Robin, Jason, settled with a sense of trust that tugs at Danny’s core, Danny carried him to Batman, whose eyes were wild and manic. He glared menacingly at the green and white ghost in front of him, who was holding his broken and beaten son-

Well, it’d be menacing if Danny hadn’t watched him eat bricks and mortar, crashing into a building while using his grappling gun.

“You-”

“I am Gotham.” Danny cut him off. Despite his wary nature and natural paranoia, Batman settled at his city’s gaze rested on him. Danny knew that Batman recognized his city. Batman’s head bowed, but his eyes stayed on Robin. “You were supposed to take care of Robin.”

“I- I know.” And that voice was all Bruce Wayne the Dad instead of Batman the Vigilante. Danny gently placed Robin in Batman’s arms, taking in the tremors as he held his son close.

“Go back, Bruce. And make sure Jason knows how much you love him.”

He laughed as Bruce whipped his head upwards. “I am your city. You are mine as much as I am yours. I’ve known of you before you were born.”

Technically? Not untrue. But Bruce will chalk it up to weird magic shit. It’s not like it’s a secret that Gotham’s kind of curse. Besides, this way, Danny will be able to help out more often. And Bruce won’t be able to connect Tim Drake to the “Spirit of Gotham.”

“Return, my knight. This is not your city. I can not protect you as well as I can in Gotham.”

“Thank you… Gotham.”

Danny sighed. He wondered when he’ll have to field questions from a John Constantine. He’s pretty sure Bruce will call in magical help, even if it was his own city he was investigating.

Batman’s lucky Danny liked him enough to allow it.

[chaos-bringer-13]

I've seen a lot of people writing Danny as a space ancient and Dan and Dani as ghosts with moon and sun cores, being sort of parts, versions of Danny and therefore weaker. Now, consider: Dan and Dani are both powerful ghosts with really cool cores and stuff but Danny is just some guy™

Dan, who came from an alternate timeline and is kind of from the future but also not, is Clockwork's apprentice and will eventually become an ancient of time. He probably only agreed to have some lessons with Clockwork to understand better what happened to him, but he enjoys his apprenticeship now.

Dani, with her love of travelling, loves seeing all the different places the world offers to her, and that includes space and different planets and maybe even parallel universes, and she accidentally ends up being an apprentice of the space ancient. For now she's probably a baby ancient of freedom or something like that, but she might become an ancient of space in the future.

We can also have something like Dan having a core of destruction or Dani being the Speed Force if you want it to be dcxdp, or any headcanon of yours about their cool powers.

And then there's Danny. And yeah, everyone knows that he's super powerful, but also he's just some guy.

It can go different routes. Does everyone know that Danny is just Danny? Or do they think that with siblings (well, technically a clone and an alternate version, but whatever) so powerful, he must be even stronger? Is Danny actually something terrifyingly eldritch and ancient and strong, almost a god, but he just doesn't know himself? Or is he just really some guy?

Now, because it's obvious that I have a dcxdp brainrot, have a regular "JL summons/meets a powerful ghost" but its Dan and Dani, and they keep mentioning their original/brother who won a fight against them at some point. The JL is very concerned about Dan and Dani's godlike powers, and they can't imagine what Danny is like. And then they meet him (in his human form), and it's just a young adult in casual clothes, very friendly and helpful, with no evident powers. Imagine the confusion. Imagine Dan and Dani, radiating power, in their eldritch ghost forms, admitting that fighting Danny for real is the dumbest thing to do and not even they would succeed... And then there's Danny is jeans and silly t-shirt, waving shyly.

[vintagerpg]

Black Sword Hack: Ultimate Chaos Edition (2023) is a beautiful little system derived from David Black’s Black Hack of D&D. The obvious literary touchstone is Elric and Moorcock’s larger cosmic conflict between Law and Chaos. There are many other clear influences, though — Jack Vance’s Dying Earth, Lankhmar, Kane, Poul Anderson. I suspect that is Jirel of Joiry on the back cover, flanked by Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. Perhaps they’re a trio of entirely different people — Goran Gligovic’s art vibrates on strange frequencies, as if you’re looking at archetypes from a parallel universe.

The core systems work essentially as they do in Black Hack, so I won’t go into them here. The additions contribute to the doomful atmosphere. These amount to a set of different sorts of pacts — demons, evil swords, fairies, and so on. There are a varieties of powers to draw on and be consumed by.

The rest of the book is given over, mostly, to tools for collaboratively creating a world and a central city for players to inhabit, explore and, eventually, ruin and destroy. Goes with the territory, really. A couple scenarios round things out. A fantastic appendix lays out a method to create adventures using your favorite paperback fantasy novel.

Black Sword Hack touches on many of the same themes as Chaosium’s Stormbringer, but in a more minimal, smoother sort of way. It’s more direct, really. It’s also its own thing, and every game is unique, thanks to the world generation. I’m keen to see it develop further.

[mychapel-004]

FNAF SPOILERS! SCROLL! TALKING ABOUT THE SPRINGLOCK SCENE!

i’ve seen so many people discussing the springlock scene in both negative and positive ways and i think it brings up really cool points about how matthew played that scene and balanced fan expectations with his own characterisation.

i think the discussions around this movie have rlly exposed the disconnect between fanon and canon in fnaf, especially talking abt the core games in isolation, bc frankly in the game universe (ignoring the books) we get Very Little characterisation for William other than the obvious, but Matthew managed to add so much in the way he talks and his body language.

in the reveal scene, we see afton at arguably his peak. in his first scene, he comes off as somewhat demeaning and judgemental until he recognises mike’s name, at which point he seems to have this nervous energy, rushing to cover it up but stumbling slightly, his reaction to the tables being turned even slightly is massive.

this is a man who committed multiple mrdrs in essentially broad daylight, hid the bodies in the most obvious place, and still got away with it, and then kept the crime scene as a trophy of his actions, and an ongoing prison sentence for his victims. he has been in complete control for decades, and is confident that he can deal with any kind of threat quickly. his confidence in his reveal is palpable

it changes when vanessa shoots him. the whole parallel with vanessa and the animatronics is hugely interesting too- how william refers to the animatronics almost endearingly as “kids” when he wants them to obey, how both vanny and the animatronics have an unearned loyalty to him, almost a pseudo-adoption through what he did to them, taking them from their parents and keeping them under his thumb, forever stuck as naive, forgiving, obedient children. vanessa breaking from that control shakes him, but the mask slips back into place almost immediately.

then, he’s outsmarted by the brother of one of his victims, and the child he planned to end next. his pseudo-children turn on him and he can no longer manipulate his appearance or shed his skin to escape. he explodes on them, and his language is incredibly telling that he is being dishonest.

he calls them small, trying to belittle them into submission, even though they are ten feet tall metal animatronics powered by rage. he is grasping at straws to regain control, and failing miserably.

finally, the springlocks go off. the locks in the movie look more like a ribcage, so the first two likely puncture his lungs. they’re slow, and painful, but he doesn’t scream or beg or sob. he grunts and groans, gritting his teeth and only letting out sounds of pain that sound almost involuntary. there is no way in hell he would visibly let himself show weakness or pain in front of these creatures that he believes he has control over. he isn’t brought to his knees until there are eight metal spikes embedded in his abdomen. he doesn’t let the mask fall for even a second, until he literally PUTS THE ACTUAL MASK ON and finally collapses. even then, he’s fighting for consciousness, twitching and writhing with no control over his body. william afton thrives on control, and his soul will not rest until he gets it back.

it’s why he keeps the pizzeria- he always comes back. he can’t help but return to the scene of the crime, putting on his old costume, continuing his killings. he revels in being a constant threat on the horizon. and now, he knows he is going to die, and he knows the suit will bring him back, and noone will be able to get rid of him then. so he puts the mask back on, and waits.

in terms of the sfx- they’re pretty accurate. with stab wounds, you need to leave the knife in the wound as long as possible for best chance of survival, as it stops the blood from escaping. in terms of the springlocks, there wouldn’t be copious amounts of blood as the locks are keeping the wounds filled- which is good because it means a slower, more painful death.

[dijayeah]

Ma Meilleure Ennemie //

sylus x fem!reader // [AO3] // wc: 15k // NSFW MDNI 🔞 // ♡ / ↻ — appreciated!

♡ Summary:

You didn't want to but you shot him. His Aether Core reacted. A moment of resonance, a tear in reality—and just like that, Sylus was somewhere else. A world where he had everything he never let himself want. A version of you who loved him without hesitation, who remembered. And for the first time, he was happy despite the guilt. But he was never meant to stay. And returning home means losing you all over again.

♡ A/N notes:

Before diving in, please make sure to check the tags—they exist for a reason. This fic was heavily inspired by Arcane (specifically, the themes surrounding Ekko & Jinx in S2) and the song Ma Meilleure Ennemie, which perfectly captures the mood I wanted to weave into this story. If you really want to elevate the experience, I’ve also attached a playlist that sets the atmosphere—because, let’s be honest, this fic is best consumed with the right music in the background. Playlist link: Ma Meilleure Ennemie playlist

♡ Content:

★ NSFW, soulmates across timelines, memory loss, emotional sex that cuts deep. Reincarnation angst, time distortion, and a love that refuses to die. Established but messy—he remembers, you don’t. Creampie, fingering, aftercare, soft smut laced with heartbreak. Mutual pining in every universe. Parallel worlds, same ache. No beta, just tears and orgasms.

The air between you was thick with the scent of smoke and blood, heavy enough to choke on. The gun in your hand trembled, its metal burning against your palm, but your grip was weak—just as he wanted.

Sylus sat beneath you, reclined in that oversized chair like a man who had already won something unbeknownst to you. His silver hair fell over his forehead in loose soft strands, his crimson-hued eyes locked on yours, gleaming with something unreadable. He could feel your pulse hammering beneath his long fingers, where his hand tightly curled around your wrist, forcing the gun to stay steady. Not yours. His. His heart, his body, his rules. Even now.

“Go on,” he murmured, voice dark, teasing in a way that didn’t feel like it. “You’ve wanted this for so long. Wasn’t it your objective? To shoot the big bad guy of the N109 zone, Miss Hunter?” He scoffed, because even if his life was quite literally in your hands, he was aware that you viewed him as the top dog of the no man’s land, someone who threatened all that you stood for.

Your breath came too fast, too shallow. He could see it—how you hesitated, how your knuckles went white against the grip, how the weight of what you were about to do sat heavy in your ribs, because for one, you have never killed a person, never actually went after someone who wasn’t a wanderer.

Perhaps, in your perspective, it should have been easy. Hell, it was supposed to be easy. He was a criminal, a mass one at that, someone with a goddamn bounty on his head that was worth millions if not billions amounts of money.

His grip was stronger than yours, guiding your hand, forcing your lithe fingers to curl around the trigger as it left your wrist for a moment. His other hand found your wrist once more, calloused thumb brushing slow, deliberate circles over your pulse, feeling it spike under his fingertips like some sort of heightened frequency. Still, for you, it was a mere reminder—of control, of patience, of power.

“Don’t look away,” he said, tilting his head. “I want you to remember.”

And he meant it. If you were going to kill him, he wanted to be the last thing you saw.

Your stomach twisted. He saw it in your eyes. That hesitation. That doubt. He would have laughed, if not for the part of him that wanted you to do it. That wanted to see just how much you could take. What it would make you.

A slow, steady pull. The trigger clicked. The gun roared.

Heat seared through his chest. The recoil of the gun didn’t hurt the way you thought it would. Not at first. It wasn’t the bullet that burned.

It was you.

His head lolled back against the chair, his body slumping from the force of the shot, but his lips still curled at the edges, breath leaving in something almost like a laugh. The protocore in his eye flared at the edges of his vision. He felt it, the way his core should have helped his evol to pull him back together, the way it should have already been stitching flesh and sealing the deep wound.

But something was wrong.

The air rippled, thick with something electric. Your Aether Core pulsed. His flickered in response, as if whispering back in an ancient language neither of you could understand. His fingers clenched around your wrist, breath hitching. His eyes locked onto yours, wide, startled—not with pain, but recognition.

He felt it before he understood it.

The collision was violent. Raw, unchecked energy surged between you, wrapping around his ribs, curling deep inside his lungs like fire and static, and something ancient waking up inside his bones. The edges of the room blurred, the world folding in on itself, dragging him down, down, down…

There was no floor beneath him, no walls, no sense of gravity. Just weightlessness, as if he had been yanked from existence itself. The nothingness stretched infinitely, void pressing in from all sides, and for a moment, he swore he could still feel the ghost of your hand against his chest, your heartbeat overlapping his own.

His mind clawed for something tangible, something real. But the only thing that existed was absence. No air, no sound—just silence so deep it rattled inside his, perhaps now nonexistent, skull. Was this death? Or something far worse? Perhaps, for someone like him, it was the right way to go out, all things considered.

He was still aware though, aware of the last thing he heard being your voice. Calling him back.

After that? There was nothing.

It could have been seconds. Minutes. Hours. Days. He had no way of knowing. Time did not move here. It had no form, no direction, no flow. He was lost within it, floating, grasping at something unseen lost in his own thoughts for what felt like a millennium.

He wondered what it would be like… if at the end of the day, things had turned out the other way and you would’ve remembered. He pondered the possibility for a while, and then just shut off, seeing no point in it anymore.

It wasn’t until Sylus felt pressure. A pull, slow at first, then all at once. He was dragged back down, breath stolen from his lungs as sensation crashed over him like a tidal wave. Heavy limbs, breath coming too light, too thin, like he’d been holding it for longer than he should have. His body wasn’t where he left it. It was somewhere else—

Soft sheets under his naked back. The scent of something warm, something sweet curling into his lungs. Reality was unsteady, blurred at the edges like ink bleeding into still water. The sensation of weightlessness made his stomach lurch, like stepping off a ledge only to find solid ground where there should have been a fall.

Then—pressure. A touch, gentle and familiar, pressing against his chest. His mind clawed at the sensation, trying to place it, trying to understand before the world clicked into focus all at once.

A manicured hand on his chest.

“Morning, my dragon.”

His eyes snapped open. His lungs locked tight as he lightly flinched at the words.

The bed dipped beside him as you shifted, pressing closer, and it was you. But not quite. Not the way he remembered. Not the way he had left you.

Your hair was a shade warmer than before, a hue that caught the morning light in a way that unsettled him. The soft curve of your face was familiar but wrong, the placement of a mole near your temple off by just a fraction. Your skin looked healthier, as though you had never known sleepless nights spent chasing ghosts, never worn the sharp edges of grief, thanks to losing your loved ones, in the set of your jaw.

Your pretty lips curved in a lazy smile, soft with sleep, with something warmer, something easy. Your hand trailed down his chest, fingertips feather-light, as if this was second nature to you. Your voice hummed with the weight of a thousand mornings just like this.

But it was wrong. All of it.

His body had always been primed for danger, his mind trained to recognize even the smallest inconsistencies. And this—this was a trap he didn’t know how to navigate. Every detail, every shift in reality, was so seamlessly woven into what should have been real. But he knew better.

His breath was uneven, muscles tensed as if expecting a strike that would never come. You weren’t looking at him with suspicion, with fear, with disgust. You weren’t recoiling from him. You weren’t her.

And that was the worst part.

Because the last thing he remembered was you putting a bullet in his heart.

His fingers twitched against the sheets, breath coming too shallow, too sharp. The words shouldn’t have meant anything to this world’s Sylus. But they did—to him. To his real self.

A slow blink, a measured exhale. He forced his body to relax, to settle back into the warmth pressing against his side, but the coil of unease in his chest refused to loosen. He needed to play this off, to find his footing before you noticed—

But you already had.

"Bad dream?" your voice was gentle, teasing, as you brushed stray silver strands from his forehead, fingers trailing down to rest against his jaw. "You looked like you saw a ghost."

He let out a breathy chuckle, low, strained. "Yeah. Something like that."

Your gaze lingered, just a fraction too long. Not in suspicion—at least, not yet. But something about his reaction had given you pause. The way your fingers absently traced over his collarbone felt almost reflexive, as if you were grounding yourself, making sense of something that didn’t quite fit. Your Sylus wouldn’t have reacted. Your Sylus knew exactly what that name meant to you.

This one—he flinched.

He didn't think twice about it. Not because he was careless—no, he was never careless—but because he never had to. You weren’t the type to notice, not in the way that mattered. Or at least, not the you he knew.

This one? This one had been watching him for a long time.

You weren’t staring at him the way someone would look at a lover acting strangely. You weren’t confused, or concerned. You were reading him. The way he breathed, the way he moved, the way his pulse had jumped when you called him that name.

The Sylus in this world—your Sylus—must have never reacted like this before. Maybe that was why your head tilted just slightly, the beginnings of a thought forming, only to be brushed away before it could settle. A flicker of curiosity, not alarm.

The realization curled in his stomach like a vice. He had spent years perfecting the art of deception, of control. And yet, in a single second, he had given himself away to someone who had spent just as long studying him.

He needed to fix it. Needed to cover his tracks before you could follow them too far. He shifted, turning onto his side, propping himself up on an elbow as his lips brushed the curve of your shoulder.

"Maybe you wore me out last night, sweetheart," he murmured, voice slipping into something smoother, something easy. "Guess even I have my limits."

You huffed a laugh, shaking your head, but the tension in your fingers remained. You were still watching him. But not in a way that suggested you had figured him out—just in that quiet, assessing way of someone who had learned to pick up on even the smallest shifts in behavior. And for now, you seemed content to let it go.

"I'm sorry, Sy, I will be less demanding on you next time then." You purred out, amusement lacing your tone as you placed a soft kiss under his jaw.

He needed to tread carefully. Because whatever this was, however he had ended up here—he wasn’t the only one beginning to notice the fractures in the illusion.

He let out a slow exhale, willing his muscles to stay loose, to let himself sink into the warmth of this world—this lie. And yet, it didn’t feel foreign. That was the part that gnawed at him. The way his body knew how to fit into this space, the way his arms instinctively curled around you, the way he could slide into this role without even thinking.

It should’ve felt unnatural. But it didn’t.

A flicker of something old stirred at the back of his mind. He had been here before—not here, not in this lifetime, but in something close to it. The pieces slotted together too easily, the familiarity too deep to be mere coincidence. He had been with you before. In one lifetime, in one story, in one myth.

The Abysm Sovereign as one would’ve called him. The last of the dragons. The one who had hoarded something too precious, too fragile, only to lose himself to it.

Was that what this was? Another return to something inevitable? Another step in a cycle he was too entangled in to escape?

His fingers twitched against the sheets, his breath slow and controlled, but his mind ran circles around the truth.

Maybe this was why it was so easy to fall back into you.

Maybe it had never been a matter of if—only when. Your lips lingered against his skin, soft, familiar in a way that sent something cold slithering down his spine.

"You say that, but I know you," he murmured, forcing a smirk, running his fingers up the curve of your spine. "You’ll have me right where you want me again by sundown."

You laughed against his throat, your breath warm, real, and yet every second of it felt like something closing in around him, something he couldn’t escape. Because the moment he stopped playing along, the moment he let the weight of what had happened settle—

What then?

His fingers curled into the sheets behind your back, grounding himself. He needed to understand how this had happened, why this had happened. His core still hummed faintly beneath his skin, pulsing with something unsettled, something wrong.

And you? You were too at ease, too at home in a life that had never belonged to him. You weren’t looking at him with suspicion anymore, not yet, but he knew it was only a matter of time.

He had to move carefully.

He had to get ahead of this before you started looking too closely.

A week passed, and the edges of reality blurred further, slipping past his fingertips like water.

The leader of Onychinus hadn’t meant to fall into it so easily. He had intended to keep his distance from you and this entire place, to play the part without slipping deeper. But the longer he stayed, the more the weight of this world settled into him like second nature. The way his hands reached for things before his mind could catch up. The way he answered your questions not with lies, but with truths that didn’t belong to him.

Everything was wrong.

N109 wasn’t the place he had built—not the ruthless, lawless battleground where only the strongest survived. It was something else, something structured. There were systems here, stability where there should have been chaos. And he could see the mark of your hand in all of it.

You had helped him build this.

Or rather, you had helped him—the version of Sylus that belonged to this world. The one who had let you in, who had trusted you enough to do this with you instead of fighting against it. The one who, by all accounts, loved you openly—without the guarded words, without the veiled threats laced with something too sharp to be mistaken for tenderness.

Sylus had never been that man. He had never been happy.

The realization crawled under his skin, digging deep. He moved through the city, and people didn’t look at him with fear. They acknowledged him, some even greeted him, as though he was someone worth trusting. As though he was someone good.

But he wasn’t. He never had been. He was always seen as a monster.

Yet this world had rewritten him into something else, something he couldn’t recognize. And worse? His body remembered things he hadn’t lived.

The first time it happened, it was small. A flicker of familiarity when he reached for a glass in the penthouse, his hand moving before he even thought about it. He had never lived here. Never walked these halls before. But his feet knew where to go. His hands knew what to reach for. The weight of a life that wasn’t his settled on him like muscle memory, instincts burned into his body without his consent.

Then the memories started creeping in. Not all at once, not enough to overwhelm, but slow, steady, like a trickle of water, like something waking up inside him, filling in the gaps of who this Sylus was supposed to be.

Your laughter against his skin. The press of your hand over his as you guided it to something he had once refused to hold and he scoffed at your audacity in a way that wasn’t malicious. A quiet moment in the dark, where your breath had mingled with his, your fingers tracing his jaw like you were memorizing him, your chests pressed together.

He wasn’t supposed to have these memories. But he did.

And you—you noticed.

Not in suspicion. Not yet. You watched him in the quiet moments, like you were waiting for something. Like you saw the way he hesitated before answering, how his gaze lingered too long, and instead of questioning it, you let yourself hope for the first time in years.

Because you knew what it was like to remember when no one else did.

You had lived that life already—spent years waiting, never pushing. Because in your world, you had been in his place. The one who held the memories, the one who had to swallow down the ache of being the only one who remembered what it meant. And the version of Sylus you had known—the one who belonged to you—had never remembered you.

However, these days… a thought of such scale didn’t seem to be just that—just a theory.

Because for once, he was the one acting differently. He was answering in ways that weren’t expected, slipping just enough to make you wonder. And that meant maybe—just maybe—your dragon had finally found his way back to you.

And Sylus? He couldn’t afford to let you believe that. Because he wasn’t your Sylus. He wasn’t yours at all.

But he couldn’t bring himself to say it either. Was it selfish of him to bask in your affection? To feel happy to be in your presence? He felt like an imposter, and hell, he was.

And yet, he couldn’t help but want to stay, to bask in your warmth and affection like the starved man that he was.

It started in the small moments. The way you curled up next to him without hesitation, your body fitting against his like it had always belonged there. The way your laughter filled the space between you, warm and unburdened, untainted by the kind of guardedness he had come to expect from you—from the version of you he had left behind.

You reached for him often, and he let you. But his touch was different—hesitant, restrained. He knew you noticed. Knew you could tell that when his fingers skimmed over your wrist, when his palm rested against the small of your back, it wasn’t with the same familiarity as before. It was careful, measured, as if he were trying not to take too much. As if he was still convincing himself he had no right to.

And you—you never said anything about it. Never called him out on the distance that shouldn’t have been there. Maybe you thought he was relearning, trying to remember you in the way you hoped he would. Or maybe, deep down, you didn’t want to risk shattering whatever fragile balance had settled between you.

Maybe that’s what made it worse.

It was in the way his hand would linger at the small of your back just a moment too long when guiding you through a crowded space in the city. The way his gaze would flicker to your glossed lips when you spoke, as if some part of him was already familiar with the way they’d feel against his own. The way his breathing would shift in the middle of the night when you curled closer in sleep, as if his body, not his mind, was the one remembering what it meant to hold you.

And yet, for some reason, your dragon still held back.

One evening, you sat across from him at the kitchen table, the hum of the city outside muffled by the walls of the penthouse. You slid a cup of tea toward him, fingers brushing against his, and he almost pulled away—almost. Instead, he let the warmth of your skin linger against his own, just for a second longer than he should have.

“Long day?” you asked, voice softer than usual.

He let out a quiet chuckle, running a hand through his hair. “Something like that.”

You hummed, watching him over the rim of your own cup. "You know, you don’t always have to act like you’re carrying the weight of the world. You can let me carry some of it too."

Something tightened in his chest. That was the difference, wasn’t it? This you—you didn’t fight him. You didn’t push against him, claw your way in through force and fear. You were already there, waiting, patient, understanding, everything he could’ve asked for, really.

His gaze flickered over you, cataloging every detail—the warmth in your expression, the easy tilt of your head, the way your fingers wrapped around your cup like it was the only thing anchoring you in the moment. It was such a simple thing, an evening routine that felt natural. Comfortable.

He had spent a lifetime keeping people at arm’s length, yet here you were, fitting into his space like you had always belonged in it. And maybe—maybe he wanted to let you.

His fingers ghosted over the ceramic of his own cup before reaching for it fully, brushing against the spot yours had just been. The residual heat lingered against his skin, sinking into him, grounding him in a way he hadn’t expected.

“That so?” he murmured, voice just a touch lower, something dangerous curling at the edges. Something he couldn’t quite hold back anymore.

You smiled, slow and knowing, like you had already decided the answer. Like you weren’t waiting for him to give it—you had always known it was inevitable.

And for the first time, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to fight it. Because for the first time in his life, staying didn’t feel like a trap. It felt like home.

You tapped your fingers against the side of your cup, watching him carefully, studying him in the way you always did when something unsettled you. "You're different," you said finally, the words light, like an observation rather than an accusation. "You've been spending a lot of time in your lab lately. More than usual."

He didn’t react immediately, instead swirling the tea in his cup, staring into the liquid as if it might hold answers he hadn’t yet found. "Just keeping busy."

You exhaled softly, leaning back into your chair. "Busy with what?" The question was easy, and unassuming. But it hung between you like a thread waiting to be unravelled. When Sylus hesitated to answer, you spoke out before he could, again. "Something tells me you’re not going to find it that easily." You rested your elbow against the table, propping your chin on your hand, eyes flicking over him like you were trying to fit mismatched pieces together. "I get it, you know. When you’re searching for something that’s missing, it feels like nothing else fits until you find the exact piece."

His fingers tightened around the cup, tension settling into his shoulders before he brushed it with a soft scoff. "And what is it you think I’m looking for?"

You didn’t answer right away. Instead, you let the silence stretch, heavy with meaning. "I don’t know," you admitted, voice softer now, thoughtful. "But I know it’s important to you."

A muscle in his sharp jaw ticked, but his expression remained unreadable. "And if I was?"

Your lips twitched, something faint and unreadable in your gaze. "Then maybe you’re looking in the wrong place."

For a moment, he wasn’t sure if you were speaking about the research or something else entirely. But then your hand brushed against his again—deliberate this time. A quiet, wordless reminder that he didn’t have to look so hard for something that was already here.

And for the first time, he wondered if you were right, but the thought went away just as fast as it came.

“Sweetie, I think you are overthinking, in fact, I am just busy tinkering with Mephisto, seems like he’s been malfunctioning a lot these days,” He sighed wearily before continuing, “Maybe Luke and Kieran pulled a prank on him again after the last mission, some parts are a bit hard to come by.” That was what he told you in the end, his tone held a tint of finality to it. It was all lies, you knew, he knew, an attempt to deter you. You didn’t question him directly after that.

That was why, hours later, when the silver-haired man was out, you found yourself in your shared room, standing before the small, unassuming pouch tucked away deep in the drawer of your closet. You hesitated before reaching for it, fingers grazing the worn fabric, your breath coming slower, more measured.

You hadn’t touched it in years.

The protocores inside—shining fragments of something more dangerous than they appeared—were the last thing you ever wanted to see again. But now, after watching Sylus over the past few week, after seeing the way he moved through the city like he was searching for something invisible, you couldn’t ignore the creeping suspicion that perhaps this was what he was looking for.

You pulled the pouch open, the familiar hum of the cores vibrating against your palm. A chill crawled down your spine.

Your grandmother, no, the woman who had adopted you, Josephine, had given them to you. A legacy, she had called it. A curse, you had always believed. Because you knew what they could do. What they had done to your body and not only that.

Caleb.

You swallowed hard, pushing down the sick feeling curling in your stomach. Your childhood had been built on the wreckage of experiments thanks to Ever, of pain, of things no child should have known. Caleb had paid the price for that knowledge. And now, you had kept these, untouched, avoided them like they might reach out and pull you back into that nightmare.

But Sylus—your Sylus—had never cared for protocores. He had never needed them, never even mentioned them. And yet, the way he had been disappearing into his lab, the way his eyes darkened when he thought you weren’t looking…

What if he was looking for these?

What if he already knew they existed?

A new kind of dread settled deep in your chest, anxiety slowly creeping in. If he had been searching for something that shouldn’t be here, then maybe—just maybe—he wasn’t supposed to be here either.

The city stretched out below them, neon bleeding into the skyline, turning the air electric. But here—just outside the N109 Zone, where the roads weren’t quite as suffocating, where the world wasn’t watching—it was quiet.

The leader of Onychinus leaned against his bike, fingers drumming idly against the handlebars. The wind carried the scent of the sea, crisp and laced with salt, and for the first time in days, maybe weeks, he wasn’t thinking about what he had lost. What he was trying to return to.

Instead, he was here, with you, hoping that the place he was taking you to still existed even in this world.

"Didn’t think you’d actually take me up on this," he mused, tilting his head as he watched you swing a leg over the bike beside him.

You huffed, rolling your eyes but settling in behind him anyway, the heat of your body pressing into his back. "Well, I didn’t think you did joyrides."

His lips curled, half amusement, half something softer. "You underestimate me, sweetheart."

You couldn’t see his expression, but you could hear it in his voice—the edge of something warm, something almost teasing. And that was what made it strange, wasn’t it? Because this wasn’t the Sylus you had known before. He was different in a way you couldn’t quite grasp yet. There was something looser about him, like he had stepped outside of his own skin for just a moment, letting himself be without the weight of expectation pressing down on him.

His fingers curled around your hands as you settled them against his waist, steadying you against him. The touch was easy, natural. Like he had done this a thousand times before.

Maybe, in a way, he had.

The memory had come to him unbidden earlier that night—the sight of another road. Not here, but somewhere else, far, far away. Somewhere that didn’t exist in this world. You had been there, too. A different you, and yet… still you, laying on the grass bed of crimson datura flowers, splayed out like a goddess before a heartless monster like him.

He shook the though off with a squint of his eyes as he focused on other things at hand.

"Figured you deserved a break," he murmured, turning the engine over, the rumble of it cutting through the silence. "Could use one myself."

You raised a brow, shifting against him as the bike eased forward. "So what, you’re taking me out on a date now?"

A chuckle, dark and amused. "If I was, you’d know."

But maybe, just maybe, that’s exactly what this was.

The city faded behind them as he pushed the throttle forward, the roar of the engine filling the empty space between words. The wind bit at your skin, but you barely felt it, pressed close to him, feeling the steady rhythm of his breath beneath your cheek under the helmet. He rode like it was instinct, like the machine beneath him was just an extension of himself, weaving effortlessly through the empty roads, taking you somewhere only he knew.

It wasn’t until he slowed, rolling to a stop just off the side of the road, that you realized where he had brought you.

A cliffside view, the city lights flickering in the distance, the dark sea stretching endlessly before you both, its waves crashing against the wet stone. It was breathtaking. Quiet. Isolated in a way that made it feel like the rest of the world had melted away.

You exhaled, pulling off your helmet, staring out over the water. "You used to come here a lot, didn’t you?"

Sylus didn’t answer right away. He was still for a moment, gaze distant, unreadable. Then, finally, after a moment that stretched for far too long: "Yeah." There were no lies to his words.

You studied him, the way the neon glow caught the silver strands of his hair, how the tension in his broad shoulders had eased ever so slightly. "What for?"

He let out a soft breath, the kind that wasn’t quite a sigh. "Thinking."

You hummed, rocking on your heels slightly. "Dangerous habit."

That pulled a smirk from him, small but genuine. "Tell me about it."

The quiet stretched between you, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. It was easy, the way the silence settled, the way the wind played with your hair, the way his presence beside you didn’t feel overwhelming, just… solid. Something you could lean into without fearing it would crumble beneath you.

The red-eyed man shifted slightly, and then—before you could react—he shrugged off his leather jacket and draped it over your shoulders.

Your brows lifted. "Chivalry? From you? I must be dreaming."

He scoffed, rolling his eyes. "You’re shaking."

"Am not."

His lips curled, like he wasn’t convinced, but he didn’t argue. He just stepped closer, close enough that you could feel the warmth of him, even with the space between you. Close enough that if you reached out, you could...

You swallowed hard, looking away first.

"Thanks," you murmured. Were you allowed to kiss him? At this point in time, you didn't know.

He didn’t respond, but his gaze lingered, steady and knowing. And then, softly: "Resonate with me." The sound of his deep voice was nearly swallowed by the waves beneath the two of you, because if he was any further away from you, you wouldn’t have heard what he said.

The words sent a slow ripple of shock through you. Your fingers tightened around the jacket he had draped over your shoulders, your breath catching in your throat. Of all things, you hadn’t expected that.

"What?" Your voice was quieter, more than you meant for it to be, but the moment felt fragile, like one wrong move would send it slipping through your fingers.

His gaze didn’t waver. "Resonate with me," he repeated, voice smooth but deliberate. "You offered before, didn’t you?" He knew he was tapping too much into the memories of the person who had lived with her before he ever came here, yet he couldn’t help himself.

It was truth though, you had offered. But not like this. Not with this kind of weight behind it.

Because it had been him—the other him—who had never pushed for it before. And now, here he was, making the request instead, but for reasons you weren’t quite so sure you understood yet.

Your heartbeat hammered in your ears. If you resonated, if you let yourself open up to him—if he let you in—there would be no going back. If there was even a sliver of a difference, if something didn’t match, you would know. You would know for certain whether the man standing in front of you was truly the one you had always loved… or something else entirely.

But the look in his eyes was unreadable, and for the first time, you weren’t sure if he wanted you to say yes, or if he was afraid you might.

But you nodded, slowly, lifting your hands between you. Sylus watched, his expression carefully neutral, but you caught the faint twitch of his fingers at his sides, the way his breath came just a fraction too slow. He was anticipating something—bracing for it.

You exhaled and reached for him. “Palms up.”

He didn’t question the request.

The moment your palms pressed against his, something inside you clicked, as if a long-buried mechanism had finally been set in motion. A warmth—not just from your Evol, but something deeper, something old—coursed through your veins, latching onto him, pulling him closer without touch. You could feel him, the real him, beneath the layers of fractured memories and misplaced identity and confusion. For a split second, you swore you were looking into the eyes of the man you had loved before—before timelines fractured, before everything twisted beyond recognition.

And Sylus—this Sylus—felt it too.

His long fingers clenched around yours, breath hitching, as something shifted in his expression, his lips parting like he wanted to speak but couldn’t quite find the words. His energy tangled with yours, hesitant but hungry, threading through the connection like a hesitant echo, unsure if it was supposed to be there at all.

Your chest tightened. He didn’t pull away.

He should have. He always pulled away.

But this time, he didn’t, didn’t want to.

You didn’t speak. Neither of you did. You let the resonance settle between you, the familiarity of it both exhilarating and terrifying. You could feel his presence weaving through yours, wrapping around your bones, filling spaces that had been left empty for too long. And in that moment, you knew.

This wasn’t your Sylus.

But he carried your Sylus’s memories. He was being rewritten, piece by piece, attuning to you like he had been yours all along. And he didn’t even realize it in the way you did just now.

You swallowed hard and forced a smile, careful not to let your fingers tighten around his. He couldn’t know what you had just learned.

So you let the moment pass, let the resonance fade, and when he finally exhaled, something in his dark carmine gaze flickering uncertainly, you only tilted your head and offered a quiet, "See? Not so bad."

His lips twitched at that, something unreadable in his gaze as he tried to process his own emotions and yours too, to a degree. "You always this smug?"

You let yourself laugh, even as something inside you twisted with the weight of what you now knew. "You tell me."

And just like that, the moment was gone. But you wouldn’t forget. You couldn’t.

“You are unpredictable, at times.” His eyes were soft, crinkling at you, red hue chasing the warmth of your gaze.

“I suppose, you never complained though.” You scoffed playfully when all you wanted to do was push him into a hug, tell him you understood, understood him to the core, yet, you couldn’t.

“Perhaps I never did.” He murmured back, his eyes fleeting away from your face and over to the neon-painted horizon.

Just like any day of the week, the city stretched endlessly below, a sea of neon and shadow, humming with a life that neither of you could quite touch from up here. The penthouse balcony felt like another world entirely—isolated, removed, too quiet despite the distant hum of traffic and the occasional siren wailing through the depths of the N109 zone.

The leader of Onychinus stood near the railing, hands braced against the cool metal, shoulders tense beneath the weight of his thoughts. Another night, another failure. The protocores didn’t exist here, not in the way he needed them to. Another dead end as his experiment at creating one failed spectacularly. He needed something, anything to resonate with, to try and recreate the feeling he had felt back then when a version of you shot him back in his old reality.

He was tired of thinking, unsure of why he even wanted to go back—however, he felt like he was stealing someone else's life, their moments, their memories. His imposter syndrome was getting worse by the day, he just got better at stuffing it down and pretending to ignore it until late into the night when you slept soundly next to him and his eyes stayed wide open.

// You're the best thing to ever happen to me

But also the worst thing to ever happen to me

On that day when I met you, maybe I would rather

That it never happened to me (To me)

The worst of all blessings

The best of all cursеs //

You stepped up beside him, close enough to feel the frustration rolling off him in waves, but you didn’t say anything at first. You just reached for the bottle he had set down on the ledge, taking a slow sip before setting it back down between you.

He scoffed, but it wasn’t sharp. More like a breath of amusement he hadn’t meant to let slip as he looked over his shoulder. "Didn’t take you for a whiskey thief."

"Didn’t take you for someone who’d let a bad mood ruin a perfectly good night," you shot back, bumping your hip lightly against his as you shrugged in a way that was far too casual.

He exhaled, shaking his head, but didn’t pull away. His grip tightened against the railing, tension coiled tight beneath his skin. "It’s not a bad mood. Just—"

"Frustration? Exhaustion? Stubbornness?" You listed off each word with a teasing lilt, watching the faint flicker of something softer pass through his expression. "You really think brooding’s going to get you any closer to what you’re looking for?" Here it was again, your subtle questioning that he wasn’t sure he was ready to begin dealing with.

"And you think dancing will?" His voice was flat, unimpressed, but the flicker of a smirk gave him away. You saw it even in the dim glow of the city lights reflecting off his pale skin.

You grinned, stepping back toward the open space of the large balcony, arms outstretched as you swayed slightly. "It might not get you answers, but it might remind you why you’re still here." Your words sounded almost cryptic to him, but at this point, he was too tired to keep track of every word you spoke. This version of you seemed like both a prophet and a walking riddle, unfortunately to him.

His carmine gaze followed you, something unreadable in the way he looked at you then. Cautious, hesitant, as if he wasn’t sure he was allowed to step into whatever this was. But when you reached for his hand, palm up, waiting... he took it, automatically.

The first step was slow, uncertain, like he had forgotten how to move without a purpose despite being a great dancer. But for the first time ever, it was you who led, guiding him effortlessly, the rhythm slow, the tension melting from his body as the weight of everything else faded into the background. The air between you was warm, charged, something unspoken weaving between each movement as your fingers stayed entwined with his, his other hand settling at your waist like it had always belonged there, the warmth of his palm seeping into your shirt.

You laughed, attempting to spin him around as he gave you an effortless smirk back and a shake of his head before he turned the tables on you and had your body inches away from the floor, your faces close together. You looked beautiful, a flushed mess, strands of hair sticking to your face, and hell, he knew it was an image he’d remember for a long time, because this was an expression, and experience you gave to him voluntarily like it was charity.

The music was distant—something playing from inside the penthouse, soft and melancholic, a tune that felt both familiar and foreign all at once. You swayed together, the city watching from below, his breath warm against your temple when he exhaled slowly, finally giving in to the moment.

"You’re ridiculous," he muttered, voice lower now, something closer to fondness threading through the exasperation.

"And you’re a liar," you murmured back, tilting your head slightly, your nose barely brushing against his jaw as you moved. "You like this." You murmured.

His fingers flexed against your back. He didn’t deny it.

// I should stray away from you

But as the saying goes

"Bettеr than alone, is to be in bad company" //

The movements slowed, a lingering pause between each step, until there was no rhythm left—only the quiet press of your bodies against each other, the weight of his palm against your spine as you both swayed gently back and forth. His breath came slow, measured, as if he was waiting for something. As if he was waiting for you.

Your fingers trailed up, brushing along his jaw before settling at the back of his neck, your thumb tracing small, absentminded circles against his skin. His red eyes flickered down, gaze lingering on your soft lips for just a second too long, before he let out a breath—one that almost sounded like surrender.

And then he kissed you.

It wasn’t rushed, wasn’t desperate, but it held something deeper, something that had been simmering beneath the surface for far too long, for the last few months he had spent here, really. He kissed you like he was grounding himself in you, like you were the only real thing left in a world full of uncertainty. His fingers tightened against you, pulling you closer, as if he wasn’t ready to let go just yet.

And maybe, just for tonight, neither of you had to.

But it wasn’t enough, for a greedy dragon like him, nothing was ever enough, and yet you knew, encouraged it even, because he was your dragon, no matter the timeline, no matter what came between the two of you.

Sylus’s hands moved before he could stop them, tracing up your spine, anchoring you closer as his lips deepened against yours, his tongue brushing softly against your bottom lip in a silent plea for more. The weight of his past, of his guilt, of the knowledge that you weren’t his but still knew him, pressed down on him like a vice. He needed this—needed you. Because for once, Sylus felt understood, accepted to his core and you didn’t even have to make it verbal.

// You know what they say

Stay close to your dearest friends

But also

Even closer to your adversaries //

This version of you was all he ever wanted, and it felt unfair, unfair that he ended up here this way and you weren’t his from the very beginning. No, instead you moaned, allowing his tongue into your mouth like it always belonged there, your tiny hand pulling on his hair to have him lean more into you, his weight pressing you against the railing.

He broke the kiss only to pull in a breath, his forehead resting against yours, his voice barely above a whisper. "Please, tell me to stop, y/n." The lights of the city flickered in his sharp yet soft eyes and you shook your head, as if disapproving of such request to begin with.

You didn’t. Instead, your fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt, tugging him forward until the tall man stumbled slightly, his grip tightening on your waist. The warmth of you burned against him, grounding him in ways he couldn’t explain. He was unraveling, and you were pulling him apart thread by thread, but he didn’t want you to stop, he was hypnotized, no, bewitched by you.

Your lips found his again, slow and deliberate, and something in him cracked. He let himself have this. Just this.

You gasped softly when he shifted, hands sliding beneath your thighs, slightly under your shorts as he lifted you effortlessly. A quiet laugh left you as your back hit the doorframe of the sliding door, his large hot body pressing flush against yours, his mouth finding the pulse at your throat, lingering there like he could memorize the rhythm.

The world outside didn’t matter. His search for the protocores, the fractures between realities, the inevitable moment when he’d have to leave you behind—none of it mattered when you both started bleeding into one, making good use of the curse you’d put on him once upon a time.

Not when you were here, warm and willing, whispering his name like he was something worth holding onto.

Perhaps from the very beginning, you were both his key back and his demise all wrapped up in one. It was like you were a tiny, dangerous package, waiting to be unraveled by his own calloused and tired hands. For now, he was still far away from unraveling the entire truth, but you both knew it was inevitable. All it took was a kiss for your mind to come to a conclusion, that regardless of the result, you would help him, help him go back if he wished to do so. Still, you couldn’t help but think it was bittersweet, you were finally getting what you wanted but the cost was far too much, and you refused to think how long it would later take you to recover from this bond that you both gave into. His gaze was set on you, soft, deep, and all yours, you almost couldn’t bear it.

// But my best enemy is you

Flee from me, the worst is you and I

But if you keep searching for my voice

Forget me, the worst is you and I //

He carried you inside, into the dim light of your shared room, the door sliding shut behind him as your hands tangled in his snowy-white hair, pulling him closer like you were afraid he’d let go.

And for the first time in a long, long time, Sylus let himself believe that he belonged somewhere, that perhaps even a monster like him was worthy of his beloved’s touch.

His hands mapped the curves of your body with reverence, but there was nothing chaste about the way he touched you. He was greedy—fuck, he was always greedy when it came to you. His lips never strayed far from yours, dragging slow, wet kisses down your throat, nipping at your skin just to hear you gasp. He wanted to ruin you, wanted you to come apart under his hands, but fuck, he needed to take his time, too.

You whispered his name, breathless, and he groaned in response, grinding against you with a quiet, desperate noise that only came from years of suppresing one's self desires. He wanted this to be slow, to be soft, but he wanted you more. His fingers curled into the fabric at your hips, gripping tight, like he was barely holding himself together.

The bed dipped beneath you as he laid you down, hovering above you as if he were afraid you’d disappear if he blinked. His lips traced the edge of your soft jaw, your deep collarbone, but it wasn’t enough. He needed more.

"You're mine," he muttered, but it wasn’t a claim—it was a fucking plea. A confession. A desperate, broken thing that he offered you in hopes of acceptance he didn’t need to fight for in the first place.

You pulled him down, fingers tangling at the nape of his neck, guiding him back to your lips. "I always have been." It was a fact, a statement to calm him down, and perhaps yourself too.

And when he kissed you again, it was deeper, hungrier, like he was trying to drown in you.

// I had told you, not to keep looking behind

Your past will follow you and wage war on you //

His mouth left a trail of warmth down your skin, kissing, sucking, marking. As much as he hated himself and perhaps even this entire situation of him ending up here, he wanted to fucking brand himself into you, make sure you’d never forget this, never forget him. His hands slid lower, fingertips teasing at your thighs before parting them, spreading you open for him, eyes dark and wild with need. He slid your shorts down with ease, your soaked panties coming into view.

"Sweetie, look at you," he muttered, voice wrecked as he dragged his knuckles up the inside of your thigh, feeling the way you trembled for him. "So pretty. So fucking perfect."

Your breath hitched, hips arching instinctively when his fingers finally dipped between your legs, long fingers pushing the flimsy fabric aside. He groaned at the wetness he found there, jaw tightening as he slid his fingers through your slit slow, teasing, drawing soft, shuddering gasps from your lips.

"Let me," he whispered, but he wasn’t really asking. His fingers pressed deeper, curling just right, and you moaned, your hands flying to his muscled arms, nails digging into the solid warmth of him. He felt you, squeezing around him, already so sensitive, so eager, and it was fucking perfect.

Your hands moved instinctively, reaching for him, sliding over the hard planes of his back, feeling every muscle tense beneath your fingertips. You traced his spine, his shoulders, memorizing the way he shuddered when your lips found his throat, tasting the salt of his skin, sucking bruises into him because you needed to mark your dragon too, just the way he marked and bit you all those years ago.

He was unraveling, piece by piece, and yet he didn’t want to stop. Didn’t want to pull away from the warmth of your body, the soft sounds you made just for him, the way your fingers clutched at him like he was something worth keeping.

"Sylus," you gasped, his name falling from your lips like a prayer in ways that had nothing to do with religion, and that’s when he fucking lost it. His fingers tightened against you, two long digits fucking into you with aching reverence, his forehead pressing against yours as he watched you come undone, as he felt you lose yourself against his hand when his palm brushed your clit.

"That’s it, love," he whispered, his voice wrecked, full of nothing but you. "That’s my good girl. Come for me, show me your face when you do, please," He rasped in a plea, looking like he needed this more than you.

And when you shattered against him, trembling, moaning, desperate—he caught you, held you through it, whispering your name against your lips like a vow he would never break.

Like a man who had finally found home.

But you weren’t done.

Your fingers traced down his chest, slow, deliberate, feeling the way his muscles tensed beneath your touch as you unbuttoned his shirt properly. His breathing was uneven, ragged, his body still wound tight with restraint. He wanted you—fuck, he needed you—but he hadn’t let himself take yet. Hadn’t let himself have.

"Let me touch you," you whispered, pressing soft kisses against his jaw, down the column of his throat, feeling the way he shuddered under your lips. "Let me make you feel good too."

His hands twitched at his sides, fighting against the instinct to take control, to flip you beneath him, to make you his in the way he so desperately wanted. But your fingers, soft yet firm, trailed lower, undoing his belt with an ease and familiarity that sent heat flooding through his veins.

"Y/n," he warned, voice hoarse, but you only smiled, pressing your palm against him through his clothes, feeling how fucking hard he was for you.

"No buts, no ifs," you murmured, your fingers slipping beneath the waistband, wrapping around him, hot and heavy in your grasp. "I want this too. I want you too."

His head tipped back against the pillow, a guttural groan ripping from his throat as you stroked him, slow, teasing, savoring the way he twitched in your hand. His breath stuttered, fingers gripping at the sheets, trying—failing—to keep himself together as you touched him with the same aching reverence he had given you.

"Fuck," he hissed through clenched teeth, his hips jerking slightly as you tightened your grip, finding a rhythm that had him near unraveling, breaking apart beneath you.

And as his desperate moans filled the space between you, you knew—you’d never let him forget how much you wanted him too.

And hell, you weren’t finished yet.

Your fingers left his cock only long enough to pull your flimsy top over your head, baring yourself to him, watching the way his eyes darkened, the way his lips parted in something close to awe as your naked chest came into view. You reached for his shirt next, pushing it down his shoulders, revealing more of the hard, scarred planes of his body beneath your touch.

His breath hitched as you climbed onto his lap, straddling him, pressing your bare skin flush against his. His hands found your waist, gripping tight, as if grounding himself, as if this was something he needed to commit to memory.

"You drive me fucking insane," he murmured, voice rough, strained, his fingers flexing against your hips as you rocked against him, teasing, deliberate, slit dipping into the form of his cock like a mould.

You leaned in, lips brushing against his ear, your breath warm against his skin. "Then let me ruin you, properly."

A shudder ran through him, his grip tightening as if he needed to anchor himself to reality—to you. His lips found your chest, slow, reverent, tracing open-mouthed kisses down the curve of your collarbone, lower, lower, until his tongue flicked against the peak of your soft breast. You gasped, your fingers sinking into his hair, holding him there as he worshipped you with his mouth, his hands, murmuring words against your skin that you could barely make out—something about how perfect you were, how he would never get enough of you.

You arched into his touch, desperate for more, for everything, your fingers trailing down his abdomen, tracing the tense muscles there before reaching between you, finding him, hard and leaking against your palm.

"Please," you whispered, breathless, need curling through your voice, arousal thickening the tone, deep, carnal, animalistic. "I need you inside me."

A strangled noise escaped him as he pulled back just enough to look at you, his pupils blown wide, his breathing uneven. "You sure?" But the way he said it, the way he swallowed hard, like he was holding himself back, you knew he needed it just as much—if not more. Yet, he was guilty, guilty of asking for more than he already had received.

You nodded, guiding him to where you needed him most, the anticipation sending a sharp thrill up your spine. His hands trembled against your waist, and when he finally pushed inside, slow, careful, savoring the stretch, a moan tore from both of you, breath tangling as you held onto each other like this was the only thing keeping you tethered to this plane of existence.

He cursed under his breath, gripping your hips like he wasn’t sure if he could control himself, pulling you flush against him as he set a slow, deep rhythm, dragging pleasure through every inch of you as he moved from below. Every thrust sent heat curling in your gut, the friction perfect, devastating. You gasped, nails digging into his biceps, feeling the muscles tense beneath your touch, his breath ragged against your lips as he fought to keep it together.

But it wasn’t just about the pleasure. It was about this—the way he looked at you like you were the only thing grounding him, like he needed you more than air itself. It was about the way he whispered your name like a prayer, the way he kissed you between gasps, desperate and searching.

"You feel so good," he groaned, voice rough, reverent, like he wanted to worship every part of you. "So fucking perfect, I love you—" the words slipped out before he could even stop them, the emotions between the two of you proving too much.

You whimpered in response, meeting his thrusts, chasing the sensation building between you, chasing him. The way his body slotted against yours, the way he shuddered when you clenched around him—it was intoxicating, overwhelming. “Love you too, my dragon.”

His forehead pressed against yours, sweat slick on both your skin, messy strands of snowy hair in his face, his movements turning erratic as he felt you tightening, trembling beneath him. His grip on you tightened, his pace faltering as he gasped your name like a plea. "I can’t—fuck, I’m gonna—"

"M-me too," you breathed, gripping his face, kissing him hard, letting yourself fall apart with him.

The pleasure crested in a wave so intense it stole your breath, your entire body trembling as you clenched around him, pulling him over the edge with you, white noise ringing in your ears. He groaned against your mouth, burying himself deep, hips stuttering as he spilled inside you, hands shaking as he held you close like he never wanted to let go.

Silence filled the space between you, save for the soft, uneven breaths you shared. His arms tightened around you, his lips pressing against your forehead, your cheek, anywhere he could reach.

"You okay?" His voice was hoarse, but his touch was impossibly soft, fingertips tracing idle patterns along your skin.

You leaned down, smiling against his shoulder, pressing a lazy kiss to his jaw. "More than okay."

He let out a breathy laugh, rolling onto his side and pulling you with him, keeping you tangled in his arms like he wasn’t ready to lose the warmth of you just yet. He kissed your temple, your shoulder, his touch slow, absentminded, like he was memorizing every inch of you all over again.

Neither of you spoke for a long moment, content in the quiet, in the soft hum of each other’s presence. His fingers brushed through your hair, massaging your scalp, grounding himself in the weight of you pressed against him.

"I needed this," he admitted, voice barely above a whisper, almost like he wasn’t sure he had the right to say it.

You curled closer, pressing a soft kiss over his heart. "I know."

A beat of silence stretched between you, but it wasn’t heavy. It was warm, something unspoken settling in the space where words should have been. Your fingers traced idle shapes against his skin, feeling the steady rhythm of his heartbeat beneath your palm.

"I don’t care where you came from," you murmured eventually, your voice barely above a whisper. "I don’t care if you’re not exactly him—because you are. You carry his memories, his feelings, his burdens. You’re my dragon, no matter what."

Sylus stiffened slightly, his breath catching, but he didn’t pull away. If anything, his grip on you tightened, his fingers pressing into your back like he needed to hold onto you, needed to be sure you were real.

"You knew," he breathed, something unreadable in his voice. It wasn’t a question. It was realization, settling into him like an inevitability.

You nodded against his chest. "I had my suspicions, and resonating confirmed them. The way you looked at me, the way you reacted when I called you that name… and then your search… for protocores, I assume? I don’t really know what they do, not exactly, but I know they must be important. And you aren’t looking for something impossible, are you? You are looking for a way back."

His breath hitched slightly, his fingers pausing in their slow movements against your back. You could feel the weight of it, the hesitation, the way he was still balancing between trusting you and protecting you from the truth.

"Tell me," you murmured, tracing your fingers gently along his jawline. "What really happened? How did you end up here?"

He sighed, the sound heavy, resigned. "It was the shot," he admitted finally. "Our, no hers and mine Aether cores… they reacted. I shouldn’t have survived it, not like that. But instead of dying, I woke up here. And it’s all the same but not. It’s wrong, and it’s—"

"Different," you finished for him, tilting your head to search his gaze. "But not entirely, right? Because I’m still here. And maybe that means I can help."

Sylus studied you for a long moment, something unreadable flickering in his expression. You could see the internal war he was fighting—the instinct to bear the weight alone versus the quiet, desperate longing to let you carry some of it with him.

You reached up, brushing your fingers over his cheek, cupping his face in your palm. "I might not understand everything, but my Evol… it’s tied to resonance, to connection. And those protocores—I’ve had them since I was young. Maybe together, we can figure this out. But only if you let me, allow me in."

His throat bobbed, his arms tightening around you as he traced the fractures of your life with the same aching recognition he had carried in his own. Even in this world, you hadn’t been spared from the weight of what had been done to you. Different choices, different faces, but the same pain, lingering beneath your skin like an old wound that never fully healed. His fingers curled slightly against your back, gripping you like a tether. "You really want to get involved in this mess?"

You gave a small, breathy laugh, nudging your nose against his. "I think I already am."

For the first time, something in his shoulders eased, though not entirely. His lips brushed against your temple, a quiet, unspoken surrender, his breath warm against your skin, his presence grounding. He let himself have this, just for a moment longer than he should. Just until the moment shattered.

"Alright," he murmured. "Then let’s start in the lab. Later, in a few days." The words felt like a delay, an excuse to hold onto this a little longer, because the more time he spent with you, the more he feared what it would mean when he finally had to leave. He was falling—already had fallen—for this version of you completely. A dangerous, selfish thing to do, because one day, one way or another, this was going to end, just like all good things in his life.

"Okay." You breathed the word out, the syllable melting into the warmth of the space between you, skin against skin as you inhaled his presence, his hesitation, his unspoken struggle.

A moment passed, his fingers tracing lazy circles against the plane of your shoulder, his other hand resting low on your waist, as if grounding himself in the quiet of your heartbeat. Then, finally, he spoke, the question slipping out in a voice barely above a whisper. "Was it hard?"

You blinked, tilting your head slightly to look up at him. "What?"

"Knowing that the me from this world didn’t remember you the way you remembered him?" There was something guarded in his voice, a careful attempt at detachment that didn’t quite hold.

You exhaled slowly, letting the weight of the question settle between you. "It was," you admitted. "But I never pushed him to. Because I knew I couldn’t force him to be something he wasn’t, or well, didn’t want to be."

His grip on you tightened slightly. "I went through the same thing. Just… in reverse."

You pulled back just enough to meet his gaze, eyes searching his, soft but steady. "Then you know why I never gave up on him, on you."

His expression shifted—something unreadable flickering behind his eyes. He had spent so much time trying to be the version of himself that you deserved, to fill the space left behind by another man, another life. But here, now, with you pressed against him, with the quiet weight of the past and present tangled between your fingers, he wasn’t sure it mattered anymore.

You had never asked him to be anyone but himself.

And yet, somehow, it still didn’t feel like enough. Not when he carried memories that weren’t truly his, not when he was slipping into another man’s place with terrifying ease. He wasn’t supposed to belong here. And yet, with you looking at him like this, with all the warmth and knowing in your eyes, it was hard to remember why he should leave at all.

He swallowed hard, his fingers brushing over the curve of your cheek, hesitant, like he wasn’t sure he had the right to touch you this way. "You know, if you were also an art piece, then whoever created you must have loved you dearly."

The words came unbidden, slipping past his lips before he could stop them. He realized it too late.

Your breath hitched, your fingers tightening ever so slightly where they rested against his chest. You knew those words. You knew them.

His pulse stuttered beneath your touch, and for a moment, neither of you moved. Your lips parted, but whatever you were about to say faltered before it could form.

Because this wasn’t something the Sylus of this world had ever said to you.

It was something else. Older. Something tangled in the past you had spent lifetimes trying to understand.

A memory wrapped in myth, woven into the very essence of your existence. It was a phrase that had echoed through time, through lifetimes, a truth neither of you had fully grasped until now. Because you were the one who cursed him to always find you.

"Sylus…" Your voice was barely above a whisper, something raw laced into the way you spoke his name.

His throat worked around a swallow, but he didn’t let go. Didn’t move away. Instead, he leaned in, pressing his forehead to yours, letting the silence stretch between you, letting it settle.

He wasn’t supposed to stay.

But you weren’t supposed to recognize him either.

And yet, you did. Because no matter what world you were in, what life you lived, he had always been yours. And now, in the quiet of your shared breaths, you both had to reckon with what that meant.

You ran your fingers through his messy hair, feeling the way he shuddered under your touch, how his breath hitched as you traced along his jaw, memorizing the lines of his face like you had a thousand times before. This version of him, the one who knew too much and yet not enough, the one who carried another’s memories but still looked at you like you were the only thing tethering him to this world—this was your Sylus, too. And you weren’t going to let him forget that.

"Take me again," you murmured, voice softer this time, reverent, like an invocation. "After all, you are my magnum opus, too."

His breath left him in a slow, shaky exhale before he surged forward, kissing you like his life depended on it, like you were the only real thing left in his unraveling world. His lips were urgent, desperate, but beneath it, there was something softer, something aching—a quiet kind of devotion buried beneath the hunger.

Your Evol surged between you, wrapping around him like a second skin, slipping into his body, his bones, his very soul. He groaned at the sensation, his grip tightening, his hands pressing into your skin like he was afraid you’d slip through his fingers if he let go. He wasn’t just touching you—he was feeling you in a way he never had before, deeper, like every thread of your being was merging with his.

His lips trailed down your neck, over your collarbone, pressing kisses that felt like prayers whispered into the moonless night. He breathed your name between them, voice hoarse, full of something raw, something unspoken. "I don’t know how to stop wanting you."

"Then don’t, not until you will have to stop because there will be no other choice," you whispered back, and for once, he listened.

// You told me I would never see you walk away

Said you'd never break my heart

Never leave me in the dark

I guess there's just some promises you shouldn't make

Should've known from the start //

The days passed in a haze of quiet moments and endless work. The lab became a space of flickering lights, glowing protocores, and the hum of equations muttered under breath. Sylus had spent hours testing, recalibrating, adjusting parameters, his mind consumed by the impossibility of what he was trying to achieve. But he wasn’t doing it alone.

You were there, beside him, sleeves rolled up, eyes alight with concentration as you fed your Evol into the protocores, trying to get them to react. You asked questions, challenged his theories, made him consider angles he hadn’t before. And despite the weight of his purpose, despite the growing dread of what success would mean, he found himself happy.

It wasn’t loud, wasn’t a rush of euphoria—it was quieter than that. The kind of happiness that settled into his bones, that made him feel like, for the first time in forever, he wasn’t just clawing toward something impossible. He was here, with you. Creating something together.

He watched you, the way you chewed your lip in concentration, the way your fingers flickered with Evol’s glow, and something inside him ached—not in the way it usually did, not with grief or longing, but with something warmer.

He wanted to leave a mark on you, something more than just marks on your body that would blur back into your skin with time.

Not like this. Not like a memory that would fade the moment he disappeared from this world. No, he wanted something real. Something tangible.

So he worked through the night, after you had fallen asleep curled up in the corner of the lab, exhausted but refusing to leave his side. He pieced it together with careful hands, refining every detail, ensuring it was perfect.

By the time you woke, from what presumably wasn’t a very comfortable nap, blinking blearily against the dim light of the lab, he was waiting for you, something small and glinting in his palm.

"What’s that?" you murmured, voice thick with sleep.

The man smirked, but it was softer than usual, less cocky, more... something else. "A gift."

You sat up slowly, rubbing at your eyes before focusing on the small object in his hand. "For me?"

"Who else?" He rolled it between his fingers, and as the light hit it just right, you could see it—a necklace, the pendant intricate yet simple, shaped like something familiar. A dragon, curled protectively around a small, shimmering core, its tail looping around to form the delicate chain that would rest against your skin.

You stared at it, breath catching in your throat.

"Sylus…"

He didn’t meet your eyes immediately, instead focusing on the way the light caught on the edges of the pendant. At the back of the small dragon’s body, barely noticeable unless you looked closely, was an engraving—your name, alongside a phrase in a language almost lost to time. Magnum opus. The words were carved with meticulous precision, as if each letter had been pressed into existence with intent. "It’s not much," he muttered, voice lower than usual. "But I thought… if I leave, I don’t want you to forget. And I wanted something of mine to stay with you, even if I can’t."

Your fingers brushed over the pendant, tracing its curves, before reaching for his hand instead. "Like I ever could."

For once, he didn’t have a smirk or a teasing remark ready. He just looked at you, something vulnerable flashing behind his eyes before he pressed the pendant into your palm, curling your fingers around it like a silent promise.

// Reach out and show a little loving

Shine a little light on me

Show a little loving

Shine a little light on me //

After a moment, his fingers lingered at the chain. "Let me?" His voice was softer now, almost hesitant.

You nodded, and he shifted closer, taking the necklace from your hands with deliberate care. His fingers brushed against your skin as he gathered your hair, draping the chain around your neck, the metal cool against your collarbone. The clasp clicked into place with a quiet finality, and he let his hands settle lightly on your shoulders, his thumbs skimming the curve where your neck met your shoulder.

His gaze dropped to the pendant resting against your chest, something unreadable in his expression. "Looks good on you," he murmured, almost like he was speaking to himself.

You swallowed, pressing your fingers over the pendant. "It’s beautiful, you know."

Sylus let out a quiet exhale, his hands falling away reluctantly. "You’ll keep it on?"

You met his eyes, something warm and unwavering in your voice. "Always, after all it’s a gift from my dragon."

For a moment, he just looked at you, the weight of something unspoken passing between you. Then, with a slow nod, he leaned back, watching the way the pendant caught the light, like he wanted to commit the sight to memory.

The days bled into weeks, and the lab became their second home inside their home. The protocores you gave lined the tables, some glowing faintly, others scattered in varying states of disassembly. Wires snaked across the metal workstations, and the air smelled of burnt circuits, metal, and the faint energy hum of active Evol. It was methodical, precise work—calculations laid out in notebooks, equations scribbled on glass panels, the sound of quiet murmurs filling the space between them.

"If we adjust the frequency output here—" you gestured toward a set of figures on the screen, brow furrowed in concentration. "It might stabilize long enough to sustain a full transfer when I use my Evol."

Sylus leaned back, exhaling, his gaze flickering between you and the numbers. "Theoretically, sure. But the problem isn’t just maintaining the flow—it’s how the protocores respond to prolonged exposure."

You rolled your eyes, crossing your arms. "That’s the same argument we had two days ago. We already ran the last test at max output, and it held. The issue isn’t the flow. It’s the integration."

He huffed out a quiet laugh, shaking his head as he adjusted a dial on the worktable, watching the way the energy flickered beneath the surface of the half-built device. "You sound like me."

"That’s because I’m right."

He glanced up at you then, something amused—something fond—in his expression before he returned his attention to the mechanism between you. The metal casing was nearly finished, the internal structuring laid out in careful detail. It looked crude, unfinished, but Sylus could see it—the shape of something real, something functional—coming together in front of him.

"We’ll need a power source capable of stabilizing the fluctuations," he muttered, mostly to himself. "Something more stable than raw Evol."

Your fingers tapped against the edge of the table. "Would a secondary protocore work? One embedded into the structure itself?"

He considered that, rubbing a hand over his jaw. "Might. But that’s a risk in itself. If it fractures under pressure—"

"Then we’d both be in trouble," you finished for him, sighing. "I know. But if we can’t sustain the shift long enough for a proper transfer, then what’s the point?"

Sylus went silent, gaze fixed on the unfinished device as his mind ran through every possible failure point, every risk, every outcome. And then, finally, he exhaled, rolling his shoulders back.

"We do it."

You blinked, momentarily thrown by how easily he agreed. "Just like that? You think your consciousness will seperate from the body just like that?"

A ghost of a smirk played at his lips. "You’re the one who said you were right."

You let out a soft laugh, but it didn’t reach your eyes. He saw it—the way you smiled just a little too quickly, the way your hands lingered over the project like you weren’t ready to let go. Like if you just kept working, you wouldn’t have to think about what finishing this meant.

You weren’t the only one pretending.

Neither of you said it. Neither of you acknowledged what came next. Instead, you both turned back to the device, hands moving in tandem, finalizing the last connections, watching as the energy flickered and pulsed in a steady, rhythmic glow.

It was done.

"Will it work?"

A tired breath.

"I don't know, but this seems final."

// My body's on the line now I can't fight this time now I can feel the light shine on my face Did I disappoint you? Will they still let me over If I cross the line? //

The next few days passed in a quiet limbo. Neither of you spoke about what came next. The equations checked out. The device was ready. The chance of failure was small—too small. But you hoped, in some selfish, desperate way, that it wasn’t small enough. That something, somehow, would keep him here.

Sylus didn’t push to activate it right away. He let the days stretch, let the minutes and hours melt into something softer, something that neither of you acknowledged for what it was. An ending.

You spent those days tangled in quiet conversations, in stolen glances, in the way his hands lingered a little longer when he passed you a tool in the lab. In the way he pressed a kiss to your temple when he thought you were half-asleep after sex that left you both yearning. In the weight of his arm slung across your waist as if he could anchor himself to you.

Neither of you rushed.

Neither of you dared to say goodbye.

Because the moment you activated that device, one of you was going to disappear from each other's lives, forever.

// Take a seat But I'd rather you not be here for What could be my final form Stay your pretty eyes on course Keep the memories of who I was before So stay with me because // 

The lab was too quiet. The hum of energy from the device filled the space, pressing against your skin, against your ribs, against the unspoken words lingering between you. The Protocore pulsed steadily, waiting.

"You're sure about this?" your voice was steady, but the slight tremor in your fingers as they hovered over the Protocore betrayed you.

Sylus exhaled, his gaze flickering to you before settling back on the mechanism. "No. But we’re out of options."

Your Evol shimmered at your fingertips, stabilizing the energy field surrounding the device. It crackled, resisting at first, but you pushed past the tension, guiding the flow into something controlled, something manageable.

"If I hold the frequency stable, it should buy you enough time to separate cleanly," you murmured, adjusting your stance as a pulse of energy pushed against you.

"Should," Sylus repeated dryly. He glanced at you then, something in his expression unreadable. "You always did have a habit of gambling with the odds."

You swallowed. "I’d rather gamble than have you miserable, if you are inclined to go back, then just do it." Something in you almost snapped, all that tension contained in your small body.

A muscle in his jaw twitched, but he didn’t argue. He only nodded, stepping forward, fingers flexing at his sides, his carmine gaze locked onto the mechanism as though daring it to prove him wrong. A sharp breath. A flicker of hesitation.

Then, he reached for the switch.

Time buckled.

The air around you warped, bending in on itself, light fracturing into something unfamiliar. A deep, guttural hum reverberated through the lab, the walls trembling with the weight of it. Space twisted, folding inward, a tear forming in reality itself.

A strangled gasp tore from Sylus’s throat, his body shuddering as his form split—not in two, but into something neither of you understood. His skin shimmered, his edges blurred, the weight of existence pressing down on him. He looked different—his silver hair shorter at the nape, his carmine eyes clouded with something beyond exhaustion, his entire presence thinner, like he was being stretched too far, pulled in a direction he could never return from.

The sight made your stomach drop.

"Sylus?" Your voice cracked, Evol sparking wildly at your fingertips. The connection between you flickered like a dying star. "No, no, no, hold on!"

His body flickered again. The Protocore pulsed brighter, its hum turning into something shrill, something piercing. He was unraveling before you, a white ringing noise in your ears.

"Don’t—" His, now panicked, voice faltered as his eyes locked onto yours, his hand lifting but never quite reaching you. "You have to let me go."

Your Evol reacted, spiraling out of control as you reached for him as you lost the control over your own emotions, raw energy crackling between your fingertips. You didn’t think—you just acted, instinct overriding logic as you tried to grasp onto something of him, anything, as if sheer will could keep him here.

For a fleeting moment, your hands touched. Just barely. His fingers ghosted over your skin, the sensation featherlight, ephemeral, not enough.

Tears burned in your eyes. "Please—" It wasn’t fair. It was never fair. Yet faced with the consequences of your actions and seflnessnes you couldn’t help but want to be selfish, for once in your life.

His lips parted, something on the edge of his tongue, he mouthed the words at you because he felt like the actual sound wouldn’t reach you.

I love you.

// Honestly I thought I was fully prepared for The threshold in store Stay your pretty eyes on course I guess I never really faced my fears before So stay with me because // 

A wrenching sensation tore through the lab. A surge of light, a ripple of pressure that made your ears ring, your body burn with the force of it as the lights went out and some light bulbs tore apart, small glass shards raining over the equipment. The impact of it all sent you staggering back, your vision blurring, a scream tearing from your throat as you felt the world snap back into place.

The Protocore burst into a violent pulse before it shattered, shimmery dust sparkling in the now still air of the lab before silence engulfed you.

A dead, aching silence that pressed against your aching skull like thousands of needles, suffocating, crushing as you fell to your knees, trying to come to terms of what you’ve done just now.

You barely registered the movement on the floor behind you until a sharp, gasping breath broke through the quiet.

Sylus—your Sylus—gasped awake, fingers clawing at the ground as he sucked in deep, ragged breaths. His body jerked, muscles spasming as though something had just ripped him back into existence.

He blinked, unfocused, disoriented. "What—"

But you were still staring at the empty space where he had been, hands trembling, heart hammering wildly as you tried to stop the hiccups. You couldn't remember the last time you had a panic attack this bad, your entire body shaking, as if reaching for something that didn't exist anymore, a comfort that only belonged in your memory.

He was gone.

And this Sylus, your Sylus, didn’t even know why you were crying.

// My body's on the line now Pull the blanket tight now I can feel the light shine on my face Did I disappoint you? Will they still let me over If I cross the line? //

The sensation was a shock to the system—his lungs burned, his body ached, and for a moment, he wasn’t entirely sure he had made it back at all. The shift between two separate timelines had been seamless, cruel, even. One breath, he was watching the tear in time consume him; the next, he was exactly back where he had left, forced to stay almost at the exact second it had all gone wrong.

Memories worth of months trickled into his subconscious all within a few seconds, forcing him to relive all of that, yet making him stay here as if he never left to begin with.

The weight of a body straddled his lap, grounding him in something real, something tangible. The warmth of you, the way your thighs braced against him, the scent of gunpowder thick in the air, your hands hovering over the wound in his chest. A wound that, for the first time in what felt like a lifetime, wasn’t healing immediately. The pain was sharp, electric, but it paled in comparison to the disorientation flooding his senses and the ringing noise in his ears.

Still, he tried his best to keep his expression rooted in calmness and forced his vision to sharpen, on you.

You were still over him, breathing hard, panic tightening every muscle in your frame. The gun you had fired lay discarded somewhere on the ground, its barrel still smoking, the air thick with cordite and something else—something wrong. Your hands trembled where they pressed against him, hovering between regret and survival instinct, torn between saving him and finishing what you had started.

And then, for a split second, the world shifted again. The Aether core flickered at the edges of your heart where it was nestled, reacting to something unseen, something lingering between this world and the one he had just left behind. It pulsed, faint but undeniable, something poking at your skull like a thousand needles.

Your breath hitched deep in your throat. A sharp inhale, eyes widening—not in horror, not in fear, but in recognition.

"Sylus?" you whispered in a voice that did and didn’t belong to you at the same time. The craziest part about this was that this version of you didn’t even know his name properly.

Still your words… they were not a question. Not a demand. A call—the same way you had spoken to him in another world. The same way you had reached for him when time had fractured around you. The voice of the woman who had begged him to stay, the woman who had known him in ways you shouldn’t have, couldn’t have.

It struck him like a blade. The breath he took rattled in his wounded chest. You had remembered—for just a second, you had remembered, and hell, if he only came back here to die, this recognition on your face was more than enough for a man who had a dying wish to begin with.

However, that emotion that flickered within your pretty features, slightly different than what he came to remember, was gone in an instant.

The recognition flickered out of your gaze like a dying ember, slipping from your grasp and consciousness before it could root itself in place. The fear returned just as quickly, swallowing it whole, consuming every other emotion in your expression. You blinked, the moment severed, and your hands pressed harder against the wound, grounding yourself in this reality, the only one you knew. The only one you had ever known.

"Shit—stop bleeding—" Your voice trembled, desperate, your grip firm as if you could physically hold him here, as if you could undo what you had done.

Sylus, bleeding out, could only laugh, breathless, hollow, head falling back against the high-backed throne-like chair he was still sat on. What else was there to do?

Because he had made it back.

And yet, he had lost you all over again.

His fingers stiffly twitched at his side, reaching for something that wasn’t there, something that never would be again. The ache in his chest had nothing to do with the bullet lodged inside him and everything to do with the fact that the person he had spent months knowing—the person who had known him back—was gone.

And you, this version of you, looked at him with the same eyes but didn’t see him at all, didn’t see him past the façade he put on.

A dull, slow warmth started spreading beneath your palms. His Evol was finally kicking in, sluggish but effective, helping his wvol with the wound pulling itself back together, knitting flesh where it had been torn apart. The pain dulled, his breath came a little easier, but none of it felt like a victory.

If anything, it was pathetic. The body would heal, as it always did, but the wound carved into something deeper—something raw and untouchable—would never close. That, he knew with certainty.

His breath hitched again, this time with something like amusement. A smirk ghosted his lips, though it barely held together, more like a cruel mockery of what it should have been.

"You look like you've seen a ghost," he rasped, voice hoarse but laced with something eerily close to amusement. "Relax, sweetheart. Just scared you a little."

Your fingers twitched against his chest, hesitation breaking through the frantic worry lining your face, you were so naive in your intentions it was almost laughable.

"Bastard."

He exhaled, shaking his head slightly. "You should do a better job next time, kitten."

The words landed between you like a slap, and he almost laughed again at the way your brows furrowed, your lips parting as if to protest. But you didn’t. You only pressed your hands firmer against him, watching the last traces of blood smear against your skin as the wound fully disappeared beneath your touch.

There was a time he thought home was a place, a kingdom of steel and fire where only the strongest survived. Then, he thought home was a person, soft hands pulling him from the wreckage, a voice saying his name like it was something worth remembering. But now, standing at the edge of a world that had rewritten him, he understood—home was never his to claim. It was borrowed, fleeting, a warmth that slipped through his fingers the moment he held it too tight. What is a home, if given by another? A gift? A curse? A promise he was never meant to keep. And in the cruel, inevitable symmetry of it all, he had always been doomed to lose you, in every world, in every lifetime, over and over again.

There was no fight left in him. And you—this version of you—had no idea what he had just lost.

// If I cross the line

If I cross the line //

a/n: divider by @/cafekitsune // fic by: @dijayeah

[emacrow]

When danny beat pariah king and Dan, he didn't expect the damn crown and ring to follow him.

He tried everything so far to asking clockwork for help only to be told some cryptic bullshit.

The fucking crown and ring followed him everywhere even in the shower that one time scared the shit outta of him for ancient sake. It seem scolding them like a dog(thanks to tucker advise) actually work for a few days..

It was weird as fuck to see a crown and ring of rage actually look depressed as shit in the corner with a droopy blue coloring in the corner of his room under his dirt clothes a Camouflage.

It was like some self sentient object gone wrong.

Those two were diabolical, almost nearly tricking him into wearing them that one time during the school play, fortunately his ghost sense went off the moment he was about to put on the ring part.

That lead to another scolding that lasted a couple days of peace.

Until the day, he got caught by the GIW while distracted with skulker and techno again...

Being trapped to a table, mouth gagged and limbs binded like a insect held by needles pins with stolen fenton locks for dissection had him full blown out panic as the doctors left to get their new equipments after the scapel broke during the mid cutting.

Only for the crown and ring to appear like a shadow in above him. Danny was mentally arguing with himself about whether to accept his fate or get dissected and organs harvasted before he huffed through his nose and slightly nod as best as he could with the strapped helding his head to the table could do.

The crown floating toward his head, placing itself on his white hair while the ring slipped into his middle finger, before a blinding light nearly engulped the room.

The black crown covered in blue flames changed ad morphs into a aurora lights shaped crown designed in frozen ice as the ring changed from a skull to tiny galaxy like marble..

Danny could feel a surge of power nearly engulp his very core as voices whispers him, stars, galaxies, universe, the four dimension, multiple of parallel worlds and all secrets of the entire universe crammed into his brain nearly torn at his human mind before a portal below him opened sucked him in.

By the time the doctor came back, the subject on the table had escaped.

....

....

....

Danny only woke, laying on some type of ground, before he noticed that he was a bit different, enhanced like claws with sharp black nails..

As he noticed the ground was red with drips of glowing green ectoplasm blood before looking up to the sky..

To see stars above, and earth very far off on the right..

Darkness started to swirl a bit as his mind subconscious realize he might not be on earth and he might be on Mars.... first human on mars... before his body exhausted collapse back into the red dirt of mars.

Unawared of the forseen event as the astronaut crew on mars find a alien kid during exploration..

Fic inspired by this link here

[bigtedbear]

" 𝐚 𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐧'𝐬 𝐠𝐮𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐞𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 "

𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐭: 𝐥𝐮𝐨𝐜𝐡𝐚 𝐢𝐬 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐲 𝐨𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐜𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐢𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐭𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩

content warnings: gay relationship, descriptions of grevious bodily injury, implied self-mutilation/self-harm, male reader, monster x human relationship, hurt/comfort writing, hey this starts out really dark please take care of your mental health, arguments, misunderstood feelings, mermaid courtship, alternate universe where luocha is a traveling doctor who's studying biology and anatomy across the universe blah blah blah, luocha is pretty genuine in this even though i know he is in fact a snake let me idealize for a moment okay, luocha puts a ring on it without realizing he is literally putting a ring on it

full admittance you'll probably find parallels with @/havanilla's merventurine au at the start of this cause it was one of the last things I read on my old tumblr account before it died on me and i fear i DO have brainrot

to add to my earlier warning about this chapter beginning out dark, there will be a marker for the cuter, mermaid courtship section of the fic!! look for a marker like the one below VV

" welcome back caller 🪷! connecting your line as we speak! "

" new contact noted! caller luocha has been added to your phonebook - love, 𝑜𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑜𝑟 𝑡-19 “

A pained scream ripped through the air.  

It was a shame it couldn’t be distinguished from the sound of other yells and shouting from all over the deck.  In fact, it seemed the anguish was completely drowned out by the noise of an older man beginning to bark orders from the side of the fishing boat.  Gravelly with age and experience, sets and more sets of hands seemed to jump to action, rushing over to that specific side of the deck.  

In the crew’s haste, they didn’t seem to notice they had also woken up the residential cabin.  Things were more than hectic; the experienced crew themselves were in a frenzy.  There was something that demanded urgent attention and it seemed none of the regular passengers were privy to what exactly it was. 

Still, in the curious sea of civilian passengers renting their rooms in the bowels of the ship, a tall blonde head of hair peered over the crowd straight to the source of the fuss.  Over the sea of yellow rain jackets adorning the working fishermen, he caught sight of some kind of reflective surface… what many wrote off as an oversized fish, Luocha continued to strain his eyes at.

Should he have been anyone else, perhaps he wouldn’t have noticed.  But Luocha was a doctor, he was more than familiar with noises of distress; with the scent of blood.  Something in the very core of his body shook with each of the pained and weak motions of an equally pained, weak patient.  The vibrations crept up his spine from the wooden boards of the ship, whispering into his ears. 

Something was wrong. 

Something was terribly wrong. 

Despite the protests of one of the tour guides, urging him to go back to sleep, he rushed towards the scene.  The same pained screams; the sounds of the body on the deck; the reflection of the “oversized fish”, they became clearer and clearer the closer he closed in.

Before he could make it into the crowd of men at work, he was caught by one of their coworkers.  Clad in a yellow raincoat, shadow cast across his face in the rain, the obviously displeased grimace all over his face only further sent Luocha into a state of panic.  A tense grip on his elbow, the man spoke in a language he didn’t understand.  Even if he didn’t understand the words themselves, Luocha was more than smart enough to understand the message the worker was trying to convey.  Before he could be pulled away, he made one last attempt to see what exactly was going on. 

When he did manage to catch a glimpse, he froze. 

Perfect, round tears running down flushed, red cheeks. 

The skin was pulled taut in another scream.  Based on the shaking motion of the face, he could only really come to the conclusion the body was being jerked in every direction possible. 

“Stop… STOP!”  He yanked his elbow out of the man’s grasp, crashing directly into the back of another worker.  In his haste, he shoved the man out of the way only to find his path blocked by even more yellow raincoats.  “You’re only going to worsen the injuries! I’m a doctor!” 

Despite not considering himself to be very physically fit, something about the situation discarded that reality entirely.  An unknown strength washed over him as he forced his way through the clusterfuck of workers trying to wrestle the screamer into place. 

He didn’t understand, Luocha didn’t understand. 

There was an injured crew member on the deck, screaming–what kind of idiot would continue to pull and stress the skin around the wound? Was that why the team leader seemed to screaming with such vigor?  Was he equally concerned about one of his staff suddenly being sent into debilitating agony? 

But no, not even in the slightest.  

Through the crowd, a wet mop of hair thrashing against the backdrop of a barbed fishing net came into view.  The urgency only further sent Luocha wrestling through the crowd of men, all but screaming himself as he watched the injured man on the ground contort his facial muscles in abject horror.  

“Stop it, you’re hurting him!” 

 He could hear his own vocal chords start to tear as he shrieked for the poor victim.  With each passing moment, fear and anxiety seized the doctor in his entirety before he finally managed to part the crowd like the red sea. 

In the end,

he wasn’t faced with a crew member. 

...

A merman. 

Something he’d only heard of in the planet’s folklore. 

It seemed well-known the small surviving population hardly ever ventured out of protected waters for fear of predators. 

What was this one doing so far out…?

With the opportunity making itself known, the unknown merman continued to thrash but harder, lips curling upwards as another shrill cry of agony streaked the night air.  From up close, the doctor could only watch the formerly smooth, unmarred skin become tainted with red.  Washed with your own blood, you looked more similar to some kind of horror movie monster than a person. 

But even in the face of monstrosity, his inner doctor only saw the blown out pupils, the senseless aggression, the fear written all over his patient’s face in their own claret stain.

“You’ll end up killing him, stop, STOP!” 

He completely ignored his own pain as the barbs in the net ripped into the fabric of his pajamas, cutting open his knees when he threw his body on top of yours.  His hands flew around carelessly in an attempt to unlatch the hands that seemed determined to pull at you from every direction.  

At the loss of the hands all over your body, your screams died down into pitiful hyperventilation, curling in on yourself in an attempt to cover the wounds weeping crimson all over the formerly white net.  

Instead of relief, instead of some kind of graditude, it seemed he was only met with friction.

“Oy, blondie, paws off, do you understand how much money you’ve got your hands on right now?” 

The thick accent confused him at first, then the words themselves didn’t seem to compute. 

“Excuse me?” 

You yelped again when one of the men pulled at the net.   The cold metal tore sore flesh in chunks.

“Mermaid scales are priceless.  So are the pearls they cry, we caught the bastard fair and square so. Step. Off.” 

His mind scrambled to understand the sentence, thoughts muddling together in a blender of pain and panic.  “I- I-” 

“You?”  Another crew member chimed in, crossing his arms, “You’ll what, doctor?  You can either get off of him and wrap up your cuts yourself or we’ll drag you off and the barbs can teach you to keep your nose out of other people’s business.” 

“I-”  his breathing picked up drastically, suddenly confronted with such a terrible moral dilemma. 

When prying hands began to make grabby motions for the edges of the ropes, he choked out his final answer.

“I'll pay for him!"

“...”

“...”

“...”

He swept his rain-soaked bangs out of his face, his voice shaking, “You were planning on selling him, right?”  He fumbled with his sleeves, “I make good money, I swear, I-,” he swallowed, “I can afford it.  Just take as much as you want out of the account I used to pay for my cabin.”

“...” 

“...”

Things were a little bit awkward, to say the least. 

Despite an attempt being made to cooperate while you were awake, it seemed the pressure and the mounting stress of nearly dying made it unable for you to accept the fact that Luocha was not, in fact, going to hurt you. 

The attempt to deal with the various injuries littered all over formerly smooth, silky skin was unproductive at best.  In fact, it only created more problems.  Trying to operate while you were largely unreceptive to anything he was saying was by far the worst decision he could’ve made given the circumstances. 

Point blank, he needed to get the barbed hooks out of your skin.  If he didn’t, the wounds would be at increased risk of infection.  After all, based on the cruel treatment he’d seen on deck, he knew the metal was most likely unsanitized.  Doing this while you were awake was easily the worst decision he could've made.

Promising not to hurt you while continually yanking pieces of metal out of your tender flesh was not a good way to build trust. 

"..."

"..."

You poked at the “strange” bowl that’d been set in front of you.  It was some kind of clam-fish hybrid soup. I mean, Luocha was trying to be considerate of your regular diet.  Surely, since you were living out in open waters, you were pretty used to eating fish right?

He, however, failed to realize you weren’t exactly in a spot to ever enjoy the luxuries of cooked food… or soup.  He’d laid out some utensils for you to use on top of that; it was a shame you didn’t know how to use them. 

"..."

"..."

You realized pretty early on that he’d saved you from becoming a victim to death by blood loss.  After all, when you were dropped in a holding tank until the ship arrived at the port, the water went cloudy from the dirt, debris, and blood all over your body.  In your little waist-high tank, he’d done his best to make sure you’d actually survive through the night.

Despite your reservations about him, you did your best not to scream while you were confined to a glorified holding cell.  Nails digging into the glass, biting down hard enough on the towel to tear, you tried your best to stay still while he fished countless little hooks from your back, arms, and chest.  

Removing the large hook in your shoulder was the most painful part of the process for the both of you.  You, for obvious reasons.  The hook made a clean cut through the muscle--scraping up against the bone--by the time you were awake enough to realize you were wrapped up in a barbed net.  Luocha, on the other hand, was the one that had to deal with the struggle while trying to complete a very tricky operation.  

Eventually, the problem dealt with itself when you passed out.  Really, he should’ve sedated you to start with, and he cursed at himself for not thinking of it sooner.  After you went out, he did his best to stitch everything up–hell, he wrapped you up in enough bandages to look like a mummy. 

But, since the two of you actually arrived on the island, there wasn’t so much as a word shared from either party. 

You woke up in a little bathtub, in a little bathroom, feeling like your arms were falling off and you couldn’t breathe because of how tight all of the bandages were wrapped around you. Eventually the giant bandages changed to smaller ones attached with some medical tape.  The only bulky one left was the one wrapped around your shoulder. 

"..."

"..."

With some trepidation, you grabbed at one of the fishtails sticking out of the mystery liquid, digging a finger in between the meat and the ribs to peel it off the bone.  Carefully, you used one of your freshly trimmed nails to remove the thick, scaly skin, then biting off a chunk to chew and swallow.  

The longer you stared at the bowl, the more confused you became. 

Yes, you knew how to eat a fish. 

Yes, you knew how to eat a mussel. 

No, you didn’t know what to do with whatever else was in the bowl.  

You paused eating when the man sitting across from the bathtub cleared his throat.  He made a vague gesture towards your lap, “Would you…?”

‘...mind if I showed you how to eat a bowl of soup?’ 

Without much hesitation, you offered up your meal again, much more interested in the chunk of fish in your hand.  Biting off another piece, you drank in the pleasant familiarity in just having some tilapia for once.  

He picked up the spoon. Deciding not to embarrass you further, he decided to taste test the food himself instead of trying to feed you. He let the silver spoon clatter back into the bowl, passing it over to you again. Despite the clear demonstration he’d given you, you opted to pick at one of the mussels hiding underneath the broth. 

“...”

“...”

He cleared his throat again, seemingly averting eye contact as he stared at the tiled walls. 

You diverted your attention from your bowl back to the blonde doctor. 

“I don’t mean to be rude or pry in any way,” he swallowed, “but what exactly were you doing so far from protected waters?"

You didn’t seem surprised in the slightest by his question, grabbing at the other fish tail in the bowl, “Smuggling and poaching.”  

He tilted his head curiously.

“Protective waters have attendants to track general pod health, they have the authority to temporarily remove merfolk from the water to do routine health checks."  You finally wrapped your hand around the spoon awkwardly, bringing some broth up to your lips. "Smugglers get jobs as attendants cause only tagged mermaids are considered protected.” You wiggled one of your finned ears, your left ear. Notably, there was a small tear in one of the fins. “It only takes a couple minutes for an attendant to catch a mermaid, sedate them, get them into a vehicle, remove their tag and throw them out into the right spots for a couple grand.” 

“I see.” 

You hummed, finally bringing the soup up to your lips, “Speaking of, how much did you end up having to pay for me?”

"..."

"..."

“Excuse me?” Luocha’s hands rested in his lap. 

“How much did you end up paying for me?”  You picked up another mussel, “I’m pretty good about keeping up with the price of scales and pearls.  I know you bought me as some kind of pity project, but I'm pretty eager to go back out to open waters.  Just name your price and I can start trying to pay off the debt.” 

The doctor blinked a couple times. “Oh… oh my god, absolutely not!”  He shook his head, bringing his hands up in front of his chest defensively, “There is no need to pay me back in the slightest.  Please, just rest well and remain healthy.  That would be the best payment.”

“What’s this?” 

He rolled the small iridescent pearl between his gloved fingers. 

“It’s a pearl.” 

He cracked a smile at that. It was gone as quick as it arrived as he brought the little treasure to his face to take a closer look.  “Well yes, but where did you get this? Did you have it stashed on you somewhere?”

You twirled your finger in a circle on the surface of the water. “No,” absentmindedly you observed the little whirlpool it made, “I made it.” 

He blinked a couple of times, hand dropping back to his side. “Pardon?” 

You finally looked up from the surface of the water, “I made it.” 

He cocked his head to the side, “You… made a pearl?” 

You looked at him, bored, “Well, yeah, did you not know mermaids make pearls?”

He looked from you, to the pearl, and then back at you.  “No… I’m afraid I didn’t know.”  His palm closed into a fist around the pearl, “How?” 

“...hm?”

He gestured towards his closed hand, “How did you make it?” 

You gave a huff, “Well, you’ve seen me make them before.”  

He frowned, “I… have?”

‘-and I didn’t notice?’

You nodded, shifting around in the bathtub to try and stretch your long tail out a little bit.  "The night I got caught on the boat-" Your jaw tensed, a sudden pang of soreness shooting up from your extremities. "-they were all over the deck, there were a bunch in the little tank they had me in.” 

His frown only deepened as he did his best to recall, “I don’t think I remember seeing them…? Does your blood crystalize into them or something of the sort?” 

You rested your head on the porcelain of the tub, bringing your arms up to cushion your cranium.  “Tears,” you murmured, “Merfolk tears turn into pearls.” 

‘Ah… so that’s why you mentioned there being so many on the ship.’

But then it hit him. 

“Why were you crying?” 

You shrugged, “Most mermaids in protected waters can cry on command.  We get a lot of tourists that give us gifts, sometimes if we’re interested we’ll give them a pearl in return.” 

He nodded like he understood, but suddenly the beautiful gem felt heavy in his fist.  He opened his hand and offered it back, “As beautiful as it is, I don’t wish to see you shedding any tears while you’re under my care.” 

You pushed his outstretched hand away, “Well, I already made it.  There’s no use trying to return it.” 

“Still, I feel terrible receiving a gift with such painful origins,” he sat down on the stool that’d become his usual spot.  “I’m a doctor. My goal is to make sure you’re in the least amount of pain possible.” 

“You should feel honored, you’re really the first person I’ve ever given a pearl to,” you raised your head from its spot on your arms, “I usually only gave them to little kids that didn’t bring me gifts so I’d give them something.”  You sank further into the water in the shallow tub.

“My concern is why you believe you should be giving me gifts in the first place,” he crossed his left leg over his right, scooting in closer, “I’ve already told you that taking care of you has always been of my own volition.  It is quite literally my job.  If you’re giving this to me as a gift and not repayment, I might be more inclined to accept it.” 

You huffed,  “Well, I guess you caught me.” 

His brows furrowed, “So I was right, you’re trying to pay back a debt again.” 

“...”

“...”

“...”

This time, he sighed.  “I’ve already told you, your health and wellbeing are both priceless.  I would never ask a patient I forced into care to pay me any sum of money-”

“That’s what I don’t understand,” The water rippled when you sat up suddenly, “Why don’t you want to accept any kind of payment? I’m tired of talking to you as property and owner.  You bought ownership, legally I’m your property. I don’t want to be your property.” 

“You aren’t my property-” He quipped, expression growing displeased.

“But I am,” you cut him off.  “You signed paperwork, you exchanged a certain sum of money.  Even if you thought I couldn’t hear you doesn’t mean I didn’t.” You crossed your arms across your chest, “I still heard the captain of the ship talking about sale prices with you.  I know I was considered a higher quality product, I know I was expensive.”

The doctor opened his mouth; and closed it and opened it again.  He struggled to find the correct words to use. “I didn’t consider that an exchange for ownership of you, I considered that to be the price of your wellbeing.  I’ve never considered you to be anything but an equal to me.” 

You drew your lips into a tight line, “Well, if I was an equal, you’d let me contribute to the cost somehow.  You wouldn’t treat me like some helpless baby.”  You gestured to his closed palm, “The pearl in your hand is priceless, sealing a handful of them would recuperate the money you wasted-”

Luocha held up his hand, “Stop-”

But you insisted, “Hell, if I ripped a couple of scales out you could more than pay for me.  You’d have enough money to buy another sorry sack of shit to take care of-”

“Don’t EVER-” he cut you off aggressively, “EVER, suggest such ludacris things to me again.  I refuse to even think about it.” 

“..."

Luocha shook his head, getting his gloves wet when he reached into the water to hold your hands in his own, “I would never ask you to do something like that to yourself.  I would never ask you to hurt yourself to please me and I would never ask you to hurt yourself because you needed my help.”  He gave your palms a gentle squeeze, “You did not ask to be put in the position you’re in now,  I am the one that chose to do this and I will be the one to set the price on my help; that price-” he paused, making sure you were looking him in the eyes, “-will always be no price at all.”   He pushed the pearl back into your hands.  “Give this pearl to one of the children that visit the waters after you’ve healed up in my stead, yes?” 

“It’s not exactly how I remember it.” 

You squirmed against the sensation of the water, arms still looped around Luocha’s neck.  

“Any discomfort?” The doctor asked, “Tell me if anything hurts.”

“No, no, nothing like that,” You shuffled around to try and make yourself comfortable.  You did your best to find the familiar rhythm of the waves, but your tail felt as useless as it had the entire time you’d been confined to the bathtub.  “It’s… cold.” 

Luocha nodded... even though he couldn't quite understand.  “If you aren’t straining any of your injuries, you can hang on for as long as you need to.”

You mumbled, trying to draw your elbows closer to your chest, “I’m not.” 

“...”

“...”

It’d only been a week since the last time you’d tried to repay your imaginary debt to Luocha.  Things got… less tense between the two of you. 

You didn’t put up a fuss when he put some ointment on the scars that formed all over your skin.  You didn’t squirm when he unwrapped your shoulder bandage.  You’d usually bide your time silently in the bathtub.  Mostly, you’d nap.  But that got old quickly, especially since a bathtub isn’t the most convenient spot for sleeping. 

Luocha could tell you were bored out of your mind all on your lonesome. To satiate this, he’d usually sit with you in the bathroom and try to teach you things like how to play cards.  You were a little apprehensive with him, like you always were, but it seemed you opened up to him a lot more towards the end of your stay in his temporary residence.

You’d become a pretty competent blackjack player all things considered.

You opened up more and more about your life down below.  Usually, you’d be afraid to tell anyone about that information.  Smugglers often targeted specific pods if one of the products happened to be particularly pricy.  But Luocha wasn't at any risk, was he? 

“...”

“...”

Eventually, as the water started to feel more natural on your skin, you let your grip loosen from around his neck.  As the welcoming embrace of the ocean seemed to envelop more and more of your body, you could feel the former tension in your muscles start to melt away. 

You laid yourself horizontal to the surface of the water, tentatively starting to create your own ripples in the vast expanses of blue.  Maybe it didn’t feel exactly as you remembered, but the gentle pressure of the cool, cool sea against your skin felt like home. 

Your arms splayed out in the waves like an angel, basking in the familiarity of it all.  “You can let go now.” 

Slowly, surely, pale arms lowered you into the arms of the same waters you’d been in a little over two months ago.  You shocked yourself when you chased after his hands. Still, as slick as an eel, you slid away from him into the open ocean, finding a boyish glee in the pure ecstasy of true freedom.  

You took off like a little jet, head first into the deep end. 

Luocha could only really watch with a small smile while you explored the vast array of little treasures hidden beneath the horizon line.  

It felt like only fifteen minutes had passed when you re-emerged from beneath the ocean blue, but to your shock, the sun was starting to set and Luocha was off on dry land, wringing the water out of his hair.  

In all of your fun, it seemed you’d forgotten about that man who’d made all of this possible for you. 

“...”

You pursued him onto the sand, watching him characteristically tilt his head to the side to express his curiosity.  You pushed your own wet mop of hair out of your face with your hand, suddenly feeling a little less confident in your choices.  Despite your trepidation, you felt you at least owed him this much. 

That didn't make it any easier.

“I-” you swallowed, curling in on yourself, “What if I wanted to give you a gift? If it wasn’t some kind of repayment?” 

He smiled, flipping a soaked lock of hair over his shoulder, “As long as you aren’t lying to me about repayment, then I would gladly accept.”

You suddenly felt a new wave of confidence wash over you, your chest puffing up a little bit, “Well, I have a gift for you.” Even though you failed to notice your little finned ears wiggling in excitement, Luocha did not. 

You reached up to your right ear, unhooking the beautiful golden earring that’d you'd been wearing since you’d been thrown out of protective waters.

His eyes widened.   

“It-” You offered the hoop to him, “It was my mom’s.”

Luocha blinked a couple times, staring at the bangle before looking back up at your face instead.  

“Well?  You said you’d accept it if it was a gift.”  You pushed it into his face, feeling a red hot flush wash over your features, “This is a gift; from me to you, no strings attached.” 

He carefully took the thin gold loop in his fingers.  He noticed the signs of oxidation and the water damage. 

It was already far less valuable than the pearl you’d tried to offer him.

Yet its sentimental value was unrivaled. 

“...”

“...”

“Did... your mother like jewelry?”

You shrugged, looking away from him, “Yeah, she had a lot of it from my dad.” 

Luocha nodded.  “Well, did she have a favorite kind of jewelry?” 

At this, you paused.  “I mean… I guess she did.  She wore a lot of rings… why?” 

“Well, since this is a gift I won’t refuse it,- Luocha slid one of the golden bands wrapped around his fingers off,  “-but if you can’t have her earring anymore, then you can at least have a piece of jewelry your mother would’ve liked to wear.”

You felt your face transition from an embarrassed pink to a much deeper red.  “You… you know what you’re offering me, r-right?” 

He didn’t respond in the way you expected.  Instead of his usual confusion, he pushed the ring towards you again with one hand.  The other went to work, looping the clasp of the earring through a piercing that was just a little bit too close to closing.  

It felt like your brain was melting.

‘Is he… flirting with me?’ 

You took the golden ring between your fingers, watching him use his newly freed hand to further force the earring through the piercing hole. You could only feel the heat creep up your neck to your ears; fuck, it felt like you were going to burn alive on the sand. 

When he finally got it in, he flipped a chunk of wet hair over his shoulder.  He framed the golden hoop with his palm.  Playfully, he asked, “How does it look?” 

‘...’

‘He’s definitely flirting.’ 

You immediately ripped your gaze from his face to the ring that suddenly felt like a hundred pounds in your palm. 

‘...What fingers do humans usually put the ring on again?’

Shakily you slid the golden ring onto your left hand, examining the way it glinted in the light of the sunset.  

‘...holy shit, did I just get married?’ 

“[name]?” 

You blinked a couple times, suddenly ripping your gaze away from the shiny metal.  “Sorry, sorry.” 

He chuckled at your expense, enjoying the little fluttering of your ears everytime he seemed to catch your attention again.  “Thank you for the gift, I’ll cherish it dearly.” 

You nodded. 

“...”

“...”

The silence was interrupted with a quiet sniffle. 

“...[name]?”

You aggressively wiped the tear off your face, watching the consequent pearl roll across the grains of sand.  “H-Hey, you can’t just give me this ring and leave-” You took a deep breath, “-That’s not fair, that’s not fair at all.” 

He was a little taken aback at the sudden resurgence of emotion, “Would…” he paused.  He thought it over before tentatively putting a hand on your shoulder, “Would it help if I stayed a little longer?” 

You shook your head, putting your hand over the one on your shoulder to hold it between both of your own hands.  “You have to promise to visit me a lot.  It’s going to take me a long time to find my family, so if you don’t visit I’m going to be lonely.” 

He, once again caught off guard, nodded, “O-Of course!” His own cheeks tinted a pale pink. 

“You promise?” 

He nodded again, this time using his other hand to clasp your hand in both of his.  “I promise I’ll visit.”

a side note for this upcoming section: i did a lot of world-building for this fic behind the scenes, the current planet they're on is largely submerged beneath the waters and they live on a bunch of island nations. To link up with that idea, my idea of the mermaid smuggling industry is to do with the concept of foreigners coming in and destroying local ecosystems. (Colonization)

Long story short, the planet is loosely based on Polynesian Islands so I chose Māori names for our supporting cast but keep in mind I am FAR from an expert and I mean literally no disrespect at all to anyone at all. Only the names are Māori in nature because I feel like no matter how much research I do, I would be unable to capture the essence of the rich culture of New Zealand. I'm a little gay fanfic writer I have not done nearly enough research to claim I know ANYTHING, I just thought it'd be cool and help with world-building in case people want a part-two or something

“What’s got you so worked up?” 

“Shut the fuck up Iarere, this is like the seventh time in the same hour.” 

Your younger brother held his hands up defensively, “Well, things got boring around here without you!”  He let himself fall towards the ground next to the boulder you’d splayed out all the little pieces of gold you’d managed to scrounge up.  “You manage to make it back from outside of protective waters and instead of hating everything and everyone, you’re suddenly getting all buddy buddy with the tourists trying to get some trinkets.  I know you’re old but are you really getting that desperate?” 

You frowned, “I’m not that old.” 

Iarere rested his face on the cool surface of the rock, prodding at one of the particularly flashy necklaces.  “You’re old to me.”  

Your frown deepened. Not just because your brother was calling you old, but because Luocha’s weekly visit was coming up and you hadn’t managed to gather up nearly as much as you would’ve wanted.   For your kind, caring, doctor husband who was already well off, a few necklaces and a handful of rings and earrings wouldn’t be anywhere near enough to woo him.  “I guess I am getting towards the end of the usual age people get married at.” 

The younger man nodded, humming, “Yeah, so do you have anyone in mind?” 

You bit your lip.  

I mean, yes, you were married. 

But it felt inauthentic if you didn’t present your husband with some kind of dowry first. 

Yes, Luocha only presented you with one of his old rings, but he also paid a hefty sum to rescue you from certain doom.  He also nursed you back to good health, refused to take any payment for any of the medical treatments or the food that’d been wasted making sure you’d retain your strength throughout your recovery. 

In your mind, maybe human dowries were just a little bit different. 

Despite opening your mouth to voice your dissent, your little brother jumped up at the opportunity to tease you.  “So you do have someone you’re thinking about!” 

“I-” 

“What are they like?” Iarere gripped your shoulders, tearing your attention away from your inner dilemma.  “What do they look like? Do I know them?”  He gasped, shaking you back and forth and he demanded to know, “Did you meet them while you were outside?!” 

You gripped at his shoulders in return, “I didn’t say I had anyone in mind!” 

“...”

“...”

He pursed his lips, “Yeah, I’m not buying it.” 

You groaned, bringing your hands up to your face.

He only got more excited, leaning in way too close for comfort as he squealed, “So I was right?!” 

“Right about what?” 

Your eyes darted over to the side, watching one of the few friends you’d managed to retain at your grown age.  “Thank the gods, Akahata, get Iarere off me before he gives me whiplash.” 

He hummed, “Well, I’m more interested in what exactly you guys were talking about before.”  You watched as his eyes flitted from you and your brother to all the precious metal and gems you’d laid out.  “Actually don’t tell me, let me guess.”  He pointed at the rock, “You’re setting up a dowry, but you’re upset because you know no amount of jewelry would ever get anyone in the pod to consider settling down with your ugly mug.”

“HAH!” 

Your ears fluttered in irritation.  “That’s a horrible guess.” 

Akahata shrugged, “Well, I mean, your mug’s only ugly cause you frown all the time.  If you actually made an effort to smile more, you’d probably have a lot more people that’d be willing to accept you with no dowry.” 

Your frown tugged at the corners of your lips as you massaged your temples, “For your information, I’m making a dowry cause I already got married.” 

“...”

“...’

“...”

“You WHAT?!” 

Iarere’s fists clenched even tighter around your biceps, “You told me you lost mom’s earring, not that you got married-” 

“It’s a long story-” You started, 

“Not long enough to not tell either of us!” Your best friend screamed in abject horror.  “The moment Ngaio and I started courting each other I told you immediately-”  You grimaced when he pushed your brother out of the way to be the one to shake you back and forth, “-and you get married and you don’t tell me until afterwards?!” 

“It wasn’t planned! I didn’t even realize he was courting me until he gave me his ring-” You countered, face lighting up pink.

“So it’s a him…” Iarere mumbled, putting his hand to his chin.  His expression lit up as the pieces started clicking together in his head.  “Is that where you’re going tomorrow?!” 

“YOU’RE GOING TO MEET HIM TOMORROW?!” 

You were growing more overwhelmed by the minute, averting eye contact.  “Yeah, so what? We’ve been meeting up every week while I was looking for you guys.  Is it weird for husbands to spend time together?” 

Akahata abruptly let go of you, leaving red imprints of his hands on your arms.  “That’s not that problem, that problem-” he paused for dramatic effect, “-is that you’re planning on meeting up with him after returning and you’re not even telling us who he is!” 

Iarere put a hand over his heart, feigning his disappointment as he let himself sink into the sand below.  “I think I’m going to faint.” 

You sighed, “Well-”

Akahata jabbed an accusatory finger in your chest again, “Is he even good looking enough for you? Is he any good at providing? What was his dowry like?  What pod is he even from?!”

“He’s not from a pod-”

Your brother hummed, “So is he a lone wanderer out beyond the boundaries of protected waters saving pretty mermen he wants to marry?” 

Your face twisted into one of disgust, “Keep your fantasies to yourself.” 

Iarere huffed, “Well, what else am I supposed to think when you say he’s not from a pod?  He obviously has so be some kind of lone wolf, PLUS you got married before you made it back.” 

Akahata put a contemplative hand under his chin, “I mean he has a point.” 

You shook your head, “He’s a human.” 

“...” 

“...” 

“...”

“You’re joking.” 

“I’m not.” 

“You’re joking…” 

You held up your hand, gesturing towards the ring on your finger. 

“Oh my god, you’re not actually joking.” 

Your younger brother squealed, “Oh my god this is like something out of all those movies on the surface! Tell me all about it!” 

You frowned, pushing through both your peers to make it back to your makeshift table top.  “He’s… a doctor, but he was working as a trader on a big ship.   He was there the night I got caught and he ended up buying me off the boat and he patched me up and released me.” 

Your best friend sighed, “Only you can make a story that romantic sound like a business deal.” 

Iarere furrowed his brows, “Wait, wait, wait, when did he propose?” 

“Well-” You fumbled over your words, “I caught feelings and I thought I might as well start the courtship process-” 

“YOU made the first move?!” 

“Shut up!” You pushed your overly eager younger brother’s face away, “I didn’t know if he even knew about mermaid courting so if I was going to start courting him, I had to do it then.”

“...go on.”

You sighed, “I gave him mom’s old earring, but instead of just taking it, he gave me one of the rings he was wearing.” You covered your face, feeling another wave of crimson wash everywhere from your neck to the tips of your ears.  You still couldn’t get the memory of him showing off the earring out of your fucking head. “I mean- I- I even asked if he knew what offering me his ring meant and he just put it in my hand.” 

Your younger brother kicked around on the sand eagerly, waving his hands around excitedly.  “That is actually one of THE most romantic proposals I’ve ever heard of!” 

Akahata crossed his arms, “Damn, I feel like mine was lacking.” 

You huffed, “Well, Ngaio is still your wife.” 

“And whatever his face is still managed to wife you--of all people--up.”

“Touche.”

“Oh wow, you brought more than you usually do.” 

Luocha chuckled behind his hand, his own little bag of purchased trinkets hanging loosely at his side. 

You hummed, thumbing over the beautiful glistening stone of a diamond necklace you’d managed to get off of a rather infamous regular.  “You’re one to talk.” 

He gave a small grunt of exertion as he sat next to you on the sand, letting the bag fall to the side, “You’ve got me there.”  He couldn’t help the pleasant swell of warmth in his face as you gestured for him to turn around. 

I mean, maybe you weren’t the best at communicating what you were feeling or what you wanted from him, but you’d been getting better.  Instead of just grunting a yes or no to the questions he’d ask, you’d actually make time for some conversation with him.  Be it from your annoying younger brother to the changes in the pod since you’d returned, it seemed you shared what little woes you had with Luocha.  

You also seemed to share endless amounts of little golden treasures with him.  From old, worn gold, oxidized iron, anything really that you could find, you provided it to him and put it on him with the most delicate touch your rough, scarred hands could muster.  Maybe it was nothing, maybe it was something.  He couldn’t control the way his heart sped up whenever you leaned in to help him put on a new pair of earrings you’d gifted him.  He surmised gift giving was some kind of love language that was common among merfolk.  Perhaps you’d also enjoy it if he brought you gifts of equal value! 

Still, the pounding in his heart was not helped when you’d started smiling at him. 

Everytime he managed to catch one of the rare glimpses of your smile–even worse when you’d laugh–he almost felt like he was looking at something forbidden.  Something he wasn’t worthy of, right in front of him.  For someone who had been through so much, you really opened up to him remarkably quickly after you’d been released.  Perhaps before release you’d been scared of being sold off? The familiar feeling of the waters must’ve don wonders to make you relax this much. 

Even worse when the physical affection began.  It started as simple as reaching out to the side of his face to brush the hair away from his ear so you could catch sight of the golden hoop he’d taken to wearing.   It transitioned to taking his gloves off so you could look at the rings you ended up gifting him.   Before he could really process how quickly the two of you were moving, you were pressed up against him at every opportunity.  

He knew it was natural for merfolk to not wear clothing, but did you have to have such a muscular chest? 

Even now, as you fumbled with the clasp of the absolutely beautiful diamond necklace, you wrapped an equally muscular aquatic tail around his leg.  He didn’t exactly know if this was normal between merfamily-could he call them that?--, being overly affectionate.   Even if it felt like a little more than just normal bonding, he did his best to still the pounding of his heart when your fingers brushed his hair out of the way so you could make sure the gem was oriented correctly.  

Trying his hardest to quell the tide of warmth surging up to the tips of his ears, he put a hand over his erratic heartbeat.  He prayed to the Aeons above you couldn’t feel it as your chest pressed against his back.  

You wrapped your arms snug around his torso, pulling him further into your stomach.  Resting your chin on top of his blonde hair, you found the gloved hand resting over his heart to hold in your own.   The two of you let the silence hang in the air for a moment. 

“...”

“...”

You gave a quiet huff before you moved your chin from on top of his head to bury itself into the crook of his neck.  As his fingers interlocked with yours, he found himself looking at all the gold rings he’d adorned your fingers with.  Each and every one, he could put a time and day to. 

But then, his eyes landed on your ring finger. 

“Oh, you still wear that old thing?”

“...hm?”

You glanced down at your hand, raising a brow.  His finger was tracing over the ring he’d exchanged when he was releasing you back into the open water.

“You still wear the same earring I gave you,” you murmured, flicking it with your freehand.  “I’ve given you countless pairs of earrings since, yet even when you wear one stud, you’ll always wear the same one every time I see you.” 

His chest rumbled with a bout of laughter, “I suppose you’re right.”  He perked up suddenly, “Oh, that reminds me, speaking of this earring…” He reached towards the rather large bag of gifts he’d brought with him.  He threw a few of the boxes of gold ornaments he’d purchased before finally fishing the box he was looking for out of the bottom.  “I went shopping and when I saw this pair, I simply knew you’d love it.” 

You hummed, looking at the little navy blue box in his hand.

He made quick work of the bow wrapped around the holding case, nimble fingers peeling open the little box before he presented you with his gift on their signature velvet cushion. It looked like… 

…a replica of your mother’s earrings. 

He offered them up to you with a bashful smile, watching in silent amusement when your ears flicked back and forth in some kind of excitement. 

Delicately, gently, you picked up one of the hoops and twirled it around your fingers. 

“...”

“...”

“...Well? Do you like it?”

You didn’t respond, reaching up to your right ear to remove the little stud you’d chosen to wear to this outing.  Fidgeting with the clasp of the loop, you threaded it with a calculated ease through your piercing.   

“I like it.” 

He clasped his hands together, “Good, I’m more than glad.” 

“...”

“...”

“She would’ve loved to meet you.” 

“Hm?”

You paused, “My mother, I mean,” Your thumb fidgeted with the back of the earring.  “She always wanted to see her sons get married, but she passed before she could.” 

Luocha blinked.  

“Pardon?” 

You tilted your head to the side, “My mother; she would’ve loved to meet you.” 

“No, no,” Luocha could feel the deep claret paint his face a messy red as he scooted to face you, “What did you mean by seeing her sons get married?”

“...

…Did you not know?” 

Luocha blinked. 

“We’re married.” 

Another blink. 

“You… Is that why…?” He gestured towards the gifts strewn across the sand.  He looked back towards his own bag of gifts. 

‘Oh for crying out loud-’

“I-” he cleared his throat, “I apologize, I seem to have… entered this marriage under false pretenses.”  He put his hands on his temples, “How- Where- When exactly did this happen?”

You hummed, “When you let me back out into the water.  When I gifted you my mother’s earring, that was the signal I wanted to start courting you.  When you gift something back, that’s an officiation of marriage.” 

He coughed into his hand, trying to think through this situation logically. 

Okay, so he accidentally got married.

What the fuck. 

The train of thought seemed to end there. 

…

He was, however, plagued with another train of thought. 

‘Well, you have been making eyes at him for a few months now.’ 

…

Those thoughts were not helping.  

“...”

“...”

“If you want to end the marriage, it’s as simple as saying so,” you added, “I thought you knew what my intentions were-”

“NO!”

Luocha covered the bottom half of his mouth.  “I’m fine with the arrangement as is, but it appears human marriage and merfolk marriage are officiated in very different ways.” 

Your brows furrowed. 

“...”

“...”

“...Are you saying you want to officiate the marriage as humans would?”

The tips of Luocha’s ears burned with embarrassment.  “I-” 

You held one of his hands in yours, eyes seemingly boring holes into his face,  “Whatever it is, as long as you want to do it, I will do it to the best of my ability.” 

Any complaints were silenced when he was confronted with such sincerity.  “Well…”

You waited patiently, folding your hands in your lap.  

Finally, it seemed your “husband” made up his mind.  

“Close your eyes.” 

You paused, seemingly surprised, but nonetheless your eyes fluttered shut moments after. 

Luocha urged himself to breathe, flexing and unflexing his hands.  

He leaned forward, closing his eyes as he…

…planted an innocent peck on your lips.

there's a note on the side of the phone booth, read it?

" idk how to describe it but now being on the other side of this, i'm feeling something similar to post nut clarity "

first post since losing literally everything on my first account yay !!

yes guys, luocha and his mermaid husband were openly cuddling on the beach for months and he's wondering "is he into me or am i bro-zoned"

that being said, losing my tumblr has now forced me to realize how many people genuinely like my writing hey guys I went scrolling through user kamisatoelogy's blog to look for their modern ayato fic and i found out someone dedicated time and effort into archiving my works???? and you guys went looks for me????

i fr feel like getting on my hands and knees and thanking everyone for all their support and love over this process and apologizing for scaring you guys so bad

you guys are so sweet and so many of you have been so helpful in getting my blog back up and running again :((

i started drafting my fics in google docs to make sure it isn't all GONE if i get shit on again so this chapter is brought to you by font: unica one, it was 27 pages total (i am insane)

shout out to Chappell Roan cause she really put me in my tunnel vision work zone while i was writing this

if u guys r looking for a writing hack, i trained myself like a sleeper agent to start writing when i play songs on hour loop it puts me in a work rut

- love, operator t-19

[asteriass]

Mizi & Till’s shared rebellion

This scene is very interesting to me

It’s not merely a scene showcasing Till & Mizi’s relationship, it’s not simply a heartfelt scene featuring their closeness & how they did hung out. But rather, the scene also features them hiding from aliens - An act of rebellion

I think it’s very intentional… Because if the point was to simply have a sentimental scene about the two as Till passes away, they could’ve chosen any scene. Any scene where the two are hanging out, any scene where they have a geniune moment. Yet the background of the scene is them evading an Alien. Hiding from its watch, obscuring its view of the two‘s “rebellion”, going against the expected in an otherwise “mundane” moment.

A simple moment, the two are bonding. It develops as expected, there’s sincerity, yes. Yet as the two are huddled up close, in the background we can see they are hiding, the scene is not as simple as a normal sincere moment. They are actively going against the expectations of the aliens.

And to me… for this to be the main theme of the flashback showcased to us feels important.

Especially when you consider the deviations in Round 7 as compared to how other Rounds‘ deaths are executed!

In the case of Round 7, it’s the only flashback moment. Unlike Round 1 & 5, that contain various scenes of the past to create a more emotional impact for the deaths, Round 7 only contains this singular scene with Mizi. And even that only happens AFTER Till is shot. Not before, so any sentimental value hits the viewer differently too.

Thus it all ends up putting the focus on that flashback between Mizi and Till EVEN MORE. And when the core of this major sentimental focus is the two’s act of rebellion TOGETHER… it begs the question of what narrative purpose it serves, no?

Because let’s rewind a bit.

Round 7 goes incredibly… “”normally””. There’s no last minute contradiction or twist, even Till’s death lacks impact. Its almost underwhelming because of how simple the execution is. The Round progresses like a typical in-universe “Alien Stage“ round - for the Aliens it develops almost entirely as expected. I think you can kind of see where I’m going with, but to me, narratively, it’s very reminiscent of that flashback with Mizi. Both are simple at first glance… but is that really the point?

For the Aliens its going as expected. It’s going as it’s supposed to go, no tricks, no secrets. And yet in the flashback they are being tricked. Mizi and Till are tricking them, Mizi and Till are going against their expectations in secret. They are secretly rebelling, hiding the truth together.

Till looks beat up & scuffed, he‘s flustered and anxious, yet Mizi holds him close, beckoning him to not make any ”unexpected moves”, to not alert the Alien that everything is not under its control, that they are going behind its back.

A very similar sight to the very end up of the Round I feel… Mizi holds a wounded, anxious Till close. As the Alien’s cheer in the background - for them the round was an exciting success as expected…

And then she says something to him, during which Till’s hand falls to the side.

A coincidence, MAYBE… but also clear parallels. I think, this scene is supposed to parallel the two’s act of rebellion against the expected, like the flashback (the only flashback, and thus one of the most integral scenes in the entire MV)

Perhaps… there is more to it than it seems. Perhaps there’s more going between the two in the moment than the Aliens are privy. Perhaps they are once again defying their expectations. Perhaps once again, they are secretly acting out, keeping a secret. A secret, like… the Round didn’t go as expected. That the fire that was shot didn’t pick up the target correctly in its aim. That the beating pulse went under their radar. That maybe just maybe, though on his wounded, his heart is still beating.

That perhaps, once again, like in the past, their defiance, their rebellion in their own small way, has gone unnoticed from the Aliens’ watchful eye. A shared secret to save their lives

Aka, Till‘s heart is beating (even if faintly) and they are trying to trick the aliens and go under their radar, lest he be shot multiple times like Ivan was

[terrestrialnoob]

I think Danny would 100% be popular if his parents weren't local supervillains. In the show he's generally well liked by anyone who hasn't recently had to deal with his parents. He would probably be part of The A-Listers, as like, their resident twink. He's the little pretty boy who's funny and smart and all the girls love him cause he's non-threatening, and he has charisma so even the jocks who aren't obligated to like skinny nerds are willing to hang out with him. I can see the clear vision of a parallel universe with Dash -the leader, Kwan -the muscle, and Danny -the talker with mirroring girls Paulina -the leader, Valerie -the muscle, and Star -the talker.

(And then Sam and Tucker have to convince Danny that that's not really who he is (even though it's exactly who he wants to be) and he needs to go die in a ghost portal so he can save the world from Desiree or whoever. Danny doesn't want to do it, he's so happy here, but people are in danger, and Danny is, at his core, a person who can't let other people get hurt if he can stop it. Kinda halfway between Memory Blank and Frightmare)

[polysucks]

Arya "I'm not a boy!!!!" Stark vs Brienne "doesn't correct a stranger who misgenders her" of Tarth. One of these characters is trans and gee whizz I wonder which it could be.

(Additionally jaime is a gay bottom who just wants to be tenderly pegged by Brienne)

Cw for a cis-woman talking about gender lol

I want to touch on the idea that Brienne might be an egg, but I have to disagree. I want to preface by saying don’t inherently oppose anyone who thinks otherwise. Art can be interpreted subjectively, especially in ASOIAF. Everyone can have their views, and I love that.

That being said, I'm approaching this discussion about Brienne and Arya and their gender identities from the perspective of a cis-woman, so trans and gender non-conforming people, feel free to weigh in! I just have one perspective, and how else do we learn about others' experiences if we don't make time and space for others to share theirs?

Also, this might sound a bit TERF-y on a surface level, so let me say upfront: TERFs, get lost. We can discuss femininity and gender without TERF opinions, because TERF opinions don’t matter. Trans women are real women. Trans men are real men.

It’s easy to understand why some might believe that their struggles are rooted in gender identity—but that doesn’t necessarily mean the argument holds water.

I personally feel like it's dismissive of exploring gender identity as a deeply personal experience and reductive to assume that anyone who doesn’t fit neatly into gender norms must actually be trans. gender-non-comforming cis people exist because gender is a social construct.

It makes total and complete sense why someone might perceive Brienne and Arya as struggling with their gender identity, and I am not here to deny that! They do not fit into traditional femininity, they are often mistaken for boys, and they are both deeply frustrated by the roles imposed on them.

But assigning transness or gender dysphoria to them without deeper critical thinking feels like a reach that flattens their very real struggles as cis-women in such a strict society. Their battle is not one of personal identity—it’s one of a rigid community refusing to acknowledge them as women on their own terms.

That being said, there is beauty in seeing oneself in them. If a trans or gender-nonconforming person finds kinship in their struggles, that is valid and meaningful. The power of storytelling is that we see ourselves in narratives, even when the struggles and experiences depicted do not perfectly align with our own.

I feel the same way about the Northmen and the Starks being NDN/Indigenous-coded—it is not explicit canon, but the cultural parallels are undeniable. Westerosi gender roles are stricter in the South, while Northern culture—like many Indigenous cultures—allows for a broader understanding of strength, womanhood, and survival.

Brienne and Arya’s journeys are universal in that way. They do not have to be trans or gender-nonconforming to be relatable to those who are. But at their core, their stories are about expanding the definition of womanhood, not escaping it.

That being said, let's fuckin YAP!!

Brienne and Arya: Women on Their Own Terms

They Are Women Rejected by Society—Not by Themselves

Brienne and Arya defy Westerosi femininity, but their conflict is not with their own gender—it’s with a world that refuses to accept women who do not conform.

They do not reject being women. They reject the restrictions placed on them as women.

Their struggles are external, not internal—it is society that refuses to acknowledge their strength, not themselves.

Brienne's silence on misgendering is not gender dysphoria—it is indifference to the opinions of those who diminish her. She does not waste energy correcting people who already dismiss her. As for Podrick, he is not questioning her gender, only how to respectfully refer to her.

Arya, similarly, never expresses a desire to be a boy—only frustration that being a girl limits her. She says it herself in ACOK

“I don’t want to be a lady,” Arya flared. “I want to learn to fight.”

Wanting to fight does not mean she is not a girl—it means she resents that Westeros restricts girls. When she disguises herself as “Arry,” it is not because she feels like a boy but because it keeps her alive.

Being Mistaken for a Man Does Not Mean They Identify as One

Neither Brienne nor Arya (i mean, she does generally, but not whole-heartedly) corrects misgendering because it serves a purpose in their survival—but it does not define them.

Brienne is called "Ser" because she is a knight. She does not correct it because she knows Westeros will never see her as a proper lady anyway. But she never expresses a desire to be a man—only to be respected.

Arya disguises herself as a boy out of necessity. The moment she no longer needs the disguise, she drops it. She never claims she feels like a boy—only that Westeros treats girls as weak.

At no point do either of them wish to stop being women. Their struggle is not about escaping womanhood—it’s about expanding what womanhood can be.

Brienne, in particular, wants to be both a knight and a woman. Her inner conflict is not about identity, but about a world that refuses to allow her to be both.

They Do Not Seek to Escape Womanhood—They Seek to Redefine It

Brienne and Arya challenge Westerosi femininity without discarding it. They prove that womanhood is not fragile—it can be strong, honorable, and defiant.

Brienne does not wish to be a man—she wishes knighthood wasn’t exclusive to them. She embodies the ideals of knighthood more than most men, proving that a woman can live by the same code.

Arya does not wish to be a boy—she wishes being a girl didn’t mean powerlessness. She does not reject her gender; she rejects society’s expectations of it.

Their fight is not against being women—it is against a world that refuses to acknowledge that women can be more than one thing.

The Stark and Northern Perspective: Strength and Womanhood Can Coexist

Westerosi gender roles are stricter in the South, where women like Sansa are expected to conform to delicate, ornamental femininity. The North, however, values survival, strength, and practicality—traits Arya naturally embodies.

Among Indigenous-coded Northern families like House Mormont, warrior women are not questioned:

Maege Mormont and her daughters fight without forfeiting their womanhood. They are warriors, leaders, and mothers, all at once.

Arya fits into this tradition. She does not need to abandon her gender to be a warrior—she simply needs a culture that recognizes warrior women exist.

In many Indigenous cultures, gender roles exist but are flexible—some women are suited for battle, others for domestic life, and both are necessary. This aligns with Arya's arc: she does not need to be a boy to fight. She only needs a world where warrior women are possible.

Survival Shapes How They Are Perceived—Not How They See Themselves

Both Arya and Brienne are mistaken for boys, but their responses are pragmatic, not existential.

Brienne does not correct people who call her “Ser” because she knows it won’t change how they see her. She is resigned to being seen as "unnatural," so she leans into her strength rather than fighting a losing battle over perception. She wants respect, not pity.

Arya actively disguises herself as a boy because it keeps her alive. She knows that if people recognize her as a highborn girl, she will be kidnapped, sold, or killed. The disguise is a survival tactic, not a reflection of her identity.

Neither of them struggles with who they are—they struggle with how the world treats them.

They Are Women Who Break Barriers, Not Women Who Break Away from Womanhood

Brienne and Arya are not trans, nor are they struggling with gender identity. They are women who refuse to conform to narrow standards.

Brienne does not wish to be a man—she wishes men would accept that women are more than single-minded expectations

Arya does not wish to be a boy—she wishes Westeros would stop treating girls as helpless and with only one lot in life

Their battle is not with their own gender but with a world that refuses to see them as full people based on their identified gender. That is what makes them powerful.

And if trans or GNC individuals see themselves in them? That is a testament to their strength and their pride in their existence as it is.

Representation in fiction can be deeply personal, even when it isn’t literal.

That is the beauty of storytelling—there is room for all of us in it.