#real horror on the periphery‚ just a little far to see everything we both want and dread to see)

[samstree]

hi dear!! what about 37 for the pining prompts?? only if you feel like it 💞💞

37. "Characters cannot touch for plot reasons." Thanks for the prompt Chrysa!! Here's more empath!Jaskier!

Unfinished Story

Empath!Jaskier, 2.4k, soft geraskier, ciri has a nightmare, hurt/comfort, mentions of past violence

Part of the Empath AU 

Read on AO3

Ciri’s scream pulls Geralt out of his doze.

He springs up immediately, knocking Jaskier’s arm out of the way. The bard grumbles something incoherent on the bedroll before fully waking. “G’ralt, what is… Oh, shit.”

The scream continues, Geralt’s medallion thrumming because of the chaos carried by the sound. The ember is dying but the moon provides enough light for him to see Cir in a fetal position, her face buried in the crook of her elbow. Her ashen-colored curls obscure the view.

Geralt half-scrambles to her side, familiar panic seizing his heart. It’s been so long since she had a nightmare this bad, so long that it’s taking him a second to react.

“Ciri.” He shakes her shoulder gently, but she flinches away. The smell of fear rolls off of her in waves. “Ciri, wake up. You are dreaming.”

The sharp wail trails off to a quieter one, but her eyes stay shut, her brows agonizingly knitted tight. Geralt tries to soothe her by stroking her hair, only to have her snatch his hand and holding onto it for dear life. He squeezes, hoping it’s a comforting gesture.

Each of Ciri’s cries sends a pang of regret in Geralt’s chest. If only he could go back in time. If only he had found her earlier, before the horrors of Nilfgaard—

“Hey, let me help.”

A hand falls to Geralt’s shoulder, and Jaskier meets his gaze in the dim light, the bleariness in his eyes completely gone.

Please, he wants to say. The word gets interrupted by the girl’s writhing.

Jaskier takes over Ciri’s hand, despite her reluctance to let go of Geralt. She clings to him during bad dreams, even when she can’t properly wake up, but the witcher knows it’s important not to touch either of them right now. The wolf medallion vibrates more as the empath works, calming her through the touch.

“It’s okay…” Geralt murmurs helplessly to the girl still asleep. “It’s okay, cub. We are here.”

The empty space around Geralt is excruciating. Under the clear night sky, his witcher senses allow him to see the two of them basked in the silver moonlight—Jaskier kneeling at Ciri’s side, one hand clasped around her wrist and the other carding through her curls. The girl’s pained expression eases slowly.

“Oh… Don’t be afraid, sweet girl,” Jaskier shushes her, the flow of chaos buzzing in the air. “Let me take your fear away, all right? Don’t fight me. Let me in, so you won’t be scared anymore…”

The bard continues to murmur sweet nothings to the girl, easing her resistance to his empathetic powers. At this point, Jaskier’s magic is like a second layer of skin to Geralt, gentle and warm and weaving around their hearts. Even when it’s not directly used on him, he feels somehow pulled to their connection.

To Jaskier and Ciri.

His empath bard and his child surprise.

Two halves of his world.

Jaskier’s eyes are closed to concentration, taming the waves of Ciri’s distress. The action exerts him, Geralt can tell from his elevated heartbeat and the slight slump in his shoulders. The witcher catches himself before he reaches out subconsciously. The gnawing urge to help almost makes him scowl in frustration.

Inaction has never been Geralt’s strong suit.

Finally, finally, Ciri’s eyes flutter open. She’s holding back the tears, as always, even when she’s confused from these dreams, even when she’s reliving her past and desperately searching for her family in the present.

“Geralt?”

Her voice is so small and he has to lean in to hear.

A relieved sigh escapes Jaskier’s lips as he lets go of the girl’s hand. With the magic dissipating, so does the stench of fear. The air settles. As soon as the medallion stills, Geralt surges forward to put a hand on her arm, so she knows he’s here.

On Geralt’s periphery, he senses bard stand and walk to the other side of the campfire—the empath usually needs a moment to collect himself after absorbing someone’s emotions—but right now Geralt’s focus is on his child.

“It’s okay. You are safe, Ciri,” Geralt whispers.

“I dreamed—”

“You are not there anymore.”

“It was burning…I—there was fire… and the man.” She sniffles, stubbornly refusing to cry. His child is tough, probably too tough for her own good.

“It wasn’t real.”

“Because you found me?” There’s a sliver of doubt in her voice that Geralt wishes more than anything to remove.

“Because I found you, Ciri,” he reassures. She’ll need reminding tonight. “You are my destiny and more. I’m here so you’ll never have to be lost again.”

A tiny smile tugs at the corner of her mouth. Geralt tucks away a strand of hair on her face and watches her eyelids droop heavily.

“I’m not. Not now that I’m awake.”

He returns the smile, although she can’t see it that well in the shadows. “That’s because of Jaskier.”

“Oh.” She searches for the bard. When Geralt looks back at the empath’s silhouette, he’s leaning against a tree, a few paces away from camp. “Thank you, Jaskier. Again,” she says.

“Of course, princess,” Jaskier says softly, “I know how scary nightmares can be, no matter how long it’s been. Those things may have happened a long time ago, but sometimes…they come back and haunt when you least expect it.” He pauses, looking to the distance for a moment. “I’d chase them away for you any time.”

She murmurs another thanks before her eyes close with exhaustion.

“Go back to sleep,” Geralt tucks Ciri’s blanket in, before taking her hand again, his thumb tracing a little circle on her skin. “Sleep, cub. We’ll be here. Both of us.”

It doesn’t take long for her to fall into a deep slumber, peacefully this time. Geralt sits next to her for a while longer just to be sure. When he finally leaves Ciri’s side to see to his bard, Jaskier is still standing with his back against the tree. He seems to be miles away, his expression hidden in the shadows, distant and inscrutable.

“Jask?” They are far enough from the girl but Geralt keeps his voice low.

With a surprised gasp, the bard notices him approaching and almost flinches. “Don’t—”

“Don’t touch you, I know.”

Jaskier rests his head on the tree bark. “Just for now.”

Geralt’s fists clench and unclench at his sides. Using those powers takes a lot out of Jaskier, and it leaves him unbalanced. The empath is so wary of hurting him by accident when he’s like this, with raw energy still rippling under his skin.

But in truth, Geralt doesn’t care. He wishes Jaskier could let him in, let him share the burden. Right now, with the space between them, he’ll have to rely on words instead of action.

It really isn’t his strong suit.

“Another nightmare… ” he decides to distract the bard while he recovers. “It’s been too long since Ciri had an episode. I thought it was all over.”

“Time doesn’t heal all wounds, Geralt,” Jaskier breathes. “We should all know better.”

Geralt frowns at the haunted look on his bard’s face. The tips of his fingers reach forward again, but he quickly hides the movement by crossing his arms before his chest.

“You sound like you are speaking from experience, Jask.”

“Do I?”

“Hmm.” Geralt’s stomach turns at the way Jaskier speaks about the girl’s trauma. “You know if you want to talk about it, I’m here.”

Jaskier squirms, chewing on his lower lip. Now he’s truly nervous, tense even. The witcher sees the way his posture stiffens and quickly adds, “Or not. Uh—it’s okay if you don’t—"

“No,” Jaskier interrupts him, shaking his head, “No, I want to tell you. I should tell you everything, at this point.”

Silence hangs between them as the bard adjusts his breathing. In and out, like he would before a performance.

“Years ago, when you first identified my powers” Jaskier chooses his words cautiously, the moon shining in his eyes. “I asked if you would use silver on me.”

Geralt’s heart sinks. “I would never, Jaskier. I—How could you ever think that?”

“Oh, relax, my love. I know.” the bard chuckles tightly. “Even back then, I knew you to be a decent man under all the gruffness. You wouldn’t even harm those confused monsters who drifted to human territory on accident, remember? You claimed that your life was just coin and contracts, but to me, it was clear that you were so much more.”

“You are not a monster,” Geralt argues.

“No, but someone else might think differently.”

The leaves rustle in the breeze, the air cooling as the night stretches on. Without the blanket, Jaskier shivers with only a thin chemise on his back. Geralt’s body gravitates toward him of its own volition. Fuck it, if he can just hold Jaskier right now…

“I was thirteen.” The bard is lost in memory. “This man, a magic user, came to our door. It was just me and my mother. He somehow knew about our identities and asked for her help. You see, she had been keeping it a secret for so long, so she couldn’t trust this man, this mage, who somehow just knew that we were empaths.”

He lets out a shuddering breath before continuing.

“His request was… weird. Something about a king or a royal court. I remember thinking that whatever he said sounded so sinister, it couldn’t have been any good. Mum sent him away on the spot, but afterwards she got so scared, like he’d come back again or something. That night, she barred the door and told me to hide in a storage chest. I refused, so she made me. She kept me obedient the entire time.”

Geralt frowns. “Her powers were the same as yours?”

“Stronger.” Jaskier starts pacing, a few twigs snapping under his feet. “She didn’t need contact to manipulate someone’s emotions like me, and she could influence many at the same time. I’m not as powerful—my father was human.”

“What happened next?” Somehow, Geralt knows the story will not end well. A mage usually means trouble. Or in this case, the shadow hidden behind Jaskier’s bright smiles and chirpy songs.

“She kept me calm the whole night, even when she wasn’t with me, but I could feel her fear. It’s was like an undercurrent beneath my skin. I could feel her emotions change. Then I heard the sound of fighting, but I couldn’t get out. I couldn’t go and help her…”

The salty tang of tears assaults Geralt’s nose, but they don’t fall. Jaskier looks up to the sky to hold back the grief that makes his hands tremble.

“Everything got fuzzy after that, but I still remember the pain and the despair. It was like a part of me was hurting with her. Part of me still does, during some nights.” Jaskier closes his eyes in agony. “When I got out the next morning, no one was there. Our home was wrecked, ruined. There was… There was so much blood, Geralt. I—I couldn’t…”

“Oh, Jaskier.” Geralt watches as Jaskier’s shoulders shake, whimpers choking in his throat. Under the night sky, the bard retreats into himself, making his frame look so much smaller. He sways a little and Geralt extends his hands again, hovering by his elbow. “Can I please touch you now?” he pleads.

With a sniffle, the bard composes himself. He flexes his hands to see if his magic is in check. “I think so, yes—oh.”

Geralt pulls Jaskier in for the tightest hug, his arms wrapping around the bard’s frame protectively. Through the thin fabric of the shirt, he can feel another shiver running down Jaskier’s spine, so he rubs small circles into his back to get some heat back in.

He breathes in Jaskier’s scent, not knowing if the lingering stench of fear is from Ciri or the bard.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Jask…” Geralt keeps murmuring into the soft hair by Jaskier’s temple. Gradually, the bard sags against his shoulder, letting himself be soothed and supported. Geralt then places his lips to the skin under Jaskier’s ear, and then his cheek, his chin, all the while holding him impossibly close. He’s ready to help the empath restore his energy with all the brimming love in his chest. “Do you want me to…”

“No,” the bard shakes his head. “I’m good. For now.”

They stand there for so long, swaying gently while the world sleeps, before the bard speaks up again.

“I looked for her, and him, at so many courts.” Jaskier’s slightly colder fingers rest on the nape of Geralt’s neck, buried into the hair there. “No mage fit his description. No trace of her either. I think that deep down, I already knew that she was gone, even back then. Otherwise, I would have felt her in there somehow. No matter how far away she was, but all I had was just this emptiness. I was alone since then.”

“You are not. Not anymore.”

“No,” Jaskier pulls away, the tears have dried. Geralt brings the pad of his thumb to trace those streaks anyway. Under his touch, Jaskier smiles. “You see, back in Posada, I met this witcher, a dashing and heroic one. He fell for me so hard that he couldn’t bear the thought of leaving without me, so he begged me to become his travel companion.”

“And you agreed?” Geralt chuckles.

“Not at first, but he wore me down eventually.”

The bard is the most ridiculous man Geralt knows, and yet here they are. Shaking his head in amusement, the witcher steers his bard back to their bedrolls. As they settle back into their usual position, Geralt can’t help but pull him closer, making sure they are touching from head to toe.

The cover sets heavily over Jaskier's body, slowly warming up his skin. His heart beats against Geralt’s ribcage steadily, showing with solid proof that the empath has survived those horrors.

“I found you too, Jask,” he says, pressing a chaste kiss between Jaskier’s brows.

“Good.” The bard's reply is muffled by Geralt's skin. Not far from them, Ciri is still breathing evenly, sound asleep. Geralt has everyone he needs to protect right here with him, tucked away from their separate demons.

And yet, his mind drifts to Jaskier's story. It’s a tragedy with no end and no closure. There was never a body to bury, no vengeance to seek either.

Somehow, he doubts that an unfinished story will stay unfinished.

---

Tagging: @rockysstupidity​ @flowercrown-bard​ @alllthequeenshorses​ @mothmanismyuncle​ @theultimatenerdd​ @percy-jackson-is-sexy-​

Please feel free to tell me if you want to be removed or added to the list <3

[jeserai]

you swallowed yourself up (and took me with you)

tw - character death

Catra wakes up. She's lying on the ground, and Adora is next to her, eyes closed. Her heart pounds quick quick quick in her chest, and she reaches out blindly for Adora, to make sure she's real.

Catra wakes up.

She's lying on the ground, and Adora is next to her, eyes closed. Her heart pounds quick quick quick in her chest, and though she can't remember what, Catra has the feeling that she just woke up from an awful dream.

"Hey, Adora?" her voice shakes, just the barest tremor.

"Yeah?" Adora props herself on one elbow, and she's frowning, sensing the concern in Catra's voice. "Hey, are you okay?"

Catra nods, but she closes her eyes against the bright light of the sun and curls into the familiarity of Adora's body. "I just...I had a bad dream, I think. I don't remember, I just—I don't know."

"It's okay, I'm here. You're fine, Catra." Adora's hand slides through Catra's hair and then comes to rest on her cheek. Her palm is clammy, but Catra can't bring herself to mind. She never can, with Adora.

"Can we just—go? Please?" Her voice comes out smaller than expected, and maybe it's that, maybe it's that Catra said please, but Adora just nods and stands, reaching out to pull Catra up with her.

"Do you want to come over? We can watch a movie or something."

Catra shakes off the feeling of unease and nods, squeezing Adora's hand in hers, partially in silent thanks, mostly to make sure she's still here, still real. "Can we watch a horror movie?" she asks, fully knowing how much Adora hates horror.

Adora just sighs as if the very idea of a horror movie pains her, but to Catra's surprise, all she says is, "Yeah, we can. Just nothing too bloody, okay?"

"Saw," Catra says immediately. She can't see Adora's face with the way she's pulling her, but she can practically feel how hard Adora rolls her eyes.

"Fine. You're lucky I love you."

"Aw, how sweet."

They've reached the street now, and despite the sun blazing down on them, Catra shivers. She's looking down at the ground, trusting Adora to guide her safely, just like always.

"Hey, Adora?" Catra asks. Doesn't quite know what to say after that, just that she needs to hear Adora's voice again.

"Yeah?" Adora squeezes her hand when Catra doesn't immediately answer, and when Catra glances up, she sees that Adora is smiling, mostly fond and just a little bit confused. "You okay, Catra?"

And Catra is about to answer, about to say dumbass, why wouldn't I be? when she hears tires squealing and then a flash of white darts into her periphery and—

The light is red, she realizes belatedly, the light is red and they're in the middle of the street and there is no time to run and they're going to die (but at least they'll die together) and then Adora shoves her hard, shoves her out of the way—

Catra hits the ground hard, she's sure she's skinned her palms and bruised her knees, but that doesn't matter, because there is red sprayed on the front of the car, and all she can smell is blood, and even her face is wet now, and where is Adora?

(Adora is there, on the ground, mangled and bloodied and broken and gone, and it is all her fault.)

(("You okay, Catra?" she hears in her mind, and she can't help thinking dumbass, why would I be—))

Catra is vaguely aware that the driver of the car is getting out, and he's saying something that she can't understand, can't hear through the pounding of her pulse in her ears and the ugly, ugly sound of Adora's body hitting the car playing over and over in her head and—

Catra wakes up.

She's lying on the ground, and Adora is next to her, eyes closed. Her heart pounds quick quick quick in her chest, and she reaches out blindly for Adora, to make sure she's real.

"Hey, Adora?" her voice shakes, just the barest tremor.

"Yeah?" Adora props herself on one elbow, and she's frowning, sensing the concern in Catra's voice. "Hey, are you okay?"

Catra nods, but she closes her eyes against the bright light of the sun and curls into the familiarity of Adora's body. Against the memory of Adora's body and all the blood and the car—

"I just...I had a bad dream. But — I'm fine, you're here. You're here."

"Of course I'm here, silly," Adora sounds fond, if a little bit confused, and why wouldn't she be? But something in Catra's expression makes her smile soften. "I'm not going to leave you any time soon, okay?" Adora's hand slides through Catra's hair and then comes to rest on her cheek. Her palm is clammy, but Catra can't bring herself to mind. She never can, with Adora.

"I know, but...can we please go? I feel..." Her voice comes out smaller than expected, and maybe it's that, maybe it's that Catra said please, but Adora just nods and stands, reaching out to pull Catra up with her.

"Do you want to come over? We can watch a movie or something."

Catra shakes off the feeling of unease, of apprehension, and nods, squeezing Adora's hand in hers, partially in silent thanks, mostly to make sure she's still here, still real. Still alive. "Nothing bloody, please." she mutters. Even if it's fake, even if it had just been a dream, she - can't. Won't.

Adora huffs out a laugh and squeezes Catra's hand back. "No blood. Absolutely not."

"And—" they're at the edge of the street now, and there is no car in sight, but. Still. "Can we go a different way? We haven't been by the bridge in a while."

"I guess, yeah. Are you sure you're okay?" There is still confusion in Adora's voice, but she follows Catra down the street (a white car speeds passed them and Catra's blood freezes) and then nudges her when she doesn't respond.

"What? Yeah. The dream just messed me up a bit—I'll tell you later, okay? When we get home."

"You are so lucky I love you," Adora mutters in reply, "the bridge is so far out of our way. And it's hot."

"I'll buy you an ice cream if we see the truck," Catra says automatically, even if Adora is right. The bridge crosses a creek that runs through town; they used to cross it every day after middle and high school on the way to Adora's house. It would've been much faster to just cross the street at the park, but—

Catra shivers, closes her eyes, tries to breathe in.

"Tell me about that dumb show you're watching."

"It is not dumb!" Adora's voice shrills the way it does when she's pissed, and Catra can't help laughing. She's so predictable, both in the way she reaches out to shove Catra awaay and in the way she immediately starts rambling about her show.

(Catra guesses that's what she loves about Adora. They know everything about each other.)

When they reach the bridge, Adora nudges Catra again, grinning. "Remember that time we fed the ducks from here?"

"Which time, dumbass? You'd always feed your leftover lunches."

"Because! What if there was no—whatever ducks eat? I couldn't let them starve!"

"You're so stupid," Catra says. She turns around to see Adora full on laughing at her, and she kind of wants to take a picture even if it's just...Adora laughing. Because she's here, and she's happy.

Catra reaches to grab her phone, then glances up to tell Adora to stay still so she can take a picture—

And watches as the stair Adora is on crumbles and takes her along with it. Maybe if Catra hadn't reached for her phone, maybe if she kept Adora's hand in hers, maybe if—

But that's not what happens, and Catra can only watch as Adora hits the ground hard.

(Adora is there, on the ground, mangled and bloodied and broken and gone, and it is all her fault.)

Catra wishes and wishes and wishes that she had another chance, that it had been her instead of Adora, that she had just held Adora's hand—

Catra wakes up.

She's lying on the ground, and Adora is next to her, eyes closed. Her heart pounds quick quick quick in her chest, but she doesn't give herself time to calm down, just grabs Adora and pulls her up.

"Catra—what are you doing?"

And Catra wants to answer, wants to tell Adora about the dream within the dream that's starting to feel real, wants to tell Adora that she died and died again (all her fault) and that she's scared—

"We need to go now," is what she settles for, and Adora doesn't understand, but she trusts Catra, always has, always will.

(Even as she is pierced impossibly, perfectly by one and then two and then three falling steel pipes. Catra looks up at the unfinished building above them and sees the snapped strap on the forklift waving at her as Adora chokes on her last breaths.)

Catra wakes up.

Catra wakes up.

Catra wakes up.

She loses count of how many times she wakes up to the same moment in time, to trying and failing and failing to save Adora, to watching Adora die.

(And—

After countless cycles, Catra figures out how to end it all.)

Catra wakes up.

She's lying on the ground, and Adora is next to her, eyes closed. Her heart pounds quick quick quick in her chest, but all she feels is an almost unnatural sense of calm.

“Hey, Adora?”

“Yeah?” Adora props herself up on one elbow, and she’s frowning a little. “Are you okay?”

Instead of answering, Catra just — looks. At Adora haloed by the sunlight, the blue of her eyes and the strands of hair that have escaped her ponytail. Without thinking, Catra reaches out to tug at Adora’s hair tie, ignoring the look she gets in return.

“Are you okay?” she asks again, and though her lips are twitching up into a fond smile, she sounds both genuinely concerned and somehow resigned.

“Why wouldn’t you be? You just look stupid with your hair like that.”

Adora rolls her eyes and grabs her hair tie back. “Well, you always look stupid.”

“Aw, thanks. Now come on, we gotta go.” Catra doesn’t know what she’s expecting — maybe for Adora to ask why, maybe for her to say no. Not for Adora to nod and stand before reaching down to pull Catra up too.

“What do you want to do, then? Come over?”

Catra shrugs and looks down at the ground, at Adora’s sandals and her own scuffed sneakers. At the distance between them, minute but still so vast all at once.

“Hey, Adora?” she asks, voice tiny. She keeps her eyes on Adora as she looks both ways and then leads them into the street, lets her gaze wander first to where their hands are firmly joined and then looks down the street. Nothing yet.

“Yeah?”

And there is so much to say that Catra is left blank. Good bye, or I’m sorry, or I wish I could’ve told you how much I loved you before all of this—

But before she can say anything, she hears tires squealing and then a flash of white darts into her periphery and—

This time, Adora is looking at her when it happens. It almost feels like time has slowed to a crawl, and Catra can see Adora’s eyes widen as she realizes what’s about to happen, can feel the way she squeezes Catra’s hand (because if they’re going to die, they’ll at least die together), can see the way Adora’s expression changes to disbelief and shock and betrayal as Catra shoves her hard, shoves her out of the way—

Adora hits the ground hard, and Catra is sure that she’s skinned her palms and bruised her knees, but that doesn’t matter, because—

Catra wakes up.

[loretranscripts]

Lore Episode 53: Trees and Shadows (Transcript) - 6th February 2017

Credit for transcribing this episode goes to @laqueus-ludovicus! A big thanks to her for helping me with this project, it’s massively appreciated.  

tw: animal mutilation

Disclaimer: This transcript is entirely non-profit and fan-made. All credit for this content goes to Aaron Mahnke, creator of Lore podcast. It is by a fan, for fans, and meant to make the content of the podcast more accessible to all. Also, there may be mistakes, despite rigorous re-reading on my part. Feel free to point them out, but please be nice!

Some of the things we see aren't what they appear to be. Heather Bowie and her cousins learned that lesson back in 1989. She was eleven at the time and according to her mother, Karen, it was a bright winter day, the sort of day where the sun reflects off every inch of snow, which always has a way of making dark objects like houses and trees stand out. Heather and her cousins were walking along a small country road that ran between their town and the next when they saw a dog sitting in a stream near the roadside. Well, stream might be too strong of a term, it was just a bunch of run off, the sort that passes beneath roads through those big metal tunnels. It was a drainage ditch basically, but kids love dogs, so Heather and the others veered off the road side and into the snow to walk toward it. They assumed it was a local pet that had wandered a bit too far from home, so they planned to check its collar and see what they could do. But even from a distance it looked a bit odd. To be specific it looked too big to be a dog. They took one more step toward it and then stopped. They stopped because that's when the dog turned to look at them. And as it did so, it did something they weren't expecting - it stood up on its hind legs like a human. Obviously frightened, the girls ran home as fast as they could. Humans have always had a connection to animals. We live with them in our homes. We depend on them for food and resources. We identify with them, sometimes even treating them more like people than beasts. We speak to them, we name them, and we project human personalities on them. For thousands of years, we've treated them as if they were more than animals. But of course, that's just our imagination. If we believe the stories, though, it might be more true than we expected. As I said before, some things aren't what they appear to be. Sometimes, they’re worse. I'm Aaron Mahnke, and this is Lore.

Our connection to animals is nearly as old as humanity itself. We've almost always treated them as important parts of the world around us, although different cultures have expressed that importance in a variety of ways. The common thread, though, is that animals have always helped us better understand our world. Some cultures have revered them as gods to worship. Others have seen them as valuable sacrifices to offer to whatever deity they wanted to please. In many cultures, animals have served as our companions through daily life, and in others they journeyed with the dead to the afterlife. Just think of what we know of ancient Egyptian culture. There were entire cults built around specific animals, like bulls and cats, their dead were frequently buried alongside animals that held personal or spiritual significance, and many of the Egyptian gods and goddesses were represented through simple animal symbolism. Anubis, for example, was part man, part jakel. Sekhmet was a woman with the head of a lion. Ancient Hindu teachings for thousands of years have demanded deep respect for the animals around us. In China, the ancient philosophies of Confucianism and Daoism both stress the same thing. With the Hindus, that respect is founded on the idea of reincarnation, in China, it's rooted more in moral responsibility, but the result is the same. Animals are and always have been important to us, and yes, I know that ancient cultures focused a lot of their religion and practice around the sun and moon and stars, but they often framed those complex systems with simple animal language. Thats why so many cultures have their own zodiac symbol, where the major constellations are represented by animals. The Greek root of zodiac, by the way, literally means “circle of little animals”. Just an aside – the ancient Egyption word for cat was meu, which sounds a lot like the noise that cats actually make. And that classic stereotypical dog name, Fido? It comes from the Latin word fidelis which means loyal and faithful.

It's easy to see then how animals have helped us understand our world a little better. They help us find our bearings and keep us company in a big, wild world. More significantly, though, they've helped us understand ourselves by giving humans a sense of identity and purpose, a theme or a banner to unite around in a sense. Sometimes those themes are took the form of religion, as was the case in Egypt with the bull cult. Sometimes it's more of a totem thing, where an entire tribe or community built their identity around a significant animal in their environment. Sometimes they did it for a feeling of safety, sometimes it was a symbol of power. In Icelandic folklore the Norse warrior class known as “berserkers” were members of the bear cult. Berserkr in Old Norse literally meant “bear shirt”, but it also embodied tha fierce, powerful nature that they wanted for themselves as warriors. They were often depicted wearing bear skins and sometimes even bear heads as head coverings. That's a tradition that still survives, by the way. You can see it in the ceremonial military caps worn by some personnel in multiple European countries. The most common tribal animal, though, has always been the wolf. It's a global fascination, with examples found in Mexico, North America, India, Mongolia, and the Middle East, and this is probably because wolves represented so much of what early humanity identified with. They moved in packs, they hunted their food, and they have a distinct social order. Any hunter-gatherer community would instantly admire those qualities. And like bears, wolves were also seen as brave and powerful warriors. Ancient Persian and Hittite warriors were known to dress in wolf skins for battle. Interestingly, though, they also had a reputation for tossing their weapons aside and just jumping on their enemies, literally biting them like wolves. For a very long time, you see, humans have wanted to be animals, which of course led to stories where that was the case - animals that became people, people that became animals. It's an idea so powerful that we can find it hiding inside the folklore of dozens of cultures. The Native American skinwalker, the Nagual of Central America, and of course, throughout much of Europe, there's the werewolf. These are stories, of course, artifacts from another time, when animals were gods and humans desperately wanted to imitate the divine. And yes, these stories also address our dual nature, because we are in so many ways nothing more than animals ourselves, but those moral lessons have a way of distracting us from the plot. For thousands of years, people have told stories about mysterious beasts – and it turns out those stories might be more real than we care to believe.

In 1989, a woman was driving along the same country road that Heather Bowie and her cousins had just walked along weeks before when they sighted that strange creature. In Lorraine Endrizzi’s case it was well after sunset, so she was doing the responsible thing and scanning the edges of her headlights for wild animals. Wisconsin has plenty of deer, after all, and deer don't mix well with windshields and front ends. Lorraine worked as a manager at one of the local bars in Elkhorn and had just wrapped up a very long, very tiring shift. All she really wanted to do was get home safely, but when she did notice something unusual, it wasn't in the periphery of her headlights. It was right in the road in front of her. Seeing it early gave her the chance to slow down and swerve to avoid hitting it, but it also helped her get a good look at it. From a distance it looked as if there was an animal hunched low to the pavement of the oncoming lane. It's head was gently bobbing at an irregular rhythm. She couldn't tell for sure, but it almost seemed to be eating. As she slowly passed it, she claims she saw everything. It was eating, alright. Whatever it was, the creature was hunched over a pile of roadkill, pulling big chunks of flesh off the dead animal. Lorraine said she could clearly make out what appeared to be long, white fangs that protruded from a gray snout. Together with the pointed ears, she couldn't help but think of as a wolf. The trouble was this wolf was kneeling on the road, like a human. It's one story, I know, and stories that are born in the middle of the night after an exhausting day of work are often full of flaws. That might very well be the case here. I think we've all had moments where we've seen things that don't make sense, so Lorraine’s story could just be a bit of midnight confusion, I suppose – if it wasn't for the other stories.

Two years later – on Halloween night, in fact – it was Doris Gibson’s turn. She was just 18 at the time and had been driving out to pick a friend up for some trick or treating back in town. Like Lorraine before her, she was driving that same stretch of country road, named for the old Bray family farm that it passed. According to the story Doris later told to a local reporter, she’d briefly taken her eyes off the road to switch channels on the radio when she felt the car lurch. It was as if, she said, she'd run something over. Frightened by the possibility of what had just happened, she stopped her car, put it in park and then got out for a look. Doris, it seems, wasn't a big horror movie fan, because anyone who knows anything about horror films knows that you never, ever get out of the car. Ever. Still, there wasn't a scratch on her car. The bumper was spotless, there was no sign of blood or fur or anything else that might hint at fresh road kill. And even more convincing, there was nothing on the road, no dead animal, no unlucky farmer out for an evening walk, not even a pothole. There was no clue anywhere that could explain the bump shed felt. She was about to turn and head back to her car when movement caught her attention. There was something in the trees and shadows along the roadside. According to her, it was a large figure that stood upright like a man but seemed hairy and very muscular, which (as you might imagine) was a pretty shocking thing to see on a dark, lonely country road. So Doris did the smart thing and bolted for her car door. As she did, this thing, whatever it was, chased after her. Doris said she could hear the heavy thud of the creatures feet on the pavement behind her and the sound of the deep, panting breaths. Thankfully, she managed to get into the car and shifted quickly back into drive, but as she pulled away, she felt her car shudder once more. When she looked in the rear view mirror, all she could see was the dark silhouette of the creature filling her back window. It had jumped onto the trunk.

Whatever her attacker was, she claims that it fell off when she got her car moving quickly enough, but she wasn't willing to stop for another look. She did, however, continue on to her friend’s house and eventually they both headed back to town for some Halloween fun. Later that night, on her way back along Bray Road to drop her friend back off at home, Doris swears she saw the figure one more time. It was far off in the distance, at the edge of her headlights, but it was the same unmistakable shape. Tall, thick and very animal like, but standing upright on two legs. It wasn't until the next day in the safety of her own driveway and by the light of the noon day sun that she took another look at her car. There, on the trunk, she found evidence that something very unusual and very dangerous had taken place the night before: long, vicious scratches all grouped together as if they were made by claws.

This is the point in the story where you're probably expecting me to clarify what the creature was. All of the physical descriptions certainly point toward the folklore regarding werewolves, but almost no one in Elkhorn made that connection. Maybe that's because there were never any stories of humans transforming into the monster, or perhaps it's because the sightings weren’t limited to full moon nights. In the end, whatever it might have been, the people of the area took to calling it the Beast of Bray Road. There were other theories, of course. One common suggestion was rooted in the Native American folklore about a giant wolf known as the Shunka Warakin, which was described as sort of a hybrid between a wolf and a coyote. Others have made comparisons to the Inuit stories of the Amarok or the Waheela, both of which were enormous, monstous wolves. But honestly, there are far too many human charactristics attributed to Bray Road creature to make the comparison stick. Then, that’s without taking into account the additional sighings. Because Lorraine and Doris weren’t the only witnesses to see something strange along that stretch of country road and once they spoke to a local reporter, others found the courage to come forward with their own tales.

Marvin Kershnick was one of them. According to his testimony, he had his own encounter way back in 1981, a full decade before Doris Gibbson. Unlike the others, though, his sighting didn't happen in the dark. He'd been driving along Highway 11, which runs just north east of Elkhorn, and as he approached the turn off for Bray Road, he saw an unusual animal in the trees along the side of the road. Kershnick slowed down when he saw it and then pulled over to get a better look. The way he described it, much of the creature was obscured by the underbrush, but it was clearly wolf-like. They stared at each other for a moment before the beast moved toward the car. Frightened, Kershnick drove away quickly. Five years later, in 1986, Diane Koenig was traveling in the same area, returning home after a day in nearby Berlington. From a distance, her headlights didn't give her a very clear view so at first it just looked like a tall man was walking along the side of the road with something heavy in his arms. As she drew closer, though, all of that came into focus. According to Koenig, this man had the head of a wolf, and the heavy burden that it held in its arms turned out to be a full sized deer. Unlike Kershnick though, Koenig didn't stop for a closer look and instead sped up, just in case the creature decided to give chase. She kept the story to herself for years out of fear that she’d be considered a lunatic.

More stories flooded in. One unnamed girl told the authorities that she'd been chased up a tree by a wolf then had to stay there for over an hour while it paced around, trying to find a way to climb up after her. What struck her as odd, though, was that the wolf walked around the tree on its hind legs. When she led her parents back to the tree the next day, they found large claw marks on the lower portion of the trunk. Even Scott Bray, who lived on the family farm that gave the road it’s name, claimed to have seen unusual things, including enormous wolf tracks on his property. Local animal control authorities were called to several homes in the area to examine and collect a large number of mutilated animal corpses. A few townsfolk tried to blame that one on Satanic cults, but everyone else agreed it was just the Beast of Bray Road. There was a good amount of fear in town, as you might expect, but the sightings were also creating something else that's lasted to this day. A reputation. The bar where Lorraine Endrizzi worked created a menu item called the Silver Bullet Special. A bakery in town started making wolf shaped cookies. Think Roswell New Mexico and UFO collectables but with wolves, and I think you'll get the idea. Even Chuck Coleman, a local state representative, got involved by using the Beast of Bray Road in his election marketing. He ran an ad that showed a man dressed up as the Beast casting his vote for Coleman. Perhaps proof of the popularity of the Bray Beast stories, Coleman won his election. Doris Gibson's encounter also seemed to have been the last sighting of the creature by travelers on Bray Road. After that, Elkhorn Wisconsin sort of became quiet – for a while, at least. You see, in the spring of 1992, county animal control officer John Frederickson was called to a field outside of town, to the east near Bray Road. This is a man who was used to the occasional road kill or injured farm animal. He’d seen a lot in his career. But when he arrived at the field, he was well out of his depth, because there, laying in the pasture, were the bodies of five horses. Their throats had all been slashed.

It seems that people are drawn to animals and we always have been. And if the internet’s collection of cat videos and dog tricks tells us anything, it's that our passion for these animals isn’t fading any time soon. Perhaps they meet a deep, unspoken need in our soul or maybe they just trigger the right pleasure center in our brains. Whatever the reason might be, animals are significant to us. But every time I see someone dress up their dog in a sweater, I can't help but think of how, for a very long time, humans used to be the ones dressed up as animals. We envy their grace, their strength and their power, and that envy has woven itself into the very fabric of global folklore. But what if there's another reason why we tell stories of animals that act human? What if, deep down, we fear the possibility, or that our ancestors told just enough stories about human-like animals that we wonder, just a little? Whatever it was lurking in the trees and shadows of Elkhorn, Wisconsin back in the early 90s remains a mystery to this day. No answers have been uncovered, no unusual corpses have been found in the woods or along the roadside, no nests or dens, or whatever sort of dwelling a creature like the Beast of Bray Road might have lived in. All we have is story. Sometimes all we ever have is story. All of the witnesses who came forward to tell their stories seemed to agree on the details, and surprisingly all of them appear to be telling the truth. When a documentary on the events was being produced in 2008, all of the witnesses agreed to take a polygraph exam, and each of them passed. It's not irrefutable proof, I know, but it's enough to make you wonder.

Sometime after the events of the early 90s, a local who lived along Bray Road looked out his window to see a man standing in his driveway with a handgun. Obviously frightened by the sight of an armed stranger in his yard, he called the police, who quickly arrived. José Contreras was immediately arrested and his handgun, along with 50 rounds of ammunition, was confiscated. He eventually went to trial and his lawyer attempted to build a case around self defense. Contreras, he told the judge, was looking for the Beast of Bray Road, which he believed was a werewolf. That meant, according to his defence, he wasn't a danger to anyone else. The judge, though, dismissed the notion and convicted Conteras anyway. His reason? Apparently none of the bullets in the gun had been silver. Maybe it's fantasy, maybe it's real, but it's amazing in the very least how parts of fantasy can become so accepted that they play a role in something as significant as a criminal trial.

One final tale. Just six years ago, more witnesses came forward about a new sighting. One night in October of 2010, six people were driving together down Bray Road. Down the road ahead, they watched as shadows seemed to move across their path. As they drew closer, they watched the shape run into the open field to their right. What they say might seem hard to believe, so we’ll have to take them at their word. They claimed it was an animal, covered in fur, and similar in appearance to a wolf - except it was running on two legs and not four. Once it reached the field, the beast dropped to all fours and bolted off into the darkness. One final detail sets this report apart from all the others, though, because unlike every other encounter dating back over 30 years, this one finds a way to make the Beast of Bray Road even more frightening. According to the witnesses, it wasn't a single creature. There were two of them.

[Closing statements]

[cosmicflowchart]

Floating - Colin Ritman/Reader

Summary: Colin comforts you after a nightmare. Warnings: nightmares, drowning, underwater danger, being grabbed, darkness, swearing, mentions of work-related stress Word Count: 1858

When you opened your eyes, your mind clouded with sleep. You felt weightless, floating in space, and you couldn’t feel anything around you--no bed, no chair, no walls…

Water.

You blinked hard, and the discovery of where you were made your eyes sting. There was no pain, just surprise. The water rushed in and you blinked to clear your vision, but what you found when you did made matters worse. Dimly lit, dark teal water encased you on all sides. A cloud of black nothingness swirled far below you. You looked up to see how close you were to the surface, but you saw nothing: no shafts of light, no boats, nothing. You flailed around, at a loss for anything else. You tried to force your unmoving jaw open with your shaking hands, but you couldn’t even feel your hands on your face. In your periphery you knew you’ve failed.

You tried to breathe in. You seemed to lose air when you did, so you held your breath. Your hands few out, trying desperately to find something, anything, that could save you. You gasped and you could breathe air again, but you hyperventilated as you wondered how long it’d be before you passed out. Your arms pulled you upward hopelessly, dragging water downward, your legs kicking with all the strength you had left in you.

Something slimy grabbed your shoulder. You glanced over in horror to discover a dark, partially transparent, arm-like...thing gripping you. With just a slight twitch of your eyes, you noticed it came from the dark below. You couldn’t scream but your mouth fell open and you gurgled as loudly as you could. Your opposite hand grabbed at it, but you couldn’t touch it. It’s almost like a mist grabbed you.

Moments later, the arm pulled you towards the swirling darkness, the meager light from above disappearing to nothing as you watched it fade. You gave one last soundless scream in hopes that someone would hear you.

“(y/n)!”

Your eyes shot open and your entire body went rigid. You took in a gasp that feels much bigger than it sounded as the bright colors and lights around you faded to clarity.

“Earth to (y/n),” joked a familiar voice, but even a half-asleep you could tell it was tinged with worry. You matched the voice to the face you saw instantly. No glasses, but you’d know that hair anywhere. And you knew that face, and God were you glad to see it. Your muscles relaxed again.

“Colin?” you were out of breath as you spoke, propping yourself up on your elbows, your head up off the pillow.

“It’s me,” he had his hand on your upper arm, and he was sitting on the other side of the bed, leaning partly over you. “You’re awake now. Least, I think you are. Let’s pretend we are. It’s a bit early for levels of reality.”

Your eyes darted around the room. Nothing was teal or dark--the sun streamed through a window on the other end of the room, just hitting the bottom of your bed.

“What the fuck,” you whispered, not to him, just in general. “I’m not…”

“I can pinch you if you don’t believe me.”

“No, no, I believe you. I just...fucking hell, I had a terrible nightmare. It felt way too real.”

“Yeah, figured as much,” he said quietly. He climbed off your tiny bed and sat beside it, balancing his chin on his folded arms as he told you what he saw. “Found you with your whole face just, buried in your pillow, and I thought, ‘that’s not gonna help.’ So I flipped you over, but then you started stirring and whimpering, like something was scaring you, so I shook you a little. Then you woke up.”

He watched you, still worried, as you sat up and stretched. “I think my brain worked you into my dream? I, I was floating in this dark water, and I couldn’t find any way out, no matter where I turned. This hand thing pulled me into this dark cloud below, I wouldn’t be surprised if that happened when you tried to shake me. It does make sense that you’d pull me down, though, if that was supposed to be you. We like to get into the darker parts of the human psyche for fun.”

“Sorry about all that, love. Stepped out for a fag, came back to you having an awful time. I know messing with you while you’re asleep or drunk or whatever isn’t appropriate, but I wouldn’t have woken you if I didn’t think you needed it. I thought you needed a hand. Sorry.”

You’d never heard him apologize for something so minor, much less multiple times in the same thought. His face tried to affect nothing resembling emotion. But his eyes betrayed his attempt. “What are you sorry for?”

“For not being here.”

You couldn’t help but chuckle, “I’ve had nightmares without you here before, Col. Don’t get me wrong, I do appreciate it. I’m really glad you care. It’s nice to have someone who does. But I’m a grown-up. I don’t need you to watch me all the time.” You gave him a cheeky grin as you added, “Someone in the government’s got their eye on me all the time anyway.”

“Too early,” he shook his head but you both laughed. You watched him for a moment as he thought of what to say. “I’m sorry if I seem clingy, and I know...this,” he pointed quickly between the two of you, “is still new, but I worry about you.”

“Same to you,” you blinked slowly, still sleepy. You wrapped a hand around one of his arms. “Did I wake you up?”

“I woke when the sun came up. Bastard won’t let us sleep in,” he droned, casting a rueful glance at the window.

“When was that?”

“A few hours ago. You didn’t wake up then, I don’t think, but I woke next to you. We were properly tangled up together,” he smiled. “I felt bad leaving you here even for a second. Should’ve listened to my instincts.”

“Well, you did. You came back in and woke me. I’d say that counts. Besides, it’s not your fault my brain keeps conjuring up nightmares.”

He fell silent, his eyes moving down to the sheets. You squeezed his arm and he met your gaze, his eyebrows arching as if to ask what was up.

“Come up here,” you requested softly, scooping a hand underneath one of his elbows, and he complied climbing back onto the bed and sitting behind you. He spread his legs out so he could sit with you in his arms. He wrapped his around your waist and you leaned back so he could rest his chin on your shoulder.

You could feel beneath you that he was just wearing boxer-briefs, and he had just his button-up shirt on from the day before, sitting open, and you were pressed against his chest. The one time he forgot to bring a change of clothes was the time he passed out while comforting you, in your bed, in your apartment. You elected not to mock him for this. He was being kind to you, you weren’t going to ruin that by being an asshole. You both needed this.

Just sitting there in his arms, you felt like you were floating again, but everything shone softly, the sunlight catching your clutter. You were floating with a life ring around your waist. A life ring with as much, if not more, damage than you, but if it worked, it worked.

“(y/n)?” Colin finally spoke again, his voice rumbling through your chest. “Mind if I speculate a little?”

“Go for it,” you murmured. You leaned your head back onto his shoulder. “What does the master of conspiracies think of my dream?”

He laughed at this, hugging you a little tighter for a second. “That’s exactly what I was going to talk about. I’m not going to get too into this, I know your eyes glaze over if I preface it too much and we’re not, well, you know,” he gestured with one hand to imply altered states.

“Yeah. You’ve thought more about it than I have,” you digressed. “But what about the dream? The whole drowning and darkness thing. Any idea what it means?”

“Drowning isn’t an uncommon motif in dreams,” he informed you, coming to life as he got to show off his cleverness. “It means you’re drowning in real life, too, either because of stress or work, or sometimes you’re in money troubles and you feel you can’t get out of it. It’s all about helplessness. It’s your body trying to tell you to swim out of it, if you can. Your brain’s at least cognizant enough to know what’s going on with you. That’s more than I can say for a lot of people. That’s my take on it, anyway. Not sure what the darkness is. I’d need a few more days to figure that out.”

“I don’t know if I can get out,” you frowned and turned over your shoulder into his chest. He responded by adjusting his arms, holding you to him. A few moments later, he leaned back so the two of you could lay down, and you draped an arm over his stomach, his button-up falling half-open with the gesture. “I can’t up and quit my job. I don’t hate it, I thought it’d be a dream come true, but it’s just, it’s so much. I have so much fucking work to do. I do feel like I’m drowning a lot of the time. Just didn’t think it’d get to this point, that my boyfriend would have to wake me up from my dumb brain being stupid.”

“Your boyfriend doesn’t mind,” he looked over at you, your noses almost touching. “The human brain’s an unreliable, imperfect mess. You can’t fault yourself for having nightmares, love.” His pretentious vibe hadn’t fully left but he sounded so open, so relaxed around you, that you smiled at him. “It means your brain wants to protect you, and that you want to protect you.”

“Of course I do. If I die of stress, who’s gonna take care of you?”

“Oh, I can take care of myself,” he scoffed. “Like you said, we did exist before we met each other.”

“No, I know, I know. But you know what? You make existence less terrible.”

Colin laughed softly. “I’ve thought the same since the moment we became friends.” He gazed at you with so much adoration, you almost melted into the bed right then and there.

You moved closer and kissed him. He moved a hand to the back of your head, deepening the kiss, your movement slow and passionate. The two of you stayed in your bed, sheets wrinkled and strewn everywhere as if something more intimate had happened. Neither of you had anywhere to go that day. Even if you did, you would’ve called in sick. You wanted to float with Colin for as long as you possibly could.

A/N: Well, this ended up as hurt/comfort instead of fluff, but I’m glad I wrote something with a happy ending to share with you folks. This is my first Colin-centric fic but it won’t be the last. Thank you for reading this! Give this a like (or even a reblog) if you enjoyed it, or if you’re interested in reading more, feel free to browse my writing tag: https://cosmicflowchart.tumblr.com/tagged/cosmic-writes. And you’re more than welcome to follow this blog for more Bandersnatch Trash.

[blackmanorcastleinthesky]

Garrett repressed a slight shudder while he waited for Exalted to finish his business with the wives. Of all the horrible places in the palace, he hated the wives’ wing most of all. The wives had the entire northern wing entirely to themselves, including a secluded inner garden. There were no men other than Exalted allowed inside, for all the good it had done him thus far.

And for all the success he hadn’t had in producing an heir, Exalted continued to provide the wives with every luxury available to them in their frozen country. They were taken care of, pampered and fussed over by their own personal group of older female attendants. Fed and bathed, housed and kept warm, protected by the solid palace walls and Exalted’s elite army of guards, including Garrett himself.

None of which explained the bizarre, unsettling feel of the whole place.

Garrett didn’t believe in ghosts, but if he did, this was the sort of place they might linger. Sucking all the warmth and color out of everything. Turning a life of privilege into something closer to a nightmare.

But…

Sometimes, in the dead quiet of the night, when Garrett patrolled the halls around the wives’ wing, he could hear the soft, keening sobs of the women inside. He thought of Exalted’s flat, reptilian eyes and fought off another shudder.

On occasion, he’d gotten a few glimpses inside while on patrol as the attendants came and went from the double doors. Inside, brightly wallpapered walls and plush looking carpets. Exalted spared no expense on their comfort while they carried his children.

Garrett wondered where Exalted got them, where all of these women came from. If they volunteered for the honor of carrying Exalted’s child, or if there were parents who sold their daughters to him. Garrett wasn’t sure which was worse.

Exalted hadn’t had a single one of them give him a viable heir. If they made it through the pregnancy to term, the child was stillborn, ending in the woman’s demise shortly after. As in the case of the last delivery Garrett had seen a few days previous, many of the children were hideously deformed. It was as if Exalted was never meant to father a single child. Perhaps for the-

Garrett nearly jumped out of his skin and to attention when the door next to him swung open. An apology was already halfway to his lips, guilt driven by his blasphemous thoughts. As if the man could read his mind. “Exalted-”

But it was one of the wives standing in the half-open doorway, her mouth curved into a wicked grin. “Try again, sir.”

“I- my apologies.” He took in the girl staring up at him. Her big eyes as round as her belly. Her face hadn’t even lost the softness of childhood yet. Garrett swallowed against a surge of revulsion.

“No need to apologize,” the girl said cheerfully. “I was just looking for one of the Mums.”

“Mums?” Garrett repeated, stupidly, unable to stop himself from frowning.

The girl gave another laugh. She nodded, leaning a little further out of the doorway. “It’s what we call the ladies who serve us. Since they’re all older than us, and they take care of us. Like our real mums. Well, some of our real mums.” She shrugged.

“That… makes sense, I suppose.” Garrett tried to coax his mouth into a friendly smile, attempting to mirror her expression. It felt wrong. The girl arched both eyebrows at him and snorted. He snorted back. “What?”

“You look constipated,” she said plainly, making him choke. Then she grinned. “What?” she said, throwing his deadpan tone back at him.

Garrett furrowed his brow at her. “I do not look-” He coughed. “Constipated.”

“You don’t smile a lot, do you?”

He lifted an eyebrow. “How can you tell?” he growled.

But she just chuckled. Again. “Well, maybe you do have a sense of humor, Mr. Grumpyface.”

“Garrett,” he said. “And it’s technically Captain.”

“Oooh, fancy.” Her laughter was starting to get to him. There was a strange, bubbly lightness in his gut.  “Sorry, Captain Grumpyface.” She smiled wide as he grunted. “I’m Elena. Nice to meet you, Captain.”

Garrett opened his mouth to reply when a female voice piped up from somewhere behind Elena, its owner out of sight. “Close the door before he sees you.”

Elena glanced back and rolled her eyes. “Clearly, his majesty is busy.”

The female voice turned sharp. “Lower your voice before he hears you. And close the damn door.”

Elena shot a look back up at Garrett, simultaneously crossing her eyes and sticking out her tongue. “Some people just hate fun, Captain Grumpyface. Do you hate fun, too?”

Garrett sighed. “Probably. Now close the door before you get us both into trouble.”

Elena sighed heavily. “I’m surrounded by fun-sucking vampires. Bye, Captain.”

“Goodbye, Elena.”

The door closed and Garrett breathed a sigh of relief. He listened to Elena’s chirping voice fade away as the other woman obviously herded her away from the door. It was an unspoken rule that the wives stayed within the confines of their wing. Garrett wasn’t sure what the punishment would be for any of them that disobeyed.

Well, knowing Exalted… it was difficult to say. Even if they were carrying his seed.

Garrett shook himself firmly and replanted his feet, schooling himself to stillness as he carefully cleared those thoughts from his mind. Exalted would finish soon, hopefully, and even if it wasn’t soon and Garrett waited for hours – it didn’t matter. He would wait. Exalted would want to know what his scouts had found.

-

Charlie turned the pocket knife over in his hands before flipping it open with an easy flick of his wrist. Frowning at the dry blood beneath his thumbnail, he ran the tip of his knife underneath, scraping it away.

“So,” he said casually. “We can do this the hard way, or the easy way.”

His captive whimpered around the gag in his mouth.

“I know, I know,” Charlie said soothingly. “You’d love to do this the easy way, am I right? So if I take this gag out of your mouth, you’re going to tell me everything I want to know, right?”

Another whimper.

Charlie smiled. “Good.” He yanked the gag from the man’s mouth, not surprised when his first move was to spit directly into Charlie’s face.

Luckily, Charlie had been expecting it. And luckily, Charlie had an easy way to defend himself. Just a simple shield. The gob of spit hit the invisible barrier in front of Charlie. The man watched in utter confusion blooming into horror as it slid down the shield and dropped to the floor, hitting with a rather anticlimactic splat.

“Abomination,” the man hissed.

Charlie shrugged. “Probably, but really? You should be trying to make nice with me, not call me names. You don’t want to hurt my feelings. Trust me. I’m not a nice man once you’ve hurt my feelings.”

His prisoner was squirming in his seat, wrists working against the ropes that kept him tied to the chair. There was real, genuine disgust creeping into his expression now. Charlie felt a single painful beat of his heart. Fear, he could handle, even understand. But the disgust?

He gently put the tip of his knife under the man’s chin. “Listen to me, you little fuckweasel. I control your fate right now. I suggest you pull yourself the fuck together and tell me what the fuck you were doing creeping around the Lady’s hall. Before I take this knife and sink it into your tiny fucking brain.”

Behind him, a voice tutted, low and a little amused. “Charlie. That’s no way to talk to our guest.”

Charlie didn’t look back at Leon. Didn’t want to see the trace of true, mild alarm in his best friend’s eyes about his interrogation methods. “Uninvited guest, Leon. There’s a difference.”

“Fair enough.” Leon came into view on Charlie’s periphery. To his right, standing straight-backed, hands casually tucked into the front pockets of his slacks.

Leon’s ridiculous height and broad shoulders made a lot of men sweat, but his face was too aristocratic and stupidly handsome for him to be intimidating. Between the soft gray-blue eyes and the mouth that was made for smiling, Leon inspired loyalty by merely existing. And when he used the gifts that their new friend might consider an abomination? No one could tell Leon no.

Charlie sat back on his stool and went back to scraping the dry blood out from under his nails. Listened to the gentle, rhythmic tone of Leon’s voice as he knelt down in front of the captive. The man’s eyes were still as wide and round as saucers, his respirations quicker than they had been, but Charlie didn’t trust him not to spit in Leon’s face. He put a thinner, tighter shield over his friend’s face as Leon worked his magic.

“...you know you’re going to tell us. You have to tell us, right? We’re not going to hurt you if you just tell us what you were doing here.” Leon probably wasn’t lying, but he couldn’t promise shit for Charlie. The fucker wasn’t going to leave this cell alive if his intentions involved Witch in any capacity.

Charlie would burn an entire city to the ground for Witch.

The prisoner’s lashes fluttered. “Your… Lady,” he said, lips curling into a sneer, “is a filthy fucking monster that should have been smothered in the cradle.”

Charlie felt the air come off of Leon as the redhead drew back a fist. He didn’t have time to call his best friend off before that fist met the prisoner’s face with a thick, meaty sound. Charlie flinched.

“That wasn’t part of the plan,” Charlie said into the silence that followed. Their prisoner was knocked the fuck out, head lolling around on his neck like a soft doll.

Leon stood up, frowning. He flexed his fingers, cracking his knuckles. “He pissed me off.”

“I could see that.” Charlie didn’t move from his perch. “That’s gonna be a pretty bruise, my friend.”

���There’s something off about him.” Leon shook his head. “I was pushing pretty hard.”

“Yeah, I couldn’t get into his stupid head either.” Charlie tucked away his pocket knife. “But he’s human. I’m pretty sure.”

“Me, too.” Leon sniffed and glanced over his shoulder, into the corner of the room. “My Lady?”

Witch stepped forward, as if materializing out of nothing from the shadows. She came to stand between them, arms loosely crossed over her stomach. “Human, certainly. But something else has a hold on him.”

“You can’t push through it either?” Charlie said.

Witch smiled wryly. “Not my kind of magic, love. More yours, I would think.”

Charlie looked away from her. “Yeah, well-”

“I’m only teasing, Charlie.” Witch touched his shoulder. “We’ll figure this out.”

Leon gave a nod of agreement. “Can’t win them all every time.”

Charlie wrinkled his nose, looking back at their unconscious friend. “I hate to lose.”

“We haven’t lost,” Witch said gently. “We’ll let him sleep off Leon’s fist.” She cut a look at the taller man. “Lost your temper, did you?”

Leon had the precious grace and decency to look embarrassed. “Yes. He called you-”

“I’ve been called worse,” she said. “By worse men. Come on. We all need a break.” Witch sighed and flicked her fingers at the prisoner, floating his knocked-out-cold body over to the cot in the corner.

Witch led the way out of the dungeon, Leon trailing her. Charlie followed close behind, trying not to let the prisoner’s seemingly unnatural defenses against all of their gifts get to him.