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waiting4inspiration · 5 years

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Be Ruthless IX : Spilled Blood

Summary: After thinking about how to tell Ivar about your past, you finally work up enough courage to tell him. Only, that courage disappears after witnessing Ivar kill a man who had tried to rape you.

Warnings: mentions of intended rape, mentions of abuse, blood, murder, mentions of arranged marriage

Be Ruthless Masterlist II Vikings Masterlist

The scenery of your new home is nothing like that of your old home. You have never seen such green grass in your old kingdom. Not even in a good season. And the waters of the fjords are as blue as the sky, crystal clear and so breathtaking. The ships that bob on the water don’t look out of place or make everything seem crowded at all. They look like they belong there whereas, in your old city, even a single boat on the water will make everything seem cramped.

A hill overlooking the fjord dotted with ships becomes you thinking grounds. It replaces the gardens of the castle you grew up in and - to you - is a hundred times better. Not only because you don’t have to sneak around to get to this spot but because the sight reminds you that you no longer have to live in fear of your brother. He’s no longer in reach of you. He can’t harm you.

But yet, there’s still that fear inside of you of what he might do if he ever finds out your actions here in Kattegat. Who he might send to put you back in your place and remind you who is in charge. It’s why you contemplate in telling Ivar the truth that he’s so desperately trying to get out of you.

You should tell him. How can you build a relationship with him if you keep this secret to yourself until you die? He is your husband after all? Surely he must care for you if he wants to know about it.

No, he couldn’t possibly care about you. The only reason this marriage happened was that he would gain some kind of power out of it. If you tell him, it will only give him something he can use against you to get you to do what he wants. To bend you to his will and be the kind of wife he wants you to be.

But his touches have been gentle ever since your brother’s men left. Sure, they still strike a sense of anxiety in you every time his hand touches yours but that only because you’ve never been touched like this. And lately, you’ve been noticing how he’s a bit protective over the men that end up around you. You’ve seen it since…since that day Lord Alben tried to put you in your place.

Contradicting yourself over and over again, you huff out in frustration and hang your head in your hands. You have no idea what to do. If you tell Ivar the truth, where are you even supposed to begin? And how do you even say what you want with him going around an threatening the people that have done what they did to you?

Lifting your head back up to the sky, you remember the things Torvi has told you about the Gods. You can’t help but think that maybe they’ll be able to give you some kind of clarity. Some kind of peace. The thought causes you to shake your head and laugh at yourself.

But, it’s worth a try.

“I have no idea if you can hear me, or if you even care about me,” you begin, whispering your words like a prayer before sighing out. “My experience with deities haven’t exactly been all that great but, hopefully, I’m wrong about believing that you don’t care about me,” you chuckle, dropping your head back down to stare at the grass. “Just…let me figure out how to tell him.”

You know that it’s not really a good idea to walk back to the Great Hall without an alert mind. Not while the men of the city still see you as a foreign, Christian princess. They don’t exactly trust you just yet, only because you haven’t earned their trust or respect yet. A fact you know very well.

But you can’t help and think of the speech you have planned for Ivar. You have the words all planned out in your mind and you run over them a few times to mack sure it’s what he wants to hear and what you want him to know.

Your concentration on this alerts one man that you’re not focusing on your surrounds and his mind goes to thinking that he might have some fun with you. He follows you from a distance, knowing that you’ll lose your way and get lost. He knows this because he sees you taking a wrong turn.

When you notice your mistake and freeze in your tracks, glancing around you before turning around, the man takes the opportunity to step in front of you. Staring up at him in fright, you fear only grows at the dark, sadly familiar look in his eyes. “You’re lost, my queen,” he states with a low growl, every step he takes forward makes to you step back. “Perhaps a pretty thing like you shouldn’t be walking around alone,” he smirks, your back hitting a wall and your heart dropping as he cages you in with his hands on either side of your head.

Swallowing loudly, you take in a sharp breath as he steps closer. “Let me go and I’ll see to it that nothing happens to you,” you try to say with confidence, but it comes out as a weak stutter, making the man laugh and lean in closer.

“What are you going to do?” he questions, your body shaking as his breath hits the shell of your ear. “You’re not going to tell anyone about what I’m going to do to you,” he whispers, pressing his body against yours and covering your mouth with a hand when a shriek sounds in your throat. “You don’t have the guts to tell anyone, my queen.”

As his hand drops from beside your head to gather up the skirt of your dress, you squeeze your eyes shut and start to fight against him as your protests are muffled by his hand covering your mouth. As harshly as he pushed your back against the wall, his body is ripped away from you causing your eyes to snap open and your knees to give in, sending you to the ground.

The sound of a sword ringing as it’s unsheathed makes your head snap up. You know by the sight of Ivar standing in front of you, his back facing you and the blade of his sword pressed against the man’s throat that blood will definitely be spilled. “What the fuck makes you think you can touch my wife?” Ivar sneers at the man as you slowly push yourself back onto your feet.

The man loses his confidence, still shocked by being so roughly pulled away from you. “I had no idea she is the queen…”

“Liar!” Ivar shouts, making you flinch at his harsh tone and wrap your arms around your body. “It is my legs that don’t work, not my ears,” he hisses, drawing the blade across the man’s throat.

A loud gasp falls from your lips at the sight of the blood pouring out of the man’s neck and you turn your head away from the sight. Cringing at the sound of him gargling and choking, you hug your body tighter as his body falls to the ground with a loud thud. And you don’t have to nerve to open your eyes again.

At least, not until Ivar gently wraps his hand around your arm. The action makes you jump and snap your eyes to him. “You killed him,” you mutter out, your eyes betraying you and shifting down to the dead body on the ground.

“I saved you,” he corrects.

Pulling your arm out of his grip you shake your head and pant in anxiety. “You killed him without a second thought,” you stutter, wrapping your arms around your body again as you take a step back from him.

You were going to tell him the truth, what you’ve so carefully been planning to say in your mind for weeks. But how can you do that now after seeing him kill a man? Yes, maybe that man intended to rape you but surely other consequences could have been taken. If you tell Ivar the truth now, he might just set off to kill someone else to let go of the rage.

Ivar shakes his head at you, his jaw clenching as he takes a step towards you. “You have no idea men like him do to women like you,” he sneers, pointing to the dead man before pointing at you.

“I know very well that men like him do to women like me!” you snap, not thinking of your words before they leave your tongue. Throwing your hands over your mouth, you stare at Ivar with wide eyes, not believe that you said that.

He only frowns at you. Taking another step forward, he tilts his head to the side. “How?” he questions, you head shaking vigorously as you step back again. “Tell me how you know,” he orders, stepping closer to you again. Dropping your hands away from your mouth, you take in a deep breath and stare at the ground. “Tell me!”

“I can’t!”

“Why not!”

“Because if I do he’ll set his men on me again!” you cry, the words falling from your mouth instinctively as your hands fumble with each other. “And he’s got spies everywhere, eyes everywhere I turn. I can see them, watching me all the time, always ready to report to him, tell him what I’ve done and every man at his beck and call ready to follow his orders, knowing that there’s nothing I can do,” you ramble, your chest heavy as you begin to pace in front of a very confused Ivar. “And them trying to get me to submit to him and to them every time I close my eyes I see their face smiling like the devil,” you whisper, stopping to pace and staring at the ground, fear flooding your face as tears roll down your cheeks. “So many evil faces and eyes burning into my skin. All because of him.”

Basically forgetting about Ivar in front of you, you jump when he takes another step forward. Your eyes grow wider at the realization of what you have said and you feel your heart skip a beat. “Who?” he questions, staring strongly into your eyes. You find that you can’t tear your gaze away from him, for some reason. “Your brother?”

The gasp that falls from your lips is enough to confirm Ivar’s suspicions but when you softly nod your head, rage builds up inside of him. Tearing his stare away from you and trying to control his anger, he thinks about what you were rambling about. Something about your brother’s men trying to get you to submit and when he glances back to you, his eyes land on the cheek they’re always drawn to. “That night in the gardens, that mark on your cheek…”

“A reminder of who’s in charge,” you say, dropping your head between your shoulders as you bring a hand up to touch the infamous cheek.

Ivar takes in a deep breath, grinding his teeth together before stepping forward to you. To not frighten you, he holds his hand under your gaze and slowly moves it to your hand. He knows you can see his intentions on touching you because you don’t flinch or jump when his hand touches yours. Because you knew he was going to touch you and knew it wasn’t going to be a menacing action.

He slowly and gently runs his hand up your arm, your gaze following his hand until it reaches your shoulder. Then you turn your gaze to his face as his hand cups the side of your face, his thumb stroking the cheek that he now know why it had been bruised.

Gently closing your eyes and sighing, you find yourself leaning into his touch, your own hands resting on his chest. “Tell me why your brother treated you like,” he softly orders, you eyes opening again and followed by a reluctant sigh. “He will never harm you again. Not while you’re my wife and by my side,” he whispers, moving his head slightly forward as you bite your lip. “I promise.”

His words hit a deep spot in your heart, giving a sense of hope that you haven’t felt in a long time. “Okay.”

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frozenartscapes · 5 years

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Snow and Sunshine - Dawn

AN: Hope you guys like!

First Chapter

Second Chapter

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Lightning split the sky and thunder shook the ground. The wind howled furiously through the forests and the fjords. Snow and sleet rained down in a torrent, blanketing the kingdom in snow and ice. The air temperature had dropped drastically, enough for ice to begin forming on the fjord. Any tree that might have seen the start of gaining leaves lost them all the instant the storm descended on the valley. Any and all plants beginning to appear out of the dirt shrivelled up and died from the cold.

Thankfully, people were more prepared this time. Stores of firewood were stocked up full, foodstuffs were kept readily available, and people hadn’t been making any long journeys so no one was caught far from shelter. The storm hit earlier than expected, but those who had received the warning had wasted no time in bracing themselves.

And so the whole Kingdom of Arendelle waited, positioned by hearths and wood stoves to keep warm, watching the tempest rage outside with bated breath. They knew what the cause of this storm was. The mothers did, especially. The way the wind howled, then calmed, then howled again, was eerily familiar to them. Women all over the kingdom found themselves gazing toward the castle through the blizzard, silently giving their prayers to their young monarch.

There was joy, and anticipation, for the storm meant that the time had come for the kingdom to gain an heir. But the violence of it reminded everyone of how harrowing an event it was as well.

The heart of the storm was the castle, where the wind was the strongest and ice coated the stone and wooden walls very much like it had back during the Queen’s coronation. Here, frost was rapidly spreading through the corridors, and not even roaring fires in the hearths could warm the castle.

But that was not the primary concern in the castle at that moment. The thing that the staff and guards were most on edge about were the pained, desperate cries made by a woman who very rarely expressed such emotions in such a way. The Queen’s voice travelled through the castle as the cold did, filling all who heard it with icy dread.

The one who had it worst was Anna. She had to endure watching her sister in agonizing pain as doctors and midwives fussed over her. Elsa had ordered her to stay back - she couldn’t be sure what her powers would do during the birth and she refused to risk Anna’s safety. So Anna had no choice but to pace, like a caged tiger, in the corner of the bedroom. She would every now and then glance out the window, watching as the storm grew in intensity as her sister’s pain did. She hoped - for the kingdom’s sake and Elsa’s - that the baby would hurry it up and come out already.

About an hour in, Anna couldn’t take just standing around any longer. She bolted out of the room and across the hall to her own. After rummaging through her dresser, she found what she needed, and marched back into her sister’s room and right up to her bedside.

Elsa shot her a look that was a cross between annoyed and concerned, but before she could say anything, Anna produced a pair of thick wool mittens, quickly put them on, and grasped her sister’s frigid hand tight. “I told you I’d be there for you,” Anna stated without room for argument, “I’m willing to risk a little frostbite to do it. But hopefully these will help.”

“It’s not just the frostbite I’m worried about, Anna,” Elsa said through heavy gasps, “If…if this doesn’t go well you need to capable of—”

“I’m going to stop you right there, because there’s no way that’s going to happen,” Anna interjected stubbornly.

Luckily, Elsa didn’t have the energy to argue further. So Anna stayed, clutching her sister’s hand and offering words of encouragement while the midwives saw to her and the doctor told her to push.

At one point, Anna caught Elsa attempting to glance out the window. She spotted her sister lift her other hand, and faint sparks of magic spiralling around it. “Leave it, Elsa,” Anna ordered firmly, “Don’t waste your energy.”

“It’s worse than I thought it would be,” Elsa moaned in despair, “I have to do something, Anna!”

“Just focus on the task at hand,” Anna replied, her tone softening when she saw her sister’s heartbreak, “You can fix it when you’re good and ready. Right now the baby needs you more.”

“But—” Elsa was cut short by another involuntary wail in pain. Anna gulped and held her sister’s hand just a little tighter. Seeing her like this was worse than anything Anna could have imagined. Elsa was panting, exhausted and sweaty. Her untied hair was a mess of blonde tangles. Unimaginable pain was etched all over her face and every muscle in her body was tense.

“You’re almost there, your Majesty,” the doctor said urgently, “Keep pushing!”

At this point, Gerda - who had taken up the role of giving instructions to the midwives - came around to the other side of the bed as Anna and took Elsa’s other hand, no gloves or mittens needed. “Elsa, dear,” she said, authority in her voice neither of them had heard her use before, “This is going to be the hardest part. But after this, you’ll be done. When I say so, I want you to push with everything you have in you.”

“But what about the storm?” Elsa asked weakly, “It might—”

“What did I just say to you?” Anna interjected, “The kingdom will survive.”

Elsa opened her mouth to protest but another contraction hit, forcing her to wince sharply instead. “Fine!” she cried, “Fine, I’ll do it!”

Gerda gave Elsa’s hand a reassuring squeeze before returning to her spot at the end of the bed. “Alright dear,” she commanded confidently, “Push!”

Elsa let out another scream as she reared up on the bed, pushing with all her might. As she did, the wind howled outside and thunder roared above as the storm grew worse for a split second. It began to recede as Elsa settled back on the bed.

“Again, Elsa!” Gerda shouted.

Once again, the storm rallied as Elsa was forced to lose her feeble grasp on it. Lightning struck one of the iron rods ornamenting a nearby roof, but rather than an explosion of sparks and fire, a massive formation of sharp, jagged ice erupted around the spire. Anna could feel the cold through her thick mitten, but she only tightened her grasp on Elsa’s hand. “Come on, Elsa, you can do this!” she urged encouragingly.

“Almost there, dear!” Gerda called over the wind and snow crashing against the window, “One more big push!”

The sky opened up with Elsa’s scream, unleashing a torrent of snow and wind and ice. Lightning ripped the clouds apart and thunder roared like a mighty beast. The tempest exploded in every direction, threatening to swallow the kingdom whole in icy destruction. Citizens watched in horror as a storm capable of ripping their homes apart bared down upon them.

But then, quite suddenly, it stopped, the air still and the snow held in the air, unable to even fall to the ground.

Elsa collapsed against the pillows propping her up, winded and still in an incredible amount of pain, but it was over. The storm responded out of instinct, suddenly halting in its tracks as if holding its breath in anticipation. Everyone in the kingdom did the same. The doctor, Gerda, and the midwives were all huddled at the base of the bed, fussing greatly over something. Anna remained to hold her sister’s hand, but she tried to peek around them to catch a glimpse of what had their attention.

Then, in the deafening silence the sudden stop of the storm had caused, a baby cried.

“Elsa! You did it!” Anna gasped happily, “You had a baby!”

Elsa was still huffing and puffing as she laid against the pillows, sinking into the soft down as she tried to process what had just happened. “I’m never doing that again,” she uttered between heavy breaths.

“I’m inclined to agree,” Anna replied lightly, “I’m sure Kristoff won’t object to adopting. I mean, he was adopted, after all.”

Elsa chuckled weakly. “No way. You have to do it at least once, so we’re even,” she teased.

Anna glanced over to the doctor and support staff, who were in the process of tending to the newborn child. Who would have thought one child could cause so much fuss? But then…this was the heir to the throne. Something so small, fragile, weak would one day take on Elsa’s role - she wondered if it was like this when she and Elsa were born.

“How’s Arendelle?” Elsa’s voice broke her out of her thoughts. Anna turned to see Elsa’s worried expression, as if she were bracing for the worst. Anna quickly checked the window and winced without thinking. “That bad, huh?” Elsa groaned.

“It’s fine,” Anna lied, “The storm stopped. At least. So that’s good!”

Elsa frowned, picking up Anna’s lie immediately. She then lifted her hand and closed her eyes in focus. A bit of magic sputtered out of her open palm, but she very quickly lost steam and her arm fell down to her side.

“Take it easy, Elsa,” Anna chided gently, “You just had a baby for crying out loud!”

“I have to…fix this,” Elsa protested, but the act of merely trying to call to her magic had left her winded.

“In time,” Anna said, removing her mittens and taking Elsa’s hand in hers, “There’ll be time to fix things after you rest a little.”

She could tell Elsa wanted to disagree. Her eyes were filled with stubborn resolve, but her body was too weak to match. After a moment, she sighed, her shoulders dropping in defeat. Anna gave her sister’s hand a gentle squeeze for reassurance.

Gerda interrupted them, then, with a soft clearing of her throat. The sisters turned to face the maid - the woman who had not only been there for both of their births but had also taken on a maternal role in their lives after the death of their own mother - standing before them with a small bundle of soft blankets held carefully in her arms. “Elsa,” she said warmly, a soft smile on her face and teary eyes brimming with pride, “Congratulations, my dear.” She then held the bundle out, giving Elsa no choice but to accept it tentatively. As Elsa first made eye contact with her little newborn, Gerda told her quietly, “It’s a girl.”

The child at first was fussy, still wailing as most newborns do. But as she realized where she was - back with her mother once again, held lovingly in protective arms - she began to settle down. Striking blue eyes opened, meeting the similar eyes of her Mama. Her crying tapered off into soft babbling as she looked up to the woman who had just brought her into this world. Elsa gently pushed some more blanket aside, revealing a small tuft of light, strawberry hair.

Elsa carefully held her little girl nestled safely in the crook of her arm. She used her free hand to gingerly wipe some of the tears left on the baby’s cheeks. Her fingers lingered, carefully inspecting the delicate features of such a delicate little creature. Her little nose, her little mouth, her little ears. Her eyes seemed big, but it was only because they were staring up in awe - she supposed it was awe - as the child took in the world around her for the first time. As Elsa’s hand moved down, brushing her baby’s chest to feel her tiny heartbeat, the baby giggled. She only proved more ticklish as Elsa reached her belly.

Elsa chuckled warmly at the sound, but was cut short when her daughter reached out and grabbed her finger with her little hand. She held firm, like she never wanted to let go, and let out a pleased coo as she smiled up at her Mama.

It was a well-known fact that the Snow Queen of Arendelle was far from the cold, icy person her title seemed to suggest. She was a woman of kindness, and compassion. She held deep wisdom for her age and she shared more love for others than any monarch had done before. It was said her big heart was full to the brim with pure, everlasting Love.

And on this day, at this moment, her heart overflowed with it.

“Hmm, she’s smitten,” Gerda observed with a warm smile.

Anna merely nodded in agreement, watching her sister happily, just as amazed by the new addition to their family as Elsa was. But then something outside the window caught her attention. The stark white left from the stalled winter storm was warming into a gentle yellow light. And as she peered further out the window, she couldn’t hold back her awed gasp.

Snow and ice were lifting into the air, like they had when Elsa thawed the first Eternal Winter. Leaves returned to the trees. Flowers started to bloom. Grass became green and lush. But then, just when things had returned to normal, May-like Spring, there was an explosion of colour and life. Suddenly it wasn’t just the early spring flowers that bloomed - crocuses and tulips and daffodils and irises erupted out of the ground in colourful bouquets. Every flowering fruit tree and bush gained its blossoms all at once, filling the air with sweet floral scents and the landscape with every shade of pink. The dark clouds parted, revealing a bright warm sun spilling golden rays upon the kingdom, dancing off the thawed fjord and breathing even more life into all the new flora.

Anna quickly turned back to Elsa, only to discover that Elsa hadn’t even noticed. She was still thoroughly entranced by her little daughter, and hadn't even broken her eye contact. Anna had seen examples of her sister’s true power. She knew Elsa’s magic put her on a similar level as most lesser gods, if not higher. But this was something else. This hadn’t been Elsa’s magic - it was Elsa’s love.

And everyone in the kingdom could feel it. As people stepped outside, revelling in the sudden change of weather, celebrations began to break out. Because a shift like this could only mean one thing. And the kingdom certainly had reason to celebrate.

“You don’t have to worry about the kingdom anymore,” Anna mused softly, turning back to her sister and niece with a large smile.

“Why?” Elsa wondered, finally finding the strength to pull her gaze away from her daughter, “Is something wr—”

Elsa finally noticed the sunlight flowing in through the windows, already warming the room. From where she was on the bed, she could see that all the storm clouds had vanished, revealing a beautiful Spring day. Her mouth dropped open slightly, her eyes wide with shock. “But…” she stammered, “I…I didn’t even try to thaw it…”

Her baby in her arms cooed, drawing her attention back. She still held her mother’s finger in her hand, and tugged on it in an attempt to put it in her mouth. Elsa rescued her finger before that could happen, but then lightly booped her daughter’s nose, bringing a small giggle from the child. “Did you help me with that, Sunshine?” she asked humorously. The baby laughed again.

“So…” Anna began sitting down on the edge of the bed to get a better glance at her little niece, “What are you gonna name her?”

At this, Elsa frowned slightly. “I’m…not sure,” she said slowly, “Johannes was so certain it was going to be a boy that… Well, I suppose I believed him. I hadn’t considered having a girl.”

Anna glanced down and studied the baby closely. “Well, she’s got your eyes. And nose,” she pointed out.

“Our nose,” Elsa reminded her, “We both got it from Mama, remember?”

“I’m glad that runs in our family,” Anna laughed, “She’s got my hair, though. You should name her after me! I am the hero of Arendelle, after all.”

“Johannes had red hair, too,” Elsa said teasingly.

“It’s totally mine,” Anna insisted, “His had more brown in it.”

Elsa laughed softly in response, and the baby - who had no grasp of what was so funny - couldn’t help but join in with her mother. “Name her after you, huh?” Elsa murmured to herself.

“I was totally kidding, Elsa!” Anna said quickly, “That’d be so confusing if there were two Annas running around!”

“But you are my Sun,” Elsa told her, “You have always brought so much light and love into my life.”

“I think I might have some competition now…” Anna said, eyeing the baby with a playful smile, “I was never able to help you subconsciously bring about Spring all at once.”

“My Sunshine…” Elsa once again found herself completely enamoured with her little daughter, marvelling as how the child seemed to glow in the soft sunlight entering the room. It was rare for her to feel such love and warmth because of another person - Anna had so far been the only one. Looking into her little one’s eyes, she felt every fear, every worry, every sadness disappear from her heart in an instant, only feeling the strength of the purest, warmest love.

All because of her little Sun.

“Solveig,” Elsa stated quietly, “Her name is Solveig.”

Solveig grabbed hold of her Mama’s finger again, laughing with innocent and joyful mirth. She approved of her Mama’s choice.

#snow and sunshine au #frozen #fanfic #au ideas

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naturalnein · 5 years

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how I wish our last time wasn’t really our last

The second day dawns. Beau’s neck hurts from the way she slept against the window of the carriage.

Yasha is gone. Again.

It’s not like she expected much less. But maybe she hoped, just the slightest bit, that they could all scream and mourn together and forgo the storm chasing, if even for a day.

—

(The Mighty Nein’s breaking and binding in the wake of Mollymauk Tealeaf, and their reflections on the road back to Zadash)

alternatively, read on ao3 and leave a comment

…

The second day dawns. Beau’s neck hurts from the way she slept against the window of the carriage.

Yasha is gone. Again.

It’s not like she expected much less. Beau has never had friends—not before the man sleeping across from her, that is, not before the people in the cart outside—but she can only imagine losing one that you’d had for a long time would hurt like hell. Hurt enough to scream and mourn and chase the nearest storm.

It’s not like she expected much less. But maybe she hoped, just the slightest bit, that they could all scream and mourn together and forgo the storm chasing, if even for a day.

Beau doesn’t know what kind of comfort Yasha finds in the thunder, or anything of the deity that beckons from them. She’s not religious, not beyond what they instilled in her at the monastery. There’s never been a god or goddess, not one she’s heard of at least, that she’d want to have authority over her. It’s just a matter of principal: she is done having her life in someone else’s hands. No one controls Beau but Beau.

So really there’s a thousand reasons why she could never possibly understand Yasha’s purpose, Yasha’s faith, Yasha.

But as the sun cracks over the horizon, the grave of Mollymauk Tealeaf now miles behind them, Yasha Nydoorin one with the passing storms in the east, Beau prays. It’s clumsy, it’s apparent she’s not a woman of the gods, but it’s a prayer all the same. To whoever is listening. She just wants Yasha to be okay, in time, and to come back to them. She wants all of her new friends to be okay. Fuck, she herself wants to be okay. It’s such a small request, surely—

Caleb stirs, eyes closed when he clutches at his cloak, just startling awake from sleep.

Beau unfolds her clasped hands before he can see her, ignoring the flush of embarrassment rising her cheeks—like she was caught doing something she shouldn’t have, which she wasn’t—and pretends to be asleep. It’s such a stupid thing anyway, she backpedals, to talk to immortal beings in the sky who don’t give a shit about you.

Fuck all of them, Beau has done just fine on her own thus far. She’ll make sure her friends are okay all by herself.

…

The third day dawns. Nott didn’t sleep, tucked into a fetal position staring up into the vast ink-black sky, now fading to the pinks and oranges of morning.

Fjord and Caduceus join her and Jester in the cart at night and it’s overcrowded—really firbolgs are taller than any creature should be, who needs that much leg length? It’s unsettling—but Nott doesn’t really mind. She enjoys it just a bit, if she’s honest. It makes it easier to watch over them all at once.

She’d been fine sleeping in Caleb’s hut two nights ago, with comfy pillows and blankets and the knowledge that their captured friends were alive and safe; the knowledge that they were all going to be alive and safe by morning with all of the spells he had set in place to protect them. On the open road it feels different. Caleb is a full carriage ahead of them, further away than she’d ever want him to be, and the illusion spell on the cart feels feeble in comparison to any of his amazing tricks.

So Nott stays awake, watching over her remaining companions.

In the very beginning, Caleb had been nothing to her but an unlikely acquaintance. A strange, lost man who could be of use to her. They were comrades by convenience and convenience only, until the day where Nott woke early to find him sleeping with a book covering his face and Frumpkin curled into his side and she realized she would give her life for him. It had been that easy.

And now, months later, she’s watching herself give in to the same vulnerabilities. She’s watching herself begin to love these new friends she’s made. Even Mr. Clay, who is weird and makes tea out of dead people, but still risked his life to rescue Jester and Fjord and Yasha, people he didn’t even know. Just as Caleb had become in an instant, they’re all Nott’s family now. They’re Nott’s. Which means she isn’t going to let bald, floating fuck-faces ever take them again.

She won’t lose another.

Maybe they had never gotten along all that well. Mollymauk had been a condescending ass to her, she’d been snarky bitch in return. They were the two that couldn’t fit together just right. But death glorifies life. She sees that now, in every single one of her friends, conveniently forgetting all of his less admirable traits in favor of the kinder ones. Nott doesn’t forget, but she forgives, and that’s the closest she’s going to get to closure. She does see now that maybe, just maybe, eventually, she could’ve found a friend in Molly.

Molly, who had the world tell him—her? them? she wishes she’d had the time to get that right—that he had to be something, had to find the person he’d been before he’d awoken in his own grave, and completely ignored it. She had pushed him to find those memories, because she couldn’t imagine not having a tether, not having a Luc or a Yeza to tie you to the earth. But at the same time she was in awe of the way he could simply not care about the past at all. The way he could move on and not let it define him.

Goblins weren’t creatures of attachment. And how could she ever be a goblin, how could this ever be the body she was supposed to hold, when she stays awake to make sure her friends can sleep sound and cries for the dead and keeps Keg’s messily scrawled letter tucked next to her heart?

Nott would give up a lot, to have things be different. To forget, like Molly could, to change, like she was sure Caleb could do for her if he just got a little bit stronger. But she would never, ever have anything be different about these friendships she’s formed. She loves them and she isn’t afraid of that, not like the goblins in her clan had been. Not like Caleb continued to be. This attachment was perfectly fine with her, despite what either of them thought.

Maybe Molly had taught her something through all the bickering and the animosity. Sometimes, it’s okay to let the past go. Nott has survived more than a lifetime’s worth of pain and carried it with her all across Wildemount. It’s not a betrayal if she sets it down, if only for a time. She’ll find her husband and she’ll find her son, there’s no question. But for now there are other people that need her here, people that can be ripped from her as quickly as Yeza and Luc and Molly. This is what matters: the cart around and the carriage ahead and the dirt road beneath

The sun becomes visible over the trees at last, bathing the campsite in a golden glow. Caduceus peeks an eye open and stretches out. Jester hums softly in her sleep, Fjord a little closer to her than he’d been the night before.

Nott breathes out a sigh. Yeah, this is what matters.

She lets herself sleep at last.

…

The fourth day dawns. Fjord’s ears are ringing from the sound of explosives being shot into the sky and he’s been watching them, transfixed, since night fell. It’s not like he would’ve slept anyway.

Ophelia and her party had decided to skirt around Hupperdook on their travel back to Zadash to avoid attention, but they had stopped close enough that the revelry could still be heard as loud and as clear as if they were standing in the middle of it all.

Fjord can almost perfectly imagine being back inside those walls himself. It feels like months ago, but he knows it could only be two weeks at most. They all had been so carefree, drinking for sport and dancing like children. He’d retired early, being so unbridled wasn’t something he was used to, but he’d felt the swell of pride with victory just the same. He’d gotten sick in the water closet upstairs, but it was fine because—

His eyes squeeze shut, trying to physically shut out the memory. A chill runs across his arms. He’d avoided it all this time, washed it in self-loathing, to think about him now, Fjord thinks it may tear him apart.

The memory comes all the same.

It was fine because Molly had half-carried him back to their room. Because Molly could not stop smiling when Fjord drunkenly asked if he puked on him, and eventually neither of them had been able to breathe, doubled over with laughter. Because he hadn’t ended the night alone, after so long without a friend by his side.

They were all idiots. He was an idiot.

Within a matter of days, he, Jester and Yasha would be bound and gagged in the back of a slaver’s cart and Mollymauk would be dead.

He’d let his guard down. For the first time since his ship had exploded, for the first time since he found himself washed ashore with dreams of an all-seeing yellow eye. Because of it, he’d let all of his new friends down, people who trusted him and still seemed to trust him; though he can’t possibly imagine why, when his job had been to protect and he couldn’t even fucking do that.

Because of it, Molly had died. Molly, who had roomed with him without fail. Molly, who seemed to never cease his endless chatter until the nights where he’d simply sit and watch Fjord clean the Falchion in perfectly silent, awed concentration. Molly, who was an enigma Fjord would never get the chance to fully comprehend. Molly, who gave his life trying to save him, trying to save all of them, when if Fjord had just paid a little bit more attention—

Another explosion goes off, bringing in the colors of the morning. Fjord opens his eyes.

He needs to find Sabian. He needs the truth. He needs to understand, after all this time.

The coast is beckoning him, as it always is. He hears it echoing in his dreams, the crash of waves luring him home. The past is calling his name, the thread is right there—a horse that could carry him all the way to Nicodranas before anyone would know he was gone—all he has to do is pull.

But Fjord’s a smarter man now than when he first ventured out to sea, he knows pulling would only unravel everything, and he doesn’t have all that much thread left in the first place. So he’ll wait. He’ll bear the somber days ahead, he’ll focus on the task at hand, and with any luck he’ll banish his thoughts of Mollymauk Tealeaf.

These people need him. He won’t let them down again.

…

The fifth day dawns. Yasha prowls and she grieves.

She doesn’t know where she is. But it’s not Xhorhas, it’s not before the grave of the only friend she’s ever known, and that’s all that seems to fucking matter.

A storm rumbles behind her, giving direction. It’s the only time she’s been thankful for it. She’ll train for the Storm Lord, she’ll slay for him, as she’s indebted to do. But only this time has it felt less like a debt and more like a salvation. A beautiful and glorious distraction, leading her to absolutely nowhere at all.

Further east. Lightning cracks at her back. She hears nothing, feels nothing. Not as she trudges ahead, not as she slays another of her deity’s foes, not as she scrubs it’s blood from her skin. Not as lightning cracks and the Storm Lord’s rumbling voice echoes through her mind: A job well done, my Orphan Maker. I shall call on you again.

No, not until the storm is gone and her rage fades does Yasha feel anything at all. She feels lost and she feels lonely, sensations scarier than any beast her deity could conjure. There’s a piece of her missing, a piece violet and vital and she feels it, as though someone had taken her very heart, gnarled and tainted as it had been.

It happened again.

There had never been any promise that it wouldn’t—she and Molly had been long past handing out promises they knew couldn’t be kept—but she’d expected to have him longer. He had this air of confidence about him that could trick anyone into thinking he was invincible. Even she, sometimes. Even she, who’d been the one to find him shivering in a ditch, without so much as his own name. He made it so easy to forget that seeing his coat blowing on a twig in the wind had knocked her reality sideways, until she had no perception of anything but forward and away.

She remembers the weight of Jester and Beau’s hands on her shoulders. She remembers feeling a tear drip onto her back, and wondering what Beau must look like when she cried. She remembers Jester and Fjord calling out to her, and how she couldn’t even turn to see their faces when she said she needed time. She remembers Molly’s voice in her head as she followed the storm, repeating over and over: go back and you need them and don’t do this to yourself.

But Molly is dead. The only friend she’d ever had. The only person who could make her forget about what she’d lost: both the woman and the memories. The only person since Zuala who’d looked twice, who hadn’t stared at her, but through her, and seen who she was underneath the scowl and the stoicism. The voice in her head that sounds like his is a ghost.

Emptiness. That’s what Molly said he felt when he crawled from his own grave. Yasha thinks it’s what she feels now, sunlight pouring over the tops of the trees.

She receives Jester’s message. Finding her bearings and walking to Zadash in a few days time is something she knows she could do. But then she imagines the faces of her new acquaintances as they’d been back at Molly’s grave and she realizes she can’t face them yet. Not their pity or their kindness.

This burden, her best friend’s ghost, his life, his memory, she’ll bear alone. It won’t be the first time.

The sun rises. Yasha stands and lets the Storm Lord guide her steps into the unknown.

…

The sixth day dawns. Jester does her best to find beauty in the colors of the morning.

They blend together in the sky as easily as her paints, and if she looks hard enough she can see the story they’re trying to tell. The pinks remind her of Caduceus’s fur, the yellows of the flowers she’d bought and woven into everyone’s hair back in Hupperdook, the reds of her mother’s soft skin. It’s effortlessly pretty, in a way only nature can master.

Quietly, she opens her journal to tell the Traveler all of this, all of the lovely things she can still manage to find despite the fact she’d been struggling a little more to smile lately, but she barely opens a page before she remembers. And promptly slams it shut.

Nott stirs. Jester sombers and swallows the hot lump in her throat.

The Traveller probably didn’t care anyway. She always used to think that she knew exactly who he was: her god, her companion, her best friend. But now she doesn’t know anything. She hasn’t known anything about him since she was bound and gagged and praying in a slaver’s basement, tears spilling down her cheeks as she listened to her new friend be tortured. And he didn’t come.

Jester thinks that maybe she is sad.

She doesn’t want to be, it’s everyone else who’s sad. Caleb and Beau keep to themselves in the carriage ahead; Nott reads and rereads Keg’s letter, messing with her gunpowder with an obsessive amount of focus; Fjord broods and barely sleeps; Caduceus, well, he’s as pensive as ever. They all smile tight-lipped and unconvincing and Jester hates it. She wants to make them happy, she wants to be happy for them, but how can she do that if not even she is happy in the first place?

Molly could’ve done it, she knows. Forced a blush up Caleb’s neck, argued with Beau until she had no more quips except “Fuck you, Molly” with a coy smile on her lips, said something so ridiculous that Nott had no choice but to laugh, pulled Fjord out of his head just by sitting and watching and who knows, probably could’ve piqued the curiosity of Caduceus, too. Jester wishes she knew how he did it, if the fact he couldn’t remember anything but the past two years freed all that space in his mind to be filled with joy and ease.

She won’t get the chance to ask, she knows, and that is maybe the scariest part. He’d died perhaps not twenty feet from her and she hadn’t felt anything. All she’d heard was the yelling and the sounds of battle from inside the cart. She’d scraped her manacles against the iron cage, screamed through her gag, but nothing seemed to be enough to get someone to just hear her, help her. She could have healed him, could have done something, anything.

Jester had never had any friends before she met him in that bar, except for Fjord and Beau. He’d been charming and caring an absolute ass sometimes, but she’s pretty sure that’s what half of being a friend is about. She needed more time with him to really know either way, but time is a gift not even the Traveler can give back to her.

Her eyes water, her hands shake. She locks her knees to her chest, afraid of someone waking and seeing that her cheeks are growing plum-colored with all of this unwanted emotion welling up in the hollow parts of her.

Jester wants to make her friends laugh. She wants to be a seed of chaos, the kind the Traveler loves so much. She wants Molly to push aside the dirt he’s under, put on his coat, and make their lives a little brighter again.

She just wants to be happy. Even if she has to fake it.

Tricksters are the best liars, Jester knows this well.

She releases her clenched fists, tips her head back, and breathes deeply until the tears reside. When her friends begin to sit up and rub their tired eyes, none of them will be able to tell how close she was to losing herself.

It’s better that way. Happy Jester is the one everyone needs, so that is the Jester she will be.

…

(Evening sets on the sixth day. Caduceus prays to the Wildmother, giving thanks for another waning sun.

She tells him that following this path will lead him to what he seeks. He never had any doubts.

The people he’s met are strange, but fate bends around them as easy as air. It’s undeniable that they were the ones destined to wander through his graveyard. Their strange is of a different kind, the kind Caduceus sees less often, the kind that tells him that history has its eyes on them. It’s eyes on him, now, too.

It’s all very new and exciting.

The travelling group is coming close to the outskirts of Zadash. In another day or so, perhaps even by morning, if the trees in the grove where they’ve parked to rest for the night are to be trusted. He’s never been to a city so large before, but he’s read enough to know that there’s a lot less appreciation for nature in its inhabitants. They don’t love his matron the way he does. They fear her power in the way a minnow may fear an expanse of sea. They need it, but it’s depths scare them, so they stay clustered in their busy little cities, hoping they never have to see what lies beyond.

No matter his disdain, he’s pleased to have a guide in the ash-skinned tiefling woman and his new companions. They seem to have at least an inkling of knowledge as to what’s going to happen once they’re on the inside. Caduceus is not privy to the same information, but he’s happy to trail along where his destiny leads.

It is as the Wildmother wills, and so it will be.)

The seventh day dawns. Zadash awaits, and Caleb really just wants some paper.

There’s many sensations nagging at the back of his skull, eating away at his dwindling sanity, but he’s become an excellent compartmentalizer. First comes Ophelia, then the paper, and the rest? Right now, it doesn’t matter. There’s a task at hand.

This methodology, tried and true, gets him through an anticipatory morning, where Beau stirs and fidgets on her designated side of the space, waiting to be free from the carriage’s imposed confines. She’s been waking before him most mornings—or perhaps she hasn’t been sleeping at all? Her undereyes are dark enough for this theory to hold weight—and Caleb has caught her more than once with her hands clasped, whispers on her lips. But who in the pantheon would a woman like Beauregard possibly be praying to? The Knowing Mistress of her monastery? Surely not with—

Focus, he chastises himself. It’s approximately one in the afternoon, and Ophelia’s party has finally found itself before the northern gates of Zadash. If he is wise about his time, and he always is, he may even be able to replenish his spell components before the day is through.

With perfect composition, he seems to stride through the buzzing metropolis and into the presence of The Gentleman without full range of his own thought. For once, the talking is not his burden. Ophelia announces them, confirms the completion of their mission, makes it known they deserve their coin, for they paid in blood. It’s eloquently put, Caleb will give her that much. He doesn’t even speak until the tabaxi comes asking after Lucien, and he lies to her with the same ease in which he breathes.

Mollymauk, the cacophony locked away in his mind screams out, his name was Mollymauk. He shed his old names and this old life you cling to. He lived free, I beg of you to let him remain the same in death.

But saying such things would be preposterous. Illogical. And Caleb is nothing if not logical.

It is by that same token he knows he is projecting his own misfortunes onto the misfortunes of a dead man. Old names, old lives, Caleb had always assumed that was his schtick. Mollymauk had gone and proven him otherwise, and then he had gone and died. In his wake existed a limbo where Caleb knows how he would wish for his companions to handle Eodwulf or, Gott bewahre, Astrid, but he is incapable of knowing how Mollymauk would want his old friends dealt with.

So, he lies.

Mollymauk had been a terrible liar.

He needs a drink.

He assuredly pushes his way to the open bar, ignores Caduceus’s first sip of milk, immediately followed by his first sip of whiskey, and asks the bartender to give him the strongest drink he has. The man looks wearily over Caleb’s appearance: the tangled hair, the scruffy beard, the worn and dirty cloak. He makes it clear that Caleb is just the type of man he’d expect to drown his sorrows in drink. But this man seems so irrelevant, after the month he and his companions have had. He hadn’t had the time to bathe, not since they left Zadash. He’s still covered in an uncomfortable sweat from the weeklong carriage ride, dust from Lorenzo’s basement, mud from Shady Creek Run, Mollymauk’s blood—

Caleb throws back a shot, barely flinching before grabbing an ale and starting work on that, too.

The alcohol is searing, and successfully breaks down the last of the compartmentalization he’d carefully set in place this morning. Through a haze he thinks that perhaps he should leave the paper for another day. Paper seems so trite when he could be dead. They all could be, but here they are: drinking in the Evening Nip’s covert underground bar, home of motley mercenaries and whoever the hell Lucien once was.

Tankard still firmly grasped in his hand, Caleb swivels away from any judgmental barkeeps. After only a moment of searching, his eyes land on Fjord, alone in a back booth. He’s not at all engaged in the revelry, with the exception of a single bottle he nurses. Caleb is met with the sudden urge to vent all of these unwanted feelings to someone, and the half-orc is arguably the least occupied. He stumbles across the room and lands across from him in the booth. In moments, Beauregard throws herself down with them, and suddenly they’re banded together here in the darkest corner, as survivors of an even darker road.

Or maybe Caleb just thinks this because he snatched another tankard off an empty table on the way over here, and it’s already a quarter of the way empty.

“This may be- uh- the alcohol,” he apologizes in advance, then quickly amends himself: “It’s the alcohol… raise a glass, you two assholes. Here is to fucking making it work.”

Even if they don’t feel the heavy importance of this moment, they indulge him a toast. “Cheers,” Fjord says, eagerly tipping back his drink.

“Congratulations on being alive.”

They all mutter agreements, nearly drifting back into their own heads and sorrows before Beau pipes up, voice full of faux airiness.

“Fjord, you survived being chained up and tortured. That’s got to fuck with a person, right?”

Caleb may have had more tact, but his curiosity was getting the better of him, too. He hadn’t seen Fjord or Jester at all since they began their journey home, and therefore hadn’t had the chance to pull information out of either of them. It nags at him like an unreachable itch, the unknown.

“Yeah it—” Fjord sighs. “More the disappointment. I expect better of myself. I let you guys down, I let Jester down, I let Yasha down. I’ll never be able to shake this.”

The honesty in which he says it, like he’s sharing the weight of an irremovable burden, makes Caleb ill. How could he ever think himself responsible for something so wholly out of his control? He opens his mouth to speak, but Beau beats him to the words.

“Fjord, you cannot keep blaming yourself when you were the victim in this circumstance. You understand that, right?”

“No. I don’t.”

“There are people to blame. I wasn’t joking when I said it was someone’s fault earlier, but it is not yours. The only person whose fucking fault it was is that fucking asshole Lorenzo’s and… fucking… human traffickers.”

Fjord responds with some kind of concession, but all Caleb can hear is Beau saying a version of the same things to him, when he told her about what he’d done to his family. Mutter und Vater. Could it be the ale or could it be that’s Fjord’s senseless self hatred is akin to his own? Is he projecting onto live men now, too?

“You cannot blame yourself when you are taken advantage of,” Caleb finally says. The words come slowly, he is admitting something to both Fjord and himself. “You know what I mean?”

Fjord counters quickly, the words spilling out of him as though he had them lying in wait on the tip of his tongue. “You don’t understand though. My whole life was trying to blend in, trying to keep an eye out for someone that was looking to take advantage, that was going to exploit. I got comfortable, I felt relaxed. There’s no reason why the three of us out on watch couldn’t see them coming out and raise an alarm fast enough.”

“There’s also no reason that the three of us couldn’t have made a fucking plan that couldn’t have gotten Molly killed,” Beau says without heat, and there it is.

Caleb’s drunkenness wants them to settle it right here. Molly’s death has brought all of their old issues to the surface, and it simmers like a pot of water over fire. They’re a fucked up group: thieves and outcasts and arsonists with deep-rooted trauma and foggy memories and no clear direction. They all need a little therapy, but Beau has touched a nerve here. If Caleb can get she and Fjord to be honest for once, maybe—

“I’ll drink to that,” Fjord relents, and the topic dies with the release of tension from his shoulders.

“No,” Caleb jumps before the thread is lost entirely, “and we’re never going to forget it. It’s going to ride with us until we’re dead.”

Fjord says, “Yeah. It puts everything into perspective though, I’ll tell you that much.” And takes another swig from his bottle.

“Yeah, those things don’t go away, you carry that shit with you.” Caleb murmurs.

With a nod of acknowledgement, Fjord admits, “I was floating around, trying to find my way to the Cerberus. I don’t know if that’s what I want to do anymore.”

“What do you want to do?” Beau prompts. She’s kicked back now, arms resting on the top of the booth. This conversation doesn’t appear to mean as much to her as it does to Caleb. He debates within himself for a moment, then decides that probably makes her the better person.

Fjord hesitates, oblivious, then exhales audibly. “I felt like I almost died and I hadn’t taken care of any of the shit that got me here in the first place. I was so worried about trying to learn about these new abilities that— I felt like I got distracted. I have people I want to find and things I want to remedy.”

And oh, how Caleb wants to pry at that. What people does a washed-up man like Fjord have left to seek out? To make amends with? What piece of that shipwreck is he clinging to so tightly he couldn’t die with it? These questions prick at the forefront of his mind, and he remembers a distant lesson. This is how you learn who you’re dealing with: find their weaknesses first, and their strengths second. He opens his mouth to speak, but only a small noise escapes before Beau is sitting up straighter and changing the conversation.

She asks about Jester, how she coped, and Caleb listens to this closely, too. When Fjord tells of their teifling’s ceaseless joy, even while bound and gagged, and the perplexity of it, Caleb takes a pause. The three of them are turned in the corner booth now, eyeing Jester across the bar. She is somehow dancing, despite the fact that there’s no music playing, only the sound of low chatter. And while it is ridiculous, Caleb also finds it incredibly sad. How tired she must be, he thinks, from carrying that joy’s weight.

“I think it is an act,” he says, but neither Fjord nor Beauregard really listens. They are too caught in her orbit, too close to see the strings that keep her mask tied tight. And for now, that’s okay. Their ignorance is not tonight’s fight.

Caduceus lands at their table moments later, breaking their collective stupor. Looming and swaying, he babbles on about the drinks he’s had, how terrible they all seemed to be. Caleb makes a joke, it doesn’t land flat. His companions even laugh. Beau calls Nott and Jester over, and now they’re all crammed in this booth decidedly not made to fit six people, but for once none of them seem to mind. Caleb teases Jester about her lack of drinking habits, throws in a compliment, pulls a smile from her. A genuine one. Caduceus begs to drink something good, and they launch from a plan to visit the bakery, to a plan to visit the smut shop, to a plan to visit the bathhouse—for Molly, repeats in his head, for Molly—in a matter of seconds.

And because the alcohol likes toasts, so does Caleb in this moment. He asks again for everyone to raise their glasses, filled with ale and milk and otherwise, and asks for a cheers. Not to freedom, but to Mollymauk Tealeaf.

Hear, hear, is their rallying cry. And it brings him hope.

There’s brief talk of what comes after this. Pumat’s, the cloven crystal, Ionos, but it’s lighthearted. Beau calls him a good friend, and though Caleb stays composed, he feels as though when he stands his feet may not touch the ground. Nott declares that they get out of this place, but stops by The Gentleman once more to ask after the woman from the letter, Avantika. She is drunk, even by Nott-typical standards, and makes a total mess of the thing. Soon, laughing out of sheer embarrassment, they’re all shuffling out of the booth and up the stairwell once more.

Looking assuredly like idiots of the highest order, they venture away from the Evening Nip, drunken and contented. Beau brazenly begins lighting spare cherry bombs and lobbing them at the party.

“For Molly!” She yells, and as fireworks begin to burst in the center of the street, Caleb thinks that maybe, just maybe, they’re all going to be okay.

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contre-qui-rose · 5 years

Text

chromatic fic plan

Abe are at the king’s palace to be introduced as new scourgers of the king - decked out in full uniform, hoods over their faces, weapons and all. They are standing guard outside while ikithon discusses a matter with the king (ikithon is stalling for time) Ikithon summons them in, and they kneel before the king - and this is when the roaring starts, and then the screams, and then that fades into the crackle of flames as the roof starts to be torn apart by massive claws that rip through the stone work like butter Thordak reaches in, devours the king in one bite, and sets fire to the court room. Chaos in sues, and abe see ikithon consumed in a gout of flame as they leave, fleeing as fast as they can from the fire, gone invisible and hasted + misty step as the three of them try to throw each other away from the dragon as fast as possible. They retreat to a safehouse on the outer edges of the city, one they had been told about but never had to utilize, and quickly realize in the magically enhanced voice of thordak booming through the city, that the city has been overrun by the chroma conclave, and all who remain are nothing more than playthings of a less than idle ruler. Abe, furious about the city, about their master’s death, plot to kill the dragon - but they aren’t strong enough. They won’t survive here, so close to him, but if they can - if they can kill other things, escape from here, get theyre parents away from here and get them safe and get stronger, they can help this city, help these people that they are duty bound to protect from traitors

There is no greater treason than this one. (Well - there is. And they will realize that, one day.)

In the space of a night, the city is near razed to the ground.

The western gate is closed, as is the southern gate. There is no use trying to find the northern gate, not when that sits on the back of the palace grounds, torn asunder by a dragon’s breath.

The eastern gate is the worst option, but it is there only one.

There is still just enough space for them to worm through the wall, three days after the dragon arrived. Just enough time for them to escape, and to watch the dragon and the wyrms he brought in his wake raze the feilds surrounding the city. The people will starve, and there is little they can do to stop it.

They steal horses - well. It’s not stealing if their owners are dead, succumbed to the poison that spread with the ash after the destruction of the academy. It hurt them, too, but they are young enough to push through it, and keep going.

With the horses, they make it to Nogvurot in four days, only to find the city nearly as bad off as Rexxentrum, a city already razed by ice before Rexxentrum had burned. They pick through the empty city, freezing, and find clothes and supplies, enough to get them through the five day journey to hupperdook. What they find in hupperdook is a city safe, protected by the flying machines built by the mechanics of the city flung into the air on a prayer, patrolling for anything that gets too close. Hupperdook is where they find jester, and fjord - both of whom had known each other for a year now, and who had both been sent by marion to study at a boarding school in rexxentrum after jester had been forced out of the city. But the traveler had sensed something coming, after the destruction of emon, before thordak had moved on to a bigger horizon, and jester had led their escape. ((since this is pre-vox machina bringing artagan from the feywild and into the material plane, the traveler has less of a material prescene (lol), and jester is a warlock alongside fjord))

Abe are doubtful, but jester is light incarnate and she and fjord join up with them on their dragon killing plans. A few miles outside of hupperdook - bren had been asleep, when they set out, and the accidently move north before anyone realizes - they run into two other teenagers, trying to move towards town. Yasha, recently escaped from her tribe after they tried to kill her for falling in love with zuala - zuala, injured and still with them, supported by yasha everystep of the way - and mollymauk, recently having clawed his way out of an ash covered grave by tomb takers who had seen thordak coming months ago and tried a ritual to stop it that instead took lucien away, who is still shaky on his feet and mute but zuala’s been teaching him sign language. Abe know sign, already, so it’s simple enough for them to join the troupe after they realize how good the three of them are at fighting, injuries aside. They meet calianna, who’s trying desperately to figure out what’s going on, the draconic side of her burning with rage. She doesn’t join them for long, but long enough to help them in the fight against the mechs that have been corrupted in hupperdook.

They are stopped for a few weeks, to let bren heal after a fight against a mecha in hupperdook, to let zuala get a little steadier on her feet, mollymauk more comfortable for the group. Then they press on, still heading towards blumenthal, around the mountains. Bren turns seventeen with a cake made clumsily in a firepit, and it is still the best thing he’s tasted in months.

On their way through the felderwin tillage, they encounter what seems to be an empty cart, piled high with supplies - in their investigation of it, a smaller person dressed in all black attacks them, until she realizes they’re all kids. That’s when they join up with nott and yeza - both of them having just turned 20, making them the oldest in the group now. Nott is VERY PROTECTIVE

The push on towards kamorhad - monster encounters, encouraged by the destruction of the city. They skirt around zadash, not wanting to risk it, and end up bumping into beau, newly turned 18, who had been training with the cobalt soul and was sent out by them to try and get information on the dragons to aid in their takedown. She, with her sending stone, then serves as the groups liason between the rebel forces gathering in zadash, hidden from the dragons through the pumat’s endless attempt to sheild the city in a modified version of leomunds hut. It didn’t save all of it, but it saved the heart of the city, and that is where the people have gathered, living in the streets.

So beau joins them, then.

Caduceus is the last to join them, arriving to their growing entourage as they stray too close to the mountains. Caduceus had been sent away from the grove by his parents, in a last ditch effort to get the kids out before the dragons arrive, who were burning and icing a path through the savaleir wood on their way to rexxentrum. They sent him through teleport to - they were aiming for vasselheim, but they had failed spectaculalry, and he had no real way to contact them. But they find him, and easily welcome into their grasp once they realize that he’s a healer. Caduceus is hurting and malnourished and shaky, but he’s powerful in a way that comes from survival, and he fits into their group like a knife in it’s slot.

Finally, finally, they make their way to the zemni feilds. But - blumenthal isn’t there.

There’s nothing there.

The forest is there, the feilds are there, but the town is gone. Their parents houses are gone.

Not burned. Unless it’s been longer than they thought, years of overgrowth the grow over ashes, but -

It’s like there was nothing there at all.

It’s at that point that they realize they can’t keep going like this. Blumenthal was - is - it’s gone. That goal is gone, now.

Which means theyre new goal is to kill a dragon.

Simple, right?

At least they’re together.

At least - they have some chance of fighting this.

They build a base for themselves, in woods where blumenthal used to be. They know all the caves there, all the tunnels of their youth that they widen now, make their own. They build their own home, there.

And we skip a few months - to when they’ve met twiggy, calianna joins them, shakaste (their token adult), and reani, essek - far flung from his home, who had been aiming for something and stopped by the magic protecting xhorhas from invaders. To them, more powerful now, who had fought off smaller dragons and worms, and who are now planning on infiltrating rexxentrum to get more information on the situation.

Bren has teleportation magic now, his focus switched away from fire and towards transmutation, to the power to keep his friend family safe. Eodwulf has his sword, his half elven heritage manfiesting in faster movements, better attacks, a rapier that he trusts his life with. And astrid has sending, she communicates, and can brew poison strong enough for anything. And they leave the others behind, because this should only be a week - teleport in, look forinformation, teleport out. But - they get close enough to see the dragon. To see his court. And ikithon is there.

Helping, him.

Ruling alongside him, almost.

And they kill their master, because - too many things make sense now. They were never meant to survive that attack.

Ikithon dies in the longest battle theyve ever faced, and then - They are magic, too. Not as trusted as their master, but thordak is looking for magic, looking for help, and he sees oppurtunity in them.

And he takes them, and makes them his.

They warn the others. Astrid does - bren is kept under thordaks claw, kept for his affinity for fire and knowledge, but eodwulf and astrid are less watched.

And they stay there for months.

It takes weeks to make a plan, but they make one. Astrid brews medicine, bren feeds it to thordak, and slowly - under the guise of his curse getting worse - they poison the dragon, until he’s a bloating mess and bren is pratically ruling the city in his stead. And eodwulf - he spends his days lurking around the city, passing messages, sticking to the shadows, building an army and building a plan.

It is six months later, and thordak - still a dragon. Still ancient. But bloated, poisoned, ill enough that he can’t fly, can barely move. And eodwulf starts a revolution.

The dragon dies beneath eodwulf, astrid, and bren, while their friends and the city fight an army outside of the lair. Bren and astrid almost don’t make it, and their friends, the city - everyone barely survives.

But they survive.

It’s at that point, when eodwulf is hauling his friends out of the collapsing lair, the only one still standing, all three of them barely arrive, that vox machina arrive - vox machina, who’s spent months and months fighting the rest of the conclave, preparing for a war in rexxentrum, and who arrive to find the war already run. But they help pick up the peices, and help astrid and bren and wulf recover after months of having to serve thordak, and essentially vox machina adopt all of the mighty nein, everyone recovers and lives happily ever after , the end!!!!

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thevikingsheaux · 5 years

Text

No One’s Dog

Part 6

A/N: Here’s the next chapter finally! I’ve been working so much so I haven’t had a whole lot of time to write

Pairing: Hvitserk x reader...

Warning: Nothing for this chapter really. Other than the reader getting publicly embarassed

Catch up here.

For the next couple of hours, you and Ivar sat talking with each other about anything and everything. You told him about how your mother and sister passed away from an illness a few years ago. When they died your brother disappeared and you hadn’t seen him since. He was very close to your mother and took her death extremely hard.

Ivar told you about how Aslaug would take him to the fjord when he was a child and tell him stories for hours to give him a break from his brothers and other judgmental eyes in Kattegat. He opened up about how much he resented the loss of his father. He was still angry at Odin for ripping his father away again so soon after he returned to Kattegat.

Your conversation wasn’t all serious though. You and Ivar also talked about what you would do if you could live your dream lives.

“I think it would be very interesting to be a priestess in Uppsala or study to be a Seeress, though I do not know if I naturally possess the gift. I have had a few visions during my life, but not like the Seer,” you admitted.

Ivar looked at you with curiosity. He did not expect you to say that. “Why?” he asked, truly puzzled.

“I would like to speak to the gods and to my dead family without having to die first. There is still much to see here. I am fascinated by the priests and priestesses in Uppsala and by the Seer’s abilities,” you replied.

“The only thing I would change is my legs,” Ivar said after thinking quietly. “And I still want to be more famous than my father. I want the whole world to remember my name for all eternity.” After hesitating a moment he added, “But I do want one other thing... I would also want a woman to make my wife. Some- someone like you.”

Your eyes widened in response. Was he blushing? you wondered.

When you didn’t say anything Ivar looked back at you and stuttered, “I- I just mean someone who doesn’t treat me differently. Like you.”

You smiled politely and somewhat awkwardly and said, “Yeah, I assumed that’s what you meant.”

Time passed quickly and you even got a small laugh out of him with one of your lame jokes which was very unexpected. The sun was sinking quickly and a cold breeze ran through Kattegat.

“I am going home, daughter,” your father’s booming voice called out.

You turned to see him emerging from the doorway and smiled. “Okay, I will see you at home,” you said. Your father nodded to Ivar and walked off in the direction of home. His silhouette faded into the distance and you turned back to Ivar whose gaze was on you. He quickly averted his eyes when you looked at him.

The wind began to pick up and you shivered a bit. “I suppose the first snow is getting closer,” you said. Ivar nodded and you noticed him staring at your chest. You looked down and saw your nipples poking into the fabric of your dress. You scowled and smacked his shoulder before folding your arms across your chest. “Um, excuse me! My eyes are up here!”

Ivar smirked and said, “I would say sorry but I’m not.” You glared and started to get up. “Wait, wait,” he said and grabbed your arm. “Eat dinner in the Great Hall with me,” he said firmly. It was an order, not a request. His normally forceful and commanding demeanor was showing itself again.

“I don’t think I will,” you snapped and tried to yank your arm away.

His grip tightened on your arm and he growled, “Yes, you will.” His glare became murderous because he wasn’t getting his way.

You glared right back but decided not to fight him. “Fine,” you said shortly. He released your arm and you stepped back from the table. You waited while Ivar pulled himself to his feet and got his crutches in place.

“Come, Y/N,” he said and started to make his way to the Hall with you in tow.

When you reached the Hall he roughly shoved the doors open and made everyone inside jump. You scanned their faces and saw fear in their expressions. Your eyes finally landed on Aslaug’s face. She was gazing at Ivar with a smile, happy as ever to see her favorite son. “Ivar!” she cooed.

“Hello mother, what have the thralls prepared for dinner? I am hungry,” he asked in response.

“I’m not sure, but they said they’re almost done cooking it,” Aslaug said before looking at you. She arched an eyebrow and scanned you up and down. “It looks like Y/N here will need to bathe before dinner. You won’t be sitting at my table like that.”

Ivar smirked and said, “She’s right. You stink.”

You narrowed your eyes at him but said, “My apologies, my Queen,” to Aslaug.

“You can bathe and then I’ll have some of my clothes you can borrow laid out on Hvitserk’s bed,” she told you. You made a small bow and thanked her. You didn’t see but Ivar scowled when his mother said a change of clothes would be waiting on Hvitserk’s bed.

Aslaug motioned for one of the thralls to take you to bathe and one, a petite young woman, approached you. “Please wait here miss so I can get the bath started,” she mumbled.

You nodded politely and sat down to wait. Ivar started to sit next to you but you closed your eyes and made it clear you weren’t interested in conversation. You were still a little insulted that he said you stank.

A little bit later the girl returned and told you to follow her. “The water is just about ready,” the girl told you as you trailed her down the hall.

“Thank you. What’s your name?” you asked.

“It’s Iona,” she said sweetly. She was a mousy girl and spoke very softly.

“Well thank you for helping me, Iona.”

She opened the door to a room with a good sized tub that was about half full with steaming water. Two more pails full of water sat over the roaring fire, warming up for the bath. “If you just leave a washcloth here for me I can bathe by myself,” you said.

“Are you sure?” Iona asked.

“Yes, I’m certain.”

Iona poured the remaining water into the tub, which made it about three-quarters full. “Be careful, it’s very hot,” she warned you. “Give me your dress and I’ll wash it.” You undressed and handed her your clothes and realized how glad you were to bathe. Ivar and Aslaug were right, you were filthy.

You slowly slid down into the tub, relishing how hot the water was. Sitting outside with Ivar for so long had set what felt like a permanent chill in your bones. The water was quickly melting the cold away.

Your eyes closed and you leaned back, letting the water hug your entire body like a blanket. You heard the faint sound of Ivar’s crutch dragging down the hallway, presumably heading toward his room. It got progressively louder and suddenly stopped just outside the door of the room you were in, like he was thinking about coming inside. You rolled your eyes and submerged yourself completely in the water. When you came back up for air you heard Ivar’s crutch continuing down the hall.

You grabbed the washcloth and scrubbed the soot off your face and arms and then got up out of the water. The brisk air on your wet skin made you shiver so you quickly dried off with the extra cloth Iona left you.

After you dried off you realized you didn’t have any clothes in the room and Iona forgot to leave you anything to cover up with. “Great,” you muttered. Hvitserk’s room was much further down the hall and all you had was a small square of cloth to cover you.

You sat on the edge of the tub for a moment, thinking about what to do. You couldn’t tell if Iona or any other thrall was nearby because it was very quiet. So you finally decided to just make a run for it.

You peeked your head out the doorway and scanned the hallway. It was empty and you could see the shadowy doorway of Hvitserk’s room a couple doors down, past Ivar’s.

You bit your lip and looked to the ceiling, saying a silent prayer. Please gods let there be some clothes in his room you thought.

You stepped out and started to sprint down the hall when of course Ivar opened his door and emerged. You smacked right into him and knocked yourself to the ground and almost brought him down with you too. Luckily the doorframe caught him.

“You know if you’re that desperate you could’ve just asked. You don’t have to go throwing your naked body at men hoping one will react,” he remarked with a smirk.

You glared up at him and scrambled to get up. He offered a hand to you but taking it would mean leaving either your breasts or your crotch exposed to him, neither of which was appealing. “Fuck off Ivar,” you snapped and got up yourself.

He laughed and turned to watch you run down the rest of the hall to Hvit’s room.

Once you got into his room you huffed and threw yourself down on Hvitserk’s bed next to the clothes Aslaug was lending you. You closed your eyes and held back a couple of embarrassed tears from what just happened with Ivar. You also were upset because you realized that if Ivar hadn’t been rude you probably wouldn’t have minded him seeing you naked and that confused you.

After another moment of feeling sorry for yourself, you dragged yourself upright and got dressed. It smelled like dinner was ready so you ventured out into the main part of the Great Hall.

Everyone was already sitting down and eating when you came in so you searched for an empty spot. The only place left was one next to Ivar, which you realized was probably intentional.

Ivar’s eyes found you and his jealousy that your lovely body was Hvitserk’s overcame his better judgment. You looked beautiful and he hated that you made him feel this way. He struggled to his feet and stood in front of you.

“Look! My brother’s whore is finally joining us! Can you believe just a little while ago she ran naked to me and practically begged for me to fuck her! I wonder what poor little Hvitserk would think,” he shouted.

Everyone in the Hall broke out in laughter except for Aslaug who looked down at her plate, angry and sad for you but unwilling to say anything and cross her son. Ivar stared at you, a haughty smirk on his face.

Tears brimmed in your eyes and your bottom lip began to tremble. Without thinking, you slapped Ivar across his face. Hard. The entire Hall fell silent, stunned at your bold actions.

Rage filled Ivar’s eyes and he lunged forward. He tangled his fingers in your hair and yanked your head back to expose your neck. With his other hand, he grabbed your throat and began to squeeze harshly. You started to struggle to breathe and clawed at the hand around your throat with your eyes wide. He finally let go just when you thought you’d lose consciousness.

He pushed you away from himself with a growl and collapsed onto the edge of the table and then roared, “Get out!”

You gasped for air and you squeezed your eyes shut for a second, trying to contain the tears that threatened to roll down your cheeks. You were a proud woman and the incident with Ivar humiliated you and you wished that you could curl up next to Hvitserk. You ran out of the Hall into the cold, dark night and let your tears fall.

To be continued

Tags: @laketaj24 @tephi101 @grungyblonde @captstefanbrandt @missrobyn81 @moondustmemories @alicedopey @supernaturalvikingwhore @lol-haha-joke @heathen-whore @lisinfleur @backstagepaige @voodoodollgirl @ariellostatci @vikingalexthedane @tempt-ress @hallowed-heathen @credulouskhaleesi @whenimaunicorn @oddsnendsfanfics @anarchy-is-coming @peaceisadirtyword @stickystatesmanstudentcloud @funmadnessandbadassvikings

Do y’all think slapping Ivar was a mistake or did he deserve it??

#vikings #vikings imagine #hvitserk x reader #ivar the boneless #ivar #hvitserk #hvitserk ragnarsson #vikings fandom #fanfiction #vikings fanfic #vikings fanfiction

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obannthepunished · 6 years

Text

Thiiiis weeks notes yall

unrelated matt finished with his usual speech but threw a “i love you very much” in there and i legit started crying bc that registers in my very broken brain as “yeah this is actually true” and that hasnt happened w/ anyone OTHER than matt in three years so yeah. fun

anyway, hope yall r ready for some heavy readin

unless i missed some, 826LA gets $800 this week from the nat 1′s so thats fun

rashnorkthings replied to your post: Thiiiis weeks notes yall unrelated matt finished...

they actually rolled 13 nat 1’s according to critrolestats

So I did miss some! I didn’t start deliberately counting for a while so eh, my bad

Yasha slept outside in the alley 8(

New woman at the barm human, 50s, black hair

"Fjord! Fjord, dont you DARE have fun without us!" - Molly, running away from skele vs person convo for fjord

trebuchet- throwing sandbags @ basket/line??? Either way 5 copper for three throws + Fjord pays for both himself and Molly

fjord gets...... two nat ones in a row. hits a mother in the face. rips a sandbag all over himself. Yasha and Jester pick him up and he gets ANOTHER nat 1 yasha and jester THROW FJORD.

Molly gets 19 on his first throw. ofc he takes it with a big ass bow. Jester takes one throw, rolls 6, straight up, STRAIGHT down, yasha + moll detangle her Yasha rolls 4 Molly gets a nice fuckin strawberry.

caleb nat 20s on a cup switchy game nott plays nat1 ofc.

Beau (+ Molly) lookin for some wild fuckin mead "dyou have mead that doesnt taste like piss?" "... i have mead that'll get ya fucked up. might still taste like piss." both beau and molly get the stupid strong mead

hammer bell game but with a rock. titans grasp? yasha + jester play YASHA RAGES. SHE. RAGEs. LOVE IT. 17, it tilts but doesnt turn over. roll2 24 !!!! and it TURNS FUCK YEAH

Caleb counts her money as she does from like 10 feet away i love him

jester tries and gets a fucking NAT 20 i love her, it rolls twice she only gets 7 gold tho cause yasha won the 44#

Jester cuts off a slice of caramel apple for a small child aw she buys them all caramel apples, except yasha who gets a candied apple instead bc theres only 6 caramel

"caleb! caleb! can you run detect magic on any of this?" -M caleb does that whilst molly plays distraction @ the tapestry booth *

symbol of the platinum dragon, very VERY gaudy, tapestry, run by a mid 30s half elf. that one is 10 gold. 7 feet top to bottom. oh yeah i forget mol has the platinum dragon necklace thats fun, thats a note to self

nott pulls the "caleb's my dad" "he just humansplained me" - nott oh Caleb's doing some archery "if you want to have a laugh, lets have me doing some physical sport" - Caleb

caleb ties his hair back awww bb, uses wire (later takes it out but still)

Nott gets a perfect bullseye on the far target AND the middle target, gets a bullseye on the middle + splits it and on the close target too

yasha (re rats): I thought... that was dinner...? Molly: were not eating the rats so nott gives her a rat candied/caramel rats.......... no

jester disguises herself and desecrates an alter but like, for the traveler so

beaus going arm wrasslin gainst a burly dude. and she loses ofc. yashas goin up against an even BIGGER dude. shes covering her face w her hair blass jester shouting about how beautiful her hair is he recognises her as xorhasian and she gets mad af and nat 20s him super hard but he catches it 8( nott distracts him with "kendall is getting to second base with your wife right now" Y: 21, twice, she's close to gettin him!!! 14 and theyre back to the middle. 14 and BACK TO THE MIDDLE!, 17 and shes on the push, 22 and theyre BACK to the middle fucks sake. 21 and shes succeeding again on the puuuush (i am so stressed), 19 YASHA WINS Jester wrasslin Nott to stop nott shooting gunther (sp) "BREAK HIS ARM OFF YASHA"

Yashas invited to join a merc group oof, but fjord chips in that shes spoken for bless

calebs busy trying to talk his way into the archive of the cobalt soul... cept he doesnt need to cause its open to the public with an escort. asks abt the hall of... erudition??? iridition? i shouldlook this up. that knowledge open only to stuuudents?? of the hall. and the headmaster "ormed?? hass???" thats what it sounds like idk

"i turn a corner and ffffffuhkin book it"

beau is so judgemental lmao Beau: cobalt's a good colour on you caleb: what? Beau: (shrugging) you look good in blue [break]

tournament time

"what is your name???" "Caleb and beauregard can you front me 16 gold" beau: beau: beau: here.>:I

Liam: Kitty. thats just the auto for him now frumpkin does fail the stealth check tho 8( hes not kicked just carried out and disappeared into the pocket dimension.

i wish i could hear good bc im decently sure liam made a mostly in character gag about caleb not taking his clothes off yet

FORMALLY DECLARED WAR ON XORHAS HOLY SHIT "return word to [the king] that Zadash prepares to join the front"

fjord tries to glean info so hard

caleb: it just occured to me, that starting tomorrow it will be more important than ever that we stick together jester: all of us? or just you and nott?

Beau reveals to Caleb that she is/was?? is?? part of the cobalt soul + can get him into the library, shows him the scripture on her belt as explanation*

clerics from the house of the platinum dragon out there as healers

menagerie coast just full of friendly folk confirmed [darrow's group is menagerie coast at visual identification]

half giant with spikes and terrifying jester: i hope we dont have to fight him beau: i want to be him "Germichael??? jermikael???" i like that one lmao

caleb puts his hood up.

big froggo creature to the asshole arm wrestle group. leader is swallowed and carves his way out

mighty nein is second. two doors, one creature, beast has large tentacle like arms, greyish brown mass 15 ft, giant mouth teeth, three tendrils, stinks real bad knew i shoulda brought kalvins monster manual to bed w me

Beau: 24 Molly 23 Creature Caleb: 18 Nott: 16 Jester, yasha, fjord: 6(66) beau uses her two WOODEN SWORDS (flavour to her unarmed strikes) two attacks, 13 is too low to hit

molly vm: YOUVE GOT NO ARMS (no effect) radiants his swords

gil continuesto fuck marisha.

NEW SPELLS!!!! caleb casts enlarge??? on yasha, doubles her size, cool shit

14 is its ac

hellish rebuke from jes: YOU STILL DONT HAVE ANY STUPID ARMS

yasha nat 20s does a total offff 41 dmg gets the hdywtdt, stabs through its whole entire head

jester medicines at beau for her poison, manages to cure it.

the line whatever, gunthers group goes down

jester gets on a wall. Giant fucking wolves???

Liam nat 1s 826la is gettin gud

Order: Beau (nat 20s) Jester Molly Yasha Nott Fjord Caleb

beau tries to treat the wolf as a dog bless

Molly's VM: BAD DOGGY (butt turkey lmao)and it hits!!!

oh shit fucking ice breath, 15 foot cone, hits yasha jester and caleb jes is cold resistant but we did already know that so

other one goes @ fjord + molly a LOT OF DAMAGE fjord saves molly doesnt. 26 points.

yasha nat 20's does a decent chunk of damage fjord hexes THAT one

caleb maximillians earthen grasps the one NOT hexed

jester runs across the wall and comes down on the back of the hexed wolf with her handaxe **

molly stabby, misses one, nat 1's "oh my god its a natural fucking one" which was fuuuurrry enpurrtaining

earthen grasp one breaks free, but that is its action sooo beau pulls by the tail and stops it fuckin movin on her attack of opportunity

yash NAT 20S AGAIN KICK ASS BITCH

fjord finally summons the wastehunter falchion, which nobody else woulda known about whoomph

beau: i wanna crack it in the nuts and then CRACK it over the back nat 1 on the back, 17 on the nuts :b ** "SPAY AND NEUTER YOUR PETS" flurry of blows but it misses

molly gets the hdywtdt on the second, and cheshire smiles it to the extreme

jester casts prayer of healing on all but nott who is unharmed

mountain makers go out, owlbears fuckin destroy them

stubborn stock? stalk? displacer beasts, i dont need matt to tell me what these are, one of them goes down and darrow is trapped and mauled for a moment, one of the fighters goes down, and FINALLY they fuck up the other beast

caleb calls frumpkin back "just to have him with me" they fight for fucking ages honestly

hill giant!!! FUCK (liam takes a photo and good job son you got that now)

#Critical Role #Critical Role Notes

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