#saga of con mom

[quartzalynlove]

Dating Johnny Cage Would Include

Pairing: Johnny Cage (mk1) x reader

Summary: hcs about dating our favorite movie star

Warnings: none

A/N: I've got so many Johnny ideas running around this head

Alright let's cut to the chase

This man's love language is gift giving

Jewelry, clothing, shoes he's buying it all for you

You know in Iron Man 3 when Tony bought the giant Christmas bunny for Pepper? Yeah expect something like that from time to time

But he's also very sentimental and will buy you things he knows you love/will make you happy

That book you've been talking about reading all year? He'll surprise you with it on a random Tuesday just to see you smile

And don't be a collector or something

You like mugs? Funko pops? Magic the Gathering?? He's the sole sponsor of your collection

His net worth may be in the millions but nothing he owns is worth more than pure joy on your face

Speaking of your face he's constantly trying to get you on the screen

Whether you think you have talent or not Johnny just wants your perfect being captured on film

"C'mon, doll, I found auditions for a lead in a rom-com. You'd steal hearts on the big screen!"

Lord knows you've already stolen his

The man's a huge kid and nerd at heart so if you're also a movie buff he'll be on cloud nine

He hasn't had many people to talk to about the magic of entertainment since his mom when he was younger

The two of you would lose track of time talking about the good, the bad, and the cheesy of movie history

This also means he will talk and flirt with you almost exclusively in movie quotes

And if at any point you start thinking they're cheesy he'll switch it up with an expression bc he knows they always make you laugh

While he is silly, nerdy, and impulsive Johnny also values quality time with you

He wouldn't trade his job for anything in the world but sometimes it's a lot

Sometimes he just needs a movie night you

Nothing but the two of you cuddled on the couch, a bottle of wine, and the entire Star Wars saga

He could never thank you enough for supporting him and in turn he fully supports you in all of your passions

Imposter syndrome and insecurity are not allowed in the house

For every flaw you see in your work he will list 10 things he loves about it

"I know it's hard not to feel like this, but even when you can't believe in yourself, I'll always be your cheerleader."

Where's his favorite place to kiss you? Where isn't

It all depends on which part of you looks most kissable at any given moment

He'll kiss your lips, cheek, forehead. He'll even kiss your stomach totally unprompted.

Got freckles or beauty spots? He's abt to become a problem

In his eyes, you're walking cinema that he can touch, taste, and love. He wouldn't miss a second of you.

Bottom line: Johnny's happiness in life is bringing joy to the world and you're no exception

The smiles of millions of his fans at Cage Con is only equal to one of yours

[transformers-mosaic]

Transformers: Multiverse #6 - "Soccer Bot"

Originally posted on November 24th, 2012

Story - Juan Pablo Osorio Art - Ted Simon Colours - Heather Smith Letters, Edits - Franco Villa Chromia redesign - Rigo

deviantART | Seibertron | TFW2005 | BotTalk

wada sez: This is the final strip to come out of the so-called “Girls’ Night Out” saga, following on from “Just Like In The Movies” and “Rage Against The Machines”. Like those strips, this was definitely intended for The Lost Seasons, but weirdly was never actually included on the deviantART page for that project. As in the cartoon, Chromia is depicted as having a close relationship with her counterpart, Ironhide. The phrase “soccer mom” is a (typically disparaging) term for a certain stereotypical suburban American mother, characterised as always ferrying her kids to and from soccer practise. See below for some shockingly horny character models by Rigo, designed for Chromia by request from Juan Pablo Osorio that she turn into a Pontiac Trans Sport, along with creator bios from the second “Multiversal Meet‘n’Greet”.

Hi, I'm Juan Pablo Osorio, 35 from Valdivia, Chile; I'm a biochemist by profession, but a toys and comics fan at heart. When I finally assumed I wasn't good enough to be a comics artist, I gave writing a try, and the results weren't that bad, so here you have me: writing, editing, managing and doing graphics for the TF: The Lost Seasons project I started. Following my obsession on taking over dead continuities, I'm now working on a DC superheroes fancomic set in the pre-reboot DCU,  DC-NewEarth So, yeah, I now bug superhero artists for help too, not just TF ones!

I'm Ted Simon. I'm 19 years old and currently attending the University of Cincinnati. Though I like doing character art, I hope to study industrial design to get a job with Hasbro at some point..

Hello Bots and Cons. My name is Heather Smith, but all my best friends call me Prime. I admit it was the 2007 movie that reminded me of all that is wonderful about Transformers, but since then I have fallen hard for the comic books, and never looked back. Being part of this fandom has gotten me back into making art, and kickstarted a newfound love of writing. This is the first sequential work I've ever colored. .

Franco has been plaguing the internet for years with his obsession about Simon Furman being the greatest Transformers writer ever, "War Within" being the best Transformers comic ever and so on. An example of this can be seen in page 23 of Seeds Of Deception: Sentinel Prime, in which he rewrote a rewritten character retconning the retcon. But it wasn't enough: he also rewrote the Pretenders: And Gods Will Walk the Earth. He didn't stop at Transformers: Italian comic book Martin Mystére was retconned as well,  see page 1 of "Get a Life!: Enlarged Family Business". Is there a way to put a halt to this madness (short of killing him)?

[sapphire-weapon]

my first fictional crush was goku at age maybe 6.

the first fanfiction i ever wrote was FF7. the second one was DBZ. the third was a crossover between them both. i was like. 8 or 9.

in 5th grade, i got in trouble in school for passing handwritten DBZ fanfiction back and forth with the boy who sat front of me in class, and my mom refused to yell at me for it because she was glad that i was doing something creative.

DBZ was one of the things that my brother and i actually did together as kids. we were never close because he's 6 years older than me, but i have distinct memories of coming home from school and he'd be waiting with the next 3 or 4 DBZ episodes he'd downloaded from the internet, japanese fansubbed in english because the english dub hadn't released past the frieza saga yet. so i knew how the series went before any of my friends did. he would also go to chinatown in NYC and come home with bootleg fansubbed VHS tapes of DBZ movies. this was like circa 1999-2001. i still have them at my mom's house.

before i knew that cosplay was a thing that people actually did, i went as pan from DBGT for halloween when i was 12.

when i did find out what cosplay was, i was too afraid to do it properly, so when i went to my first convention at 17 with a boyfriend who did not want to go with me but i made him go anyway (it was AnimeNEXT 2007), i threw together a closet cosplay of a genderbent mirai trunks. and i actually found the fucking picture i took of it in the bathroom at my mom's house.

(that's the closest you're ever going to get to a proper face reveal btw lmao a 17 year old picture of me where you can see more of my tits than my face.)

i then went on to properly redo my pan cosplay, and i cosplayed chichi as well. took a picture at a con with a lil baby like 3 year old who was dressed up as goku. can't find it right now though.

in 2011, i went to anime boston with @feelboss and @theggning and drunkenly ran into sean schemmel (the english voice of goku) and somehow ended up on stage with him later that night, still wasted, at the hentai dubbing panel. faked an orgasm on stage for goku in front of about 200 people. my first fictional crush. probably the most iconic moment of my con-going days. i was 21.

the very first time i was able to use analysis of a character's arc to accurately predict their future portrayal in canon was mirai trunks. when his db super arc aired, i remember just being totally floored like, "i can't believe i actually called so much of this" -- especially considering the fact that DB never really had much of a reputation of being consistent.

i just have so many memories of staying up late with @godtier watching DB and shitposting and RPing bardock and raditz and trolling the fuck out of each other, and just

man DB was such a huge part of my life and just... felt like it was always there for me.

i don't normally mourn celebrity deaths, but i feel like i've spent the last 30 years of my life with akira toriyama. losing him hurts so much. it feels like the world has had a little bit of hope fade away from it. i have a headache from crying.

i know that i would always meme on you for forgetting your own characters, but... thank you, toriyama-san. for everything.

[alygator77]

hiii, i'm aly :) 29 she/her (ye i'm old)

masterlist | ao3

about me // i'm new to writing but i've always been a very creative person. i love to play & write music (piano and guitar), sing, paint and cook! i love creating things with my hands but i told myself it's my goal this year to start creating things with my mind, hence writing fanfic! i've always watched anime, grew up on it and never stopped :') some anime i love are jjk, aot, vinland saga, fmab, fruits basket and many many more. i am currently studying psychology and it's my dream job to be a family therapist!

RULES

INTERACTIONS ! ❀ my asks are always open if you want to chat! ❀ please be kind and respectful. any hateful asks, or any forms of hate will not be tolerated. also if you are hateful, disrespectful, racist, homophobic etc, you will be blocked. ❀ my blog is 18+ only, i post mature content. if i wind up catching you, you will get blocked. ❀ i accept requests, however, i can't promise i'll write it :'( especially since this is just a hobby of mine. but i'll try getting to it! i will not write non con, nsfw for minor characters, aging up minors, graphic sexual violence etc...

ABOUT MY WRITING ! ❀ i really only write for jjk, i may dabble in other things but who knows! ❀ i am open to writing smut, fluff and angst. ❀ i don’t really have a writing schedule set as i work part time, go to school and i'm a mom, so my activity may be inconsistent. keep in mind that this is only a hobby writing blog of mine that i am active on during my spare time. ❀ my writing is self indulgent so i only really write fem reader! ❀ DON’T plagiarize or repost my work!

© alygator77 2024

[xochiquetza3autora]

Top 6 de otras escenas navideñas de Brazzers

El día de hoy les presento otras seis escenas con tema navideño de la productora Brazzers.

6) Mom's Christmas Stuffing.

(2015) Ava Addams es una voluptuosa mamá con una tradición navideña muy particular: cada o su promiscua hija lleva un novio diferente a la cena navideña y cada año Ava termina cogiendose la novio de su hija. El novio de este año, Tyler Nixon, trató de resistirse pero al verla con su sexy lencería navideña la resistencia fue inútil.

5) Santa's Busty Helper.

(2009) Santa (Scott Nails) está haciendo entrevistas para contratar un nuevo ayudante que le de el apoyo que necesita. Phoenix Marie está muy emocionada por postularse, pero Santa tiene que probar en varias posiciones a está curvilínea aspirante.

4) Milf and Cookies.

(2011) En está escena Ariella Ferrara ha estado horneando galletas para Santa en noche buena, sin embargo su pícaro mayordomo se burla de llany se ha comido cada lote de galletas que ha preparado. Si el desconsiderado mayordomo tiene hambre, Ariella le dará de comer su maduro coño; Mientras lo está castigando Santa aparece molesto por no tener galletas para satisfacerse... Eso no será problema pues la ardiente Ariella sabe cómo satisfacer a dos hombres ardientes. Está escena presenta la primera "Doble Penetración" de esta MILF.

3) Nightmare Before XXX-Mas.

(2011) Está escena es un pequeño homenaje a "El Extraño Mundo de Jack". Nos cuenta la historia de las tres putas de Halloween: Monique Alexander, Alexis Texas y Kirsten Price; que aburridas del Pueblo de Halloween se aventuran más allá de su mundo por una puesta mágica que las lleva directamente al Pueblo de Navidad donde encuentran al quejumbroso duende Keiran Lee a quien le dan la mejor noche antes de navidad de su vida y ellas tienen una nueva verga para disfrutar.

2) Office 4-play: Christmas Edition!

(2012) Una escena más de la saga "Office 4-Play" (tal vez debería hacer un resumen de esta saga) en esta ocasión, la primera edición de navidad. En esta ocasión Nicole Aniston, Tanya Tate, Channel Preston y Krissy Lynn Las atractivas chicas de la oficina quieren preparar una fiesta navideña en la oficina pero el jefe gruñón, Keiran Lee, no se los quiere permitir por lo que las chicas deciden darle a su jefe sus regalos navideños por adelantado ¿Podrá Keiran resistirse a sus enormes y redondos regalos hinchables?

1) Ebenezer Keiran.

(2008) Ahora vemos otro homenaje a una historia navideña ¿O debería decir La Historia Navideña por excelencia? "Un Cuento de Navidad" la famosa historia donde Ebenezer Scrooge aprende el verdadero significado de la Navidad. En esta escena Keiran Lee, que para variar, no le agrada la Navidad; para él solo es una perdida de tiempo y no acepta la invitación de sus compañeros a una fiesta. Mientras hace cuentas se presenta el espíritu de la navidad quien le muestra todo lo que se está perdiendo, en especial de los deliciosos y curvilineos cuerpos de las hermosas Kagney Linn Karter y Shawna Lenee.

[medievildead]

for the ship opinion bingo kratos/heimdall 👉👈

HOOOO BOY SORRY THIS TURNED INTO A RANT however you did ask for my opinion and this is my blog so you know what. I am gonna post it. And this will be the only time I talk about it.

I reeeeeally don't like kradall it creeps me out and I don't understand it at fucking all. I see people try to make Hear Me Out posts about them and AUs about them and it just makes less and less sense to me (and I KNOW this is bold ass words coming from me I KNOW) but the canon dynamic that does exist for them at no point to me ever at all in the slightest tipped me off or made me think to ship them. Never clicked.

Then again you gotta remember that I'm someone who has been autistic about Kratos since 2005 and I am so incredibly damn picky about shipping him unironically with anyone. Shipping Kratos with Heimdall knowing the kind of person Kratos is and what hes gone through to Become his new self in the norse saga just doesn't make sense. A lot of kradall I see (that isn't non/con honestly another huge reason I don't vibe with it is that a bunch of people use it as a bolt for r/pe stuff in the early moments of Ragnarok fandom) is just them in a very ooc marriage situation I can't wrap my head around. Throwing Kratos into a heavy intense relationship is dumb to me like it took him centuries to fucking get over Lysandra and then moving on to Faye and I'm expected to belive the Hear Me Out posts about why Kratos would be in a long term relationship with.... Heimdall? The guy who is a complete prick to giants? Who actively said misogynistic shit about Atreus' mom who Kratos still loves with his whole heart? And threatened to actively kill his 14 year old son? Kratos's son? Kratos who has lifelong trauma about his child dying from war? I'm not buying it im sorry. No way you cook it will convince me.

In the early points of the ships existence honestly felt to me like people who were into Heimdall just wanted to explore a crutch for brat breaking. But its just genuinley not something I'm into. I'm a firm believer of ship and let ship as long as its harmless and for the most part it is! It's people having fun but it's not for me and never, ever ever will be no matter what and there is a reason I don't talk about it on this blog.

I've been in this fandom a long time and let me say Kratos x Heimdall reminds me a lot of when GoW3 came out and people started shipping and writing tons of Kratos x Hermes dubcon stuff for the sole reason of yaoi fujoshi people wanted to fetishize the gay male power dynamic. Its like I honestly feel some people see a big muscular man and a smaller effeminate man and are like "oh I need to make one a submissive girl" like again I know its just words and pictures on a screen but I have been here long enough to be Very Tired of seeing my sexuality get used as a fetish tool sjshskdnks

And. And ill be honest. And this is petty and trust me this is literally just me and my opinion but I cannot fucking stress how utterly confused and flabbergasted because FREYR IS RIGHT FUCKING THERE. HE IS RIGHT FUCKING THERE. BLATANTLY INTO KRATOS, A COMPLETE KIND SWEETHEART FULL OF LOVE, EXACTLY THE KIND OF GUY THAT WOULD SHOW KRATOS A GOOD TIME AND HAS AN ADORABLE ONSCREEN DYNAMIC THAT DOESN'T EVEN NEED TO BE AU'd OR CHANGED TO MAKE SENSE AND THIS FANDOM DOES NOTHING WITH IT. I see so many AUs where Heimdall survives to get with Kratos and valid but you know what??? I am gonna be angry, WHERE ARE MY FREYR LIVES AUs. WHERE ARE MY AUs WHERE FREYR LIVES AND GETS KRATOS ASCENDED ON THAT VANAHEIM ZA???????

LIKE FORREAL. I honestly feel like this fandom gets so blindsided by Heimdall and wanting to put him in situations and hell I'm guilty of it too, but I have genuinley met GoW Heimdall likers that straight up forgot Freyr existed and it shocks me. I don't get it!!!!!!

Theres a reason I ship Heimdall x Hermes together and its because their individual dynamics are so unbelievably compatible and I like to explore that. But I get people wanting something more realistic in universe as a muse. When it does come to shipping Heimdall with someone else in canon that makes absolute dynamic sense to me, I gotta be honest, Heimdall x Gná is the only "heimdall gets a dom" pairing that I can realistically get behind. Since they both would actually like each other despite being hated by all their peers for their devotion to Odin. Is it healthy? No, but Kradall isn't exactly peaches and cream either. So we work with what we got babey!!!!

[misscorn]

Day 6 Takaritsu Day/Confession

unfortunately I do think this will be my last entry for @takaritsuweek I simply don’t have the time, energy, or an idea for a day 7 oneshot LOL but all of these will eventually be added to my ‘weeks and weeks’ fic on ff.net under my account Sixty Teacups sooooo yeah :) I really like this one its silly LOL thanks @sekaiichis for inspo/help on certain details hehe

**

“Do you have an AIM account?” Saga Masamune asked as he and Ritsu sat side by side in the school’s library.

Ritsu blinked at the question, “I-yes.” He lied. 

Why, why, why, WHY did I just lie about that?! Ritsu questioned, refraining from pulling at his own hair. He didn’t want to admit to Saga that his mother didn’t approve of those instant messaging chat rooms, finding it far too embarrassing. She thought that they were distracting at best and dangerous at worst. Ritsu didn’t really understand her concern with danger, because he certainly wouldn’t be chatting with strangers. At most, he’d probably chat with Anchan and that was it. At least, it had been until now - what with Saga suddenly expressing interest and all. 

“What’s your screen name?” Saga asked. 

No, oh no, crap, crap, crap, Ritsu’s eyes started to dart around wildly, looking out the library windows and seeing all the flowering, pink trees. “Ch-Cherry blossom…” He then looked at the numerous shelves. “...books. Cherryblossombooks. Is my screen name.” Ritsu said, refraining from immediately burying his face in his hands in humiliation. What is wrong with me?

“Okay. I’ll message you later.” Saga said. “My screen name’s-”

“I-I actually just remembered I have to leave early today!” Ritsu said, standing. “So sorry, I-I’ll talk to you later, Senpai.” Ritsu rushed off before Saga even had the chance to say goodbye. 

Ritsu was out of breath by the time he got home, but pushed through it to run upstairs to his Dad’s office where the family computer was located. He was sure that his Dad was still at work, but he knocked anyway. When not getting a response, he quickly slipped inside and shut the door behind him, sitting in the office chair and hurrying to set up an AIM account. 

He weighed the pros and cons of getting in trouble versus Saga finding out he was lying as he went through the whole process. Ultimately, he decided that getting scolded by his mother was less mortifying than Saga going to try to message him on AIM only to find he didn’t exist. By some miracle, Ritsu found that the screen name wasn’t already taken and he was able to quickly sign up, his racing heart finally starting to calm down.

“Ritsu? I thought I heard you come home…” The door to the office slowly opened once more, Ritsu’s mother standing in the doorway to peek inside.

Ritsu squeaked and switched tabs, pretending to be doing some kind of research for a school project. “Y-Yeah, Mom! Sorry, I just came in here to do some homework while Dad’s still at work…” He said, hoping that his mother would buy it. 

“Okay…next time at least say hello to your mother.” She huffed with displeasure. 

“Sorry.” Ritsu apologized again. “I-I just wanted to get a head start before Dad came home - in case he needs the computer later.” 

"Well…alright. What's this project?" She asked curiously, coming over to peek at the screen, making Ritsu nearly fall out of the chair in a panic. 

"Ah, it's an open-ended history research project…I haven't totally decided what to do yet." Ritsu said. 

"I see. I'll leave you to work hard then." She smiled, patting Ritsu's head, having no reason to believe that her obedient son was hiding something from her. 

Ritsu slumped with relief once she left the room. He pulled up some random information on different historical events that he would be able to switch the tabs to in the event that one of his parents entered the office again. He then opened the instant messaging program once more, anxiously waiting to see if anything would come through. A part of him almost hoped Saga wouldn’t message him because Ritsu simply wouldn’t know how to handle that. But, his heart also wouldn’t know how to handle not receiving a message. So it was a bit of a lose-lose situation. 

While Ritsu fretted over whether or not he even wanted to receive a message from Senpai, a little box popped up saying ‘NostalgicCentury25 has sent you an IM. Do you want to read it?’. Ritsu thought he recognized the username as an Usami Akihiko reference and could only assume that it was a message from Saga. 

After some deliberation and hesitation, Ritsu hit the ‘Yes’ option. It was a very simple message, saying: hey, this is Saga. Despite it being under five words, Ritsu still had to cover his red face with his hands. Ritsu had already been so weird about - well, everything - so he needed to be normal about this! He needed to respond like a normal person in a normal amount of time. 

Ritsu took a deep breath, very carefully crafting his response in his head before he even dared to start typing. He also decided to wait at least five minutes before he sent a message back. Ten minutes would be better, but he doubted he could hold out for that long. He was staring at the little clock in the corner of the screen when he jumped at receiving another message. 

Add me to your friends list. 

Ritsu couldn’t explain why such a request made his heart pound. It took a bit of clicking around, but he was able to add Saga to something called his ‘Buddy List’. He then became determined to send his response. 

Ritsu took a deep breath and finally brought his hands to the keyboard.

-

Saga waited impatiently for Ritsu to respond to him, staring at the computer screen with a soft huff. He was already very annoyed that Ritsu suddenly went home early without a satisfying explanation and now he was even more annoyed that Ritsu hadn’t messaged back right away. Having another form of contact was great, but not getting an immediate response and not being able to see Ritsu’s expressive face were definite drawbacks.

Saga started to wonder just what it was that Ritsu had to rush off to do. All he said was that he had to ‘leave early’. Could it have been a club meeting? Or maybe some kind of family engagement? Could Ritsu have been meeting up with a friend today? Maybe another guy?

Before Saga could brood too much over the mere thought of Ritsu giving someone else even the smallest sliver of attention, he received a message. 

Hi, Senpai! I’m sorry for rushing off so suddenly earlier. Is your screen name a reference to Usami-sensei’s book 25th Century Nostalgia?

Saga sat up a little straighter, feeling a small smile tug at his lips as his heart strangely began to warm at Ritsu picking up on the novel reference. Of course he got it, I don’t why I expected anything else, he thought, affection for the underclassman welling up inside him. However, Saga only responded with: Yeah, it is. Have you read it? The question seemed pointless, but Saga was just trying to prompt Ritsu into talking about it more. 

It worked like a charm as Cherryblossombooks is typing… popped up and Saga was soon graced with a paragraph of text both praising and analyzing the novel. Saga covered his mouth with a hand, trying to hide his smile that was widening.

God, he’s so cute, Saga thought. Before he could begin to formulate a response, Sorata decided he wasn’t getting nearly enough attention and jumped up onto the desk, walking all over the keyboard and accidentally sending an incomprehensible keysmash. 

“Hey, get down.” Saga scolded, gently trying to shoo away the cat, but Sorata was both stubborn and displeased at that. The cat did his best to resist, but Saga ultimately picked him up and set him back down on the ground. 

Is that some kind of acronym? Ritsu had sent in confusion. 

Saga let out a small snort of amusement before typing, that was my cat walking all over the keyboard. 

Oh, that makes a lot more sense! Haha!

Are you free tomorrow after school? Saga asked. 

Yes! I shouldn’t have to rush off like I did today :) 

The use of the emoticon made Saga imagine Ritsu’s cheery expression and his bright eyes, making Saga’s eagerness to see him increase.

Do you want to come over to my place tomorrow?

Cherryblossombooks is typing… appeared and disappeared several times. Saga could vividly imagine Ritsu’s panicked and nervous flailing at such a proposition. Idly, Saga wondered if Ritsu would ever get used to receiving such an invitation. Saga supposed the only solution was to keep inviting Ritsu over until he got used to it. Saga was of course willing to make such a sacrifice. For Ritsu’s future comfort. Of course. No other reason.

Way too many minutes passed considering it was a simple yes or no question, but eventually Saga received another message from Ritsu. 

Yes, I would like that very much. Thank you for the invitation. 

Saga tried not to laugh at how formal and subdued the response was. It certainly was missing that signature frazzled-Ritsu energy. He had no doubts that Ritsu had toned it down on purpose. 

Him trying to play it cool somehow makes it cuter, ugh. It’s annoying, Saga thought, irritated with himself for finding even the simplest things about Ritsu adorable. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t understand how or why Ritsu had charmed him so thoroughly, but there was no denying that Saga was very much transfixed by his boyfriend. 

My boyfriend. 

Just the word itself made Saga’s heart skip a beat. This probably wasn’t good for his physical health - or his intelligence. He was acting more and more like a fool every day. 

Okay, Saga typed after he realized he had yet to respond before he cringed just a tiny bit. He should probably say more than that, right? 

Ritsu was already typing though, quickly sending another message: You still haven’t told me what you thought of 25th Century Nostalgia! You must like it if you made your name a reference, but I still want to know! Please?

Saga rolled his eyes in amusement at the small ‘please’. He was more than happy to indulge Ritsu’s request. 

Plus, Saga knew that the more they talked about books, the longer he could likely keep Ritsu online chatting with him. Selfishly, Saga wanted to monopolize as much of Ritsu’s time as possible. He hoped that instant messaging would turn out to be the perfect opportunity to do so. 

-

The two teens still hung out after school at the library nearly every day, and Ritsu still took up Saga’s offers to visit his home, but now on the nights where Ritsu couldn’t come over or couldn’t spend the night the two of them would end up chatting online. If it was really late Ritsu would only hop on for a half hour or so at the most, fearing getting caught by his parents, but Saga felt special knowing that Ritsu was risking getting in trouble just to talk to him for a little bit. 

It was late now - and a school night - but Saga hoped he could manage to keep Ritsu’s attention off the clock so that they could talk past the half hour mark that was slowly, but surely approaching. 

Saga, uncharacteristically, decided to exercise a little bit of patience as the Cherryblossombooks is typing… began to pop up and go away repeatedly. He smiled a little to himself, wondering what Ritsu could possibly want to say that was making him nervous this time. 

Senpai, do you like me?

Saga blinked at the message, staring at it for a few moments in surprise. Why would Ritsu ask something like that? Saga spent as much of his free time as possible talking to Ritsu. They were dating, for God’s sake! Of course Saga liked him! Had Saga done something to make Ritsu think that he didn’t? 

The indicator that Ritsu was typing popped up once again as Saga apparently hadn’t responded quick enough to soothe Ritsu’s insecurities.

I just mean, do you have any feelings for me? The younger teen attempted to clarify.

Saga couldn’t help but to shake his head and let out a laugh. Is he serious? Of course I like him. The idiot. Though, Saga supposed that made him an idiot too for liking Ritsu so much. 

Saga typed out a response: I don’t like you, I love you. 

However, he then thought twice about doing such a confession online. Shouldn’t he say something like that face to face? Ritsu obviously needed reassurance, but Saga felt like saying that in an instant message was somehow disingenuous. He started to delete it, getting about halfway through erasing the message when Sorata jumped up onto the desk with a loud, attention demanding meow.

“Not right now, Sorata.” Saga said in frustration, quickly grabbing him and putting him back on the floor. However, when he looked back at the screen he realized that Sorata had pressed send and Saga had sent an incomplete message reading: I don’t like you

Saga’s heart jumped into his throat, dread beginning to drown him as he typed as quickly as he could to try to rectify the mistake, but before he could do so his computer informed him that Cherryblossombooks had logged off. 

Saga sent messages frantically regardless, hoping that Ritsu would see them when he logged back on,

i didnt mean to send t hat i swaer 

i typed ‘i don’t likey ou, i love you’ but then starred to deletebit so i could say it to your face instead but then sorat a jumped up and hitt send

please beleive me i reallyl ike you ritus

**Ritsu

fuck im sorry

Saga leaned back in the chair and covered his face with his hands with a loud groan of despair. Sorata rubbed against his leg, unaware of the crime he had just committed. “Sorata. Get away from me right now.” Saga said miserably. 

I have to let him know tomorrow that it was a mistake, Saga thought, anxious about what could possibly be going through Ritsu’s head right now. Fuck, what if he’s crying? He became extremely distressed at the mere thought and forced himself not to imagine such a heart-wrenching visual so he wouldn’t become a mess. Well, more of a mess. 

After everything we’ve done together I can’t believe he really thought there was a possibility that I didn’t like him! God damn it, Saga groaned again. 

He sent several more apologetic and reassuring messages to Ritsu, though doing so did not calm his aching heart whatsoever. Saga eventually tried to sleep, but he couldn’t rest at all. He spent the night worrying over his boyfriend (who now was under the impression that Saga didn’t like him at all) and itching for the next day to come quickly so he could see Ritsu after school. 

I’ll clear everything up then, he’ll still come to the library, won’t he? Saga thought as he laid in bed, trying not to give in to the temptation to sit at the computer all night on the off chance that Ritsu logged back on. He’ll want some kind of explanation from me, won’t he? At the very least he should show up to tell me off for being a jerk. Either way, I’ll let him know the misunderstanding and make my feelings very, very clear for him so that he never questions it again. Saga hugged his pillow, burying his face in it. Ritsu had been coming around often enough for it to begin to faintly smell like him. 

It made Saga hug the pillow tighter.

-

Saga was only running on about an hour of sleep the next day, but his nerves kept him wide awake throughout his classes. Once given the opportunity, Saga rushed off to the library. When not seeing Ritsu at their usual table, he felt a lump of worry form in his throat that he failed at swallowing down. He searched through the aisles of bookshelves, hoping there was a chance that Ritsu was browsing the selection, but Saga didn’t see him anywhere.

Ultimately, Saga decided to take a seat and wait.

And wait.

And wait.

“I have to close the library soon.” The librarian informed Saga. “Are you staying after hours again?”

“Y-Yes. If that’s okay.” 

The librarian was a little taken aback by the soft tone and upon further inspection saw dark circles under Saga’s eyes. “...Yes, it’s okay.”

“Thanks.” Saga said quietly, soon all alone in the library. 

Ritsu hadn’t come.

He didn’t come the next day.

Or the next day.

Or the one after that.

Ritsu was gone. 

-

“Were you ever on MySpace? Any cringey photos I should be scouring the internet for?” Kisa asked the new hire with glee, attempting to get to know him better and garner fuel for future teasing. The conversation had been bouncing back and forth between them for a while now, somehow leading them to this topic.

“Ah, no, I’ve never been into social media very much.” Ritsu answered with a small, slightly nervous laugh, surprised that their boss hadn’t already scolded them for chatting instead of working. “The closest I ever got was an AIM account I made when I was fifteen.”

“Oh? What was your username? Was it something really cringey?” Kisa asked with a laugh. 

Takano was just about to yell at them, but then Ritsu turned a little red and it made Takano curious. He was a sucker for blushing brunettes, after all. 

“It was, wasn’t it? Tell me!” Kisa poked at him. 

“I-I just sort of made it up on the spot.” Ritsu said. “It was Cherryblossombooks, if I remember right…” 

“Aw, honestly that’s kind of cute!” Kisa said.

Takano was going to have a heart attack.

[heeeyooon]

August

Here's some things I enjoyed in August!

Movies:

In the order I saw them, oldest to newest

La Chimera (♥) - Alice Rohrwacher Con Air - Simon West God's Own Country (♥) - Francis Lee Serial Mom (♥) - John Waters Emma. - Autumn de Wilde Bottoms (♥) - Emma Seligman Safe (♥) - Todd Haynes In the Mood for Love (♥) - Wong Kar Wai Gladiator - Ridley Scott Batman Begins - Christopher Nolan The Dark Knight - Christopher Nolan The Dark Knight Rises - Christopher Nolan Blow Out - Brian de Palma The Vanishing (♥) - George Sluizer Bright Future - Kiyoshi Kurosawa There Will Be Blood (♥) - PTA Trap - M. Night Shyamalan The Spirit of the Beehive (♥) - Victor Erice Passion (♥) - Ryusuke Hamaguchi Mad Max: Fury Road (♥) - George Miller Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (♥) - George Miller Sense and Sensibility (♥ x 1,000,000)- Ang Lee Violet and Daisy - Geoffrey Fletcher The Remains of the Day - James Ivory Legend - Ridley Scott Clearly I was in the mood for Josh O'Connor, Batman, Mad Max, Ridley Scott this month...

Knitting:

I'm still working on this one for Buzz, it's taking so long because I haven't had too much time to knit this month. Getting close though. one! more! sleeve!

Gardening:

Buzz and I made a video documenting our garden this summer. We mostly wanted to play around with a new camera Buzz bought, but it turned into a really fun project. I accompanied the video with some harp music I had recorded years ago.

Misc:

This is from our little day trip to NYC at the beginning of August. Can you tell we are sisters? lol

We went on a camping trip this Labor Day with Mike, Meg and Kiva to the Pine Barrens. There's Mike, standing on a cool pine tree on Lake Nummy!

I think that's it for August! <3 Heeyoon

[miseryscrowned]

Edgy oc ask for Saga! 5, 6, 24?

This is more difficult because Saga isn’t as fleshed out as some of my other ocs 😭

5: How far is your OC willing to go to get what they want?

Saga doesn’t have to go that far, for one because she doesn’t wants anything particularly crazy she just wants to live her life, have the money to buy pretty things, also she usually gets what she wants by stealing it or by deception, manipulation and sneakiness.

6: How easily could your OC be convinced to do something that goes against their moral compass?

Moral compass aside (hers is similar to Woljif to give you an idea) if Saga doesn’t want to do something there’s no convincing or changing her mind, she’s stubborn as a mule and she does things her way only, she could be bribed but that wouldn’t be enough to convince her to do something that’s against her (you couldn’t bribe her into killing someone because that’s something she just wouldn’t want to do) she’s a thief and a bit of a scammer but she couldn’t be something like a murderer.

24: What is an alternative life path your OC might have gone down? How different would their life be if they'd made those decisions?

Not many decisions were actually up to Saga, her parents abandoned her and she couldn’t do much about it, stealing was pretty much the only choice she had to survive at least until her adoptive mom took her under her wing, the biggest choice she made was to become a bard, if she didn’t have the calling for music and stories she would have probably become a rogue, maybe she might have been part of the Family like Woljif but I don’t think so because she’s always preferred to work solo and rely on herself only, or she could have become a great con artist. I’m not sure it would have been a lot different since she would have remained in Kenabres anyways and therefore met Angra and joined the Crusade.

[ikoninovelist]

Well Hello There!

(image description: A trainer card. The trainer is listed as Saga and features a shiny delphox named Hilda, a Sylveon named Sophie, a Gengar named Yubaba, an Iron Valiant named Valentine, a Shaymin named Coraline, and a Rockruff named Tippetarius. Saga is a brunette with short wavy hair, brown eyes, a bit chubby, and wearing a dark pink blouse with a light pink ribbon.)

Hey there, I'm Saga, a freelance writer and Novelist. I'm on retainer with Backpacker's monthly which gives me the opportunity to travel all over the world and see all kinds of things! I'm still happy to take commissions for PR pieces and Op-eds and the like. The Miss Christy Mysteries aren't quite enough to pay the bills after all.

Oh! Speaking of which, you can find my books here. It's a series about a P.I. and her Gardevoir who investigate strange happenings in their little town.

Anyway, that's enough about me. I'm sure you guys are much more interested in hearing about my pokemon, so here they are!

((Scroll down to Read More for OOC blog details))

--

Hilda - A Delphox and my actual starter from my pokemon journey days. I got lucky and won a lottery for her. No way could my parents have payed for my starter, let alone a shiny Fennekin. She's a bit of a diva sometimes, and can be very overdramatic, but she's really a sweetheart. Named her Hilda after seeing some pictures of what she'd grow into and figured it had a real witchy vibe.

Sophie - A Sylveon I caught as an Eevee. Eevee are actually surprisingly common in the Scioval region where I grew up (it's a couple regions southwest of Unova if you're curious) so I caught her pretty early on. She's very shy but also really affectionate when she gets to know someone. I named her after Sophie Hatter from Howl's Moving Castle Yubaba - Okay, you probably guessed this one. Yes, she's named after Yubaba from Spirited Away, though she's certainly a lot more like Zeniba. I caught her as a haunter while on a ghost tour in Symphonia City. Never did see a ghost that wasn't just a ghost type pokemon on that tour. At any rate, Yuba is pretty much the mom of the group; a prankster through and through as most healthy Gengar are, but heaven help anyone who messes with the rest of the team.

Coraline - Discovered with a bunch of other shaymin while I was traveling to do a piece for Backpacker's in Floaroma. I hadn't seen one before so I just assumed it was a common Sinnoh pokemon. Coraline kept following me into my AirBnB so I eventually decided to just catch her and take her home with me. It literally wasn't until I was going through customs that I found out she was a mythical and therefore kind of an endangered species. I'm honestly surprised, but grateful that, after a mountain of paperwork, I was allowed to keep her. She is my brave little Coraline who doesn't battle because she's too busy finding new ways to con me out of more snacks. Tippetarius - I usually just call him Tip. Found him as a puppy at the local shelter shortly after I moved to Ikoni. He didn't have a name yet, so I decided to name him after Ozma's alter-ego from The Marvelous Land of Oz. I do hope he doesn't turn out to be a secret fairy princess though. That would be pretty awkward for both of us. He's a little rascal and very playful. His favorite game is tug-of-war, though he's accidentally cut through his toys more than once when I take too long to file down the stones in his neck ruff. Like Coraline, I do not use him for battle. He is just a good, good, boy.

And speaking of good boys -

(image description: An ID for specialty pokemon featuring a Riolu named Shadow whose status is listed as "Service Pokemon")

Shadow is a service pokemon I received about three years ago. Lil guy helps me remember to take my meds and helps me with emotional regulation primarily. Apparently they named him shadow because he just really liked following the MAS trainers around and I wasn't about to name him something different just to fit a theme, lol. He's always very serious but like... in the way that a very serious child is serious. He's not about to turn down snacks or refuse to fetch a ball on his downtime, but he will take both activities very seriously.

Finally, as of June 29, 2024, Valentine the Iron Valiant (or, Vallade I guess?) has joined our family since stowing away in my luggage. They seem a lot calmer since turning on default settings, but they still love strawberry pokepuffs! I have a lot to learn about taking care of them.

So that's me and my little family. I look forward to interacting with you guys and maaaybe getting some commissions in... if you want. No pressure.

OOC Notes:

This is an OC Pokemon IRL Ask Blog. As such all in character posts will be tagged #pkmn irl.

This is a side blog for Ikoni Dweebs. All asks will show up as if coming from that blog but will be signed off by Saga.

As stated above, Saga is a freelance writer. I would genuinely be delighted to write pieces for others in the community as Saga if other blogs want to "commission" her (no real money exchanged, just imaginary, lol) Note however that her moral stances mean an evil team blog is going to have to be pretty sneaky and persuasive to convince her to write for them.

Saga lives in my fan-created region of Ikoni, which is a parallel of Washington State, and grew up in the Scioval region, which is a parallel for Ohio. You can find details on Ikoni on the pinned post for the Ikoni Dweebs blog. Scioval is not very fleshed out and mostly serves as closer connection between her and Unova.

This blog will use strong language at times, but is uninterested in NSFW content.

This blog only follows other IC blogs. If you follow this blog and I like your non-IC blog I might follow it from my main, non rp account.

This blog is friendly towards Sapient Pokemon accounts, eebydeebies, and hybrids

The Following ask types are on

Pelliper Mail/Malice

Musharna Mail/Malice

Rotom Leak

Data Leak

Finally, the picrew I used for Saga's appearance can be found here

[nightmareschoolmomsstreamingita]

[CB01]!!!GUARDA!!!Nightmare School Moms Streaming-ITA

Guarda !Nightmare School Moms (2023) 𝕗ilm 𝕔ompleto, !Nightmare School Moms 𝕤treaming 𝕚ita, !Nightmare School Moms 𝕤treaming 𝕒ltadefinizione, !Nightmare School Moms 𝕤enzalimiti, !Nightmare School Moms 𝕤carica

✔️ 𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐌𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐎𝐑𝐀 𝐐𝐔𝐈 ▶Trama !Nightmare School Moms

:: Trama !Nightmare School Moms ::

!Nightmare School Moms CB01 !Nightmare School Moms ALTADEFINIZIONE !Nightmare School Moms STREAMING ITA !Nightmare School Moms SENZALIMITI

Nuovo capitolo della saga spionistica con protagonista Ethan Hunt, ovviamente sempre interpretato da Tom Cruise. La trama resta top secret: al momento si sa che il film sta venendo lavorato insieme con l'ottavo capitolo con cui avrà delle relazioni di causa-effetto ma, per il resto, ci sono solo delle speculazioni sul ritorno di Eugene Kittridge, il direttore della CIA visto unicamente nel primo episodio della serie (è infatti ufficiale la partecipazione di Henry Czerny, che lo interpretò proprio nel ‘96). Tra le facce totalmente nuove del cast, troviamo invece Hayley Atwell (il cui personaggio è stato definito dal regista Christopher McQuarrie una forza della natura distruttiva), Pom Klementieff, Shea Whigham ed Esai Morales.

Un film (in Italiano anche pellicola) è una serie di immagini che, dopo essere state registrate su uno o più supporti cinematografici e una volta proiettate su uno schermo, creano l'illusione di un'immagine in movimento.[1] Questa illusione ottica permette a colui che guarda lo schermo, nonostante siano diverse immagini che scorrono in rapida successione, di percepire un movimento continuo.

Il processo di produzione cinematografica viene considerato ad oggi sia come arte che come un settore industriale. Un film viene materialmente creato in diversi metodi: riprendendo una scena con una macchina da presa, oppure fotografando diversi disegni o modelli in miniatura utilizzando le tecniche tradizionali dell'animazione, oppure ancora utilizzando tecnologie moderne come la CGI e l'animazione al computer, o infine grazie ad una combinazione di queste tecniche.

L'immagine in movimento può eventualmente essere accompagnata dal suono. In tale caso il suono può essere registrato sul supporto cinematografico, assieme all'immagine, oppure può essere registrato, separatamente dall'immagine, su uno o più supporti fonografici.

Con la parola cinema (abbreviazione del termine inglese cinematography, “cinematografia”) ci si è spesso normalmente riferiti all'attività di produzione dei film o all'arte a cui si riferisce. Ad oggi con questo termine si definisce l'arte di stimolare delle esperienze per comunicare idee, storie, percezioni, sensazioni, il bello o l'atmosfera attraverso la registrazione o il movimento programmato di immagini insieme ad altre stimolazioni sensoriali.[2]

In origine i film venivano registrati su pellicole di materiale plastico attraverso un processo fotochimico che poi, grazie ad un proiettore, si rendevano visibili su un grande schermo. Attualmente i film sono spesso concepiti in formato digitale attraverso tutto l'intero processo di produzione, distribuzione e proiezione.

Il film è un artefatto culturale creato da una specifica cultura, riflettendola e, al tempo stesso, influenzandola. È per questo motivo che il film viene considerato come un'importante forma d'arte, una fonte di intrattenimento popolare ed un potente mezzo per educare (o indottrinare) la popolazione. Il fatto che sia fruibile attraverso la vista rende questa forma d'arte una potente forma di comunicazione universale. Alcuni film sono diventati popolari in tutto il mondo grazie all'uso del doppiaggio o dei sottotitoli per tradurre i dialoghi del film stesso in lingue diverse da quella (o quelle) utilizzata nella sua produzione.

[limareen]

Inventario de lecturas del 2022

En primer lugar, agradecer a mi gran amigo Kindle, sin el cual estas lecturas (y su recapitulación) no hubiesen sido posibles. En segundo lugar, señalar que es posible que mi memoria me haya jugado una mala pasada y haya lecturas que vaya olvidar para el resto de mi historia. En ese caso, me perdono. No pasa nada. Antes de hacer inventario tampoco creía posible haber leído tanto como lo he hecho (y que todavía quepa la duda de haber leído más!)

Enero-febrero

Nunca me abandones

Marzo-abril

(porque sé que algunas de estas lecturas las tuve que empezar en marzo)

Una obsession perversa Una venganza mortal Conjuro de luz El consentimiento El libro de Monelle El vizconde que me amó

Mayo

Rosario Tijeras

Junio

Las carreras de escorpio  (¿?)

Julio

-

Agosto

Im glad my mom died Pechos y huevos

Septiembre

Los jóvenes de la élite (la Sociedad de la Rosa 1) Deathly class (casi toda la saga)

Octubre

La Sociedad de la Rosa (2)

Noviembre

Born a crime

Diciembre

A fuego Lento Un mundo feliz El informe de la minoría El libro que me regalaron por mi cumpleaños

En total, he leído 19 libros, lo cual está estupendamente. Esto significa que he leído más de un libro casi todos los meses. De hecho, el único mes en el que no he leído libros ha sido Julio, y los meses en los que más he leído han sido Abril (con 6 libros!) y Diciembre (con 4!!).

La mayor parte de estos libros son de fantasía, aunque también hay un par de ciencia ficción, un par autobiográficos, uno histórico y dos realistas (curiosamente ambos japoneses).

Estoy muy orgullosa de mí misma por haber leído tanto, pese al año de movimiento y de dificultades mentales que he vivido. Si no hubiera hecho este inventario no sería consciente de lo mucho que he leído, así que estoy exultantemente orgullosa y contenta por mis lecturas de este año.

Un besito para mi yo del pasado, un abrazo para la del presente y buenos deseos para la del futuro

<3

[carpe-potestatem-cosplay]

Some family photos of me as Fuyumi! Anime zap was a blast and I memed a ton; also Fuyumi deserves so much love and appreciation. Dabi cosplayer is thisteaistoosweet on instagram. Also. So many of the cosplayers there were so young and tiny and I want to make sure they all stay fed and hydrated so I’m probably going to make “con mom Fuyumi” a regular thing and bring more water and snacks.

[cinnamonest]

How long do you think it would take each of the respective darlings to succumb to Stockholm syndrome?

Ahhh you mean as far as the darling sagas I've had?? This is really interesting I haven't thought of this before, good idea anon

Well, by default, meimei is kinda raised into it. It's less succumbing to stockholm and more that she's never known any different. If anything, the process she might come to is more of a gradual realization that her situation isn't good/normal... but for the most part, by the time she's grown and getting dicked down, she knows no different than loving her family anyway <3

Another immediate one would be lambgirl, and hybrids in general. It's in their blood and instinct to be owned and latch onto someone with affection. Essentially once they believe they have a master, they'll attach to them without a second thought, and without any objection or complaint. Any cons or negatives to their master will be overlooked for the sake of their brain's natural submission to the person they view as owning them.

The moms™ are somewhere in the middle. Sure, it's fucked up, but that instinctive maternal love really speeds up the process -- moms will do mental gymnastics to try and justify their boys' actions, try to see past it, be unable to stay mad and try to forgive, etc etc.

The longest.... probably camgirl darling, idol darling, or the creator darling. I mean, they both lived normal lives prior, so they know that their situation is fucked up, and have to actually have stockholm induced into them gradually.

Creator darling would be slightly shorter because of the dependency/immobility and knowing the person prior. When you have to depend on someone else just to move around and take care of all your basic needs, you inevitably form attachment, and she already knew her captor prior, which also contributes to the speed at which it sets in.

Idol girl and camgirl, on the other hand, were complete strangers to their captors, and let's be honest, both of said boys are... not the easiest people in the world to get along with, nor the kindest captors you could have. Both are insanely stubborn, filled with weird kinks and fetishes you'll be forced into, and slightly arrogant over you.

[saint-eridell]

A Silent Prayer (Midoriya Izuku/F!Reader)

I… honestly don't know how this happened. The words just kinda came out. I didn't start out intending to write a slow burn saga, but that's apparently what my brain decided to do with it. Might continue the series at some point, to be honest; this whole universe has its hooks into me.

Collab piece for @lemonlordleah-shinzawa-kitten​'s Citrus Dome server collaboration. 15k, completed, proofread, no beta. Pairings: Dryad!Midoriya Izuku/Human!Reader, Human!Toshinori Yagi/Dryad!Midoriya Inko Prompt: Gods Content warnings: Background character death, non-con (very brief, not explicit)

Read on AO3

Quick Guide (ctrl-F to jump)

Prologue

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

---

Prologue

Your village's clearing, while spacious enough to afford room for a small population, is essentially cut off from the outside world by the dense verdant wall that circles it on all sides. One of two paths out leads toward a well-maintained temple where the locals (and rare traveler) leave offerings to the Fae that populate the forest, and one leads out to the nearest trading post… which lies a week's away ride on a speedy horse. This clearing of hand-built homes and ancient looking shops is the only thing you've known. Your studies as a temple attendant began young, before you could even comprehend what you were training to do, and have kept you attached to the village with zero chance of travel.

That has suited you just fine so far. From what the hunters talk about seeing in the forest… you'd rather stay alive than "sightsee".

The first thing you're taught in your village is to respect the forest. Even the youngest of your people know not to step in Fae circles, or follow strange sets of eyes in the dark, or listen to any voices that come trickling out of the treeline on quiet nights. The Fae could be immensely giving, but they're fickle creatures on a good day and absolutely dangerous at their worst. Contact with any roaming Fae, regardless of the type or how friendly it seems, has long been banned among your people. Your job as an attendant, despite a common misconception that you have direct contact with beasts and monsters, is to maintain the temple, greet travelers, and meditate among the many gardens built within the temple walls.

Worship is a part of your daily routine. Each season you place the fruits of your labor at the altar. Every day you pray. It’s human nature, seeking answers from the Gods.

But you never expected one to answer… much less three times.

---

Part 1

The first time is after a terrible fire that razes half of the village during your first year of training. A roaming wyvern tears through the fields surrounding its back half in a fury, razing an entire cluster of homes and over half of the summer crops already suffering through a prolonged drought. The village finds itself in disarray amid the smoldering remains: one half wants to burn the temple in retaliation, seeing the wyvern as an omen that some Fae lord is on the warpath, while the other seeks to gather what remained of the crops as one final beseechment to whoever or whatever they'd angered.

Having just been initiated, your young mind goes directly to one of your first lessons: true offerings are of the heart. In your barely school age mind, that means offering something that means a lot to you. After some consideration you narrow it down - your favorite doll, a gift from a mother you never had the chance to know - and take it to the temple. You find a quiet altar to lay the doll down upon, and as soon as you find your knees to begin praying before it you catch sight of a boy hovering behind the marble pedestal.

His head is wrapped in emerald linen, but it rounds off enough to suggest there's densely packed hair underneath. A single curl peeks out at the center of his forehead, somehow even deeper than the rich dyed fabric over it, its point resting between huge green eyes that seem to peer right down to your very soul. It would be eerie if he wasn't smiling at you with a gap where one tooth should be, a bright beam of sunshine in an otherwise rather gloomy marble-lined room.

"Is that a doll?" he asks, and his voice chirps with the same excitement of the first few birds that poke out of the melting winter snow. You nod, frozen with trained hesitation that wars with your naive curiosity - he doesn't look familiar, nor does he look like the child of anyone who had recently come through the village. But he doesn't look dangerous to you. He's barely as tall as you, and he smiles too nice to be a threat… right? 

You open your mouth to call for your matron but the boy holds both hands up suddenly, his eyes somehow widening even further with a bolt of fear. "Wait," he whispers. "I'm not supposed to be here. I heard people praying and snuck away from my mother." He tilts his head. "Did you sneak away from your mom, too?"

You shake your head in response. "I live here," you explain quietly, matching his hushed tone. "I'll work in the temple one day. I came here to offer my doll so our fields will come back."

The boy's face splits into a grin. "Does that mean I'll get to see you again?"

You aren't given time to answer: a sharp voice echoes into the room from somewhere beyond the open door, growing louder by the second as someone approaches. You turn your head to listen until a quiet shuffling brings your attention back to the boy, who's moved around the altar and taken the doll in one hand. He quickly tugs off the linen wrap covering his head and thrusts it toward you. You struggle to grasp it, shocked by a pair of tiny antler nubs that poke through the curls on the top of the boy’s head... or Fae’s rather. There’s no mistaking the point of his upper ears. "Here," he whispers urgently. "It's my favorite, so be careful with it. Wrap it around some ashes from your burned crops and bury it in the middle of the field." He waves as he steps back with another one of those beaming smiles, your doll clutched tight to his chest. "I promise I'll keep your doll safe. Maybe we can play next time!"

You blink, and as quick as he appeared he's gone. Matron Elspeth, a short and round woman with more than enough years in the temple to justify her limited patience (and the woman in charge of your temple training), appears behind you the second he’s gone. “We’ve been looking for you everywhere,” she snaps as she grabs you by the upper arm and hauls you toward the door. “We’re convening the-

You dig your heels into the floor. “Wait!” you exclaim with all the assertiveness your tiny voice can muster. “I have something!”

The matron stops to glare down at you. You hold up the linen like it’s a prized tapestry. “A boy appeared in here and gave this to me. I brought my doll as an offering and he gave this to me.”

The matron’s brows knit deep between her eyes. “And you took it?”

You nod eagerly, but you aren’t prepared to see such a terrifying old woman blanch like she just witnessed a murder. She stops you both in the hallway, all sense of urgency abandoned, a wrinkled hand held to the wall as she breathes out a long, ragged sigh. “Oh, child,” she murmurs. “I don’t think you realize what you’ve just done.” She gives you a smile that’s softer than anything you’ve ever seen from her, and it’s disarming enough to have you stunned silent. Isn’t she supposed to be rapping you across the knuckles with her willow switch? “He was Fae, wasn’t he?”

You nod slowly, your excitement slowly twisting into pangs of dread. “I didn’t give him my name,” you burst out after a sudden realization - of course she’s worried, she thinks you just signed yourself away to the forest. What was the first thing she’d taught you? You wave your hands in front of you defenselessly, the scarf flapping back and forth. “I only said the doll was my favorite, and that I’d brought it as an offering. He said this headscarf was his favorite and that I should bury it in the field wrapped around some ashes from the crops and -”

“Eeeeeeasy,” Elspeth chides gently. She lowers herself to a knee to put herself on eye level with you, both hands wrapped around your shoulders. “You did the right thing. I wouldn’t have expected someone so small to learn our ways as quickly as you have.” She holds her hand out for the scarf and you hand it over. She turns it over gently, running her fingers over the seams with a pensive hum. “And you say he told you to bury it?”

“In the field, wrapped around ashes from the burned crops."

“And you absolutely did not give him your name?”

You shake your head fervently. “He didn’t even ask for it.”

Elspeth’s frown deepens. “Curious.” She rises slowly to her feet with a wince as both knees audibly crack under her shifting weight. You grab her arm to help her stay upright as she rests a hand on the wall once again with a low groan. “I’m getting too old for this,” she grouses. “You need to hurry up and grow already so I can hand off the robes.” Her wrinkled hand takes one of yours as she leads the way toward the temple’s main hall. “Tell me more about the boy.”

You go through everything you can remember - same height, pale freckled skin, lots of green curls, big eyes… “Oh, and horns,” you add on.

Elspeth stops you both at the end of the last hall. Several groups of people in various temple garb hover in the large foyer beyond, but your matron turns your back to them with both hands on your shoulders. She bends low at the waist to stare you down from only a few inches away. “Horns?” she hisses.

You nod, confused by the sudden change in her demeanor. “Tiny ones,” you reply. “Like when the young bucks grow their first set at the beginning of summer. I didn’t see them or his ears until after he gave me his scarf.”

Elspeth goes quiet for several seconds, her gaze averted to the throng behind you, and just as you open your mouth to question if she’s okay she’s steering you around and through the crowd with a purpose. “We need to speak to the temple Ascendant,” she urges quietly. “This is beyond both of us now, little one.”

---

Part 2

You hadn’t been approached by just any run-of-the-mill forest creature. If you really had experienced the entire moment (which the linen basically proved without a shadow of a doubt despite your own dumbfounded disbelief), you’d come across a young dryad. Or rather, he’d found you, which is an incredible occurrence in itself: dryads are known for being among the most reclusive of Fae, preferring to live in their heavily altered pockets of the forest where only their kind can survive. According to the ancient lore they’re protectors of a vast plane beyond the one humans live in, a vanguard of Fae hidden among life-providing vegetation and deceptively thick forest floor in wait for someone or something to come along and threaten their territory. The tomes in the temple library are filled with tales from “survivors” of attacks by wandering dryads, all telling of razor sharp teeth and sickly green skin and a heathenly worship of the old gods that on its own warrants avoiding them at all costs.

But in the whirlwind following your encounter with the young Fae, something becomes glaringly obvious: no one wants to talk about who had provided the linen that saved them all, despite it successfully bringing back their fields during a single earth-shaking rainstorm and assuring a solid harvest that would more than provide through the winter. All the villagers flock to the temple with offerings by the basket, but no one wants to acknowledge who had actually saved them. That reality sticks with you like a sharp thorn, as does the dryad boy’s hauntingly sweet voice as you grow older within the temple walls, your studies growing more intense by the year. By the time you reach adulthood, you’re actively involved with just about every aspect of temple life. You’ve grown popular among your fellow attendants and the temple-goers alike, even the ones who seem reluctant to be there at all. Your easy-going demeanor and disarming smile is able to diffuse even the staunchest of cynicism. You have, for all intents, and purposes, become the shining example of everything Matron Elspeth raised you to be. Nothing in this world makes you prouder than knowing you're on the way to earning her robes… and maybe, at some time in the future, the temple Ascendant's.

You remain faithful to your doctrine, but in the dead of night every full moon you pray that he’ll come back. You’ve had years to think about it: if you give him a “given” name, he’ll have to use that. It’s not yours, so he won’t own you. Dryads are attracted to beehives, presumably for the same reason pixies are attracted to berry bushes (an almost impulsive sweet tooth) so you’re ready with a clump of the temple’s finest honeycomb every time the moon reaches its largest point.

But despite your increasingly saddened prayers and offers over the years, no sign of him or any other dryads appear. There are rumors of the occasional peculiar looking traveler with big green eyes, but your temple work prevents you from wandering into the village unless it’s on a designated supply pickup day. Elspeth tells you to forget him and focus on your studies every time she catches you quietly moping: “We can’t have our future Ascendant being wooed away by some doe-eyed boy, regardless of if he’s human or not.”

On the evening after your confirmation and the following party, once you’ve returned from the village and gathered up your usual prayer supplies, you make your way to your favorite altar in the temple as the moon finds its highest point in the sky above. The room’s roof has been removed to give a full view of the sky for astral worship, but you prefer it for the way it allows moonlight to fill the center with a skirt of fading dark that swallows the edges of the room. It’s easier to focus here, to lay yourself bare before whatever force that lays beyond the clearing’s edge and let it speak through the beams of light emanating from above.

Elspeth disapproves of your “fixation”, but doesn't argue back when you request privacy for the rest of the evening. Your birthday this present is in the form of your matron keeping all wandering staff away from your prayer room, and that seems perfectly fair to you. You’ve already made plans to repay her empathy with a few of her favorite lemon pastries.

You lay out the contents of the basket hanging from your arm across the marble altar’s polished surface: green and gold candles, several lengths of high quality gold pendant chain, a large bowl of fresh, sticky honeycomb and an ornate goblet full of a rare winterberry mead you were given by the lead hunter’s son (“For the day you get free of that prison and decide to marry”, he’d boasted... his mistake, you’re keeping the mead and he can choke on the cork).

In the center goes a hand-sized velvet pillow upon which you set an emerald big enough to fill your palm. It had taken three years to save up enough for it, but in your eyes it’s the best thing you’ve ever bought. The moonlight dancing off the lines of the gem’s depths flicker and dance exactly like the Fae’s eyes had so many years ago. You pause to take in the sight, transfixed by the shifting planes that white themselves out before immediately shifting to deep green and then to inky black when you tilt your head.

A slight breeze rattling through the room snaps you from your reverie. You glance upward where the moon hangs directly overhead, a wide white circle set deep into an array of scattered stars and inky skyspace beyond. A vivid memory of pale skin dotted with freckles flashes across your mind’s eye and you have to force yourself to redirect to the present, shaking your head hard as the breeze fades away. “Focus,” you murmur to yourself. You don’t have long before the moon will move away from the center of the open roof.

Once the candles are lit, several cones of musky incense set into miniature cauldrons come next, wisps of pungent smoke permeating every dark corner of the room within seconds. You kneel before the altar once everything is in place with your plain white robes folding neatly under you. As you take your first deep breath, the incense fills your nose and drowns out anything beyond it; a hazy blanket hovers thick and heavy in your sinuses, even after you exhale.

This is an easy process for you. You've long mastered how to find your own meditative headspace through years of disciplined practice. You let the chirping of bugs beyond the temple echo around your ears, your breathing slow and light. You tilt your closed eyes up toward where you can vaguely tell the glow of the moon is strongest. "I have no crisis," you say in your head. "I seek no power, no glory, no riches. I only wish to see my friend again." A deep sense of peace radiates down to your bones as you let out a slow breath. The entire room comes to a standstill, even the wind seemingly reverent of your descent toward the lowest floor of your headspace. If you go any further, you feel like you could slip right through the floor.

"We're friends, eh?"

Your eyes fly open as a shriek tears through you, every semblance of calm shattered. You kick yourself backward and the cushion you'd been kneeling on flying forward to bounce off the ornate carving set into the front of the pedestal. You skitter in the opposite direction, prepared to take off running down the hall and find the first guard you come across, when you stop dead with your hands planted to the cold marble floor.

It's him.

The dryad boy is standing in the same spot he'd appeared in last time, smiling at you with that same beaming grin. Or… it looks like him, at least. He's taller now, but he still looks to be around your height, maybe just an inch or so taller. It's obvious he's been up to something strenuous: his tunic sleeves cut off around defined upper arms, where you can spot an array of thin scars set into his pale, freckled skin. He's dressed in emerald traveler garb, a linen wrap identical to the one he'd given wrapped loosely around his neck, and as you look further up you choke on a gasp.

You hadn't been hallucinating all those years ago. The tiny antler nubs he'd been sporting before have grown fivefold and now branch over his head in tall, proud spikes that circle his hair like a jagged halo. He seems to catch what your eyes lock onto and he dips his head, a scarred hand reaching to clutch at the fabric draped around his neck like he wants to throw it up over his head. "I'm sorry," he says quietly, and you're immediately floored by how achingly familiar the lilt of his voice is. You've heard it in your dreams enough to know it's him. "I didn't mean to scare you that bad."

You push yourself up to your feet with an indignant huff. "Scare me that bad?" you grumble back as you dust yourself off and right your robes.

He laughs again, light as air. Your anger slips away at the sound despite your best attempt to hold onto it. You're not some shrinking violet, dammit. "I had to take the opportunity when it presented itself," he replies through a fond smile. "Couldn't help myself."

You huff your disapproval, which gets you another chuckle. "Okay, okay, I'm sorry," he says as he takes a step forward with his hands raised in a show of surrender. "No more scares, I promise." He fixes you with another beaming smile. "Happy birthday. I'm here now."

Your heart flips sideways into your ribs. He'd really heard you. But if he could hear you tonight…

"Why didn't you come any other time I prayed?" you ask before you can consider the implications of your query. You slap a hand over your mouth. "I'm sorry," you say quickly from behind your palm. "I don't mean to say I expected you to listen or appear, I just…"

The dryad fixes you with a concerned frown. "You just what?" he asks back without a trace of anger, which catches you off guard. "I'm not gonna cut your tongue out or anything. You didn't offend me."

You let out your held breath in one hard burst. Thank every god in existence. You pause, waiting to make sure he really isn't angry and just playing head games, then proceed with only a tiny tremble: "I just hoped you would."

Something akin to pain dances across his face and you immediately regret your admission for reasons you can't quite figure out. "I'm sorry," you exclaim again, but he holds up a finger before you can try to babble through a reason why.

"It's not easy for my kind to survive here," he says with a solemnity that draws the entire room to a standstill. "The air is too dry for ones who haven't acclimated to it. I'll admit, the first time I tried I got incredibly sick upon returning home." His gaze flicks to the span of marble between your feet. "But I've been practicing. I should be able to stay a few hours now." He finds your eye again and the sincerity behind them smashes into you like a cannonball. How could anyone ever say his kind are hideous? Is it the antlers? 

"If you'll have me, that is."

Oh gods above, below, and in gran's cookbooks. "Of course," you breathe back without hesitation.

His smile returns, wide and genuine, bright enough to narrow the room to just him alone. "I was hoping you would say that." He bows politely, his traveler's cloak brushing the floor as it sweeps back. "I'm sorry, I didn't have a chance to introduce myself before. May I have your name?"

A caustic jolt rushes up the length of your spine. Every hair on your body raises at the root as you cut a glare in his direction. Oh no no no, you didn't go through an entire childhood of Matron Elspeth's lectures to fall for his ruses that easily, no matter how hard he makes your stomach flutter. "No you may not," you say back with practiced ease. He sits up abruptly to give you another wounded look, but you're too on guard for it to work. "I'm sorry." You really aren't.

He huffs a laugh. "Fair play. I should have known better. May I have a name to address you by?"

You've trained for this your entire life. In no way is he going to get you. "No you may not," you say again. "But I was born under a sparrow's first nest." A meaningless fact that would at least lead him toward something you'll answer to without naming you directly. Elspeth is going to be so proud.

He hums, seemingly picking up your subtle lead. "Sparrow, then," he confirms. "It suits you."

You clear your throat as the collar of your robe shifts against your reddening neck. You can't hold eye contact and keep your flush contained so you opt for the former while your hands clasp respectfully behind your back. You're an anointed temple servant. You won't be reduced to a pile of girlish mush in your own temple. "Thank you," you reply with a polite bow. "And is there a known name I may refer to you by?"

"Deku," he chirps back. "You could have just asked. I'm not as picky with my known name as you humans seem to be."

You straighten up with a placid smile. "Can you blame me?"

Deku shrugs. "I mean, a little," he replies with an honesty that almost knocks you backward again. "I've seen the records humans keep on us. The way your "beastmasters" talk makes us sound like feral crypt monsters." 

You catch the bitterness in his tone and squirm on the spot. You hadn't meant any insult. "We've had a lot of people killed by dryads over the years," you reply as gently as you can. "And even more that have disappeared around the same time one was seen. The people here are just fearful."

"Fear doesn't excuse ignorance." His jaw flexes and your frame draws tight with tension. He takes a slow breath as he pauses, and his anger visibly recedes. "But you haven't taken off running yet, so I guess it's safe to assume you're not as ignorant as the others."

Your voice drops to a murmur when you respond. "I remember what you did for us. We would have starved the winter after that fire if you hadn't brought our crops back."

"Thank my dad for that. It was his idea. He couldn't make the trip himself, so he sent my mom and I with instructions."

The pieces click into place with a weight that knocks the wind from your lungs. Deku watches you ponder as he steps around the altar and perches on its edge. "You didn't just save us. You risked your life to do it. But… why?"

"Because you asked me to-" He plucks the goblet and gives it an appreciative sniff. "-And you brought a worthy offering to go with it." He sips the mulled wine with a deep groan of approval. At least the idiot who'd been hitting on you throughout the entire celebration has good taste in booze. "Winterberries?" You nod, and he takes a longer sip before offering you the goblet. You take it with pride as he traces his thumb over his lower lip to catch a stray drop (don't stare don't stare don't stare don't stare). "Gods, this is fantastic. I hope your meadery has put in offerings, because they deserve whatever they were asking for."

You go to take a sip as he continues his praise, but another bolt of anxiety keeps you from raising the cup all the way to your lips. This isn't a directly outlawed interaction (you can't recall a rule that says you're not allowed to share an offering, as far as you can remember); however, something still feels… ominous about accepting such an offer. Or maybe you're just being paranoid. The lore books also said dryads instinctively kill humans on sight.

His features darken at your hesitation. "I can guarantee that I've already got a tolerance if you just tried to slip me something," he spits out with a mix of anger and raw hurt. The venom in his tone paralyzes you with fear and for a long moment all you can do is stare at him with wide eyes. You swallow around your dry tongue as you struggle to formulate a disarming response.

"It's not like that," you finally say back with the goblet held in both shaky hands. You raise it for a prolonged sip and make a display of showing that you actually took a drink, which seems to assuage his anxiety as much as it does yours, the mead warming your throat and chest as it settles in a warm ball somewhere deep in your core. The Hammerbar meadery doesn't mess around with the efficiency of their products, apparently. "See? If there's something in it now you'll know."

Deku shakes his head. "Then let's hope it's just mead. I'm sorry. I don't think you'd do that." He turns away to pick at the honeycomb and pops a corner into his mouth, which is received with another appreciative noise from deep in his chest.

The conversation is light and easy from the very beginning. He's young for his kind with double your lifespan ahead of him, maybe longer if he "ascends" (a term that has you both laughing in solidarity as you commiserate on your respective mentors). After a good hour of chatting a silence finally lapses between you, the buzz of cicadas filling the space as Deku picks up the last chunk of honeycomb. You sit at the altar's base, just within touching range of the leg he has dangling over the edge of the pedestal, his eerie green eyes trained on you with the sharpness of a royal blade.

He's ethereal in close range. The air around him carries a drift of something wild and feral, like an inaudible drumbeat that thumps in time with your heart.

"Do I make you nervous?" 

That feels like a loaded question if you've ever heard one. He seems to pick up on your hesitation once again and tilts his head, his lips parted slightly around a faint smile that makes your heart skip a beat. "No," you reply, but it's a hollow projection. Deku raises a brow, a clear sign he caught your lie.

"Uh… maybe a little. You said it yourself, human understanding of your kind is apparently woefully inaccurate." Which bothers you a lot. You're one of the people responsible for interpreting every tome in the archive. How much else do humans have wrong?

Deku nods. "I know it's not very helpful, but we don't hate humans. The elders pity your lack of connection to wild magic, but that's a sentiment that's fading with the younger generations."

"And what do you think of us?" 

The Fae pauses, his head tilted askew as he ponders your question. You have the urge to take it back before he replies suddenly, his teeth flashing in a grin that makes your stomach flip and promptly fall into your feet:

"I don't care about other humans. I care about you."

You swallow hard. You're completely unprepared for the weight of his tone. It's all you can do to remember to breathe normally as panic and excitement go to all-out war. You're vaguely aware that you've been warned about this: Fae rely on glamour magic to conceal their true selves while among humans. The closer you are to one and the longer you spend there, the more likely you are to fall for it. This isn't him, you say to yourself in a firm tone. You're seeing a spell. And yet you remain rooted to the spot amid the molasses-thick silence, his emerald eyes transfixed on you like he's trying to bore himself right down to your soul. Logic is no longer enough to make yourself move, to speak, to do anything but watch him with deep fascination. Part of you doesn't want to move at all, and you're vaguely aware that your lack of fear should probably be some kind of warning sign.

He suddenly pushes himself off the altar and lands on his feet, cat-like and eerily graceful, his hand extended to help you up as well. You take it and are immediately shocked by how rough his palm is under your fingers. He doesn't look old enough to have gone through years of hard labor, but his hands tell a completely different story. You frown at your palms where they're flattened together, his weathered fingers draped gently around the side of your hand. He radiates heat like a stone dock in summer. Even with a foot or two between you, you have to wrestle down the urge to step closer and draw yourself into the warmth that surrounds him.

He leans far enough to get your attention and flashes you another dazzling smile (you're not insane, he can't feel even warmer now how is that even possible). "I have a present for you," he chirps. A hand disappears into his satchel and reappears a moment later with a long piece of rich emerald silk. You can't help but beam until your cheeks ache: the delicate gold embroidery along its edges is identical to what is on the linen scarf you've held onto for all these years. The delicate silk threads are woven into a river of shiny deep green that pools around your fingers in feather-light ripples. It's clearly worth more than anything you've ever owned and everything you currently own combined, adding an extra level of surreal that has your head slightly spinning.

"I embroidered it myself," he says, pride radiating through his words. He holds it up with an encouraging nod toward you. "May I?"

It takes your brain a few seconds to catch up with what's happening, but when it does you nod slowly. He closes the gap between you in one slow step and oh, you aren't ready for the scent of earth and pine that radiates from him and the crackle of something intangible that hits you like a mallet once you're nearly standing chest to chest.

The scarf is draped over your shoulders in a single flourish. He secures it in an ornate knot at your throat, his knuckles dragging little brushes of electricity across your skin as you do your best to stay still. Gods, whatever glamour he's using is powerful because he's absolutely breathtaking this close. The freckles you remember from so many years ago are still there, softened by the slight tan of his cheeks but still a pronounced constellation under his soft eyes as he smiles down at you with a mind-nymbing warmth.

"Green is your color," he murmurs close enough for you to feel his breath ghosting across your throat. Your heart flies upward and, on a whim you can't wrestle down, you reach for his hand once again to deftly slide your fingers between his. Deku jumps, clearly startled, but he makes no move to pull away or retreat. In fact, he gives your hand a squeeze in return that makes every hair on your body stand on its end. He draws even closer, pressing out every bit of air between you. Your interwoven hands are guided to between your chests, the breeze and ambient noise from outside coming to a dead standstill.

"I never forgot you," he rumbles, eyes half-lidded from the close proximity. "Not for a second."

"I dreamed about you," you whisper back, and the last few inches between you are gone in an instant. You draw in synchronized inhales as a surprisingly strong set of arms wraps around your back. Your own thread around his waist to clutch at the Fae and keep him pressed close with a sudden flash of desperation. He seems to be of the same mind: he kisses you with a ferocity you've never known, demanding and insistent enough that your lungs' cries for oxygen go willfully ignored. When you finally rip apart it's with another unified inhale and a wonble as the world spins on its ear. You can feel yourself grinning despite the shock still numbing out your brain. 

A Fae kissed you… and you kissed him back without hesitation. There's something unsaid in the room now and it hangs heavy in his stare, which has once again fixated upon you with trickles of gold dancing along the edges of deep green. You quietly gasp. You've never seen feral magic this close. Shouldn't you be afraid by now?

"Come with me," he breathes out of nowhere. Your knees just about give out from shock. What?

"I'm serious." He holds both your hands under his chin. "I can give you things you don't even know exist. Anything you want, I'll make it happen."

You gape back. It's the sort of dramatic offer you read about in children's books, but never in a thousand years did you think you'd really be offered something like this. "Deku…"

"I know it's a lot," he blurts out. "You've spent your whole life here and I would never want to separate you from the world you know, but if I can find you in the same spot twice I'm sure we can find a way to go back and forth -" 

Something in you decided the second he asked. There's no question what your heart wants. You press in again while he's rambling to cut him off with another firm kiss. Deku grunts into it as he's forcibly quieted before a hand gently cradles the back of your head.

You pull away with less ferocity this time and hover in his space, hazy with giddiness. "I didn't say no," you whisper, unable to bring yourself to speak any louder. "But there are things that need to be done in the meantime. I have duties here, Deku."

"We can figure out how to do both," he replies with rapidly growing excitement. The thin gold veins around his irises have begun to overtake the emerald. Your heart thunders as his excitement edges on feral. "Please just consider it. If you want, I can come back this same time next year and we can figure it out from there."

A year seems long enough to your addled brain. "Sure," you wheeze. "One year from tonight."

"One year." Deku nods furtively, but as he lets go of you it's obvious you're not the only one who hates having to do it. He looks to the floor, then to the darkest corner of the room where he'd appeared, then back to you with a smile too heavy for the ones you're used to. "I'll be watching over you. The embroidery of that scarf is kind of powerful, so I'd be careful wearing it around anyone or anything that might pull it."

You look to the fabric tied around your neck and your frown deepens. "What's that supposed to -"

Too late. By the time you look up again he's gone, and the altar in front of you is empty.

---

Part 3

You hold his promise close to your heart and don't breathe a single word of it to anyone, even your mentor. Elspeth would have an absolute fit if she figured out you're planning on not only leaving the temple, but running off with a dryad of all things. And besides that, she doesn't deserve the disrespect of knowing all her years of effort might go to waste. You can't bring yourself to face that very real chance just yet.

You stick to your studies and daily duties as your matron's hearth declines through the year, and nearly a year to the day since Deku's last visit the inevitable comes. Matron Elspeth passes in her sleep with you at her side, holding her hand while humming her favorite hymns until you see her chest rise and fall for the last time. She lived to a blessedly old age, but that doesn't help the fierce tear of grief that rips you open when she's finally gone. Elspeth was essentially your mother along with being your mentor.

And beyond that, if it hadn't been for her, you would have never met Deku.

You head up the organization of her final ceremonies, as is your place. Her pyre is constructed along the edge of the clearing's small lake, a neatly organized stack of wood and highly flammable fabric from the temple with a gap in the middle for her remains. You make sure to include clippings from her favorite lavender box as a final personal farewell.

The pyre is set ablaze with your own torch. This is how it has to be. It's how she sent her mentor off, and it will be how your mentor sends you off as well. You can only hope you've given her the honor she deserves, every decision you've made considered.

You make your way back to the temple alone at sunset while the other attendants remain behind. You need time to think. You've spent every quiet moment that day crying alone. If you don't get a second of true isolation you're going to break in front of half the temple. Elspeth wouldn't like that. You're stronger than your grief, at least for the moment, so you make a beeline for your preferred prayer room and let your feet move in that direction on autopilot, emerald scarf drawn up around your cheeks. You hold it close and will yourself to remain calm until there's a door between you and the rest of the world.

You're running by the time you throw yourself into the altar room and shove the door closed behind you. It lands in its frame with a thunderous BANG that muffles the broken sob that cracks from between the hands you have clutched over your face, along with the shuffling of a second person in the room that had gone unnoticed while you were trying to escape everyone else. A boot heel slides along the marble floor and you whirl around, eyes wide as you peer through the strands of summer dusk that pour through the room's open roof. Your heart flies into your throat with a burst of excitement. "Deku?" you call out, shaking with the urge to throw yourself toward the person as he emerges from the darkest shadowed corner.

But it's not Deku. Elation flips to horror as the lead hunter's son appears with a lecherous grin. He's still a good ten feet away, but you can smell strong booze radiating odd him in nauseating waves. "Why are you here?" you demand. "Only temple attendants are allowed in the prayer spaces alone. You need to leave."

"Do I?" he asks back derisively. Ice floods your veins with his first step. You instinctively shuffle back toward the door. "Because I'm pretty sure I can do what I want. Your temple wouldn't have food without me."

"Without your father," you clarify in a sharp tone. All manners have already been abandoned: this is not the day, and you are not the attendant to bother. You don't want to deal with calling guards or causing a cacophony. You just want to be left alone with your grief.

Your comment makes him clench his jaw. "Without." He takes another heavy step forward, and as he draws closer it becomes apparent how much of a size advantage he has. "Me." He takes another heavy step as your bones ice over. You want to take off, but you're terrified that any sudden movement will just propel him toward you faster, and you're not strong enough to shove the heavy stone door open without a few seconds of effort.

"You're drunk," you point out in hopes of derailing his train of thought. You can feel your pulse thumping hard and fast in your throat. "Go home and sleep it off. I won't tell anyone you were here."

"You think I give a shit f'anyone knows I was here?" he slurs back with increasing volume. "You fuckin' demon worshippers are all th'same, so far up your own ass you wouldn't know a good offer if it kissed you right on th'mouth."

A realization hits you like a brick. "Is this about what happened at my birthday last year?" you ask, using his off-kilter focus to your advantage as you slowly begin to step backward toward the door. "You pushed yourself onto me and wouldn't let me go until I kissed your cheek, then you threatened to drop me off the roof if I didn't accept your marriage proposal on the spot. Do you…" You cut yourself off. Of course he doesn't remember. He'd been just as off his head back then as he is now.

"I was only joking!" he retorts. "Why would I drop m'future wife off a roof? Thasstupid. Y're nuts for thinking I'd actually go through with it."

You successfully baby-step your way to within reach of the carved inlet that serves as the door handle. Just keep him rambling. You can hit him with the door before you take off. "And you're nuts for thinking anyone would immediately accept a marriage offer from someone who reeks like the bottom of an ale barrel."

You know the second you shoot off your mouth that it wasn't a good move. He tenses on the spot, both hands drawn into club-like fists at either side, his stony features pinched with disgust.

"You sayin' you're too good for me, bitch?"

He rushes forward, too fast for you to get the door more than a crack open before he throws a massive shoulder against it to slam it shut once more. You scream as he grabs the front of your robes, praying it echoes down the hall with your heels dug against the floor in a fruitless effort to prevent him from bodily dragging you toward the empty altar. He's far too strong to break away from. Your nails digging into his wrists seems to not even register, even when blood wells under them. "Let go," you plead, wide eyed fixed on the pedestal as he drags you toward it clawing and kicking the whole way.

Nothing seems to faze him. He forces your upper half over the marble pedestal with enough force to knock the wind out of your lungs. You wheeze under the weight of a forearm that presses hard into your upper back, reinforced by extra weight that's too heavy to roll out from under. You struggle the entire time, unwilling to stop, with everything in you that isn't trying to escape screaming toward the Aether for someone, something, anything to see what's going on and intervene. You've spent your whole life serving this temple… why would the Fae abandon you now?

As you flail, a small brown sparrow lands on the edge of the open roof and peers down directly at you two. It chirps once, clear as a bell, and the sound hits something deep and instinctive in your chest.

You aren't given enough time to ponder. He grabs your scarf from behind without warning and the knot instantly digs into your windpipe as he yanks the garment back in an attempt to rip it off of you. You sputter and flail your hands to signal for him to let go, to warn him of the danger that lingers in your head with Deku's last warning, but it's not enough.

You hear a piece of embroidery thread snap somewhere in his closed fist. A gust of humid air blasts across you and the weight above you disappears immediately, followed by a nauseating crunch of bones breaking amid the shatter of cracked marble. You wail in fear, clutching to the warmth that had drifted through you with both arms over your head as you sob into the marble. You can't bring yourself to move yet.

Where are you? You said you'd be watching out for me…

You finally force yourself upright once you begin to lose circulation in your arms. You wipe your face, sniffling quietly as you turn. You nearly collapse as a petrified shriek rips itself out of your chest: the hunter had been thrown back against the marble wall next to the door with enough force to crater it inward. His unmoving frame is slumped over in the center amid a splash of red that drips heavily off the jagged edges around him.

It isn't the wall that grabs your attention, though: his tunic has been ripped with several round puncture wounds arranged in a rough circle, the apparent source of the blood pooling at his sides. You tremble from head to toe despite the summer breeze coursing through the room. The longer you stare at the hunter's chest wounds and the way they're arranged, the more they begin to look like… 

"Antler wounds."

You smack a hand over your mouth like you'd just hexed someone. He really had been watching out… somehow. What kind of magic had gone into your scarf's embroidered edge? You run your fingers over it, seeking out the thread that snapped. The wind dies out in time for you to hear another set of feet shuffling in the room. It's almost too much; you nearly faint with the panic that latches around your throat. You sway back toward the altar to use for leverage as your knees once again threaten to buckle and are bolstered by a rough set of hands that press against your shoulder blades to keep you upright.

You're too strung out to do anything but gape as Deku - the real one, the same one from the year before with his antlers and freckles and big, terrifying green eyes oh gods he's finally here - steps around and immediately yanks you against his chest. You cling back with both arms circled tight around his ribs and let out another ragged sob into the soft fabric of his cloak.

"Are you okay?" he rumbles. You can only nod back and clutch him like he's keeping you anchored to the ground. You feel his head turn above yours, toward the cracked wall and what remains of the hunter, and a low growl vibrates through him. "I'm sorry," he murmurs. "I tried to get here as fast as I could." You feel his arms tighten around your upper half, boxing you in and insulating you from the sight behind him.

"You saved me," you manage to choke back. "You don't have to apologize for anything." You step back far enough to wipe at your eyes and clear your sinuses, trembling like a leaf in the circle of his arms. "What was that? What attacked him?" 

Deku's mouth draws into a tense line. "I can't tell you," he replies. "But I know someone who can." You blink, confused by his ambivalence. "Have you considered what we talked about last year?"

…What? "Of course I have," you retort. Your head hurts. Where's that spiced wine when you need it? "But I hardly think this is a time to talk about-"

"No no no, think about it," Deku cuts in hurriedly. "I don't mean this in a threatening way at all, but the people of your village are going to get suspicious when someone turns up dead with a set of puncture wounds to the chest."

Your entire body numbs out with panic. He's right. Your gaze snaps to the top of his head, where a set of now fully grown antlers jut out of his wild verdant curls. You begin to count how many points they have, but shove the impulse away with disgust. You don't want to know. Even if you did, it's probably for the best to remain ignorant for now.

Voices echo through the open roof from somewhere beyond, possibly the temple courtyard. "I have to go," he says with a hint of genuine hurt. "They can't find me."

This is too much. The decision to leave was always supposed to be planned out. You've had an entire year to get everything ready, only to have your plans shattered into jagged chunks of broken marble by a drunk hunter and some creature powerful enough to kill him with velocity alone. You clutch yourself to his chest again as panic grips your throat with white-hot claws. "We'll find a way to come back, right?" you whisper with a silent prayer of hope to the entire cosmos.

He nods. "I swear it on my name." He pushes you gingerly by the shoulders so he can look you in the face again, his own tense with mounting anxiety. "We have to go now, my sparrow. Please… I'm begging you, come with me. I don't want to go back without you again." His hands tighten over your shoulders as tears well up along the edges of his wide green eyes. "Please."

It feels like your heart has been ripped out of your chest and flung out through the open roof. You open your mouth to blurt out some pained apology for making him assume you'd say no, the voices outside growing louder and clearer in the pause, but can only choke around a whimper as everything you want to say jams in your throat. Instead you simply nod, a single weak incline of your head.

That's all it takes for him to scoop you around the waist again and drag you both sideways toward the corner where he appeared. "You might be kind of shocked when we get through," he warns as he hurls you both toward the marble seam you're convinced is going to split your head open on contact. "Hold your breath!"

The command is sharp enough to make your lungs draw in a deep inhale without conscious thought. Your eyes snap shut as your forehead approaches the shadowed corner; it meets only an icy wall of air as the lights beyond your closed eyelids pitches black. You can feel Deku holding you around the waist, an anchor that keeps you tethered to your own sanity as he rushes you through the dark at breakneck pace. The icy rush whipping against your face seems to deplete the lungful of air you're still stubbornly holding onto and within seconds they're screaming for relief. Deku smacks a hand over your mouth just when you think you're going to break and try to take a breath, and a second later you're both tumbling across the stone floor of an unfamiliar but warm kitchen.

---

Part 4

The second your head stops spinning long enough to see again, you realize there's a woman standing between you and Deku. You weakly recognize the faded emerald of the hair she has trimmed neatly at her shoulders. You glance her over and realize with a jump that the skin you can see around her modest summer dress is a pale shamrock green.

"By the gods, who's chasing you now?"

You blink from where you've landed in a sprawl sprawl against an ornately carved kitchen cabinet, too dizzy from the rush of air that fills your lungs when you take a greedy inhale to answer immediately (even though the question was clearly directed at Deku, who landed upside down with his long legs arched over his head against a stone hearth in a corner of the kitchen). You take another breath, but the bottoms of your lungs feel heavy like they've been filled with a thick gas. Deku slumps over to right himself and immediately looks to you. You're beginning to breathe faster as exhaustion gives way to panic.

The woman turns, fixing you with a look of shock that probably rivals your own. She's a spitting image of Deku, down to the ear points that poke out of her silver-streaked hair and the way her eyes go impossibly wide with genuine emotion. "You're human!" she exclaims.

You nod back, too panicked to form proper words. "Oh… oh, you're human!" 

She jumps into motion like she'd just been zapped by a bolt of lightning. She procures a large wooden bowl from a cabinet and fills it with a few handfuls of herbs snatched from dried bundles hanging over the hearth, then steaming water from a kettle that she carefully pulls out from its resting place in the coals. She mutters something in a lilt you can't follow as the bowl is set on the floor in front of you, the woman following suit to kneel on the other side. "Lean down and breathe through the steam," she instructs gently, tilting down to encourage the motion. "The air here is different from the other side. You need to coat your lungs before they start rejecting the pollen floating around."

You tilt forward with a choked noise of panic and take as deep of a breath as you can with the steaming water wafting up across your face. Relief finds you immediately: you can draw a breath all the way to the bottom of your lungs, which takes the edge off your panic enough to finally slow down your respiration rate.

"There you go," the woman encourages gently. She rests a small, comforting hand between your shoulders that's shockingly cold for how warm the kitchen is. "You should be fine now." She turns to give her son an exasperated look. "You brought a human back without giving her anything to prepare?"

"I didn't have a choice!" Deku pleads back. "It was that or risk an entire war on their side-" 

The woman holds up a hand to stop him and Deku immediately obeys. "Hold on," she says slowly, turning back to look at you with both brows raised. Her gaze drops to your neck and freezes. "You're the temple girl, the one he's been going to see."

The room goes silent, spare the crackling of the fireplace and your own rapid heartbeat. The older dryad watches, still as stone as she takes you in with one long look before staring at the fabric around your neck once more. All you can do is nod back. something akin to pain flashes across her face and she sits up with a fond smile that doesn't quite reach her eyes. "I'm sure you have a lot of questions, but I think it might be best if you let my son explain a majority of them over some tea. You look exhausted."

My son. "So you're Deku's mother?"

The dryad wrinkles her nose. "Yes," she replies stiffly. "Though I very much dislike his chosen name. It's undignified." She turns to Deku again. "You haven't given her your name yet?"

Deku waves his hands in front of him and goldfishes for a response before you cut in. "It's not his fault," you quickly counter. "I didn't want to offer mine. I was raised in a temple that had some pretty strict rules against that in particular."

"Understandable. Though I can't say I'm thrilled at the prospect of my own son having courted someone for nearly an entire year-" (Courted, what!?) "-Without even having offered his name."

"I did offer it!"

His mother chuckles. "I have to fetch someone who will be of much more significant counsel than I, but that will give you two some time to settle in."

You nod in acknowledgment, but her words don't really process in your brain. Now that you're breathing normally again, exhaustion has begun to creep into your bones. You'd been going on fumes before the hunter decided to ambush you, and now that you've quietly literally been flung through a Fae circle it's hard to do anything but lean against the cabinet. The dryad brushes her hand over your shoulder as she passes on her way out. "My name is Inko" echoes through your own head with the contact, jarring you into a sharp yelp, which only makes her chuckle in the same light-as-air way as Deku.

"Well… this is a hell of a way to meet someone's parents."

Said dryad has found his feet and is watching you with a sheepish smile, a hand absently scratching at the base of an antler. "At least it's over now?"

Your head thumps back against the cabinet. This is too much. You need to sleep. If you don't find somewhere to lay down soon, your body is going to give out. "Could we just…" You glance around the kitchen and into the room beyond, where another hearth flickers around a circle of ornately carved wooden den furniture. Perfect.

He follows your line of sight and seems to catch on without you having to finish your request. He moves toward you, arms extended to help you to your feet. When you wobble upon standing he immediately seams your sides up to take a gentle lead toward the sitting room. The furniture all looks hand-carved, the seats made up of soft animal hides that look older than both of you. He lays you down on the longest bench with a small blanket under your head for a pillow, the deerhide that's draped over the back of the sofa gently pulled across you for a proper blanket.

"We can talk later." He leans down to press a kiss to your temple. You groan as he turns to move away, an arm shooting out from under the hide to grab his tunic and hold him in place.

"Wait," you plead quietly, fatigue tugging heavily at your eyelids. "Please stay with me, at least until I fall asleep." You have no idea where you are or how long you'll be out. All you know is Deku being gone means you're here alone and you absolutely cannot bear that thought.

A soft smile breaks across his face. "Of course," he murmurs back. "Anything you need, just like I promised." You scoot to make room and he steps over to fit himself between you and the back of the sofa without prompting. This is what you really needed: a space heater behind you, a fire in front, and a strong arm draping itself over your midsection to hold the knotted ends of your scarf as you both drift off. If nothing else, Deku has more than proven he'll kill anything that comes near you… or at least has access to something that can.

He's still there when you come to. The lighting in the room hasn't changed when you open your eyes to peer around, and it isn't until now that you notice neither the kitchen nor den have any windows. The fire has burned down to a low pile of flickering embers, which means you were at least out long enough to burn through what had been there earlier. With no view of the sun, however, it's impossible to tell how long you were out.

Your stirring rouses Deku, who grunts in his sleep and pulls you back into his chest. The arm cradled under yours has turned an eerie cold. When it registers you sit up to face him, concerned until it snaps into another bolt of shock.

You yelp and fall off the edge of the sofa. Deku's skin has turned a shade of green identical to his mother's, his freckles standing out in sharp contrast. He bolts upright as well, looking around for the source of the panic before he spots you on the floor, half covered by the deer hide you'd accidentally tugged with you. "What's wrong?" he asks urgently, glancing around again.

"You're…"

He gives you a puzzled look, then glances down to where you're staring at his forearms. "Oh!" His hands rub absently at the opposite forearm as his cheeks flush ever so slightly. "Uh… yeah. I told you you might be a little shocked."

Shit. You did it again. You push yourself up to scoot onto the end of the sofa near his feet, and he respectfully folds his legs up to his chest to give you room without having to make contact. It's a gesture you appreciate, but not one you (or him) necessarily need. You sidle up to his shins, where you lean your side with your hands acting as a chin rest on his knees.

"Surprised is more the word," you clarify before poking your tongue out at him playfully. "A little advance notice would have been nice."

"Hey now," Deku chuckles. "I tried. We had a solid plan going there for a minute." He reaches a hand forward and, with a twitch of hesitation, shifts a lock of hair off your forehead and behind an ear. His fingertips are ice cold, a sharp juxtaposition to the warmth in his tone and the care with which he brushes across your skin. "I'm glad you're here, regardless of how it came to be. I've thought of you every single day since my last visit."

How had anyone mistaken dryads for monsters? If the others are a fraction as kind as Deku and his mother, then they've been handed a grave injustice when it comes to human comprehension of their kind. You lean your head toward his hand and he opens his fingers. Your cheek brushes against his weathered palm, eliciting a shiver that courses down your back as the temperature of his skin clashes against the warmth of the den. For a long moment you simply exist, anchored by the green stare fixed upon your own and the callused thumb that smooths over your cheek. Whatever it takes for you to keep this kind of tenderness around will be well worth the effort. You've already decided (long ago, you silently realize) that he is the only one you ever want to be this close to you.

"Do I make you nervous?"

You're taken back to the altar room for a moment as you recall the image of Deku sitting on the pedestal, bathed in pale light with the cicadas humming behind his ethereal laugh. "No," you reply truthfully, hushed and reverent in the slowly disappearing space between you as you both lean forward. Both your eyelids lower as you both lean closer. It's a chaste contact when Deku leans in to kiss you, as soft as his tone and the way he brushes the rest of your hair from the side of your face. Within a few seconds, the soft contact is enough to have you melting against his hand.

A deep male voice breaks the reverie from somewhere behind Deku: "Ah, excuse us…"

This time you both jump hard enough to nearly land on your asses. Deku pushes himself back until he thumps against the arm rest of the sofa as Inko enters the room, followed by what can only be described as a mountain of a man with wild goldenrod hair and deep-set sclera black eyes, their vivid contrasting pupils locked directly on you as he and the dryad approach.

"I hate to be a bother and intrude on such a formative moment, but Inko was insistent upon checking to make sure you're both still alive." He bows his head in deep apology. You're startled by how easily he seems to hold himself level with the massive antlers jutting out of his hair; they're taller than his head and several inches wider on either side. As you force yourself to not take count of the antler points, you vaguely wonder to yourself how he fits through doorways or in anything less than giant-sized.

Deku rises to his feet, and you quickly follow suit. "Ahh, this is my father," he says quickly. "I get the feeling you two are going to be fast friends."

"If you're willing to risk traversal sickness for her, she's got to be worth her weight in gold," the man booms back. He approaches with a hand the size of a serving platter toward you, the deep lines of his face bent around a beaming grin you recognize on the spot. "My name is Yagi Toshinori. Don't worry, it's safe to introduce yourself to me. I'm not Fae."

You twitch your head to the side but take his hand to shake it anyway, suddenly flummoxed. "But the antlers…"

"A by-product of the life I've found for myself." He lifts an arm as Inko steps up to his side and lays it over her back. It's kind of amusing to see such a small woman under the arm of a moving mountain, but the care with which he moves about her is heart-warmingly familiar. "All by choice, zero regrets."

The two of them take a seat on a smaller bench in the den, and you and Deku take your seats once they're both settled. "The drop in is rough, eh? That ice tunnel is awful."

You frown back. "How did you find this place?" 

"I didn't find this place." He puts his arm behind Inko's neck, who leans into him with an appreciative hum. "I found my wife first. She's the one who brought me here."

You can't help but laugh, and mercifully the other three join in. "That sounds familiar," you reply through a chuckle.

"It happens less than it used to, but it's not unheard of," Inko adds. "I had a feeling my son would be following in my footsteps."

There's just enough flatness to her words that you squirm on the spot. "I hope that's not a bad thing," Deku says as he draws himself closer to your side. "Unless my logic is severely flawed, there wouldn't be a son to follow in your footsteps if you hadn't done it first."

Yagi lets out an undignified snort. Inko tries to frown, but it breaks around a smile as she nods in defeat. "All the same, I wish this hadn't been so sudden," she adds. "Not that I'm upset you're here now-" She holds a hand up quickly toward you. "-It was just rather abrupt. I wish we could have had time to prepare a proper welcome."

You glance down to your lap. "Deku saved me from something terrible," you respond quietly. "We didn't really have a choice in the matter." You look up again to offer the older dryad an encouraging smile. "Though rest assured he's been nothing but respectful the entire time I've known him." You bow your head politely. "Your hospitality is much appreciated. Thank you for giving me shelter."

Something behind Inko's eyes softens enough to make your heart twist. She watches you for a long moment, studying you as you do your best to not squirm. "The door has been opened for this place to potentially become your home," she replies to break the silence. "No need to speak of it as a foreign place. You already belong."

You feel Deku draw in a sharp breath. When you glance up to him he's hastily wiping his eyes on the back of his free hand. "Don't mind me," he chirps with a slight tremble. "This is normal. Been a crybaby since I was a sapling."

"You are not a crybaby," Yagi jabs back as he casually swipes a thumb under one of his eyes. "You have a heart."

And I wonder where he gets it, you think to yourself as you lean into Deku's side to comfort him.

The situation that brought Deku's parents together is so similar to your own it's almost eerie: Toshinori had been a well-known hunter from another village who found himself "lost" during an extended journey into the forest; in reality, he'd been lured away from the village so a team of rogues could take him out and claim his hunting grounds. He reached out for Inko, who'd already been coming around in a similar fashion to Deku responding to your meditation, and she answered by snaring the entire group in a wave of venom-thorned vines before sweeping him through a circle and away from the chaos. They were married within a year, and Deku came along a few years after that.

"It's oddly romantic, when you take out the death-by-murder-vine part," you offer to keep the mood light. All three of them laugh, especially Inko, who chortles behind her hand until her cheeks turn pink.

Something is digging at you, though. You can't let the entire moment go without at least trying to ask. "You said you're human," you repeat to Yagi. "But you also say the antlers come from magic. I thought we couldn't access magic."

"We can't," he replies casually. Thank goodness, you'd been incredibly nervous about broaching such a personal subject. "Not by default, at least. Humans haven't earned the right as a whole. However, sometimes things happen and the magic itself chooses someone who might be worth it." He nods toward the scarf tied around your neck. "Not just anyone can affect a connection through something like that. It takes something predetermined by forces beyond our control for that connection to be forged at all."

The air in your lungs evaporates. "So this was fate."

Yagi nods sagely. "Yes, as was me coming here. We aren't the first, and we won't be the last." He jabs a finger at Deku, who's taken to clinging to your side like a newborn bear cub. "His antlers, however, come from a direct blood connection to feral magic. He's full dryad, and it'll be even more apparent once he's eventually the most powerful one."

The world screeches to a halt amid Yagi's beaming pride. You feel Deku go very, very still next to you. "Um… I beg your pardon?"

"The Ascendant," Inko answers. "There is a thread of feral magic more concentrated than anything else recorded in our history. It chooses who it resides within, and whoever that force chooses is essentially the most powerful being in our charted world." She inclines her head toward her son. "And one day that will be him."

You look between the two of them, then back to Yagi. "So that means you're the Ascendant."

"For the moment. My time is coming to an end soon. I've served my purpose, so it's time for the next cycle to begin."

"You don't mean…"

Yagi's eyes go wide. "Oh no no no, I'm not going to die, dear," he booms. "It's time for me to pass along my power. I'm fortunate to have a successor in time, and it would seem like this little excursion is a good indicator he might be prepared for it."

"We don't know that," Deku cuts in, and it isn't until now that you notice how flushed his cheeks are. "It'll happen if it's meant to happen, right?" You lay a hand on his knee that's immediately covered by one of his own. He sags into your side in quiet gratitude.

Inko nods. "And it hasn't happened yet, so we won't fret about it for now." Her tone is soft, but there's a comforting finality ronit that effectively ends the subject for discussion.

You're given a tour of their house, which Deku fervently clarifies is not the place where he's lived for several years (Inko replies with a smug "And yet there's almost always a third plate at the table", which seems to be more than enough for him to take a back seat with his dad and let Inko lead them around). She walks you through the lower floor, where several cozy bedrooms are situated around a circular pit set into the floor. The center is full of a myriad of cushions and pillows in an eye-catching pile of patterns and colors all jumbled together in a space wide enough to fit at least three Yagis with extra foot room. "You can pick any of the empty rooms for yourself," Inko says to you sweetly before shooting a pointed look toward her son, who drops his head and shuffles anxiously on the spot. "But I ask that you remain in yours. I know you're grown, but this is my-"

Deku squirms harder. "Yep, got it," he confirms hastily. It's clear there's literally anything else he'd rather be talking about. "Can we start dinner? I'm starving."

Your stomach audibly rumbles at the mention of food. Yes, that's an excellent idea for more than one reason. When is the last time you ate? If you can't remember, it's probably been way too long. Yagi sweeps everyone toward the stairs with both arms stretched to herd them forward. You silently thank him with a smile as he squeezes your shoulder on the way past.

Four people working at once means dinner is made with a quickness, something you're intensely grateful for when you finally sit down to ea. Your stomach hurts from lack of food so much it almost hurts more to eat until you've got enough sustenance in you to level out. You see to the tableware afterward as Deku cleans what remains of the kitchen mess. The other two take their leave for the night with one last round of greeting, Inko's eyes trained on her son as she warns him about "straying past boundaries" on the way toward the stairs, her husband chortling the whole time.

You and Deku wait in silence until a door audibly opens and closes again. "Well," Deku chirps as he turns to face you with an equally cheeky grin. "I guess I'll bid you goodnight here as well. I'll show you where I live tomorrow, once we've both had a chance to sleep." He takes your hand and kisses the back of it with a dramatic bow. "Sweet dreams, my sparrow."

You snort and take your hand back, but not before giving his fingers a gentle squeeze. "Good night, Deku." His grin turns sly as he moves off to his own room, leaving you to find the smallest unoccupied bedroom for yourself.

---

Part 5

The next morning both Inko and Yagi see you both out, the former not allowing her son to leave the house before he's verbally promised to come by soon (and in a hushed whisper to keep you safe). It isn't until you're outside that the lack of windows is explained: the front of Inko's home is set underneath the roots of a gargantuan tree that juts straight up toward the sky in a massive straight line. You peer upward toward the canopy, but it's so far above the other trees the bare trunk is swallowed by the forest crown on all sides with no way to see beyond. The house sits at the head of a narrow trail with more angled trees visible down the road. "The sooner we get there, the sooner we can get settled," he reminds, offering you a bent elbow.

You smile and slip a hand onto his forearm. You take the short walk to his home in lockstep, Deku's skin cooler in the open breeze where it brushes under your fingers. The air is heavy with humidity and the chill of a light fog that hovers over the trail as you walk down it, bugs chirping and creaking from the grass on either side of the path. It's… idyllic.

Deku's house is almost identical to Inko's, but it's only a single floor and houses, much to your delight, a natural spring under the kitchen. He waves you toward it with a grin and something about a fresh tunic, but that devious little glint in his eye is back when he meanders off to change his clothes as you see yourself downstairs.

The hot spring is a deep pool in its own room with a shallow end that slopes up to the water's edge. The torch-illuminated rock wall behind it shimmers with a stream of water that runs down from somewhere above and down into the pool in a soft, trickling wall, next to a sitting area has been carved out of the rock to the right side of the pool. You dig out a couple of towels and a robe made of butter-soft material from a cabinet before ridding yourself of your dirty temple garb and every garment underneath it, your prized scarf folded lovingly on top of the pile before everything gets placed in a basket next to the edge of the pool. You can't bring yourself to leave the scarf somewhere out of arm's reach, and your robes are the last real thing you own.

The water is hot when you step onto the shallowest shelf, not enough to burn but definitely enough to pull a groan of satisfaction from you as you eagerly step in until you're submerged to your bare chest. Every muscle in your back begins to unclench themselves within seconds. You sink lower into the water, past your chin with a slow inhale and all the way down until your knees touch the stone floor of the pool. Everything goes quiet in a rush of water: it fills your ears and drowns out everything else but the odd bubble of warmth you've found below the water's surface. Your nerves balm themselves over for the first time since flying through the ring amid the trickling quiet. I's just you here, with no one else to drop another surprise on you. You stay submerged as long as you can before pushing back up to breach the surface with a satisfied gasp, your head clearer than it's been for days.

You wipe at your face to clear your eyes of excess water and the first thing you see is Deku hovering at the edge of the shallow bank, a towel slung low over his hips. You yelp and jump back amid a slosh of water, partially out of shock and partially to keep yourself from immediately staring at his bare torso. It isn't enough to stave off the newfound knowledge that he's built like a sprint courier and that he's very, very much naked under the towel. "Gods, you've got to quit startling me," you whimper as you swipe a wet hand over your face.

Deku laughs. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. To be fair, you were underwater when I opened the door."

You grouse back, but it has no heat. He's right.

"Can I join you?"

Your playful frown turns genuine. "I thought that was understood."

"You didn't say I could come close. You're vulnerable right now. If you tell me to stay out, I will."

"You're very polite for someone who's already stripped down."

His cheeks flush bright pink. "I was hopeful," he replies in an obvious attempt to be aloof, but it doesn't quite mesh with the way he keeps jerking his gaze away from the surface of the water (and, you realize with a bolt of mortification, a clear enough view of your naked form for him to definitely see). "But I meant what I said."

The urge to test him and see what happens flashes through you, but it doesn't seem worth the effort. At the end of it all, you do want him to come closer. You step toward him, willing yourself to keep moving as the water lowers enough to expose your chest. Deku seems equally dead-set on keeping his eyes raised, your flushes a matching shade of garish pink now and getting deeper as you come within arm's reach of him and offer a hand.

"Please?"

His hesitation snaps in an instant. Deku throws the towel aside and hurtles toward the pool, only giving you barely enough time to step aside and avoid the splash of water that cascades over you. He resurfaces and shakes his hair out before turning to face you, grinning from ear to ear. "Am I dreaming? Is this really happening?"

Given your own doubts, there's only one real way to tell. You take the initiative and glide toward him in two long steps and snake your arms around his neck. As soon as you're in reach he pulls you in by the waist and kisses the air right out of your lungs. You break away for a breath, but as soon as you've gotten it he tugs you again and the kiss quickly grows sharper with edges of teeth that clack together every time one of you readjusts your head. A hand pushes into your hair to cradle the back of your head; when you tilt into the angle of his hand he presses his tongue past your lips and all bets are off.

The delicacy with which he's touched you so far is gone. Deku kisses like he's been starved of contact for years on end. You give back everything you're given with enthusiasm until you're both struggling to inhale. A dam has been broken: every bit of excitement, fear, doubt, and loneliness that's eaten at you over the years rushes forth in a tidal wave and it's all you can do to cling to him and hope you're not going to wake up in your own bed at any second.

You finally separate with a wet pop. The both of you hover close enough to brush together as you struggle to regain some composure. Deku sighs quietly, his chest still rising and falling hard enough to disturb the water around him. "So I'm not dreaming," he says quietly. "Good. I dunno if I could have handled waking up without you again."

His admission wobbles around a thread of genuine hurt that has you pulling him into a tight hug, your arms wrapped around him tight. You circle your fingernails over the backs of his shoulders in lazy circles. "You don't have to," you murmur into his ear. "We're both here now." Which, wow that's a wild truth, but it's a truth nonetheless.

Deku clings back with his face buried in the crook of your neck. A silence lapses with only trickling water to fill the gap. There's no need for either of you need to say anything: there's a wealth of communication in the reciprocal drags of his nails, the tiny ghosting pecks he leaves under your ear, the little sighs when you drag your nails up toward his neck. You're more than aware of the fact that there's something hard pressing into your lower stomach that definitely isn't his abs, but your curiosity can wait.

He doesn't seem to agree. The pecks along your throat lengthen into full kisses as he settles above the thump of your pulse. A faint drag of teeth makes you jump and he muffles a laugh into your neck. "So jumpy," he purrs.

You give him a nip to an earlobe in retaliation. He jumps on the spot as you chuckle into his ear: "Who's jumpy?"

That seems to hit a switch. You're pulled up and out of the water in one unceremonious grab as Deku hauls you over a shoulder. Your yelp echoes off the walls but he pays them no mind, spare a wet smack to your bare ass. He doesn't leave you with any other real option besides being hauled out of the spring and up the stairs once again.

His room is somewhere deep in the house. It's impossible to ascertain exactly what anything looks like while you're slung over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, so when he shuts the door of a bedroom warmed by a crackling floor pit it's a bit of a shock.

You fully expect to be thrown down, but instead he braces you under the knees and neck to set you on an impossibly soft blanket stretched across his bed. He steps back, a look of apprehension on his features when they come back into view. "As much as I want this," he says as your sense of gravity corrects itself. "I won't touch you unless you want me to. That was rather… abrupt, and I apologize for it."

It takes a second for you to realize why he's even apologizing. The guilt twisting across his face is what makes it click: you hadn't told him to pick you up. It's your turn to frown as you lean toward him. "I'm not mad," you offer gently. "But I appreciate your apology. It's okay. I want to be here."

Deku's apprehension ebbs, but doesn't completely disappear. "You give me your word?"

You nod without hesitation. His smile returns immediately, radiant amid the firelight, and your stomach flips with elation as he eagerly closes the distance between you.

He settles low between your spread knees, a solid weight that keeps you in place without much room to breathe, let alone think. You're dizzy with the intensity, but you kiss him back with every bit of fervor you're given. Deku groans against your flattened tongues. "Can I taste you?"

You nod without opening your eyes and the weight above you slides downward. It's definitely for the best that you hadn't watched him move: a long, hot tongue drags up your slit and draws your back up off the bed in a graceful arc. He seizes you around the waist with a muffled groan.

He takes you apart with a ferocity that's almost scary. Sharp dives of his tongue punctuate the moments he's not wrapped around your core, alternating every time your wails start to get louder or shake apart. You grip at the blanket above your head for an anchor, but abandon it in favor of the verdant curls on top of his head when a cruel twist of his tongue has you pushing nearly all the way off the bed.

His name flying past your lips mixes with a weak moan from the juncture where his face is buried. "Watch the horns," he whimpers (gods, it shouldn't be so hot to hear someone's voice crack). "But do that again."

You tighten your grip obligingly. His head pulls ever so slightly against your grip when he returns to devouring you with a newfound focus. Something thick prods past your folds and you jerk your head up in surprise, but it's a critical mistake. You're afforded a full view of him with his tongue pressed flat to your core and two thick fingers burying themselves to the thickest knuckle and it rips you right over the edge before you can even draw a breath.

He coaxes you through it, drinking you down with your thighs wedged directly over his ears. When you can finally move them away, you're almost concerned you might have hurt him. But then he sits up, his chin shining in the dim light with a wet grin planted just above it, and there's absolutely no doubt he was just as into it as you were. Your own grin edges on feral. "You gonna stop there, or are you gonna take care of yourself as well?"

Deku snorts with an edge of derision that has you shivering. "You think I'm done with you?"

Oh.

He's back in position with one sharp swoop. This time he throws either leg over his own, splaying your knees wide around his ribs. A wave of self-awareness punches you square in the gut as he drags his eyes down the length of your exposed frame. "Incredible," he breathes. "I've never seen anything as beautiful as you."

You squirm, but will yourself to remain still. It's almost too much. There's so much tenderness behind the wild thrum shaking through him you're not sure how you even deserve it. Thankfully, his patience seems to run out just as your resolve to remain still snaps. He kisses you again as something thicker presses into you, drawing out a prolonged moan from both of you that breaks off when your laps settle together. "Hang on," Deku grunts hard against your lips. "N-need a second."

He's shaking under your arms where they're circled around his neck, but that could very easily also be you. "Yeah. Gods, Deku, you're-"

"Izuku."

The entire room goes still. He locks eyes with you, his own blown wide with only a ring of gold-flecked emerald left. Fear jumps across them while his throat bibs around a hard swallow. "That's my name. I just want you to have it. You don't have to give me yours."

Fear twists your heart for just a beat before it's replaced by a heavy warmth. You reach a hand up toward his face where it hovers just above yours, tentative and soft, the finger that curls his hair behind an ear ever so gentle. "Soon," you whisper back.

Izuku beams. "I'll wait as long as it takes."

Your lips crash together again, both of them curved upward around matching smiles. Izuku sets up a pace that keeps you close while still allowing him to take the lead and kiss the air out of your lungs, skin softly popping together with shallow thrusts without stopping. He has each hip in hand again with a grip that slowly increases with his breathing. Before long you're both panting into each other's ear, your head thrown back while he worries your throat with his teeth and grunts with barely restrained need.

"Won't last long," he rumbles.

You nod your acknowledgment. You've been a puddle since the second he laid you on the bed and took you apart like a prized garment. It's only fair he ends up just as boneless as you. You set your knees around his ribs to lift yourself into him, but both knees are pushed to the bed just as quickly. Izuku is watching where your bodies meet with a feverish focus. He doesn't seem entirely aware that he's got you completely splayed open but he thrusts hard and deep anyway, guttural noises punching out of him in time with the snapping of wet skin.

He finds an angle that seems to hit right up into your midsection and it's all over. He rips a wail out of you before your mouths are sealed together again, his pace unrelenting. You fall apart hard enough to make your entire frame quake under his grip, which has tightened enough to leave deep bruises where his fingers dig into your thighs. Just when it feels like you might actually have to tap out or risk going unconscious he thrusts in one more time with a sharp growl, then another, then a final one deep in his chest as he rolls himself into your hips and finally paints your insides white hot.

You're both trembling like leaves when he finally collapses on top of you again. You run your nails through the damp curls over his temples as he returns the favor along your hips, idle and tender despite the harsh bruises you can feel blooming along your inner thighs. Your breathing comes back slowly as you lazily kiss through the aftershocks, hands never ceasing in their wandering. It's a perfect feedback loop of calm and relief with only the fire to witness in the otherwise empty house.

As your breathing returns to normal you nudge Izuku up enough to meet his eyes. They've gone back to their normal emerald, the flicker of the fire catching hair-thin veins of gold. With the curved points of his horns looming overhead and flush-kissed shamrock skin, he should be some kind of intimidating. Instead, you can't stop staring at him. He's ethereal, more so than anything you've ever seen in any tome or heard in any story. He's real. He's flesh and bone and big, soft eyes and a heart entirely too warm for a creature who could take down minotaurs bare-handed.

And yet he looks at you like you're made of Faerie porcelain.

The corners of your mouth curl upward. You beckon for him to lean forward again and he does so, seemingly as transfixed as you. You pull him down so your lips can brush the shell of his ear and, after a ghosting kiss to his cheek, you whisper your name.

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #441

“all alone, he turns to stone while holding his breath after death  /  terrified of what’s inside, to save his life he crawls like a worm from a bird”

Have you ever watched a movie in class/school that made you cry? Yep, a few. What’s the earliest you could go to bed at night and feel okay about? If I'm having a really bad day, I can tolerate as early as 7:00. :x What is you favorite type of lunch meat? Honey ham, probably. What time of the year do you dislike the most? Summer is disgusting. It's too hot, too humid, too many bugs, and I just hate it. Do you put ketchup on your scrambled eggs? No, that sounds gross. What is your favorite color to wear? b l a c k Are you an overachiever? Oh, hunny. What physical feature do you wish you had (i.e. freckles, curly hair)? Maybe uhhhh big eyes. What fictional character (i.e. Bambi, Scarlette O'hara) would you marry? Darkiplier bc he is merely a misunderstood soft boi. How long have you gone without shaving (girls- legs, armpits; boys- faces)? Legs: It's been nearly a year. Pits: not that long, considering I shave them every time I get in the shower. What is the meanest thing you have ever said to someone else? I'm sure it would be something in one of the letters I sent Jason. Or Dad. Idk. Did you ever go through a phase where you wrote bad poetry? The phase never ended lmao. What is your favorite thing about your life? My loved ones. Save all the animals that die during road kill or save 1 human from a fire? Sorry, but I'm picking the animals. Have you ever painted a picture of somebody? Yes. How many real bfs/gfs have you had? Two. Did you enjoy your past relationships? Yes. Except for when I was with Tyler. Name a comedy that you like. White Chicks. Could you wait until marriage for sex? Yeah. What’s the best Nirvana song? I'm not sure, really... Maybe "Drain You?" What was the last thing that impressed you? No clue. When was the last time you were in a pet store? Several months ago when I went in to get more rats for Venus. What nationality is your last name? Irish. What’s your favorite kind of chips and dip? Plain, rippled Lays in French onion dip. Who was the last boy that you saw cry? I don't know, actually. It may have been Sara's dad, which was years ago. Does your mom know you do surveys? I mean no, it's not like it's come up in conversation. Have you ever had a serious injury? When I was a kid, there was this one time I was running down the road with my friend, and I tripped; I was a fast runner, so I skinned the everliving FUCK out of my knees to the point there was even pus. I was SOBBING, and it took weeks to heal; I had the scars for years. What was the last thing you achieved? Losing weight at the gymmmm. Staying dedicated to going. Would you enjoy being famous? No. I couldn't take all the eyes on me and even ONE person's negative judgment. What’s under your bed? A big box of my art supplies. Do you enjoy travelling? Yeah. I wish I could do it more. Have you ever belonged to a club? If so, what was it? No. When was the last time you drank strawberry milk? Not since I first tried it at elementary school. It was absolutely disgusting. Have you ever managed to collect all the fast food toys in a set? I doubt it. Do you have a clock in your room? No. Did you have a good driver’s ED teacher? No. If I'd listened to him while driving, I could've gotten myself killed while merging onto the highway. People are assholes and didn't want to move over. Which of Britney Spears’ songs is your favorite? Probably "Freakshow." Does mind over matter work for you? Not usually, no. Are you paranoid? Oh yes. What is the best thing about winter? Everything!!! Literally the only BAD thing about winter is the dry skin/lips. I love the cold, Christmas and all that comes with it, the decor, hot chocolate, snow, getting all cuddly... Everything. :') Have you ever been truly in love? Absolutely. Are you currently planning a trip? No. A trip to Illinois is just a wish right now. How many plants are in your home? None, I think? What is your favorite possession? Excluding my pets (because I don't like calling them "possessions"), probably my laptop. Have you ever felt like you were too nice and way too often overlooked? I have before, yes. What movies have tripped you out? Off the top of my head, the only entertainment media in general that has ever truly "tripped me out" was the first time I played the Silent Hill game. The movie didn't affect me to that level because I already understood the concept. When I watched Jason play it for the first time, I was SO confused and just blown away by the concept that I did loads of research and just thinking about it all. That franchise is just cool as shit, okay. Did you rollerblade as a kid? Do you still rollerblade? I LOVED rollerblading. I haven't done it in years, though. Would you ever settle into a relationship that wasn’t right for you? Do you know friends who are in relationships just so they have someone to sleep with at night? NO. I will NOT settle. Being genuinely in love with my partner is too important to me for me to ever do so. I don't know if any of my friends are in that situation. Would you take a dirty picture of yourself for someone you are dating? With my current body? FUCK no. If I was happy with my body, the answer is still probably no. I'm too self-conscious and awkward with that kind of stuff, and besides, I really don't think I want a picture like that to exist of myself to avoid potential trouble. Do you use earplugs or a sleeping mask when you sleep? No. What summertime treats do you love? We have this local slushy place that is FUCKING BOMB. It may sound basic, but they have SUCH a vast variety of flavors and goodies you can top it with that it's truly just so amazing. How picky are you when it comes to choosing who to kiss or not kiss? I am VERY picky. I have to be really interested in you. Save for how things were with Tyler... I just felt like I was supposed to. What do you hate most about moving? I. Hate. The process. Of moving. It is just so, so stressful to me. I have a very hard time confronting big tasks, and that's exactly what packing and unpacking entails. Do you feel that having sex anywhere but a bed is more exciting? Not necessarily. Do you drink 5 hour energy drinks or any other kinds of energy drinks? No. Has anyone ever whistled at you? I don't think so. Do you like scarves? No. Is your father homophobic? Possibly. I don't actually know. I honestly don't think he took Sara's and my relationship seriously, so that may be a sign. Do you take gummy vitamins? The only vitamin I take now is vitamin D, which isn't a gummy. Have you ever applied make-up on a guy, for any reason at all? Ha, yeah. I gave Jason a makeover once. Who would you like to meet before you die? MARK. I am so determined, alsdjfkaj;wek;rj. I just want to hug him and say thank you and ugly-cry. If your dream was to be a model, and a big opportunity came up, but you had to be nude, would you take it? No. Even if I had the body of a model. What’s the most ridiculous conspiracy theory you’ve ever heard of? The fuckin' flat earth theory, probably. If Heaven and Hell exists, where you going when you die? Well, considering I have an, uh, very negative opinion of the Christian god... Who is the person that you are afraid of losing, above everyone else? My mom. The day she passes is a day I am inexplicably horrified of. What is one thing that pisses you off pretty much everyday? My life. If there anyone you know that you feel should consider therapy? My mom really could use it. Do you like any of the songs on Twilight, or the actual movie/saga itself? I love "Supermassive Black Hole" by Muse, but idk if it was actually written for the movie. How old was the first person you kissed? He was 18 when we first kissed. Will you be a strict parent one day? I never want to be a parent. If I hypothetically became one, I don't think I'd be strict, necessarily, but very protective. Last person to stand up for you? Probably Mom, idk. Have you been to a baby shower? Yeah, a few. Who were you with the last time you went to the movie theater? My dad. What’s your favorite high school memory? Just... a lot with Jason. Do you like relationships, or do you prefer to be single? I prefer being in a (healthy) relationship, but I won't get into one just for the sake of having one. What is one adventurous thing you’d be willing to do? Hmmm... scuba-dive, maybe? What subject at school did you absolutely hate? Math. Italian food or Chinese food? Italian. I don't really like (most) Chinese food. Do you like to make flash cards when you study? I rarely did that. Has anyone ever told you that you’re a good singer? Yes, somehow. Do you ever watch TED talks, live or online? No. I dare you to write the name of a person you strongly dislike. Ashley. What do you think about Marilyn Manson? He's one of my favorite musical artists, but he's a disgusting dick personally. Biggest trouble you’ve ever gotten into at school? Nothing, really. I was a very well-behaved kid. Do you own one of those “professional” DSLR cameras? Yeah, I have a Canon. Does it bother you when you see a 6th grader with a bunch of gadgets? No. Did you buy yearbooks every year in high school, or did you not bother? Not every year, but most. Do you have Restless Legs Syndrome? No. Jalapeños: yay or nay? I loooove them. Did you ever play Minecraft? Nah. My niece is getting into it. Did you ever have a Club Penguin account? Were you a member? I did have one. I wasn't one of those premium members or anything like that; I just had a basic account. Do you know anyone that seems to not have any common sense? Bitch me. It's extremely embarrassing. I 100% got it from my dad. What do you think is the biggest injustice that was ever done to you? The manner through which Jason broke up with me. It left me traumatized. What type of person angers you the most? Abusive people that think only they matter and have no consideration for how their actions affect other people. If you could change your appearance, how would you alter it? I'd lose a shitload of weight, for one. My teeth would be whiter, my eyes bigger and bluer, I'd want my hair colored/able to hold color far better, I'd lighten and lessen my body hair, make my skin clearer, thin my eyebrows... I'd change a lot. What are your feelings on feminism? MANDATORY. Absolutely necessary in a misogynistic society. However, I do believe some people take it way too far to a point it is anti-man and puts women on a holy pedestal. It is about equality. Describe your first relationship? Perfect, until it wasn't. Describe your last relationship? Wonderful and healthy, but distance and our health were issues at the time. Can you honestly say that you always practice safe sex? My history with sex is confusing and complicated and I really don't know. Why do you think your most favorite film touches you so deeply? Thinking about it... it's probably because of how Simba runs from his problems and bad memories, but returns to confront them and is victorious. That's how I want to be. What do you want people you meet for the first time to think about you? That I'm nice and clearly sincerely cared about them and their feelings. Do you feel protective over someone? My sisters, nieces and nephews, Sara... What perfume/cologne do you wear? It's called "Blush." Where did your vehicle come from? I don't have my own, but Mom's came from a girl at the dance studio. She ran into a deer, and the front got fucked up, but the sweetheart paid to fix it up to being operable so Mom had her own car. The front bumper is kept intact with zip ties and duct tape, but hey... it works and has for many, many years now, lol. What was the color of the bridesmaid dresses of the last wedding you went to? Ummmm... I actually don't remember. What is your favorite way to eat chicken? As tenders, probably. It is your birthday. You hope the cake is: Red velvet. This year for my bday, our controlling-as-fuck family friend bought me my birthday cake without consulting ANYBODY, and I was so fucking annoyed. It was a very kind gesture, yes, but um, can I have a say, please? What do you wear to bed? Usually men's pj pants and a tank top. What were you doing at 8pm last night? Sleeping, actually. I was extremely tired and went to bed early.