#sapping away the strength from the other spirits to make herself strong enough to DO anything

[apollos-boyfriend]

an analysis of c!hannah’s character playlist

split into pre, during, and post eggpire.

pre-eggpire:

soak up the sun - sheryl crow

i’ve already somewhat analyzed the meaning of soak up the sun here, but broadly speaking, soak up the sun is a song about enjoying life’s simple things, and living life to its fullest. pre-eggpire, hannah is bright-eyed and ambitious, determined to help the server in any way she can. her demeanor directly opposes most of the server’s weary disillusionment, which mirrors the song’s deeper meaning: a person that doesn’t quite understand the exploitation they’re put through by society. hannah isn’t yet aware of the reality of the dream smp, in which there are rarely winners, only losers, and that heroes never get the happy ending they preach in legends.

man’s world - MARINA

man’s world discusses the inequality faced by women in a man-dominated world, as well as issues of climate change, among other things. hannah being one of the few women on the server has always been an important part of both c! and cc! hannah, as it heavily influences how she’s seen by both other characters and the fandom itself. hannah is strong, outspoken, and unapologetically herself, which leads to unwanted criticism, mostly from fans themselves. her personality clashes with people’s preconceived notions of a fairy, especially one so interwoven with flowers, as nature spirits are typically portrayed as weak and feeble in mythology, with stories mostly reliant on men. hannah is not that. additionally, even before joining the eggpire, hannah is being affected by the egg as it saps her life force. the other server members, though, don’t seem to notice nor care, more caught up in the gaudiness of the vines as opposed to their affect on nature itself, and by extension, hannah.

yellow - coldplay

admittedly, yellow is the one song i’ve always struggled with when it comes to hannah’s playlist. the song is mainly about brightness, hope, and devotion, according to the songwriters, and inspired by the band going stargazing. on that end, it could be interpreted as hannah’s naivety and (admittedly) misguided notion that she could defeat the egg by herself. there’s not much else to be said about it.

too sensitive - sesan kennedy

too sensitive doesn’t require much thought into its meaning, but it is important to hannah’s characterization. many people paint her as an emotionless warrior due to her actions during the eggpire (when she wasn’t herself), but in reality, hannah is a very emotional person. she cares a lot about how other people perceive her, especially sam, and is heavily affected when they think of her negatively. she’s driven highly by her emotions, typically more so than logic, and would do anything for people to like her.

i eat boys - chloe moriondo

i eat boys was written for the singer to be able to vent her frustration towards men who have disrespected her. despite being emotionally vulnerable, hannah isn’t physically weak. she is a fighter, after all, and damn good with a sword. i eat boys is here to cement that fact, and reinforce hannah’s strengths. she’s not afraid to take matters into her own hands if necessary, as shown by her killing her own pets after they were exposed to the egg.

good girls (don’t get used) - beach bunny

speaking out to both other characters and the fanbase, hannah solidifies her strength and the immature treatment of her solely because she’s a woman in a male-dominated world/industry. while hannah is emotionally vulnerable, she isn’t one to let harassment and immaturity get to her. she knows her worth, and she isn’t afraid to stand her ground. her being more emotion-driven doesn’t make her weak, and instead, is one of her biggest strengths.

killer instinct - bring it on: the musical

by killer instinct, hannah has already been exposed to the egg for long enough that it’s started to corrupt her mind ever-so-slightly. the egg utilizes hannah being largely perceived as weaker/not as big of a threat, as its able to get away with more corruption through hannah. there’s a notable moment in the song where the character takes a second to look at herself, and appears to be disgusted by what she’s become before instantly revealing that she enjoys being this way, as while hannah herself was disgusted by what she’d become, her egg-controlled mind wasn’t, and made her believe so. i haven’t seen bring it on, but from what i can gather, the song is the first instance of the character singing it showing off her evil side and intentions, setting up hannah’s arc of being a secret agent for the egg.

dark red - steve lucy

dark red is one of the final songs before the egg fully comes into play, mirroring hannah’s realization that something is wrong, and that maybe she wasn’t as untouched by the egg as she thought. despite the constantly-appearing red flags, though, hannah still holds onto the hope that she’ll be alright, not willing to give up and hand herself over to the egg so easily. she tries to tell herself that maybe it’s just all in her head, that she’ll break free of these intrusive thoughts and come back to herself eventually, not wanting to succumb to the very thing she hates.

demons - hayley kiyoko

demons has hannah praying for people to forgive her, both for what she’s already done and for what she’s becoming. she’s now more than aware of the egg’s sway over her, and she’s terrified of it. unlike the other eggpire members, who the egg just used for their minds, hannah was used for her life force. during her possession, the egg is literally eating her alive, draining her energy until she has no choice but to accept its own. despite all these realizations, though, hannah is still steadfast and holding onto hope, even as she sinks ever deeper into the egg’s clutches. (interestingly, demons compares the feeling of going under to burning in lava)

eggpire:

control - halsey

hannah is afraid. not only of how the egg hurts her, but how it makes her hurt others. she can’t stand the person she’s become under it, but she has no choice but to obey, as it could sever her life force at any given moment if it so wishes. unlike before, where the egg was just a small voice in her head, it’s become so powerful that she can no longer differentiate its thoughts from her own, and that terrifies her. she doesn’t dare open up about these issues, though, either out of fear of the egg’s retaliation or how others will perceive her now that she’s become one of the egg’s pawns.

disturbia - rihana

disturbia further delves into hannah’s mental state. it also continues the trend of hannah seeing herself as a monster, despite having no control of her body, thoughts, or actions at this point. she continues to beg and pray for someone to save her, to pull her out of this hell that is her own mind, as the egg has become so powerful that she can no longer combat it on her own.

serotonin - girl in red

despite it all, though, hannah has never stopped fighting. she doesn’t believe that she can escape on her own, though that doesn’t mean she’s not going to try. she’s still terrified of herself, but largely, not even for her own safety, but for the safety of others. not only is the egg draining her energy, but she’s constantly pushing herself to her limits by trying to contain it.

all the things she said - poppy

taking some creative liberties with this one, but i largely interpret all the things she said as hannah never being able to fully apologize and move past her actions while under the egg’s control. no matter what she’ll ever do in the future, it won’t be enough, and she’ll be forever haunted by the memories of her time in the eggpire. no matter what, she’ll always be hearing the egg’s voice in her head, literally or figuratively. no matter what, her efforts to fight it will never be enough, as the egg will always haunt her every waking moment.

i drive me mad - renforshort

despite not being in control of her actions, hannah feels horrible for what she’s done. her actions weren’t hers in the slightest, but she feels responsible for them anyways, only making it easier for the egg to take over. when it comes to hannah’s playlist, nearly every instance of declining mental health is a direct allegory for the egg itself. the worse she feels, the more her mental health declines, the more the egg is able to take over and control her. it’s a never-ending spiral, one she can no longer break free of, if she ever could at all.

pomegranate seeds - julian moon

pomegranate seeds is a musical retelling of the myth of hades and persephone, detailing persephone’s change from hating hades and her imprisonment to making a deal with him and leaving the underworld. of course, in this instance, hades is the egg and persephone is hannah herself, with sam arguably being read as demeter. (fun fact, before she was sent to the underworld, persephone’s name was kore, which meant “maiden”. afterwards, her name was changed to persephone, which meant “bringer of death”.) in the end, hannah is forced to make a trade: the only way she’s able to live is to give herself over to the egg fully. arguably, hades allowing persephone to be in the overworld for six months can be an allegory for hannah being allowed to “act” like herself until the egg called for her.

heavy in your arms - florence + the machine

there are two possible interpretations for heavy in your arms: either about hannah and the egg, or hannah and sam. in the first instance, the person being dragged down is hannah as she’s pulled further into the egg’s clutches and suffers for it. the egg’s “love” is its life force, as while hannah needs its aid to survive, it only serves to drag her down further. on the other hand, it could be sam that’s being dragged down by his care for hannah, as he nearly sacrificed himself on multiple occasions to save her. hannah’s guilt increases as sam pushes himself to save her, as while she desperately wants to be freed, she doesn’t want other people to have to suffer any further because of her.

i’m fine - ashe

either because the egg is stopping her or because she doesn’t want to worry other people with her problems, hannah puts on a brave face, insisting that she’s alright and that the egg holds no real control over her. despite sam’s worries, she continuously confirms that she’s alright, and that he shouldn’t worry about her when they have bigger issues to deal with. sam doesn’t believe her though, not fully, being the only person to be able to actually see through her lies. despite that, there’s nothing he can really do, and even then, he stays silent, desperately wanting to believe that she is fine, for both of their sakes.

sweet but psycho - ava max

going further into sam and hannah’s relationship, there still are traces of the girl hannah was pre-possession, which both of them helplessly cling onto. while there’s no doubt that hannah has changed, that she’s not fully herself, enough of her peeks through for a semblance of normalcy, at times. it further cements the fact that hannah isn’t out of her mind, she hasn’t snapped, she’s just possessed by a force out of her control. hannah is still hannah underneath it all, as far down as she may be.

devilish - jean dawson

hannah’s decay and corruption continues further, as does the notion of her seeing herself as a monster. nearing the red banquet, now, she’s left as a hollow shell of herself, a puppet for the egg to control. she can’t do anything at this point but stand by and let what happens happen, far too weak and drained to fight back any further. she’s sick, she’s empty, and most of all, she’s tired.

bang! - ajr

the red banquet has approached, and it’s time for the eggpire to execute their plan. they’re going out with a bang one way or another—either by taking over the server, or by their plan horribly backfiring, as it ends up doing. the excitement is the egg speaking through hannah, not hannah herself.

i did something bad - taylor swift

due to the red banquet, people’s perceptions of hannah are permanently changed. instead of seeing her for what she is, a victim, they see her as a villain who enjoys the torment she’s brought upon people, which couldn’t be further from the truth. most notably, sam is the one that starts seeing her that way, as from this point on, he sees her as nothing but a killer and a traitor, even though hannah never actually killed during the banquet. hannah is painted as an emotionless, manipulative monster, who was aware of her actions throughout the entire journey, and not only that, but she enjoyed committing them. instead of a brainwashed victim, the banquet’s guests, and by extension, the server, see hannah as nothing but a traitor and monster that thrives off of the chaos she brings.

joke’s on you - charlotte lawrence

joke’s on you is read from hannah’s possessed viewpoint, laughing at the fools that were the rest of the server for trusting her, as she was a spy for the eggpire all along. she (the egg) has tried to be nice, but refuses to go down without a fight. it’s the egg speaking through hannah, as it has with multiple of its victims before her, taunting the server for allowing it to grow to such strengths. the joke is on them for underestimating and brushing aside the eggpire for so long, a mistake they’ve thoroughly paid for.

post-eggpire:

sad sorry after party - UPSAHL

the banquet is over, crashed by quackity, and the former eggpire members are scattered to the wind and forced to pick themselves up from months of trauma and mind control. everything has been tainted, and the ambitious, wide-eyed person hannah was before her spiral is no longer around. with everything that happened under the egg’s control, there’s no one around to console her or hear her out, forcing her to come to terms with what she’s gone through on her own, with the same going for the rest of the eggpire members.

black sheep - kailee morgue

now that her image has been tainted, hannah is officially a black sheep of the server. people she formerly considered her friends, such as foolish or sam, no longer trust her, and she finds them keeping their distance from her no matter how much she tries to reconcile. she’s forced to support them from afar, not wanting to get too close in case they see her as a threat once more. Everyone has pulled away from her, despite her desperately wanting them to stay.

don’t assume what you don’t know - grace vanderwaal

the egg was a promise to many eggpire members. a promise of love, a promise of reconciliation, a promise of power. members outside of the eggpire, though, have remained unaware of how deeply the egg’s control ran, and how hard it was to ignore. hannah was worst of all, as she had no choice, as it was either the egg or her life. now that the egg’s control has subsided, though, everyone only assumes the worst, and refuse to trust the eggpire members any further, unwilling to hear them out to the truth of the matter.

runaway - AURORA

the banquet forced hannah to run. run from her home, run from her friends, run from the life she had before. due to her treatment by the other members of the server, no one knows what she’s gone through or her pain, giving her no choice but to run. despite that, though, she desperately wants the life she once had. she can’t live in the reality the egg forced her into, but she can’t run anymore, either, because she’s so, so tired. she just wants to be home again, with her pets and sam and her friends and the energy and hope she once had, but she knows she can’t anymore, and that breaks her.

save myself - ashe

hannah’s angry at the life the egg ripped away from her. she’s angry at herself for allowing herself to fall to the egg’s clutches, and angry that she can’t just go back and fix it. there were so many red flags in her mind, so many instances where she could’ve turned back, but she didn’t, and she despises herself for it. she knows she shouldn’t blame herself, to an extent, and that there was nothing she realistically could’ve done, but another part of her clings to the false notion of being able to have avoided all the trauma she went through if only she was more careful. if only she’d been more careful, none of this would’ve ever happened. if only she’d been more careful, maybe she’d still have her friends.

what if it doesn’t end well - chloe moriondo

she clings to the relationships she once had, most importantly, her relationship with sam. she begs of him to stay with her no matter what, despite all her flaws and mistakes, asking him to forgive her despite it all. she hates herself for what she did and what she sat through, and is desperate for someone to just hold her and tell her it’s gonna be okay. she wants to be understood, to be seen, for someone to be able to see her as the victim that she was instead of the monster she’s been cracked up to be. and that person she longs for is sam, who should understand her, who should see her for who she is, since he knows what she went through and he knows what the egg was capable of, but he doesn’t. he doesn’t, and nothing has ever hurt hannah more.

sick of the sun - poppy

she’s tired. she’s tired and alone and not trusted by anyone anymore. all she wants to do is leave, to forget herself and everything that’s happened to her and start anew. she’s sick of being the villain, the monster, the used and the thrown aside. despite everything, however, hannah refuses to give up, as she always has. hannah’s strongest trait has always been her unwavering determination, even now, even when everything has left her. she’s no longer the person she once was, not fully, but that doesn’t mean she’ll give up without a fight. a rose does not survive because of its beauty, but because of its strength, and its ability to fight back against all odds, and hannah is no exception.

[guiltysecretpasttime]

Adversity - 13-B

Labelling this as ‘chapter 13-B’ in tumblr .

Edit: Ended up as part of chapter 13 in A03.

---

Adversity details

Multi-chapter, work in progress, AU, pre-LoK,

Latest status: up to Chapter 12 uploaded in A03

Blurb: Lin and Tenzin are both at the height of their respective     careers – she with the Metalbending Police and he with the Air Nation.     Questions about their future begin to arise and things come to a head when     Lin responded to an emergency call. Would her job take them from each     other forever? Eventual happy ending. Alternatively: The one where Lin and     Tenzin had to go through adversity like Lin’s dangerous job, a near-death     experience, temporary separation and memory loss, unplanned pregnancy and     Tenzin’s responsibilities before they end up with a family.

Tumblr chapters 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | go to AO3 for chapters in between | 13

Ao3 link |   Ff.net link

---

Adversity – 13-B

There were muffled voices outside of the room and before they could even react, the door was shoved open.

"Chief!"

"Aunt!"

Tenzin usually felt that Toph Beifong was larger than life; never mind her blindness or stature. Today was no exception.

“I received this note at the Jasmine Dragon and I thought - this I have to ‘see’ for myself.”  The earthbender entered the room unceremoniously, fingers forming air-quotations to explain her presence. "And lo and behold, you're in bed with Airhead Junior already, so I guess you're doing just fine."

“I’m not in bed – she’s – we’re not -!” Tenzin sputtered, leaning back hurriedly to disguise the fact that half of his body was actually on the bed.

Lin rolled her eyes. “I don’t care that you’re the chief but don’t you ever knock?”

“Were the chief. That’s the past.” Toph perched herself at the end of Lin’s bed. “I’m here as your mother.” She tilted her head. “Surely that’s gotta hold some weight to you?”

“Not a lot, but sure.” Lin tossed, unaffected.

Well-versed in how Beifongs conduct themselves, the airbender knew that both were affected by this meeting under the veneer of snark and nonchalance.

Tenzin sought to make himself scarce. “I -uh – I can leave the two of you alone for now. I think I’ll check if the others have returned from their tour.” He gently extricated his hand from Lin’s grip, squeezing it once and receiving a squeeze back.

He pretended not to see the tears fall from their eyes as the two Beifong women hugged each other when he closed the door behind him.

“Hey Badge.”

“Mom.”

This was private for them.

He breathed.

She’ll be okay.

 ---

It was a trigger, they confirmed.

Katara explained from Lin’s medical files that Lin was likely submerged in water for quite some time before she was rescued. The sudden sea spray and saltwater must have triggered the memory.

While Lin’s blood pressure was recommended to be monitored closely, the vitals of both mother and child are strong, to everyone’s relief (especially Tenzin’s).

Upon arriving from their tour, Katara immediately went straight to Lin’s room upon hearing of the panic attack. After the routine check-up, the waterbender left the Beifongs alone. There remained to be a strain between Toph and the rest. The last time they had all been together was during Lin’s memorial months back – after she had accused everyone of not trying their best in locating Lin.

***

Toph has been with her daughter for hours now. Su had joined them at some point as well (even if it was with a lot of hesitation).

Everyone was pleased with this development. It was evident in the lightness that was not there before; a lightness that will be there at least until the three Beifongs would rejoin them.

Lin, Su and Toph talking for hours hints of a reconciliation among them. Su had confided in Kya a few nights ago that she had been worrying about her tentative reconnection with her sister. It may seem well and good now but what if Lin regains her memories and decides to retain to original stance regarding Su?

If Tenzin were to be honest with himself, he had been toying with the same fear as well. The spirits know that they definitely had not parted well before The Accident. He had been about to try to salvage their relationship but as far as Lin knew, he was a selfish jerk who was about to discard her for an air acolyte.

“You besotted sap, what are you frowning about now?”

Tenzin turned to his side, where Bumi seated himself on the steps, a teasing smile on his face. He had been absent-mindedly playing with Junior and Huan as they build things in the sand. He was instructed by the boys to throw around the occasional airball to test the strength of their structures or to flatten the sand so they can play more.

At the moment, the boys were attempting to replicate what Zaofu looked like on the sand and so were ignoring him until he needed to do some clean up.

Tenzin’s own brother then nudged his shoulder. “Anything I can do for ya?”

He shook his head no, still lost in thought.

The airbender is happy for Lin, truly. He could not imagine how she might have been feeling the past months – alone, injured, pregnant and with lost memories to boot. He should not and cannot even find it in himself to even be remotely selfish.

And yet…

He wanted Lin.

The laughter of the two Beifong boys drew his attention.

Rather, a family with Lin, he amended to himself. Tenzin sighed.

---

“That was one deep breath.” Bumi continued to observe, patient and knowing his brother well enough that he will speak when ready.

After a few more minutes, Huan managed to use earthbending to create a crevice in the middle of sand Zaofu. Both of them cheered the kids on.

“Uncle, where is Mommy?” Junior spoke up, green eyes darting around. “Can you call her? I think she would like to see what Huan was able to do.” The boy was proud of his brother despite not being able to bend himself.

Bumi grinned, the kid kind of reminded himself of well…himself. Back when Tenzin managed to make his first air wheel.

“Well, kid, I’m sure your mommy would be proud of both of you.” He pointed to the fairly complicated and detailed sand city on the ground. “But I think Su is busy right now.”

“She’s with your Aunt Lin and Grandma.” Tenzin added.

“Grandma’s here?!”

Both kids quickly rushed towards Tenzin and Bumi, grasping Tenzin’s robes in their hands, asking to be led inside to greet their grandmother.

“Is this a good idea?” Bumi whispered to Tenzin, leaning to his side so as to not to be overheard by the excited children, who were running ahead to the rest house.

The airbender simply shrugged. There was obviously something bothering him.

“They’ve been in the room for how long now?” Bumi tried to make light of the situation. “Are you sure they aren’t throwing hands or something?”

“We’ll probably feel the earth rumble if that were the case.”

That was true. Their childhood has been literally punctuated by mini earthquakes whenever the Beifong sisters squabbled.

Bumi played with his beard. “What if the new baby Beifong turns out to be another earthbender? Imagine the chaos.”

Huan and Baatar Junior were shifting their weight from one leg to the other, practically bouncing with excitement as they arrived at Lin’s door ahead of the adults.

Bumi snorted. Figures that Suyin’s spawn were behaved enough to not burst into rooms but could be quite tactless with their words.

Tenzin stiffened as they reach the door to Lin’s room.

Bumi nodded. “Arn’t you going to go in?” At the airbender’s head shake, he took the initiative to open the door. “Knock-knock! Good afternoon, Beifongs!” He was surprised to see Su and Toph flanking Lin from both sides of the bed.

Before he could even remark or tease Lin about it, twin squeals shattered his eardrums and in went Junior and Huan.

“Boys! Don’t jump on your aunt!”

Cute. With the surfeit of Beifongs in the room, Bumi waved at them and exited quietly. He will catch up with Toph later instead.

Still grinning, Bumi turned to Tenzin and noticed he was still awkwardly standing at the corridor. His smile softened, placing an arm around Tenzin’s shoulder. “Do you want to talk about it now?”

---

Before long Tenzin’s worries, fears, and insecurities tumbled out and into his older brother’s ear.

It was quite cathartic, to be truthful.

It was different opening up to his father (the Avatar) or even his mother (who was bound to be as protective as she was judgmental – less so compared to her younger years but still).

Bumi heard him and was not bound to judge him.

Neither did he invalidate his feelings nor did he downplay the airbender’s perceived consequences of the situation.

It certainly also helped that Bumi had been away from Republic City and was able to listen with fresh perspective.

---

“Don’t cancel your dinner. You’ve prepared a lot for it.”

“No…” His voice trailed off. “I’d rather not intrude in their family time.”

“Aren’t you her family, Ten?”

---

“Ah there you are Junior!”

…

“What on earth are you doing in the kitchen? Last I heard this was Lin’s domain.”

“Uh – tonight’s dinner for Lin – I  was -.”

“Don’t you dare say you’re postponing it?” It really was discomfiting when Toph Beifong is able to stare at you in the eye. “She had been talking about it, and was particularly excited too.”

“Oh.”

“Oh – indeed.” A beat. “Don’t disappoint her, Junior.” She passed by him to exit the room. And in a lowered voice muttered. “I’m still rooting for you, despite everything.”

----

---

Note: We are getting there~ thanks for the patience and for still reading this. 

Been through some tough times the past few days (ironically, after I had thought I could probably write a little bit more). Not quite good yet but better than the past days. Hopefully. Anyhow - let me know what you think :)

[cynicalrainbows]

Fluff for @2nerd4this!

(In the interest of being honest, this is some modified fic that I already wrote for different characters. But i thought you might like it anyway, and I don’t think you’ll have read it bc the person i sent it to hasn’t published it. Anyhow, enjoy!)

Cathy groaned and rolled onto her side, trying to move away from the pain that was currently ripping through her.

Is this what childbirth felt like? Surely it can’t have been worse than this….

She knew she was perhaps exaggerating a little- she knew, she KNEW it was just a period….but it was hard to keep reminding herself of that when the pain was enough to almost bring tears to her eyes.

She wondered if periods were somehow worse in the 21st century- she could have sworn it never hurt this badly back at court.

Or maybe I just blocked it out.

Not that she would have received much sympathy from that quarter: her husband had had more than his fill of sick, ailing wives and ‘woman’s problems’. She was to be his final chance, his strong healthy wife who had lived long enough to prove her mettle, with none of the passions and fits and fancies of the women of his youth.

She was his easy wife, the one who brought him no problems but instead soothed his own.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

And now, hundreds of years later, here she was again: the easy one, the low maintenance one.

Easy-to-please Cathy, who needed only her laptop and a cup of coffee to be happy. Untroubled Cathy, without the trauma’s and nightmares that plagued the others.

The survivor.

And so, when the mild cramping in her uterus had turned into agonising spasms, she’d hidden herself away in her room, and assured the others that it was ‘nothing really.’

Oh how she was regretting that now. Not that she could do anything about it: Actually sorry everything I said about being self sufficient was a lie, I’m actually quite lonely and scared and in pain and so if you could all just drop everything….

A quiet knock broke through her thoughts.

‘Mmmm?’

‘It’s just me mija-’

Cathy felt her spirits lift but as she was opening her mouth to reply, another cramp ripped through her and she gasped instead, doubling up.

‘Cathy?’

 Catalina pushed into her room, looking worried and came straight to the bed, her hand cool against Cathy’s hot forehead.

‘Mija, are you alright?’

Cathy shook her head, screwing her eyes shut and biting her lip against the pain. She didn’t want to look pathetic in front of her friend godmother maternal figurehead…. She didn’t want to look pathetic in front of anyone but it hurt so badly, she couldn’t help her eyes tearing up.

‘J- just a period-’

‘It seems a bit more than that…’

Even as she shook her head, another cramp ripped through her and she winced. Catalina’s expression grew alarmed.

‘Querida, do you feel sick?’

Cathy nodded with the barest jerk of the head.

‘Is the pain on one side of your-’

‘Not appendicitis-’

‘Are you sure? Because-’

The worry in Catalina’s voice induced Cathy to crack open an eye. 

‘It’s-’ She winced; her voice was very quiet but her godmother leaned in to hear instantly. ‘It’s just period pain. Jane was right.’

‘Still-’ Catalina’s fingers threaded through her tousled hair gently. ‘It looks terribly painful mija.’

Cathy nodded. There was no point in denying it. Still, she had to keep up a front. She was the survivor after all.

‘I’m ok really- it….it hurts but I’m ok.’ She fought to keep her voice steady as she said it: even knowing that it’d be selfish to drag ANOTHER queen away from rehearsal on the same day that she was already out of action, the idea of being left all alone again to the pain and an empty house made her want to cry.

It reminded her too much of her first life- the long empty hours alone while her husband stewed and plotted and seethed and she waited on tenterhooks, and then the long painful hours after Mary was born, as she felt her strength sap slowly, her husband gone and no one left to care if she lived or died.

‘Ok.’

Catalina nodded and Cathy felt her heart sink. That was it? She was just going to take her word for it? She tried to keep the disappointment down as her godmother pressed a kiss to the top of her head and made for the door.

‘I’ll give the others a call-’

Before Catalina had left the room, Cathy could already imagine what the others would say- what the fans would say, to hear that she’d not only called in sich herself but dragged Catalina all the way back to the house for ‘just’ period pain.

What sort of survivor was she?

She managed to hold herself together until the footsteps down the hall died away before letting herself cry. This time, it wasn’t just from the pain. She buried her face into her pillow, feeling the bed shake with her silent sobs.

Always the same, no matter what life: she was destined to be alone. Alone and forgotten and abandoned and all because she was the strong one, she was the one who didn’t need care or love or support or anything at all, and that was good because she surely wasn’t going to get it, after all everyone knew she was the survivor, the one who didn’t need help because goodness knew nothing that bad had ever really happened to her….

‘Oh mija!’ A weight settled onto the edge of the bed next to her and the mattress dipped; a familiar hand smoothed stray strands of hair away from her face. ‘Is it very bad? Here, I’ve brought you some painkillers, let’s get you sitting up so you can take them-’

Cathy was too stunned to resist much as Kat gently eased her up to lean against her shoulder; automatically, she swallowed the pills and water handed to her and sniffled into the tissue that was pressed into her hand.

‘I- I thought-’

Her voice was husky with tears and Catalina frowned. ‘What is it mi vida? What did you think?’

Having to say it made her eyes sting all over again. 

‘I thought you LEFT-’

‘I did.’ Catalina looked puzzled ‘I had to get you the pills mija- why Jane insists we keep the medicine in the kitchen and not the bathroom I will NEVER know-’

‘No!’ It was hard to make herself understood as a fresh cramp made her writhe in Catalina’s arms but she made an effort. ‘I thought you LEFT.’

‘Oh!’ Catalina’s face cleared and then she looked horrified: the next thing she knew, Cathy was being swept up in her arms and bundled tightly against her chest. ‘Oh mija, no! Never! I just went to sort things out, to get the things you needed to feel better…. I never thought for a moment you’d think we were-’

‘We?’

‘Anna drove me back to check on you when we heard you weren’t coming in-’

‘Cathy?’ At that moment Anna appeared in the doorway, juggling a steaming mug and a hot water bottle. ‘Babes, what’s the matter, is the pain worse?’

‘She thought I’d just walked out on her!’ Catalina sounded anguished. ‘She thought I was just going to leave her alone-’

Oddly, it proved a curious sort of balm to Cathy’s wearied, lonely soul. To hear someone care that MUCH about hurting her….

Anna’s eyes went wide. ‘Oh Cath, really? Honestly, she just went to call us all in sick, to let the others know where we were, that you were sick and needed looking after, and to let me know what to fetch from downstairs…. We never for a second-’

‘’S ok-’ Still tucked into Catalina’s arms, Cathy felt her face heat up in humiliation and turned away, to hide it against her godmothers’s collar. ‘Not your fault. I was just being stupid, I’m sorry, I- I didn’t mean for you both to come, I didn’t want to cause any trouble, I-’

‘Hush.’ Catalina’s hand gently cupped the back of her head, smoothing down the flyaway hairs. ‘It’s all ok mija. Just a misunderstanding. Nothing to worry about. Ok?’

She nodded into Catalina’s chest.

‘And of course you’re not a bother-’ Anna joined in. ‘Honestly, the others wanted to come too except i think that would have pushed Joan over the edge. But it’s no trouble! We just wanted to check you were ok-’

Despite the reassurance, Cathy couldn’t quite raise her eyes. Surely they were both wearied of her overreactions by now. Shame bubbled in the pit of her stomach, a brief distraction from the pain.

Even so, she couldn’t help but feel a little comforted when another dip in the mattress told her that Anna had joined them on the bed too.

‘So I brought you a hot water bottle for your stomach and a cool flannel for your head- Catalina said you were a bit warm- and some hot chocolate, just because it probably won’t make you feel worse.’

‘Thank you, but you shouldn’t have-’

 ‘Well I did. Too late now.’ Blunt as Anna’s words were, Cathay  could hear the gentle smile behind them. Catalina shifted her slightly in her arms.

‘How about we get you settled again so you can make use of them? Hm? I promise they’ll make you feel better mija.’

Reluctantly Catalina peeled herself out of Catalina’s embrace and peeped up- her godmother's warm smile was reassuringly un-annoyed.

Maybe she really isn’t cross with me.

‘Now first things first- you can’t possibly be comfy with your duvet all tangled. Do you think you can stand if we help you?’

In less than five minutes, Cathy found herself being helped back into a freshly made bed. The hot water bottle helped soothe the sore muscles of her lower stomach, the flannel cooled her hot, tear-streaked face. Once she was safely in place, Anna and Catalina climbed up onto the bed either side of her; Catalina raised an arm and Cathy burrowed underneath, curling into her side and feeling rather like a baby chick being swept beneath a protective wing.

‘Better, mija?’

She nodded in Catalina’s cardigan and heard Anna’s soft chuckle.

‘Good. Now what can we do to take your mind off it all hm? Do you want to watch something on Netflix?’

Cathy shook her head, still burrowed; she didn’t really want to disturb the quiet peace that had settled over the room since the queens had entered.

‘I could read to you if you like.’

The suggestion seemed to take both Cathy AND Anna by surprise.

‘Really?’

‘Yes. If she- if YOU want.’

‘Do people even read aloud any more?’

‘Maybe you don’t.’ There was the hint of a teasing challenge in Catalina’s voice. ‘But I do.’

Cathy was about to tell Catalina not to worry, not to go to the trouble (because surely it WAS trouble)- but before she opened her mouth, she stopped herself. She couldn’t remember anyone- anyone EVER- offering to do something as tender as read aloud to her before. Not even as a child.

Catalina seemed to sense her hesitation. ‘Is that a yes mija?’

She nodded again, feeling her cheeks getting hot again as she did so. Even though Catalina had offered, taking her up on it still felt somehow presumptuous and demanding. Still….she also couldn’t quite bring herself to tell Catalina to stop.

‘Alright then. Anna, could you grab me something from the bookshelf?’ Cathy felt Catalina’s chuckle this time. ‘I seem to have a former monarch on me.’

(The arm holding Cathy to her tightened as she said it, even before Cathy could draw away in embarrassment and apologise.)

‘This do?’ Anna’s voice moved away and then came closer. ‘All she has are books about history and religion… Cath, when you’re better, we’re going to Waterstones, ok? Urgently. You need some light reading, I’m going to introduce you to the world of horror novels...’

‘That’s fine.’ 

Shifting slightly, Catalina drew Cathy infinitesimally closer and cleared her throat. Anna settled back onto the bed and Cathy felt a hand rubbing slow circles on her aching lower back. The relief was almost immediate- she had to fight the urge to purr.

‘Behold Lord how I come to you, a sinner sick and grievously wounded...’

Cathy peeped up- to catch Anna’s warm smile and Catalina’s absorbed expression- and then nestled back down. As her eyelids fluttered shut, she allowed the soft cadence of Catalina’s voice carry her away.

All was well.

[alternate-pokemon-next-gen]

Alternate Next Gen (Frontier Brains): Clarice and Cole Onion

Clarice and Cole are the twin children of Acerola and Allister. Clarice and Cole both have a soft spot for Ghost type Pokemon as both of their parents specialize in Ghost type Pokemon, they both felt close to Ghost types and decided that they would train to be Ghost type specialists like their parents. As the two of them are always seen together, they always partake in a double battle and they both work off of each other to the point they’ve been practically unbeatable. They both heard about a new Frontier facility open up and they both wanted to join, Lazarus was happy to let them both in and battle together. Clarice is the older twin, she has more of Allister’s personality, being very shy and fearful of others preferring to be by herself, with her twin brother or with her Pokemon. She’s starting to come out of her shell after being with her fellow Frontier Brains but she’s still as reserved as her father when it comes to being with other people. Cole is the younger twin, he takes more after Acerola when it comes to her personality, he’s friendly and is happy when he’s near kids younger than him. Cole also has a bit of a mischief side, he enjoys playing pranks with his Ghost Pokemon and with his sister. Clarice joins in for fun, both of them enjoys scaring others, especially anyone who challenges them to a battle. Cole is the one who plans the scares while Clarice executes the scare with their Pokemon, they both find great enjoyment in being with Ghost types and with each other. Clarice and Cole are very close to each other, rarely getting into an argument and they rarely fight with each other despite how different their personalities are. There are rumors that the two of them can talk through telepathy but those rumors haven’t been confirmed or denied by the twins, they are however, used to being around anything supernatural and rarely are surprised when something supernatural happens to them.

Clarice has a purple Z-Power Ring and Cole has a black Z-Ring. They both have Ghostium Z and Darkinium Z, Clarice also has Mimikium Z.

Clarice’s Pokemon:

Gourgeist- Gourgeist was originally Cole’s Pokemon but as Clarice wanted to have a Gourgeist, she had traded her Phantump for Cole’s Pumpkaboo which made both of them evolve under the care of their new trainers. Gourgeist is very shy much like her trainer, she also hates how people will think she’ll try to lead them into the spirit world when she has never done something like that before. Gourgeist is also very mischievous, she’ll often join in her trainer’s plan to give their opponents a scare by singing an eerie song and flashing the light on her stomach to scare them, she can also change the facial expression of the face on her stomach however she wants which adds to her scare factor. Gourgeist is the older sister of Cole’s Trevenant, she’s very protective of him and will always make sure he’s okay during a battle. The two of them were very happy when they were caught by twin siblings so they could stay together. Despite Cole not being her trainer anymore, she still enjoys being in his company and spending time with him and his sister. Gourgeist is Super Sized and mostly relies on various tricks during battle.

Caught in a Dusk Ball.

Ability is Frisk.

Moves are Phantom Force, Mystical Fire, Power Whip, Destiny Bond, Nasty Plot, Hex, Trick Room, Double Team, Seed Bomb and Confuse Ray.

Alolan Marowak- Clarice had caught her Alolan Marowak after he had evolved and while she was in the Alola region with her family, she had trained with him to help him evolve into an Alolan Marowak at night. As a Cubone, he was very lonely and would always cry when he was afraid or if Clarice wasn’t with him. Clarice had comforted him a lot when he was a Cubone, making her the only person he was close to and wouldn’t cry near. After he had gotten more comfortable with training and battling, he had opened up and had become more independent than when he was first found by Clarice. He had evolved at night while they were in the Alola region, despite having the chance to leave and take care of himself he instead wanted to stay with Clarice as she had trained and raised him when he was still a Cubone, Clarice agreed and caught him. Marowak is a loyal and brave Pokemon, he always makes sure to protect his trainer from harm as a thank you for how much he helped him when he was still young. Marowak is also a bit possessive over Clarice, which was something that first occurred when he was a Cubone as he didn’t want his “mama’s” attention away from him and while he wasn’t as bad as when he was younger, he still has traits of being possessive when he sees a boy talking or flirting with Clarice and he will quickly whack the boy over the head with his club. Marowak’s battle style has him rely on using his bone to block attacks as well as using fire dancing to dodge attacks, making him unpredictable.

Caught in a Dusk Ball.

Ability is Cursed Body.

Held Item is a Thick Club.

Moves are Shadow Bone, Will-O-Wisp, Bone Rush, Flame Wheel, Fire Punch, Thunder Punch, Shadow Ball, Brutal Swing, Focus Blast and Flare Blitz.

Mimikyu- Clarice caught Mimikyu after she had completed her mother’s trial, she found Mimikyu on a shelf and mistook him for a plush toy but was happy to have him either way and managed to catch him. Mimikyu is very shy when it comes to meeting others, he only really warmed up to his trainer and his trainer’s family as they all were nice to him and they understood him. Mimikyu enjoys sewing in his free time and will often make different disguises for himself instead of just Pikachu, he’s always happy when his costumes are complimented by others by how well made they are. Mimikyu does have a very bad temper that comes up when someone breaks the neck of any of the costume he makes and he gets even more upset when the costumes he works hard on rips while he’s in a battle, he’ll often wear a replacement costume until the ripped one is fixed by his trainer. Despite what many people think, Mimikyu gets along with Lazarus’ Pikachu and the two of them are very close friends and there’s no bad blood between them, the two of them even train together when they aren’t busy. Mimikyu doesn’t have much of a plan when it comes to battling, but he does try to be as sneaky as possible when it comes to battling against anyone else.

Caught in a Dusk Ball.

Ability is Disguise.

Moves are Double Team, Shadow Sneak, Play Rough, Shadow Claw, Drain Punch, Phantom Force, Thunderbolt, Copycat, Dazzling Gleam and Hone Claws. 

Cole’s Pokemon:

Trevenant- Trevenant was originally Clarice’s Pokemon but as Cole wanted to have a Trevenant, he had traded his Pumpkaboo for Clarice’s Phantump which made them both evolve under the care of their new trainers. Trevenant is a sweetheart despite how he looks intimidating, he has a childlike wonder about him that was there when he was a Phantump. Trevenant is kind to Pokemon that dwell in forests and actively gives them any berries he grows or finds while he’s on a walk, he also is very protective of forests and will protect them even if he gets injured or burned in the process. Despite how kind he can be, he still enjoys playing pranks on people with his trainer and will often use his ability to control plants and roots to give people a scare, especially if someone is threatening the forest. Trevenant is the younger brother of Clarice’s Gourgeist, he’s very protective of her and will always make sure she’s okay during a battle. The two of them were very happy when they were caught by twin siblings so they could stay together. Despite Clarice not being his trainer anymore, he still enjoys being in her company and spending time with her and her brother. Trevenant mostly relies on his strong attack as well as moves to stall his opponents while he’s battling, he also figured out how to counter Fire types by using Will-O-Wisp to absorb the Fire type energy.

Caught in a Dusk Ball.

Ability is Frisk.

Moves are Will-O-Wisp, Leech Seed, Shadow Claw, Horn Leech, Destiny Bond, Phantom Force, Ingrain, Rock Slide, X-Scissor and Giga Impact.

Cursola- Cole had caught his Cursola when she was a Corsola. Cole had spotted his Galarian Corsola while he was in Galar with his family, he found her to be cute and managed to catch her. As a Corsola, Cursola was very shy when she was spotted by others as she thought that people would freak out if they saw how she looked. When she saw that Cole wasn’t freaked out by her appearance she was happy that he liked her and caught her. During her time with Cole, she would do her best to train with him and his other Pokemon. She does often miss how she looked when she was a normal Corsola but after being with Cole long enough she had grown to accept herself in her new form which is how she managed to evolve into Cursola. As a Cursola, she no longer cares what others think of her and is happy to battle for her trainer who cares for and loves her. Does her best during battle and is happy when she manages to win for her trainer, she works well with everyone on Clarice’s team and is glad when she’s partnered with one of them. Cursola relies on her special moves as well as using Reflect and Harden to boost her defense and weakening her opponent’s attack with Strength Sap.

Caught in a Dusk Ball.

Ability is Perish Body.

Moves are Ancient Power, Curse, Strength Sap, Mirror Coat, Reflect, Harden, Giga Drain, Shadow Ball, Hex and Meteor Beam.

Golett- Cole caught Golett when he was on a walk with his sister. Golett had let himself be caught by Cole as he was looking for a trainer but most people had passed him up for a different Pokemon so he was happy when Cole had sent out his Trevenant to battle him and was happy to be caught by Cole. Golett is an easy going Pokemon that’s okay with pretty much anything that happens around him, he’s also eager to please and he does his best in battle so that he could earn his stay with Cole. Deep down he’s worried that if he doesn’t do his best in Cole’s eyes, he’s going to get released and replaced by another Ghost type so he takes a lot of time to train himself to be as strong as he can as a Golett. Golett doesn’t like the thought of evolving as he wants to be strong as he is, he also doesn’t want to be as tall as his evolved form is as he’s afraid he could accidentally hurt his trainer and his trainer’s sister, so he holds onto an Everstone to keep himself from evolving. Golett’s battle strategy is to use various punching moves as they get boosted by his ability.

Caught in a Dusk Ball.

Ability is Iron Fist.

Moves are Shadow Punch, Rock Polish, Focus Punch, Stomping Tantrum, Fire Punch, Thunder Punch, Phantom Force, Heavy Slam, Iron Defense and Mega Punch.

[let-it-show]

All The Love I Found In You 8/?

Please find part 7 right here! SAP CONTINUES but these two have an important talk and Anna just...really needs reassurance. And then they get loose. Part 9 is HERE! Taaag for @hellodemoiselle !

"Comfy." The words cut through the silence in the study, disrupting the peace slightly but Elsa didn't care.

She was perched on top of the desk she had been doing paperwork at that very morning, legs dangling carefully over the edge. It was a bit cold in the room. With effort she was able to ignore it, plus she was distracted anyway.

Anna had plopped herself down in the big chair and leaned forward with her arms around Elsa's waist. She rested her head in her lap and practically purred as Elsa stroked her head. "Comfy," she repeated.

"Don't fall asleep yet," Elsa gently commanded, picking up her drink with her free hand. She was halfway through it and already feeling it. She wasn't sure why Anna chose the study to be in, but it was quiet and no one would even think to come in there.

The door was locked regardless.

A couple of lit candles carefully placed on the desk were all they had for light. It was perfect.

"I won't sleep." Anna sighed contentedly. "I want to be here awake and with you and no one else. I may never sleep again if I have you."

"Oh Anna. You'll sleep. You have to sleep." Elsa continued to pet her head as her mind traveled to the events of the evening. She thought about what she had learned, about Anna crying. How much sleep had she lost due to her sadness? "I want you sleeping, want you rested. Not this moment, but later," she whispered.

Anna made a little sound. "I've been rested. I sleep so well when you're here...ex-except I don't want to..."

"Anna..." Elsa spoke carefully. She didn't want to approach the subject but she knew she had to. While her head felt warm and lips loose she should take advantage. "Anna, we need to talk about how you've been doing," she said as she traced her finger around her back, thinking for a second about how strange it was to caress herself. Oddy it didn't throw her off as much as it should. Knowing it was Anna in there helped enough.

"Nooo..." Anna tightened her arms around her.

"Nooo?" Elsa repeated in curiosity.

"I don't want to think about that, I don't want to talk about it, I just want to stay like this. Stay..."

Her response surprised Elsa, a little. She thought Anna might protest anything was wrong, might try to hide it. Anna was not like her generally when it came to her feelings. She expressed and she expressed freely. However she had been hiding her deep sadness from Elsa very actively going by Kristoff's words. "We don't have to move. I just want to talk to you."

Anna's forehead was buried in her thigh, her words almost too muffled. "No...I can't think about that, I can't I can't I won't. Stay, please."

"...I am staying." Elsa tried to ignore that she felt her waist and thighs getting a little frosty. "Anna I'm staying."

"What if you come back to this body and you feel your power and the spirits...what if they make you go back?"

Elsa felt her shoulders trembling ever so slightly. "They won't." Anna's words held weight, she understood it. It was normal to think she might change her mind when back to her own body. Elsa knew she wouldn't though. She was in a storm for the same reason Anna wept. Elsa sipped her drink again."My magic will not pull me back to Ahtohallan. It will not tell me I should not and cannot be with you."

Still, the trembling grew and cold air began to curl around them both. "And if it does? If your magic decides it's bad, will you listen?"

"It won't, it-"

"Will you?" Anna pressed, her voice a bit louder.

"No. Anna? My heart and mind work alongside my magic, they know my true love and desires. My magic will not-will not defy them to push us apart. Can't you feel it yourself?" she asked. With what she had seen Anna display with it, she was sure it worked in the same fashion. It felt especially so as tiny specks of ice cold kissed her skin, snow soon to form.

Anna then raised her head and looked up at Elsa. "My magic...your magic." Her eyes were red with tears already slipping and it shocked Elsa. She'd felt her shaking, but... "With you it feels so good and it just grows, it blossoms through me. It's wonderful. I want you to have it back, but until then, my heart feels so open. I hope I feel so good when this power flows back to you."

"Oh Anna. Your heart has always been so open." Elsa skimmed her fingertips along her face. "Don't cry. Ssshh. Don't cry Anna." Seeing Anna cry was never pleasant, and even worse when she knew she was the reason. She kept stroking her face.

Somehow that made her tears slip faster. Ice spread over the ceiling in a thin sheet. "I was so happy those three years. I had you and you were safe and free and I thought you were happy, especially whenever we would spend our days together. We were making a life together with new traditions and new memories. I thought it would last forever."

"I WAS happy Anna. You were right. And-"

"Mother and father took us away from each other so many years ago. I've forgiven them as much as I can, I understand, but they broke our hearts. Then, later we followed their story to the northern forest, and they...mother, father, someone...tore us apart again. What if we find something new, Elsa? We still have more to learn about them with those soldiers back and settling in. What if there's another adventure and it takes you away?"

Elsa had to think over it carefully. She intended to never leave her again, but she did yearn to know whatever she could, and do whatever was right by Anna. Her heart told her she would never have to leave her to help her, while her brain...actually agreed. They were soulmates. Now that they knew that, separating was not an option...and even if they weren't, she still wouldn't leave. "I will not leave you. Where I go, you go and where you go, I go. Mother and father made a big mistake keeping us apart." Elsa said nothing of Ahtohallan. She'd told Anna she saw their mother there and sang with her. But more had come between them than their parents in the enchanted forest and she knew now to be more careful.

Anna didn't want Elsa dying for the sake of being everything for everyone. Elsa only wanted to be everything to and for Anna, though. She gently slid her hand down to her sleeve. "Stand up Anna, come closer." Elsa tugged gently.

"Why?"

"Just do it, please."

Anna frowned, but slowly released her hold on Elsa.She pushed herself up from the chair with a slight wobble, standing before Elsa. She stepped closer to Elsa, reaching back out to her.

Elsa took her in her arms and snuggled against her warmth. She closed her eyes tightly, and felt that telltale shift once more. It didn't even surprise her as it happened, and she knew it wouldn't last long.

She opened her eyes and she was in her body. Her eyes hurt from crying, her mind was drunk and she felt her world swaying. Strong emotions clouded her thoughts and she was finding it hard to grasp the sudden switch from a sober brain. As arms tightened around her Elsa's mind found its focus in Anna and she was instantly overwhelmed.

'AnnaAnnaAnna' her mind repeated over and over and she found herself brushing her lips across Anna's forehead in a second, maybe less. One hand raised to gently grasp the back of Anna's head as Elsa kissed her by her eyes, turned her head and kissed the shell of her ear, followed by the side of her head.

"Elsa," came Anna's voice softly and she reached to place her palms on either side of Elsa's face. "I can think now, Elsa, but I still feel...I'm afraid of you going away again, I..."

An immense weight of emotion seemed to slam Elsa's chest, forcing her forward and down. She couldn't control it. A swirl of snow casually trailed around them as her love found various forms. How could she love Anna so intensely and not feel drunk all the time? Her arm wrapped around Anna's waist and she pressed their lips together.

Unlike before she pressed a little further. Her tongue gently swept against her sister's soft, pretty lips. For a split second she thought she wouldn't be granted access, but Anna's lips parted to welcome her. Elsa nearly smiled against her before slipping her tongue in to dance with Anna's. Her head was swimming; if she stopped kissing her she'd be so dizzy she wouldn't be able to function.

Anna kissed her back eagerly, fingers trailing down her back. It felt natural, it felt comfortable. Their souls again were merging and caressing one another with the most tender touches.

She wanted to say over and over she would never leave Anna again. Anything to assure the precious girl she held. But to speak she would have to stop kissing her. The way their lips moved together encouraged her to keep going. The way their eyes stayed on each other...

It was Anna who withdrew, her cheeks flushed and deep, excited breaths making her chest rise and fall. Her eyes were bright as they stayed on Elsa. "That...Elsa..." she struggled to say and if Elsa couldn't so alertly sense otherwise, she would have panicked that Anna was filled with shock and regret. "THAT was true love's kiss," Anna continued.

"So it was," Elsa replied as she offered a lopsided and drunken smile. There was a storm inside, working up in strength as her love only grew. She stroked Anna's cheek and her heart pounded so much it nearly hurt. "I love you Anna, I love you so much." Her eyes closed and all she could hear was Anna's voice.

"I love you Elsa. I always have."

It lasted longer than she had thought it would and soon enough, Elsa was back in Anna's body. While she was grateful for the properly working mind, she had hoped they would finally stay, that the right fingers would brush the right face. It seemed that wasn't to be and she wondered what would make it happen.

Anytime they had switched was during a highly emotional moment, and it didn't take a lot of thought to realize their switch was connected to their feelings for each other. They loved each other so much and Elsa wasn't sure what else there was to express.

That was...unless Anna continued to hide some of her sorrow. When had she learned to do that?

Oh, right. Elsa spent over a decade teaching her.

Anna had moved in close again and rested her head against Elsa's chest while Anna pet her hair. "Anna...how long have you hidden your sadness?"

"For as long as I can remember." Anna's voice was barely above a whisper. "You were suddenly gone and I was lonely, I was so lonely. I know you were too. But I didn't know why I was lonely, I thought I was being punished for years and years. I didn't know what I did..." She sounded so small.

Ruining her sister's life for so many years hurt her more than she could express. "Anna..."

"I felt empty when we returned from the forest. I felt so lost. I thought it would work itself out but it never did. You weren't here." They were starting on that path again. Elsa could see it wouldn't exactly resolve itself while Anna was drunk.

She picked up her cup to finish her drink and shifted in the meantime. "Anna, we need to get you to bed. You had a lot to drink and your mind isn't being kind with you.."

"Yes it is! You're here...well...my head keeps thinking you'll leave." "Exactly. Let's get up," she said and carefully took Anna's hands to remove them, moving her legs off the desk in the meantime. "I'll bring you to bed and wrap myself around you. Anna, I will surround you so completely you won't feel afraid anymore."

"Hmm." Anna let out the tiniest of laughs as she stepped back. "I wish it worked like that. I have a - a lot to fight with, a lot to climb out of you know," she babbled.

As soon as Elsa stood she took Anna's hand. She understood what she was saying even if she hated it. "I get it." She tugged her hand. "I'm still going to try."

"And I love you for it," Anna said as Elsa wrapped an arm around her waist to take her to the door.

"Hey, Elsa? Can we...not go up to bed yet?"

"Huh?"

"It's early in the night yet. And I don't want to go right to bed with my worries still there, even if I will be hugging you all night," she continued.

That wasn't a bad idea. Elsa opened the door slowly, as if they had to sneak around their own home and castle. "Okay. What did you have in mind?"

As the door opened further, Anna suddenly lurched forward and out of Elsa's grasp. She threw her hands forward and shot a solid surface of ice to cover the floor of the hall. Then she ran right onto it and slid down the hallway. "Wheee!"

"ANNA!" Elsa tried to hurry after her and forgot herself as she stepped onto the ice. She slipped and within seconds smacked her entire being into the wall opposite the doorway. It hurt!

"Elsa! Hey careful!" Anna slid over, except too far and she fell right into Elsa. Then she giggled. "Probably shouldn't do this drunk."

Elsa wasn't drunk, but she was a little fuzzy herself. "Playing with ice drunk does go a little...weird," she said, knowing from experience. She had once iced herself into a closet. It was not a good time.

"C'mon I'll hold you up," Anna said as she straightened up on the ice. "I won't fall again, my feet feel like they communicate with the ice. Like I won't slip on it alone."

"Uh huh, but you will fall over anything else you encounter," Elsa replied but took her arm. Despite hitting a wall and being tripped over, it was funny. Her shoulder would be bruised the next day, but that was okay.

Unless of course, they woke up in the right bodies, then she would kiss it and apologize.

"How drunk do you think I am? Let's go see the party," Anna suggested and they slid that way. They passed through a door that would take them there, and Anna didn't bother removing the ice. Elsa didn't care enough to remind her.

She also didn't care to tell her she did indeed think she was pretty drunk as Anna laughed and dragged her along by the hand to entirely the wrong little room. It was  meeting room and Anna realized her mistake as soon as she got there. "Whoops. Let's go in and have a meeting!"

"What? Anna, you're ridiculous. No meetings. Only fun," she said, trying to tug her away as Anna opened the door.

"Nono! Not a real meeting. We go in, sit down, and I give you a list of all the reasons you should never stop kissing me-"

"Anna!" Elsa blushed. They both were blushing. "You...you don't have to give me reasons." She grabbed the door handle and pulled it closed. Anna was against it and Elsa stepped close to trap her there with a laugh. She braced her other hand on the doorway. "I'm right here," she whispered.

Anna offered what would have been an especially cute smile on her own face. "But I want to say things to you."

"You can still do that," Elsa told her as she kissed her nose. "I'm still listening." Then she kissed her cheek.

Elsa was fully prepared to kiss her as long as she could stand right there in that doorway. It occurred to her she usually had been kissing Anna in much more intimate and sweet moments, but her loopy mind was telling her to kiss her in every corner of the castle just to make a statement. Who was she to disobey such a fun idea?

Unfortunately at that moment Elsa picked up the sounds of people approaching from the party. She couldn't make out what they were saying yet but she turned her head and paused, deciding what they should do. She didn't want to stop. Anna didn't help by leaning forward to kiss her face a few times.

"Annaaaaa...listen."

"You'll have to make my lips stop by stopping me with mine," Anna slurred out.

"That doesn't...that....sshh." The voices.

"Cause mine are on your f...Hey people! Come on, come on!" Anna took Elsa's wrist and pushed the door open again. She tugged Elsa in with her and quickly closed it, making sure it clicked quietly instead of slamming.

Elsa was giggling as Anna pulled her back against her and the door, her back to Anna's chest. Anna's arms held her waist and Elsa leaned her head back on her shoulder as they waited and listened.

"That party burnt out fast after the queens left, yea?" came the voice of a young man.

"It sure did! Wait, the queens?" asked a second voice, also a man but a little hoarse sounding. "Only Anna is the queen!"

"Espen come on, you saw those two. Is 'sisters' what they're calling it now? Am I behind? That dance!"

"So, it was a dance, they looked like they were having fun", Espen grumbled as both stopped outside the door.

Of course they had to stop. Elsa rolled her eyes but kept listening. So, they were more obvious than she had realized.

"That was more than fun." The man laughed. "They were quite close in front of the table too, and did you know they sleep together every night?"

"Not the way we sleep together Petter. I am sure the princess and the queen have a huge bed and sleep with their clothes on, not making out for hours." There was a teasing tone in his voice and Elsa suddenly felt like she was intruding on something really private.

"Yea, they only LOOK at each other like that's exactly what they wanna do," replied Petter. "And I saw Kristoff packing! Listen, those two are totally an item. Maybe they never were sisters anyway! It's not like we know what was going on here before the gates opened and we were hired."

"They were out with their parents when they were young, before Elsa was hidden away. Don't be silly!"

"Oh, yea..."

There was chuckling. "Don't worry about it anymore, you've had far too much wine and I want to have at you once before you pass out."

"Oh Espen...you'll get me more than once. Why would I be worried? We'll have two good queens and more parties..."

"More than once, huh? That's right, I remember Laila is joining us, I hear she doesn't hold back..."

Elsa was turning redder by the second and by the way she heard the tiniest of breaths from Anna and felt her shaking, she knew she was holding back a lot of loud laughter. What did their staff get up to? Well, she really couldn't judge.

And if more of them felt the way that Petter fellow did, that was a huge relief.

"Oh, if her partner is anyone to go by-"

Evidently, Anna couldn't do it anymore. She stepped back and Elsa nearly toppled as Anna swung open the door and spun around to face the two men, both indeed young and both from the kitchen. They were shocked as Anna laughed and then pointed at them, several teenie ice fireworks springing out and around them.

"I KNEW IT!" She declared and reached for Elsa.

Elsa let her hand be grabbed and just went along with Anna. She felt very embarassed for the two men. She felt rude for listening. "Sorry-"

That was all she got out before Anna burst out with something else. "I've seen you two in the kitchen- I knew it! Have fun!" she laughed and tugged Elsa away suddenly, taking off with her. She was still laughing and they were very quickly going away from the party once again.

As they went, Elsa found herself calming down and enjoying the moment, having fun with Anna like they were kids pulling hijinks. They were making up for lost time, maybe. Anna was giggling, so Elsa started to. Anna brought her to the library, pausing at the door. "You have to kiss me here, too," she said suddenly, a bright smile on her red face.

"Here?" Elsa asked but she stepped forward and Anna was against the door again.

"Here. Against every door!

"You kind of read my mind," Elsa said softly, remembering how she wanted to do that in every room. She decided not to take too much time as she smoothed her hand over Anna's shoulder.

"Every doorway, every passage will be one where we've stood joined. I like it that way. It's less empty that way," Anna told her shyly. Her snowmen showed on the wall like a snowy projection, following butterflies and staring at the sun.

"I like that," Elsa replied as she closed the distance between them, once again giving her yet another soul consuming kiss.

They made it to another three doorways before Anna iced the ground again. Elsa lost her footing entirely and went down hard, her hip very sore by the time they wound up in the bedroom. Anna had apologized over and over and felt terribly guilty, but Elsa didn't feel bothered by it.

Oh it hurt, it definitely hurt! Her shoulder still throbbed as well. But she was too high off the emotion of the night. Having never been one to date or  pursue romance, she wondered if she currently felt the feeling most couples did - excitement, electricity, joy. But her feelings for Anna had to run more extreme than that, right? Was it romance, what she felt for her sister? It didn't need to be defined, but she still thought about it.

It had to be some kind of romance, she thought, as they stripped themselves of their dresses. Well, Elsa stripped herself, while Anna simply remade her gown from the night before. When Elsa had her dress off Anna gently touched her side and Elsa looked to see her peering down at her upper hip.

"You've got a big bruise forming, I'm so sorry!" she said with a sigh.

"It's fine, Anna. It'll be sore but I just- I don't really care."

"Elsa..."

"You know, those two we saw outside the meeting room are going to be talking about this for days," Elsa said, quickly trying to change the subject so Anna would get distracted.

"Let them talk, there's always new rumours about someone going around the castle staff." Anna lowered herself down next to Elsa so she could place a very gentle kiss on the bruise.

"Mmm." Elsa smiled down at her. "I guess that's true. I wonder if everyone sees what they see."

Anna placed another kiss and then stood. "Probably. Sometimes I know I've given you looks that...that...well, that authors write about."

Once again Elsa's cheeks were red and she sought out the nightgown she was using. Anna's lips made her skin tingle, but her words even more so. She looked at Anna like that too. "Oh."

"Now I'll do it even more," Anna told her. "I'm so happy! Those two are newer in the kitchen, they were always flirting..." She sighed and happily that time. "It's so sweet."

"I see." She wasn't terribly interested in the other two in that moment. Let Anna tell her about them later. At the moment, she just cared about Anna. With her nightgown on she smiled at Anna and went to the bed where water waited on the nightstand as well. They had made preparations before going to the study for water to be waiting in the room later. It was lukewarm and had been delivered immediately after they asked since they were still out and wouldn't be interrupted.

Elsa sat on the edge of the bed first and Anna was rushing in for snuggles when Elsa held up her hand and pointed at one of the glasses of water. "Drink that first, all of it."

"Elsaaa..." Anna whined.

"Please?" Elsa asked and reached for her own, drinking it.

"Fine." Anna complied and took her glass. "I have to drink it ALL?"

"Yes, you had a lot of alcohol."

Anna nodded slowly and started to drink it, swallowing quickly. Elsa thought she might dump it on her face. She finished most of her own but the effects of her drink were wearing off quickly anyway.

Meanwhile Anna nearly tripped into the bed when she finished and set the glass down. She crawled in without injury and settled her body half over Elsa's, avoiding the bruised hip. Elsa wrapped her arms around her and caressed her lips with her own. It was impossible to be close enough to her.

"Don't let go of me," Anna whispered when she buried her face in Elsa's shoulder, narrowly missing that bruise. "Please don't let me go."

"Never." Elsa had taken her own hair out for Anna and found her fingers combing through it. She couldn't wait to be touching Anna's actual hair and body.

It was another new range of thoughts to think about. Elsa hadn't thought she would make their kiss more intimate, but she did. She still held the desire to run her fingers over every inch of her body and kiss all of her soft skin. Anna didn't help, demanding she be kissed everywhere while Elsa only thought it...even though she would have voiced it probably.

The thought of doing anything more carnal didn't strike her, though. Elsa just wanted to appreciate her. She wanted to be close with her and know her every curve, hold her warmth against her. Anna was already asleep against her, little snores escaping her. Elsa wasn't sure if the snores were from her body itself or just part of Anna. She would know for sure if Anna still managed to drool.

Too cute.

She would rather see Anna's sleeping face and Elsa found her thoughts growing frustrated. Why weren't they back to normal? Love was the key. It prompted them back to normal a few times. True love never ran stronger than it did between them there and then. The feeling engulfed her. She couldn't think about anything else at all!

And yet...

Elsa took a deep breath and let Anna shift slightly in her arms before closing her eyes. Something still had to happen, something deep was waiting to come up. She had a feeling the answer had to do with Anna. They may have talked in the study, and Anna had admitted a lot. Her life had been more distressing and lonely than Elsa had previously understood.Still, that didn't seem to be what was blocking them exactly. It had to be something locked away even farther.

Elsa wondered what her sister wasn't telling her.

[zombriekid]

Medium [Alucard/Gender Neutral Reader]

Series: Hellsing

Summary: “…could I request where the reader uses their medium powers on a mission and Alucard begins to believe them?” victory usually tastes so sweet but not at the expense of the innocent

warning: vague mentions of violence against children

 Mediumship is nowhere near as glamorous as the entertainment industry loves to portray; it’s not all traipsing (see: trespassing) on ancient burial grounds and hurling invasive questions into the air in the hopes of something Otherworldly™ responding. You don’t often see apparitions- full body or otherwise- and it’s rare to hear much more than a single whisper, in fact the vast majority of the time your dealings with the dearly departed amounts to little more than just random surges or depletions of energy.

 This is not to say that your spirituality is weak, it’s just that… that’s what “ghosts” are- energy left behind by the living like an imprint of history, and this energy can be influenced by events, past or present, and passionate emotions, negative or positive, thus rendering any argument that they exist a hollow shot in the dark. Because you can’t prove what you (often) can’t see, not to others, especially in this day and age of technology with photo/video manipulation. And the fact that mediumship has a bad rep due to prior exploiters and frauds.

 But you purposefully leave that last bit out of the conversation cause even though He’s acting like He’s not interested, you know that Alucard is tuning in.

 Not that you can blame Him though. What else is there to do?

 From the moment your little menagerie of hunters stepped out of the Hellsing jet, absolutely nothing has happened. Nothing, zilch, nada. This might be ideal in other situations but you were promised a paycheck upon the eradication of a vampire who’s “more monster than man” and the subsequent purification of his/her hunting grounds, and goddammit you can’t let this mission stain your record! That and Mr. Tall Dark and Frightening is assigned as one of your partners.

 Well… more like you’re the one that’s assigned but yadda yadda fine details and all that.

 “So in other words…” Seras pauses with a drawn out vowel, “you feel ghosts rather than see or hear them?”

 You shrug in response before catching your boot over a pile of broken glass. It’s inevitable that you’ll trek through some before the mission’s end- hell before the night’s over because of friggin course a bloodsucker sets up shop in an old, forgotten hospital- however the less shards you have to pluck out of the soles later the better.

 “Depends. I hear Pip just fine, and on occasion he visually manifests himself for me, but that’s only cause of his connection with you. Uses your energy.”

 This seems to satisfy the young vampire for she gives you a quiet hum in acknowledgment with nothing else to follow. Silence hangs over your small group as the three of you inch down the hall, briefly turning your attention into every passing doorway and you specifically avoiding stepping on to jagged scraps of splintered wood and dusty glass; these two might be immune to pathogens but that doesn’t mean you are.

 “So you sensing energy… you mean that literally?” She asks.

 “Yes ma’am.”

 “Then riddle me this, revenant,” Alucard’s voice disrupts the conversation, chases away any semblance of peace and echoes into every dark corner of the walls around you. The fine hairs all up and down your skin suddenly stand to attention with the intrusive introduction of His baritone. It’s not as if you forgot that He’s there, or even that He’s eavesdropping, you just didn’t expect Him to vocalize His opinion. Should’ve known better, it’s friggin Alucard after all. “Do you ‘sense the energy’ of our target?”

 That’s the thing.

 You don’t.

 You can pick up both of your companion’s energies easily- Alucard’s is oppressive and dark and just plain inhuman while Seras’s is warm and jovial, but scarred, reticent, as if she has a blanket of secrets weighing down her back until she aches. That’s the best way you can describe it at least.

But there’s no other energy nearby.

 Now you’ll always be the first to admit that there are certain limitations to your spiritual sensitivity- for instance you wouldn’t be able to sense someone in the parking lot from this deep in the complex- and there are many factors outside of your control that contributes, with species acting as a major contender. After all, man eating monsters tend to amass a surplus of energy with every soul they devour, human or otherwise.

 So why can’t you feel the target’s energy? Sir Integra herself described them as “a gluttonous, beastial affront against the Lord with a deplorable appetite for children”; loss of humanity, depraved morality, the murder of kids… merely one of these would be sufficient enough for you, let alone all three, so this should have ease akin to your breathing offending Alucard in some way.

 Then why…?

 “I’m callin’ it,” Seras huffs before her boots cease their trek, which (shockingly) causes your other vampiric squadmate to pause as well. No need to single yourself out, strength in numbers as the saying goes, so you do the same. “They’re not here.”

 “I agree, but why not ask Hellsing’s residential medium? After all they’re supposed to be able to sense this thing’s energy.”

 The walls quickly sprint by in your vision as you snap your attention to the right, and you channel every poisonous thought and cutting emotion into the glare you fix the back of His head with. Alucard feels the weight, you know He does, just as you don’t need to see it in order to know that there’s a self satisfied grin stretching across His face.

 God, He’s such a petty bitch.

 Then again so are you.

 “Oh I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you could use the energy of your soul to sense someone else’s!” You spit out through a clenched jaw, but you’re not yet done. Now for the zinger. “Wait! That’s right. You can’t cause you don’t have o-”

 Cold.

 A plume of icy chill kisses your pebbling skin. Fine hairs rise. Your spine straightens. Instincts, or a sort of magnetic pull to your right. Not Alucard though. Further.

 Over your shoulder.

 A winding stairwell.

 Energy. Young. Scared. On the same floor. Your floor. The first stair.

 There’s a-

 “Murray?” You hear someone ask but you quickly shush them.

 Because there’s a ghost at the base of the stairwell in the little passage off to the group’s right; it’s not strong enough to create a perfect visual, or rather much of a visual at all, instead you’re graced with an opaque silhouette vaguely humanoid in shape. You can make out where the head and shoulders are supposed to be, though the legs dissipate below (presumably) the knees, and judging by the relatively small size you can almost safely assume that this spirit comes from a child.

 An assumption that dries out the roof of your mouth, tightens the muscles in your throat until it hurts to swallow; child ghosts have always proven to be the most harrowing in terms of purification, if nothing else because of the implications of their demise. No one cherishes the idea of dead children, after all.

 It’s in the nature of your job, unfortunately, and it’s time to get to work so first thing’s first: is this ghost related to the mission?

 “Do either of y’all know any history about this place?” You ask in a voice that practically toes on screechy, and yes you’re aware that your drawl is a touch thick right now. “A children’s hospital, maybe?”

 Seras stumbles over her words, likely a result from your behavior considering this is the first she’s bore witness to this side of your role, but she quickly regains her faculties with a throat-clearing cough.

 “N-no, it’s umm.. was just a general hospital. Mostly used during one of the World Wars.”

 Your kneecaps ache- cold, sharp, it bites at the crevices between your joints and it slinks down both shins until your toes start to feel chilly. A sort of rolling, hollow loftiness churns the pit of your stomach, and your head seems far too heavy to be sitting on such a stiff neck, and a dusting of salty tears sting the fleshy corners of your eyes. A scream tears at your jaw.

 But you don’t panic, there’s no need to because this reaction is not yours. The pain in your legs, the woozy light headedness that’s sapping your energy, the involuntary urge to sob and shriek until the lining of your throat feels like sandpaper? None of this belongs to you. This is your body reacting to the stimuli from the child’s ghost.

 Or as you like to call it: minor possession.

 “Why do you ask..?”

 A vampire with a preference for younger victims.

 “Murray?”

 The shade of a terrified kid, silhouette incomplete, and everything from your knees down plagued with an icy burn.

 …there’s no denying it, what you’re currently staring at, subsequently what’s burrowing into your bones and siphoning your energy, is a casualty of this mission’s target.

 You hear someone call your name, more specifically your first name, but with so much metaphorical cotton stuffed in your ears you can’t really determine who so you instead lift a pointer finger towards the spirit; perhaps crawling through mud would be easier. God you feel so weak.

 Seras is the first to respond.

 “Wha’ is it? I don’t see anything.”

 Through your teeth you manage to bite out: “g-ghost.” And that is perhaps the worst thing you could’ve said or done because the shrill gasp that she unleashes is nothing short of jarring, and she bounces from one foot over to the next and back again as her red eyes widen and glimmer with what you could only call excitement.

“Where?! Where is it, where do you see it?!”

 These questions gush out of her like a broken spout with many more to follow, but you can’t help but to tune them out cause this? What she’s doing right now? Yeah this is the exact reason why you prefer to tend to spirits by yourself; the fascination that borderlines fetishization that most carry with their individual worldviews often leads to disrespecting those who have long since passed. Hence your profession boggled down with money-grubbing charlatans, and entire programs dedicated to ghost hunting- ah, your apologies, you mean “paranormal investigating”. It’s distasteful, it’s tacky, and it’s downright insulting, and it etches itself deep into the lines between your brows and the downward tug of your frown.

 This… must convey your message perfectly for the young vampire’s delight gradually bleeds into something more somber.

 Maybe if you weren’t so tired you’d find it in yourself to let it go? “That’s one of our target’s victims, Victoria. Try to show some respect?”

 At least she has the decency to look ashamed, unlike her master whom you can feel the glare He levels you with behind the orange tint of His glasses. Any other time and the weight of His ire would intimidate you, but you honestly don’t care right now.

 The child’s spirit rises and bobs up the stairs, as if it’s simulating the act of walking, and with it goes the sensation of ice and pain and fear out of your joints. From beside you, on your right, you can barely make out Seras quietly saying “I think I see something.” It rounds the sharp bend in the stairwell before it continues its ascension until you can’t see- or sense- it anymore.

 And then something dawns on you.

 “I think he/she wants us to follow.”

 Alucard scoffs from somewhere behind you. “Is it going to lead us to the target?”

 A nod is all that you give Him. He in turn allows a single barking laugh to rip from His throat out of derision, judging by the sound in the way it’s meant to curl around your cheeks until they feel hot, however you’re rather confident in your assessment. In fact you’re very nearly absolutely certain that that is what’s going to happen: follow the ghost and you’ll find the target.

 Which brings you to your final conclusion, one that Seras seems to be grasping at herself. “Wait. If this ghost genuinely is a victim, then it really shouldn’t… exist per say, yeah?”

 “Yep. Man eating monsters, especially vampires, essentially absorb souls as a means to substitute what they’ve lost.” You glance at her in your peripheral. “Which means one of two things. Either my hunch is wrong and this spirit truly is an echo from the past, or…

 “My hunch is right, the spirit is a casualty, and our target’s already dead.”

 Silence picks up where your sentence ends; the nothingness of the quiet permeates through one ear and out the other, and it presses down on the bones of your shoulders until your spine shivers. There’s a tension in the air not unlike a rubber band being stretched from both ends, you can feel it in the cavity of ribcage, and though you could easily attribute the stress to the hospital’s atmosphere or the very real possibility of your estimate holding true, your instincts- built from some odd months worth of experience and adversity- place the blame on something else.

 Or rather someone else.

 Alucard.

 Because His opinion of you, and of your work, is coated in an acidic venom, and He’s very open about this with every sharp word and barbed look that He deems worthy of His time. Yet He hasn’t said anything else, hasn’t done anything else since His last outburst of sarcasm, and it makes you hyper aware of Him. As if He’s going to attack at any moment, physically or otherwise. Does He disagree? Is He biding for time until the finale where He can deliver yet another calamitous blow to your already scarred ego? … Is He actually considering that you may be right about this?

 Not possible. His pride is greater than His hatred for your existence.

 And on this dismal thought, you decide to not dedicate any more energy in to solving the enigma that is Alucard and you take a few strides towards the stairs before you mumble out a “only one way to find out.” You don’t bother waiting for your companions.

 Not twenty minutes later the three of you are provided with a definite answer to your theory.

 But you don’t gloat, there’s not even a hint of desire to. Because, after all, no one cherishes the idea of dead children.

_______________________________________________________________________

a/u: had ta repost this bitch cause i done messed up a-aron, which in turn meant tumblr pissed in my coffee and not showed it in ANY tags sooo... presto here we are again! once more with feeling: thank you to the anon who requested this, and thank you to everyone who reads <3 if ya liked my scheisse then please tickle the heart, leave a comment, and reblog it so other peeps can enjoy it too -3-

[moeruhoshi]

I wish you'd write more of succubus! Lucy and Dragon! Natsu ~ pweeeeease!

Lucy groaned as she wrapped her arms around herself, her stomach twisting and cramping with every sudden movement of the carriage.

“Princess...please,” Loke sighed as he gazed at his charge, the blonde shaking her head as she continued to breathe through the pain.

“N-No, I...I told you that I wouldn’t...n-not again,” She huffed, hissing through a particularly tight coil in her stomach, pain surely equivalent of a delivering mother’s contraction.

“You need to eat, even if it’s something small,” He insisted, falling to his knees before her as he looked worriedly into her eyes.

“I r-refuse! You know what could happen if I--” The knight quieted her with the quick seal of his lips over hers, temporarily ridding the princess of her stomach pains.

“See? I’m just fine, and so are you. When we get back to the castle, I’m talking to Aquarius about finding someone for you to feed with. I’ve had just about enough of you starving yourself like this,” The lion spirit said as her cramps subsided, her frown weak as her body readjusted itself.

“I’d really rather not,” She sighed to herself as the carriage stopped and Loke left to speak with the driver.

Lucy knew just how much she needed to eat, but never felt right eating from just anyone, especially knowing how even a short kiss could steal half their energy and magic. Doing that to someone too often would result in magic-depletion sickness, and she didn’t want to be responsible for killing someone like that.

Even as the same illness had taken her mother, and the spirits wanted to do anything to prevent the same thing happening to her, she just couldn’t move from man to man, sapping them of anything at all. Loke offered himself on various occasions when her cramps became too much to handle, but even the smallest of kisses had her wanting more, a craving she tried her hardest to suppress.

“It looks like there was a landslide ahead on our trail, were going to have to spend the night in town,” Loke grumbled as he helped the princess out of the carriage, the guard followed by two other knights leading the lot of them into the rural village they’d happened upon.

Lucy forced her smile as they walked through the town and towards the only hotel, waving to the star struck villagers as they gathered in fron of their homes.

“Oh my, it’s an absolute honor to have the princess of Fiore staying in our hotel,” The owners wife gasped as she bowed to the blonde. “Please, dont worry about paying, we’ll offer you and your men our best rooms for free!”

“Not at all! Please accept our patronage,” Lucy motioned for Loke to hand over a hefty bag of coins, the owner and wife blanching at the large amount of gold before them. “We should only be staying for the night, is there a morning market?”

“Yes, Princess! I’m sure the farmers would love for you to have a taste of our produce!” They grinned as she smiled and Loke led her to her room, etching a light spell on her lock to keep intruders from entering.

“Please sleep soundly, princess,” He said as he checked on her one last time before returning to his own room. “Call for me if you need anything, even if your cramps come back,”

“Yes, yes, goodnight Loke,” She sighed and blew out the lantern at her bedside, turning to find a comfortable position on the soft mattress.

It was always hard for her to fall asleep, the gnawing feeling of hunger screaming at the back of her mind. Her nose instinctively followed the scent of the men in the village, picking out the strongest magic signatures and whining for her to track them down. She shoved a pillow over her head and shut her eyes tightly, trying to hide herself from the enticing offers that lied outside the window.

One hour, two, and soon enough the witching hour struck and the moon was in full view above the small town. Its light streamed through her window and she glared at it, still unable to fall asleep. A small part of her blamed Loke for giving her a taste of what her body needed, and put the rest on the cursed bloodline that gave all the Heartfilia woman these insane urges. There wasn’t a soul awake in the whole town, even the babies fast asleep. At this point, she rathered her cramps return and put her through so much pain that she was knocked out by them, tired of being so tired.

“Who...” Her heart suddenly thumped as the strong scent of pheromones wafted into her bedroom. She scurried out of bed and ran to the window, her eyes able to see the stream of a purple cloud that led to the strangely large mass of a lewd aura.

Whoever it was...definitley wasn’t there a moment ago...was it just the moon playing tricks on her?

Even if it wasn’t it wasn’t like she would actually go to see if anyone was there. No, definitley not. She was in her nightgown for goodness sake, no princess would ever think of her room while in a nightgown. Nor would they tiptoe around the room of their guard and sneak out of the hotel, or scurry through the middle of town to make their way into the small patch of woods adjacent.

There’s no way a princess would, better yet, no way Lucy would give into her instincts to track down the most delicious thing she’d ever smelled.

Okay, so maybe she would. But it was the moon! Moon madness, that was a thing, right? Hadn’t she always felt a bit more susceptible to her instincts when the full moon was out? Yeah, that seemed about right...and it wasn’t like she would actually do anything if she did find who was on the other end, this was purely an adventure of curiosity.

The scent led her to an open mouth of a cave, trailing a ways way deeper into it. Lucy gulped but continued cautiously despite her waryness, the scent too alluring for her to ignore.

Her slippers crunched against the dirt and rocks until it slowly turned to moss and grass, her toes hitting a strangely placed welcome mat in front of a thick wooden door. She laughed a bit to herself, fully accepting how she’d clearly been dreaming this whole time.

Lucy knocked on the door, observing the strange cottage that had been been built inside a cave. Just who would live in a place like this? Although it looked quite magical, as if it belonged in a fairy tale.

“Happy...I thought I told...told you to go see Mira...” The voice on the other side of the door groaned, the wood creaking as it slowly opened. “You’re not Happy...”

Lucy found herself near the edge of sanity as the full wave of the strangers pheromones smacked her in the face. He stood weakly in the doorway, his body sweaty, pink hair sticking to his forehead, wearing nothing but a thin pair of shorts that exposed his half-hard self.

“You—You really shouldn’t be here, p-please, leave,” His eyes were wide with panic, breath held in as he refused to let himself attatch to her scent.

“I can’t,” She breathed, holding open the door as he tried to close it on her. “You...smell wonderful...”

“Smell?” His ears twitched as she pressed a hand to his chest, forcing her way in and following him as he took steps back till he bumped into the wall. “Are you...”

“Starving,” Her words came out in a breathless whisper as the princess wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling the weakened boy to meet her kiss.

Her chest inflated with a deep breath as her lips buzzed as soon as they made contact with his, fingers curling in his hair as she begged for more.

He finally let himself breathe in her scent, his skin quickly shrouded in scales and a low growl produced in his chest.

“Y...You’re in heat, too? I-I, I can’t,” He shook his head and stared into her drugged eyes, watching her tongue slowly lick its borders. “You’re not my—“

“It’s okay,” Lucy reassured the pink haired boy, words no longer controlled by her but the seductress who refused to let a meal as fine as him get away before it even got good. “I’m not in heat, I’m a succubus, have you ever met one before?”

“S-Succubus..? Isn’t the princess...I mean only the royal family...” He struggled to speak, his hold on Lucy the only thing keeping him upright at the moment.

“Oh, so you do know!” She giggled and flashed a coy grin. “Then, I hope you don’t mind? I couldn’t leave either knowing you’re in such pain,”

She smiled and bit her lip, purring as he gnashed his teeth at her, her finger sliding dangerously slow along the curve of his boner.

“You don’t know what you’re doing,” Golden eyes warned her as he turned their positions, holding Lucy against the wall, his fingers rejecting the urge to become talons. She mewled at his show of strength, crooned at the sight of his scales and horns, thinking about the feeling of those sharp teeth sinking into her bosom.

Lucy tentatively wrapped her hand around the black appendage sprouted from the side of his head, beginning to slide her hand up and down it as she curiously watched his expression.

“Oh...what a good boy,” She gleamed as he ridgidly fell to his knees, overstimulated by her actions as she continued to feel up his horn. She was filled with a strange urge as he wrapped his arms around her hips, whimpering with every slow movement of her hand. Maybe she liked seeing that a little too much, or hearing his moans and grunts as he began to give into the pleasure his body seeked.

“S-Shit...!” He cursed, fisting her gown as his body jolted, twitches followed a soft groan as he came.

“How cute,” Lucy found herself enticed further as his scent travelled and met her nose, stomach clawing as it begged to be filled with the white cream he produced.

“I...no...I’ll hurt you...” He frowned as she sunk to his level, a solemn smile gracing her lips as she resonated with his words.

“I know how that feels,” She chuckled as her proper consciousness began speaking once more. “I’m always afraid I’ll hurt people. I know I’ll hurt people...”

His vision wavered as he saw her sad smile, responding to the thing they both seemed to have in common, only, his problem never lasted quite as long as hers did.

“But I don’t think you’ll hurt me, and I don’t think I’ll hurt you,”

“I’m...Natsu,” His voice was strained and he wiped the sweat from his brow that dared to trickle into his eye.

“Lucy,” Her smile was genuinely sweet for a moment before her lips were sealed with a warm kiss, the boy easing into the thick pool lava that was his heat.

Lucy had never shared such a passionate kiss before as her and Natsu slipped their tongues together, hands in each other’s hair as they came closer and closer together.

[somethingjustsouthofbrilliance]

Reach Across the Stars. Part 3

Links to Part 2, Part 1 (masterlist)

Tagging @dixiehellcat @jess-b-thot @tonystark5ever @elphierix

Part 3

It’s cold inside the ship. Getting colder every minute, it seems. Enough so that she can see the white vapor of her breath every time she exhales.  It doesn’t really bother her much, the cold.  She can take worse.  Much, much worse.  Her body is more machine now than flesh, and things like cold, thirst, hunger are not much of a concern.  

 But the human, Stark, is not faring so well. The lack of sustenance and the cold seemed to have sapped every last bit of energy he had, and all he does lately is sit over by the window and look at the stars outside, the occasional weak shivers that wrack his gaunt frame and that same faint cloud of vapor in front of his face – the only signs that he’s still alive.

 It riles her, how quickly he declined, the defeat in his posture, in his eyes, in the raspy, barely there voice when he manages to speak.  It’s a show of weakness, and she was raised to be intolerant of it, to spurn its every sign.  Only…

 Only Stark isn’t weak, is he.  She saw how he fought, throwing every bit of himself into the battle.  She saw him with his head held high in the face of certain death. Saw him pull himself together despite his injuries, despite the loss he suffered…  

 No, Stark is far from weak. He’s a warrior, stronger in spirit than most she’d seen.  She respects him.  She… likes him, even though she finds the very notion of such sentiment abhorrent.  

And she’s furious as she watches his body betray him now, making him waste away, making him break when nothing else could. She takes that betrayal personally, to an extent that surprises even herself.  It makes her want to lash out, for some reason. To snap something, to make someone pay.

 But there’s no one.  Just a dying human in a dead ship and the cosmos, cold and indifferent around them.    

 She shakes her head forcefully, dismissing the fruitless anger from her thoughts.  Growls her frustration low in her throat, tightening her hold on the two items she managed to dig up in the storage compartment at the back of the ship.

 She doesn’t call out as she approaches.  Simply squats down beside him in silence, sets her items on the ground.

 “They’re beautiful, aren’t they, the stars,” Stark murmurs suddenly, his voice breathy and faint, punctuated by the labored wheeze of inhales.  “I used to… used to be afraid of them, you know.”  He rolls his head toward her, his bluish lips twitching into a bitter, self-deprecating smile.  His gaze drops, lost somewhere in the maze of his own memories – unpleasant, if the light furrow of his brow is anything to go by. “So afraid,” he echoes absently, and she doesn’t even know if he’s talking to her still, if in his mind he’s even here on this ship.

 She opens her mouth to speak, to ask him what it is he’s seeing in the blankness of the empty hallway behind her, but just then he blinks, jerks his head to the side, forcefully coming back into the present.  Smiles at her, apologetic, before turning his gaze back toward the stars outside.

 “Beautiful,” he repeats with a raspy sigh.  “Peaceful...”

 The sheer amount of melancholy acceptance in his voice makes her skin itch.  

 “Save your breath, Stark,” she grumbles, picking up the thermal blanket she brought with her and wrapping it around his bony, shivering frame.  

 He startles when she manhandles him briefly away from the bulkhead to thread the blanket between his back and the cold metal.  Looks up at her, a silent question in the wide-eyed, vulnerably open stare.  Wary, confused, disbelieving.  Like an abused animal that’s suddenly given a sign of affection.  

 She knows that stare all too well.  

 She wonders, not for the first time, just how similar the two of them are.  Wonders if on the inside this human is just as broken, just as mutilated as she is.  Wonders, too, who it was that had scarred him so.  

 “You’re cold,” she responds to his silent inquiry, huffing with feigned irritation at his sincerely whispered thanks.

 She reaches for the second item beside her, her most prized discovery – an oxygen mask and a portable oxygen container.  

 “Here,” she holds it up for him to see.  “They use these when they need to make outside repairs.  There were more in the storage, but the other tanks are all empty.  This one,” she flicks her fingers at the gauge, “has about 7 hours worth of oxygen left.  If you decrease the flow rate, you can make it last longer.”

 It’s not ideal, she knows. Unless rescue comes in the next 10 hours or so, all she’s doing is prolonging the inevitable.  But the wizard saw the possible future outcomes and he sacrificed a stone for this man.  So she has to believe that fate has more in store for him than a slow, inglorious suffocation in space.  She has to believe that their signal was heard and rescue will be here soon.  And she can do her part in keeping him alive until then.

 She moves to place the mask on his face and frowns in confusion when he puts his hand on her arm, staying her movement.

 “Save it… for you,” he insists, pushing her arm back.  

 He’s a human.  Outside his battle suit he is no match for her on a good day.  And now, with his strength all sapped away by lack of air and food, he’s weaker than a newborn Groot.  She can keep going, can dislodge his grip with no more effort than it takes her to swat away a fly.

 But she doesn’t want to hurt him.

 “My body doesn’t need as much,” she points out instead, trying to make him see the rationale behind this.  “I can last much longer than you.”  Because the new signal is strong, she’s sure of it. Somebody is bound to have picked it up. Help might be mere hours away.

 Her appeal to logic doesn’t work the way she’d hoped.

 He huffs – a breathless cross between a laugh and a wheeze.  “Then this… should last you… enough.”

 “Don’t be stupid,” she mutters, baring her teeth in helpless, irrational anger.  Because this isn’t how things are supposed to go.  People don’t reject an offer to save them.  Not for the sake of another.  Not for the sake of her.

 She pushes now, forgetting her earlier decision to treat him gently.  Brings the mask closer to his face, despite his attempt to stop her.  

 “You need to breathe,” she snaps.  “Let me help!”

 He shakes his head minutely, raises his hand higher, weak, trembling fingers tracing the edges of the ugly gaping hole where her cybernetic eye plate used to be.  Gently, reverently.  

 “You’ve… already done… too … much…,” he murmurs, cracked, blue-tinged lips pulling into a soft, rueful smile.

 She freezes.  Stares wildly at him out of her one remaining eye as everything in her body – flesh and machine – grinds to a stunned, screeching halt.

Stark’s fingers are cold as ice, but his touch is like a press of burning embers against her skin. It sears right through her, melts her at her very core.

 She isn’t used to physical kindness.  Doesn’t know what to do with it.  Doesn’t know how to react.

 Gamora was the only other person who ever touched her like that – with that same gentleness, that foreign but uncomfortably pleasant intent to comfort.   And the two of them spent years trying to kill each other before that happened; before they decided to unite in their common hatred of Thanos and become sisters for real, to rekindle the fledgling bond of affection they had lost when they were little kids.  

And this man, this man is a stranger to her.  He doesn’t owe her the kindness she had craved from her sister all her life.  His gentleness is… illogical.  She can’t understand it.  It scares her. It doesn’t… it doesn’t make sense.  

 Stark’s brow furrows in confusion as he considers her, rigid and spooked before him.  But then his face clears in understanding, warm brown eyes crinkling with empathetic regret.  His feather-light touch lingers a fraction of a heartbeat longer, as if he were trying to impart something to her, to soothe like one would a wounded, frightened animal. And then his hand falls away, his eyes slipping shut, as his body begins to careen limply to the side.

 The abrupt loss of the searing contact snaps her out of her stupor, and she grabs for him before he hits the floor.  Settles him back upright, a little too eagerly, a little too rough.

 “Foolish human,” she growls, angry without even fully understanding why.  Slaps the oxygen mask over his slack face, silently commanding him to “breathe, you idiot, breathe, breathe, breathe!” And sags, almost dizzy with relief, as she sees his worriedly still chest begin to rise and fall in small, halting swells.

 Carefully, she tightens the straps at the back of his head, adjusts the oxygen flow on the tank to extend its supply as much as possible while still keeping the human alive.  Sits down beside him, shouldering his unconscious weight.

 The stars outside the window shimmer silently – cold apathetic witnesses to their plight.  How Stark finds them beautiful, she’ll never understand.  

 She tears her gaze away, rests her head against the bulkhead, closing her eye against the depressing scene.

 “They’ll find us, Stark,” she murmurs, even though she doubts her only companion can hear her now. “They’ll find us, you’ll see.”

Author’s note: I’m not sure if I got Nebula’s voice right here.  I’d love to hear what you, guys, think.

[ajoraverse]

This is part of the first of 3 fics I want to finish before my birthday, so it’s really rough. Final Fantasy V, Lenna/Faris, set really early in the game and before the balcony scene. Also I can’t write action, so watch out for that.

A note, also: I play this game in Japanese and use my own translations. I’ll adopt some official NA romanizations, but not others. Butz is always gonna be Butz for me, sorry.

They were working their way through the rotting ships of the graveyard for a second day when she stammered an excuse to Butz and Galuf and tugged Faris aside. Something about needing a quick talk. Faris was still in a dour mood from having her shirt ripped open and her bindings exposed, but the scowl faded in the face of Lenna's request.

"Were you serious when you were flirting with me?" she whispered once she closed the door between them and the men.

The captain was disconcerted by her words, so much so that she took a step back. "Princess, this is hardly the time--"

Lenna knew that, of course, but she couldn't get that slim, strong hand at her hip out of her mind. The bewilderment in Faris' tone felt like a pin-prick to her spirit, and she could feel herself deflating. "I--I know. It's just--"

Faris sighed and stepped closer, and her sea-roughened hands settled onto Lenna's bare shoulders. Her voice was low and gentle. "If you asked me when we met, I'd've said no. I did it to discourage my men. I've gotten to know you since and I can't get you out of my head." A hint of a smile tugged at the corners of her lips. "I'm game if you are."

Heat rose to Lenna's cheeks, ushered by a combination of Faris' touch, the kindness of her tone, her proximity, the implications of I can't get you out of my head. She wondered faintly whether those thoughts were anything like her own, and it deepened what she was sure was a very obvious blush.

Faris lost whatever control she had over her face and unbidden came a quick, charming grin. It was so inviting, so disarming, that Lenna was tempted to try something she never had before. "We'll talk in Car--"

Before Faris could even finish the word, Lenna rocked forth onto her toes, grasped the lapels of the captain's great black coat, and pressed her lips against Faris'. It lasted for all of a moment before she settled back onto her heels.

Utter surprise wiped away that grin. Faris blinked at her instead, her expression unreadable. At the sight of Lenna's hopeful smile, she chuckled and pulled her hands away. "You've never done this before, have you?"

Lenna shook her head. She supposed she could have taken advantage of her rank and experimented with a chambermaid, but it seemed terribly unfair. "If you, um, want to do this, you'd be my first."

Faris' eyebrows shot up as Lenna surprised her again. "Your father won't approve of some pirate dandy pillaging Tycoon of its prize."

That certainly got Lenna's imagination going. She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and smiled, her eyes surely twinkling at the half-formed thoughts parading through her mind. "Maybe I want to be pillaged."

"Ha!" It was an abrupt, almost sharp sound against the ever-present creaking of rotting timbers. Faris' eyes seemed to dance with suppressed mirth. "You've more brass than I, Princess. Best do this properly, then."

Faris placed a hand on the small of her back, drawing her so close that her body was flush against hers. The pad of her thumb on her other hand glided gently over Lenna's lips as if encouraging her to part them. Lenna very nearly shivered from the contact, from the realization that she was really doing this, and Faris' lips met with hers.

Lenna was aware, faintly, that she was tasting the sweet rice wine Faris drank earlier, and something else that seemed to be uniquely her. The brush of Faris' tongue against hers, velvet and warm and wet in a way she'd never imagined, shot a bolt of desire through her. She gasped into the other woman's mouth, which only seemed to serve as encouragement. Faris caressed her cheek before deepening the kiss; Lenna had to grasp at the captain's shoulders to keep from drowning in the sudden wash of new sensations.

There was a knock that seemed to come from some distance; she didn't care so long as Faris kept kissing her like this. It was hard to care about anything at all. But Faris broke the kiss, only to whisper in her ear in a way that only served to stoke the flame of her desire. "Decide to go through with this when we're in Carwen and I'll happily divest you of your virginity. Decide otherwise and we'll never speak of this again. Until then, give no one any idea of what we've done."

Lenna nodded as she tried to suppress the heated yearning that Faris' kiss had ignited under her skin. She was usually so good at being able to school her features for court, but nothing in her life could hold a candle to that kiss. Her first kiss, offered up for a pirate to steal.

The knock came again, sounding harsher and closer than she liked. Faris leaned in and gave her forehead a quick peck. "Still looking a bit moony there, love." Then, before Lenna could respond, the door was thrown open for the men.

"We're talking about changing her ransom to my reward for getting her through this mess safely." Faris' voice switched so quickly to sharp and impatient that Lenna was momentarily thrown. "What do you blighters want?"

Butz, looking as if he suspected nothing untoward happening between them, responded first. "It can wait, surely? We don't want to spend another night here."

"Killjoy." Faris turned and held out her hand to Lenna. "Come along, Princess. I've no more desire to remain in this ghoul-infested graveyard than you."

Lenna slipped her hand into Faris' and she allowed herself to be led out of the room in which they kissed. She was distracted by the memory and eager for more, but the ships' graveyard made focusing on such pleasantries harder the further along they went.

It was grueling work, hopping from wooden carcass to carcass in search of dry land. Faris had the easiest time of it, being the only sailor among them, and she took charge of delivering Lenna across each gap between ships or hole in rotten hulls. If Lenna looked a bit smitten by the captain leaping across shifting wood or swinging on dangling rigging with a princess in her arms, well, no one was close enough to notice. Butz followed, either making clever quips or complaints all the while. Galuf, though, seemed to suspect something going on between the women in the party. Not that he said anything, but she could feel his eyes boring into her back sometimes.

Finally, as the dim light of a deeply overcast day faded into evening, they reached land. A brittle, warmth-sapping gloom hung over the spit of land like a funerary shroud, but they had no choice but to plow through it. Butz, ever the intrepid explorer, went first into the gloom and seemed to fade. Then Lenna noticed a small, hovering blue flame.

The blue flame grew, shifted to assume the form of her father. It beckoned her to come to him, and her legs seemed to move on their own accord. It had been a week now since she last saw her father, and now they could go home and she could forget this entire business of her being a Light Warrior. Someone else could be the Warrior of Water. Someone more suited.

Faintly she was aware of someone calling out to her. Was that surprise? Who was it? The footsteps paused at her side, and Faris looked at her with the most peculiar expression on her face. Then she, too, was drawn in by the image of King Alexander Highwind of Tycoon. Lenna thought nothing of it--everything would be okay now.

Her cheek stung and a veil lifted from her eyes. A scant few seconds later, a sharp crack of flesh on flesh resounded through the silence of their would-be tomb; Faris swore up a storm at Galuf shortly afterwards.

Butz was the first to notice and draw attention to her: a blonde woman so beautiful and ethereal that Lenna wanted to get back up and fall into her embrace. The twin shhkkks of metal on metal as Butz and Faris drew their swords broke her from another trance, and they stepped forward to protect her and Galuf.

The fight was chaos, for the woman was monstrous in her strength and resistance to steel and magic. Every slice and skewer the fighters managed to land soon healed. Every spell Lenna fired off fizzled out on the woman's skin. Galuf kept them from bleeding out with well-placed healing spells every time the woman clawed open their flesh.

Then someone got in a strike that shattered the illusion. Creamy skin turned a horrific, mottled black-blue before them. Whole chunks of flesh fell away to expose sinew and bone, gristle and slimy, rotted-green organs. An eye popped out, rolled in front of them, and shriveled upon itself. What skin that remained around the woman's fingernails pulled back, giving her already-formidable hands the appearance of talons. The reek was so overpowering that Lenna could barely breathe, and it took everything she had to keep from vomiting.

"Undead," Faris said, and ignored Galuf's retort that he knew that already. And they had plenty of practice with fighting off the undead while traversing the ships' graveyard, hadn't they? Her eyes sparkled with amusement as she resheathed her sword, and she gave Lenna a sweeping bow. "My lady? This is a mage's job."

Confused, not the least because her spells hadn't worked so well before the illusion broke, Lenna murmured the Fire spell. It caught on the monster's dried rags that were once a beautiful dress and flared up to devour her. The monster shrieked and curled up upon herself as the fire skittered along to fry the rancid fat under her skin and crack her bones. The smell of burning corpse was almost worse, somehow, and the smoke that billowed from its body was a thick, choking black that seemed to fill the sky.

Faris's arm circled her waist and she was lifted until her weight settled over Faris' center of gravity. Unsure what else to do, Lenna's arms looped around Faris' shoulders for support. Faris ran quickly, her long legs covering more ground than they'd managed if they had to wait up for Lenna, and she leapt through the smoke and crossed the stone circle that protected the mainland from the undead. Butz and Galuf followed; their coughs as the smoke filled their lungs were deep hacking sounds that concerned Lenna greatly.

"Carwen's a couple of hours from here." Faris' voice wasn't as harsh as it had been while they were in the ships' graveyard. Maybe it was just because she considered the worst over. "Follow the shore eastwards and we'll be there soon enough."

Lenna was set back onto her feet, and the party moved on.

The trek was exhausting so soon after a grueling battle with an undead monster, and for most of it they walked in silence. Butz led the way, with Galuf close behind. Lenna lagged only because Faris did, and the men knew better than to tell Faris to hurry up.

"Faris? Have you been there before?" Lenna asked when the stars came out and all remnants of the daylight was gone. The black moon blotted out some of the stars, but the rest gave them just enough light to see where they were going. At Faris' quizzical hum, Lenna continued. "The ships' graveyard. We would have gotten lost and died there without you."

Faris walked in silence for a few moments. Then, finally, she responded with soft, deliberate words that sounded almost vulnerable. "Went there once when I was... eight, perhaps. Pirate crew found me as a child, y'see, and the lodesman wanted to see if there was a recent wreck at the graveyard that might've given a clue where I came from. Didn't find a thing."

Lenna paused, her heart aching for the captain. "You're an orphan?"

"Hope so." Faris grunted and paused in wait for Lenna to catch up to her. Lenna reached out to slip her hand into Faris' and squeezed lightly, reassuringly. "I'd rather be that than live with the thought that any parents I did have just didn't bother to look for me. Or worse, succeeded in getting rid of me."

Lenna couldn't respond. It didn't seem appropriate. She simply drew closer, hoping Faris could draw what comfort she wanted from the gesture.

Not that social graces seemed to matter to Butz, who overheard her but didn't seem to have heard Faris' response. He stopped, waited for them to catch up, and blurted out; "You're an orphan, Faris?"

"Bugger, my secret's out," Faris responded dryly, as if she wasn't still smarting from having her shirt ripped open last night. "Far as I know, aye."

"Hey, me too." To his credit, he didn't try to do anything friendly. He drifted to her other side and well out of range of Faris' elbow. "Three years for me. How long for you?"

"Since before I can remember." Faris' voice was tight, and her hand tense in Lenna's. She didn't think it was just the subject that was bothering her; it might also have been the unwanted attention. Lenna, wanting to be supportive and unsure of how without stepping in herself, shifted their hand-hold a little and laced her fingers between Faris'. It seemed to help, a little--the tension drained bit by bit.

Lenna got the sense that the men didn't know when to leave well enough alone. Galuf was close enough now to get the gist of the conversation, and Lenna was uncomfortably aware of his gaze falling on their linked hands. How much had he already guessed about them? "Your surname doesn't give you a clue?"

Faris is a Jacolean name, Lenna wanted to say. Jacoleans were famous adventurers, and it would make a degree of sense that Faris might have their spirit, too. The Scherwiz part puzzled her, however. If it was a real name at all, it wasn't on any of the lists of noble houses. Not that it mattered, for Faris’ mood grew more sour with every effort to pry something out of her.

"No more than yours, Gramps." The words were unnecessarily sharp and well-placed; the only thing Galuf could remember was his given name. Faris might have twisted the knife, Lenna knew she was capable of it, but she clearly wanted nothing more to do with the topic. "Stow it."

Galuf got the hint and held his hands up in surrender, which was Butz's hint to leave Faris alone, too. They resumed their trek along the coast in quiet, bone-deep exhaustion. By the time Carwen came into view, the only thing Lenna wanted just then was a bath and sleep. 

[caitlinsnowdaily]

Today marks the final edition of CarterMatt’s Unsung Heroes article series (at least the features — more polls are on the way!) and we wanted to close things off by talking about one of the more fascinating, underrated heroes out there in Caitlin Snow. She is good-natured and kind-hearted — she loves her friends, she gives her all to her job, and she will stop at nothing to make Central City a better place.

Yet, what also adds to her depth is having to reconcile this part of herself with another part that, when properly triggered, is a cold-hearted villain. Killer Frost has the world “killer” in her name and that in itself says a lot. What Caitlin has tried to do to come to terms with this and right the ship with Killer Frost is more admirable than anything else she has done with the Flash. She has to put her best foot forward in hopes that Killer Frost will do the same; she’s worked tirelessly to feel within herself that the life that she has is worth so much more than the life she would have as a murderous villainess. She (coupled with the rest of the team) found a way to bring enough light to the Killer Frost character to keep her on the same side as The Flash and Vibe. That’s far from easy. Caitlin had even come up with a reasonable method of communication with her second self — or at least she did briefly, before the events of this past episode sapped Killer Frost away, at least temporarily.

In getting back to Caitlin as a character in her own right, her heroism doesn’t just shine through in the field. Much of it stands out through the journey she’s been on as a young woman in extraordinary circumstance. She’s an inspirational figure courtesy of her dream to become a doctor at a very young age. She succeeded despite some of the pressures put on her via her family life and the same sort of hurdles many viewers watching go through in pursuit of their own professional goals. Following that, she’s also found a way to stay strong after losing the love of her life in Ronnie. While it may not be touched on as much nowadays, losing Ronnie could have ultimately defined her. She’s a shining example of how to conquer adversary and continue to do what can be done to be the best version of herself.

Superpowers aside, Caitlin has plenty of power just in terms of her job alone. Without her work, it’d be hard for Barry to survive almost any occasion in which he’s gone out into the field. She understands treatment options and how to properly care for meta-humans in a way few others do. While Cisco is an expert of the technical side to being a meta-human, Caitlin excels in the personal side. Her positive spirit and care almost go in contrast to her frosty alter ego; without her, ironically, Team Flash could very well be frozen in place.

Danielle Panabaker is very much responsible for bringing so much life to Caitlin and evolving her over time from who she was in the pilot. She understands what Caitlin means to fans both in terms of her intelligence and her strength. She’s also has the ability to play two different versions of the same character, with each one of them being similar and yet different enough to stand out. She’ll probably continue to be underrated, but isn’t that what an unsung hero is all about?

[suddenlybear]

Connected

•••

A crab meandered along the cool sands of the beach, damp carapace catching the moonlight with a silvery glint much like the night elf’s snowy head did while she sat in the sand, staring intently as it scuttled. Araane held a handful of tiny pebbles and was trying to bounce them off the hard shell of the crustacean (who was extremely unappreciative), not even pretending to listen to her newly appointed druidic mentor.

“…And even if it does not appear so, it is like the most intricate of spider webs, co---” Nakahana paused in his lecture, great hooves displacing sand as he paced behind his kaldorei student. Frowning, he glared down at Araane, the tips of her silver-spun hair nearly brushing the sand she sat in. Without warning, a whoosh heralds a thick, strong tail slapping -hard- against the insolent elf’s back.

With a satisfying yelp she jerks at the stinging blow, dropping her pebbles and sending the crab hurrying away. Growling, she tried to rub at the spot on her back he smacked, snapping in accented Common. “Would you -fucking- cut that out, you’re going to break my -fucking- spine someday, Nak!” Nakahana sighed, the massive tauren’s velvety ears pinning back briefly. She sure loved that human word, ‘fuck’.

“Then pay attention, -theroshan-. Did you hear anything I just said? At all? In the slightest?” he asked with a hint of pleading exhaustion in his voice. The elf who was older than him by nearly five thousand years rubbed her face with both hands while groaning like some bratty calf. “Yes, Nak, I -did- as a matter of fact,” Pointing to the massively impressive new addition to the seascape, she gestured wildly at Teldrassil. “It’s a big tree, it’s important, blaaaaah blah. I don’t know why, it’s just going to fail like all the others, it already failed in giving us back what we sacrificed.”

Another, but markedly gentler smack is delivered with a jet-black tail, this time upside Araane’s head. Having enough of this now, the nimble elf rolls to her feet and brushes herself off while glowering up at him. But he didn’t have eyes on his student, but on the colossal tree across the waves.

“It’s not Teldrassil’s fault it could not do so, Araane. It is Archdruid’s Fandral’s, for giving his people false hope. But for his faults, he and the Circle wrought something -amazing-,” stepping beside her, he gently tilted her chin so her gaze fell on the great tree once more. “There, out of nothing but the sheer strength of life itself, has the most beautiful of homes been made for your people, Araane. A home like none other this world has seen. A home that feels, and lives and grows beneath your very feet. Teldrassil’s roots run deeper than any world tree before it.”

Turning, Nakahana makes a broad gesture with one arm towards the forest behind them. “We druids are more connected to the land than one might think, and it is because of roots. The trees may speak through them, to us, to each other, to the land itself. They are separate but bound in a massive network that spans this world. A human might fell a tree and think that is all there is to it. But that tree’s pain is echoed through the forest. Like a spider’s web, where one strand touched sends vibrations through the whole web.”

Quieting, he watches Araane, looking for some sign she listened -this- time. And to his pleasant surprise, she was looking thoughtfully towards the world tree, long brow furrowed. “And us? We feel that pain as well?” Nak nodded, then shrugged, moving to rest a hand on the elf’s narrow shoulder as he too looked towards Teldrassil.

“It depends on the druid, and it depends on the tree. It is a part of why druids become enraged when destruction happens to forests, for sometimes the pain echoes so powerfully within their spirits it is unbearable.”

Several long, contemplative moments pass before Nak heaves a sigh, giving Araane’s back a little push. “Well, come on, dinner isn’t going to hunt itself.”

•••

 A mere week had passed since Araane had been hurried through her mending process by Alnarra, in order for her to go to the frontlines in Darkshore and help defend her people’s homeland. It had been a surprise to the irreverent elf, finding her guts knotted with worry instead of the usual resounding ‘meh’ whenever faced with tragedy. She never felt close or deep ties to the world tree, not like she did for her homelands for Feralas. In fact, she only ever visited Darnassus for religious reasons, or to as the guards might say, be a miserable little shitstarter. Was it pride that drove her to do so? Some sort of misplaced nostalgia or long-buried patriotism? Araane tried not to linger on it and focus on the highly enjoyable task at hand.

Which at the moment, was bearing down upon the little sin’dorei shit that thought he could just hop on top of her and ram a poisoned blade between her massive ursine shoulders. Said dagger was still protruding from her thick hide, the venom it was coated with unfortunately doing so very little to tip the odds in the rogue’s favor. The auburn-haired sneak was using every trick in his book to avoid his impending mauling, Araane’s roars of indignant fury muffled in the dense forests of Darkshore as she swiped and snapped at the quick, little elf who flipped about trying to escape her maw. She always hated trying to catch these acrobatic assholes, it was like trying to grab a fly with your bare hands. So it was with immense satisfaction when steely jaws closed around a leg that was a little too slow to pull away in time.

The rush of warm blood was always rewarding, filling the great ursine with a macabre vigor at her success. And what better way to celebrate it than by repeatedly slamming the elf against a nearby tree until it was oozing mush? With a savage growl Araane reared up to do just that, the poor thing in her mouth shouting in agony and vainly trying to pry her jaws open before his whole body was whipped about like a rag-doll. The first strike against the thick trunk filled the air with a cracking noise, and it wasn’t from the tree, the second… well, the second never came, as an overwhelming sense of dread and pain surged through Araane. With a startled, muffled yelp she tossed the maimed but alive(?) sin’dorei off into the underbrush, suddenly unimportant as her large head shook about while she paced with snarling, gruffing snuffs.

Something was wrong. Horribly, horribly wrong. The trees were -wailing-. Anguish. Pain. Terror. Araane shook her head again, trying to clear her mind just as Nak had taught her, and gently pressed her forehead against the trunk of the very tree she was about to brutally kill someone against, urging it to answer her. Where? Where must she go and what must she destroy to soothe this? Incoherent pain and confusion was all that answered her. It was then that the first traces of smoke were picked up by her keen nose. Fire.

Rearing up, she turned and charged towards the ocean, barreling through crowded thickets and briar as if they were tissue paper. The smoke was getting easier to smell with every bound she made, and as the trees began to thin, a golden glow seemed to shine through the spaces. A gold that turned deeper, more red as she neared the beach, the stench of smoke starting to become overwhelming to her sensitive nose. All at once Araane burst through the tree line, huge paws sinking into sand as she skidded to a halt, the sight that met her nearly beyond belief. Teldrassil was engulfed in flames. It was as if a frost mage had frozen her in place, watching in horror as flames bigger than Stormwind Keep licked up the sides of the world tree, leaves replaced with fire lighting up the dusk sky. And the ash. It was reaching the shore now, falling with all the serenity of snow.

It wasn’t until an ember landed on her snout that Araane snapped out of it, looking bewildered as she swiped a paw at her face. This can’t be mauled. You can’t roar a fire away. What could she possibly do? What could -anyone- do? Where were her people’s leaders? Were they there, within the tree? She could only assume Malfurion himself was doing what he could. The unmistakable sound of siege weaponry reached her ears as she paced the beach, coming from the direction of Lor’danel to the south. There, there was something she could do, the bastards must be pushing the siege during the burning. Shifting rapidly, her stormcrow form flapped hard, flying low and close to the water as she sped towards the port city.

She might’ve reached it and dove happily into the droves of horde flooding into it, if not for the sputtering cry for help she heard from the waters. Banking hard enough to make her wince, Araane saw two kaldorei in the water, a female with green hair struggling to keep herself and an unconscious, badly burnt sentinel afloat on a charred log. Her strength was obviously sapped though, her sooty face stained with tears as she desperately tried to keep the sentinel from slipping under the choppy water, crying blindly for help.

And so it came, in the form of a bear dropping ungracefully into the water with a large splash. Swimming quite strongly towards the two, she gruffed at the now extra terrified night elf, trying to look as appealing as a massive, one-eyed monster bear can. Not that the poor dear had much of a choice, and with Araane helping she managed to get the sentinel, and herself, onto the ursine’s broad back. Swimming back to shore, both passengers were dislodged as soon as they hit solid ground, the green haired elf began sobbing hysterically. This became even worse when Araane shifted back to her elven form, as the woman flung her arms around her scarred neck, crying against her chest as she shook.

Standing stiffly, the red-clad druid didn’t quite know what to do. That was becoming today’s theme, it seemed. Clearing her throat, Araane ever so gently and awkwardly put her arms around the distraught kaldorei, holding her as she wept, lips pursing in a tight line as words utterly escaped her. It was the bedraggled survivor that spoke first, pulling away abruptly to stare at her with eyes full of fear as she babbled in darnassian. “P-please, please th-there’s, there’s more, please! S-s-so many d—b—please! So many jumped, too many, too high up, th—they, they---” breaking down again, Araane frowned deeply as she knelt down with the other woman, pulling a hand away to start snapping her fingers.

“Hey! Listen, HEY!” shivering and quieting abruptly, the survivor looked up with watery eyes. “Listen to me, understand? It’s important that you keep ahold of yourself for as long as you can. You need to find help for her,” nodding her head to the sentinel, who was at least breathing more or less normally. “Now, what’s your name?” Sniffling and shaking, the other elf murmured hoarsely. “L-Lenaella…” Looking around with a grimace, she spotted a small outcropping of rocks. Getting up, she leaned down to take ahold of the sentinel’s armpits, dragging her towards them as Lenaella followed. Tucking her against the rocks, she was more or less out of sight from both the road, the sea and the sky. Turning to Lanaella, Araane takes her shoulders, holding them firmly and making sure she looked her in the eye.

“Now listen. They are probably evacuating Lor’danel, the sentinels and priestesses will have set up a rally point close to the mountains. You need to find them and get some to come back and get her. She’ll be safe here, I mean she already looks dead anyhow.” This was not comforting, making the other kaldorei’s eyes widen, voice quavering. “W-why can’t you carry her as before??” Araane shakes her head, looking towards the water, appearing red as it reflected the inferno not so far away. “I… need to see if there are more out there,” the druid said with hesitation, the words feeling strange in her mouth. Shaking her head, she lets go of Lenaella and points towards the forest. “You can do this. You got this far, right? And it is thanks to you she lives. Now you have to make sure she keeps living.”

The elf’s trembling lip sets as firmly as it can, a resolute nod following as Lenaella turns on her heel to hurry into the trees. A last glance was spared to the sentinel to ensure she was still breathing, her own scarred face scrunched up in trepidation and discomfort, and Araane was in the air, flying away from the combat and towards a sea that was rapidly filling with death.

[monsterfactoryfanfic]

Disunion X Reunion

           Pam watched Trash Hulk lazily stroll to the front wall of the ballroom. His confidence fed her fury. He apparently knew they’d been caught off guard, and now he was arrogant enough to show Pam his back. She used the ground spike at the flag’s base to plant it in the center of the room, then took her axe in both hands. Her prey seemed unconcerned, and instead of preparing for a fight he crossed his arms and callously studied the window.

G.A.R.F.I.E.L.D. hurried to her side. “Pam, we can leave immediately,” he whispered. His claw grasped the wooden flagpole as he said, “This is all I need to jump to the next world. Let’s go.” The urgency in his voice was uncomfortably sincere. She looked into his optical sensors. Despite his effort remain emotionless, she detected concern that did not seem to be for himself.

          “That’s right darling, keep running,” murmured Trash Hulk, still facing away. “Look how well it’s worked for you.” Pam would have broken into a charge had G.A.R.F.I.E.L.D. not gingerly placed his other hand on her shoulder.

“Pam, please.” This time, a quiver in the robot’s voice. “You don’t have to do this now.”

She shrugged his hands off, causing him to stumble back toward Christopher and Junker. She didn’t want their worry. With a rapid motion Pam leapt at her ex-husband, swinging the axe to cleave him in twain. Right before the blade made contact, she sensed an unnatural energy. It felt like the same aura that unnerved her in Skyrim. This not Hulk’s doing. Fuck.

Now he had turned to look at her, preventing his demise by grabbing the axe right at its shoulder, which a recent Google taught me is what you call the part of an axe right below its head. Pam could properly see his features. The mustache, the balding hairline with sideburns that’d shame a Civil War general, the weathered scars dividing his face into three unequal fractions- it was unmistakably him. Yet behind his hazy blue eyes stirred new purpose, an external hunger like that of a lioness who chases a deer through the forest and over rivers, herding it toward its pride. Hulk had never been half as strong as Pam before his death. Only one person could have so fundamentally altered this man.

“Why Todd send you here?” she snarled.

He chuckled. “What makes you think I didn’t follow of my own free will?” Pam wrenched the axe from his grasp and took another swing. He sidestepped it with uncharacteristic deftness, then grabbed her arm. Hard. A searing pain shot through the limb and her vision flashed green. “I wanted to see my wife again.” She brought her boot down on his foot with force enough to flatten a car, giving her time to pull away to the other side of the ballroom.

Recognizing the not-great situation going down, Chris and G.A.R.F.I.E.L.D. charged Trash Hulk simultaneously. The Pebble’s long arms allowed him to graze their target’s chest, but his brittle bones shattered on contact. Hulk pulled the Pebble above his head to shield himself from the khajiit’s overhead pounce, leaving them both a crumpled pile next to the flag. The Junker just watched, mumbling Psalms to calm his nerves.

Pam’s breath came harsh and fast. She shouldn’t have been able to feel pain at all, yet the place where he grabbed her still burned. If the Creator had somehow altered him to override her coding, this fight could prove short and costly. “I thought husband was brave enough to accept death, not beg for life and betray me.”

He responded with a blindingly fast punch that she barely blocked with the axe, sending her sliding against the stone wall. She dropped the now-dented weapon and threw her own fist, hitting his jaw with a satisfying smack. He caught her next blow as she caught his. They pushed against each other, both unable to force their partner to yield. Hulk brought his bald forehead centimeters away from Pam’s furrowed brow. “Don’t you dare talk about betrayal to me,” he growled. There was a sickness in his words. “I know about the robot. And the radroach.” His body shook with each deliberate syllable. “Todd may have taken them, but I came to him willingly.” A green mist clouded Pam’s eyes once more. “Because you are mine.”

She felt a wave of nausea, followed by sorrow. The Hulk she knew was long gone, replaced by the Creator’s mad desire to reclaim her. Todd had turned Trash Hulk’s envy into a physical illness. His paranoid ideas infected his mind, polluted his thoughts. The disease, left untreated, stole away his tongue, then his body, then his integrity. She thought that by escaping from her old world she could forget her past. But that’s the thing about obsessive exes. Ex-boyfriends, ex-husbands, even ex-gods. Sometimes, they won’t let you leave the past. Sometimes you love them too much to see the warning signs, to see that all they want is to keep you in the past, to make sure any fragment of your future is a picture they can jam in their scrapbook.

Trash Hulk seized this moment of weakness. He shoved a knee into Pam’s stomach, causing her to double over. A subsequent kick skittered her across the floor into a marble pillar. Small, thin cracks raced up the column as fire coursed up her spine. She groaned as she pushed up from the floor and willed her legs to stop shaking. Neither Todd nor Hulk earned this pain from her. She would use it against them. She balled her hands into fists. The ground beneath her grew hot. Before Hulk’s smug grin had time to change he was hiding behind his forearms while Pam converted anger into energy, smashing limbs with knuckles, scorching flesh with every blow. She became a furnace fueled by hatred for those who had robbed her of the chance to start over. Any average demigod or unholy spirit should have been reduced to ashy memory.

Sadly Trash Hulk, while neither sacred nor profane, had been chosen specifically to test Pam. Each fiery punch weakened in its intensity. For the first time in ages, she felt tired. When her arms no longer obeyed, she stepped back from the man she’d forced to a kneeling position. Somehow he remained, his face bearing a look of grim resolve. He lifted his battered body to stand before her. He pointed a finger at the stained glass window. The light became distorted, reds and yellows darkening into blues and greens. Dust whipped up in a whirlwind that consumed the whole chamber. The glass seemed to ripple like the surface of a lake disturbed by a particularly large stone. It bathed the five monsters in emerald light, which would have been kind of nice under difference circumstances.

“I’m taking you through there,” Trash Hulk stated, his voice steady after the previous outburst. “We’re going home together Pam. You don’t belong here.” He walked toward her with measured steps. She backed away but felt her strength failing. Hulk’s poisoned words sapped her energy. They were true. Hearing the truth often sucks, and in this case it literally sucked Pam’s inherent power into the portal. Unacceptable.

“You can’t decide where I go” she spat. “Or where I belong.”

He scoffed, the syllable thick with condescension. “Who does? You clearly don’t.” Hulk jerked his thumb toward the heap of G.A.R.F.I.E.L.D. and Chris. “When you make your own choices you end up with garbage like them. Believe me, I know about trash.” He was now mere feet away. His voice grew louder as he reflected on their old life. “It’s going to be just like before. We’ll be happy again.”

“Do not lecture about happiness. You not know about Pam’s happiness.”

He stopped. “I’ve changed.” His voice wavered.

“Don’t be stupid.” Pam’s vision blurred. Soon all her energy would be gone, stolen by cheat codes meant to contain her. “No one ever changes.” She fell on her hands, fighting to stay conscious. She felt like an empty Capri Sun, crinkled and disposable. Hulk offered her his right hand. He smiled. For a moment, she thought there might be kindness behind his eyes. They’d had good memories, right? Shopping for their house in a nice little cul-de-sac. Wallpapering the room where their newborn son would sleep. He got so frustrated with the new laundry machine; it was adorable.

That was all in the past. Before the war, before the ghosts, before the flood that blotted out all of space and time. Nothing behind the eyes now but emerald green coded by a vengeful, possessive god. She was not going back.

With as much strength as she could muster Pam pushed herself up into his chest, hoping to crack his sternum with her skull. They both stumbled back to the center. Hulk’s right hand was still reaching, but now with intent to crush her limbs. She grasped the only weapon within reach, the Witch’s flag, still standing in the middle of their wild dance. She wrenched it from the floor and stabbed the tail spike just below his thumb, shearing through his wrist bones and leaving the hand hanging by a scant number of ulnar ligaments. He howled.

The scream was enough to shake G.A.R.F.I.E.L.D. from his stupor. Optics came back online, revealing a severely weakened Pam and completely unresponsive Pebble. Ambulatory system scan reported ten percent functionality. Not quite enough to be useful. He looked over at Chris again. The clone’s face was scrunched into a pained grimace, respirations came at irregular intervals. Trash Hulk had only hit them once, but such was his strength that he’d left Chris in a serious state. G.A.R.F.I.E.L.D. had to say something.

“Pam. Please.” She almost didn’t hear the khajiit’s whisper. “Can we go?”

She used the flag as a crutch, turned away from the still-wailing Hulk, and limped over to the fallen cat. She didn’t realize how badly he’d been hurt. Her stomach tightened. G.A.R.F.I.E.L.D. managed to lift a paw to her knee. She took it in her own shaky hand.

“Yeah.”

Then they heard the snapping of bone and a yelp. Pam felt warm blood splatter her dress, but felt no injury. She looked over her shoulder to see Junker’s silhouette impaled by five long, green, spectral fingers. Trash Hulk apparently had torn the rest of his hand off and used Pam’s stolen energy to create a new one from pure energy. He had attempted to seize Pam once more, but-

“Green boy…you…save me?”

The yokel chortled feebly. “Well ma’am, the good book says there ain’t no greater love than to lay down one’s life fer a friend. So, here I am!” Blood poured from his mouth. He coughed a little.

“Keep on truckin’ Pam.”

Trash Hulk growled and slid the body off his magic fingers. The trio vanished before Junker hit the ground.

[rcdicnce-blog]

// headcanon.

The Advocates of the Blue Flame (or as typically referred to, the Advocates) is the title that Priam has given to his own rag-tag group of mercenaries. 

The Advocates are 52 strong, boasting a broad roster of mercenaries and miscreants from across multiple worlds. From Ylisse to Valm, Plegia to Ferox, even from outrealms lost to time itself and ancient worlds of legend, there is no land that Priam has not recruited a formidable foe from.  Each one is treated with the utmost respect, no matter their lineage, their birthrights, their blood, their bonds, or their bodies - all are welcome, so long as they can prove their worth and hold their own in a battle with Priam himself. Once deemed worthy, they were immediately allowed to join the ranks. There are no set hierarchic positions of power, though there are a select few that do run things in a sense. 

Strangely enough, this platoon seems to be more like a family than an actual army.

At the time that Priam left to join the Shepherds and fight for a higher cause, there were 9 Swordmasters, 9 Generals, 7 Snipers, 9 Warriors, 9 Sages, and 6 Heroes. Priam and his closest allies are classed as Heroes, Wyvern Riders, and Pegasi Knights. 

Priam personally knows each and every last member, and has taken the time to create a roster of sorts to ensure that no person is left behind or forgotten to the world. His bonds with his allies are tighter than any family could have. 

Below is a list of the members and a brief description both personality-wise and physically. Essentially, this is the aforementioned roster for the members of the Advocates. 

HIGHER-UPS WITHIN THE ADVOCATES

// PRIAM //

CLASS // HERO WEAPON // RAGNELL ORIGINS // UNKNOWN BIO // A wandering mercenary, and descendant of the Radiant Hero. Wishes to go down in legend. 

//ALECKZANDER //

CLASS // PEGASUS KNIGHT WEAPON // SILVER LANCE ORIGINS // YLISSE BIO //  A retired Ylissean Pegasus Knight. Honourably discharged after injury, partially due to age. Adores his Pegasus, Sandra, with a passion. The biggest paternal figure in the group, especially to Priam. Despite having gone through hell and back, he still retains a sensitive side and cries quite easily. 

// ARIXA // 

CLASS // WYVERN LORD WEAPON // BRAVE AXE ORIGINS // PLEGIA BIO // A Plegian refugee who fled the Grimleal cult. Rides a stolen Wyvern, whom they have dubbed Tzar’xi. Despite their excitable and easily distracted nature,  they are by far one of the best fighters in the Advocates. 

// JOSEPH //

CLASS // HERO WEAPON // SILVER AXE ORIGINS // TELLIUS BIO // A gentleman who once knew the first one to tell the tale of Priam’s ancestors. They drew each other together, and soon found themselves locked in as duel to the bitter end... Which neither Priam nor Joseph won. Their near-death duel led to them forming a deep bond, unlike anything else. Rumors circulated that it was more than just a friendship.

// DECEASED. //

MEMBERS OF THE ADVOCATES

// BAQUI’SAL // 

CLASS // SWORDMASTER WEAPON // KILLER SWORD ORIGINS // FEROX BIO // Former champion of Regna Ferox’s West Khan. Assumed to be dead after a battle left him kidnapped. Priam freed him and added him to the Advocates due to his persistence and determination. 

// SARI //

CLASS // SWORDMASTER WEAPON // SILVER SWORD ORIGINS // ALTEAN BIO // A spiritual warrior brought to Ylisse through the Outrealm gate. Having been a member of the Hero King’s army at one point, Priam immediately requested a duel. She won. 

// GABRIEL //

CLASS // SWORDMASTER WEAPON // SILVER SWORD ORIGINS // YLISSE BIO // A blade-wielding bruiser from a town on the border of the Haildom. Studied at the peak of the demon’s ingle for years, forging his mind and body into a cohesive force to be reckoned with. 

// CHORAM //

CLASS // SWORDMASTER WEAPON // SILVER SWORD ORIGINS // VALM BIO // A well-known outlaw from Valm. He is known for his high price, alongside his skill. 

// SAE //

CLASS // SWORDMASTER WEAPON // SILVER SWORD ORIGINS // CHON’SIN BIO // An exile from Chon’Sin, banished for her ineptitude and lack of focus. Vowed to better herself. Truly a brave and powerful warrior. 

// KOLTAN //

CLASS // SWORDMASTER WEAPON // SILVER SWORD ORIGINS // PLEGIA BIO // A war victim, forced to work in Plegia after his capture. Built up a high pain tolerance and a higher level of tactical thinking during his time while enslaved. 

// SILIFUS //

CLASS // SWORDMASTER WEAPON // SILVER SWORD ORIGINS // SACAE BIO // A rogue Sacaean swordsman who fled their village during a raid. Joined the Advocates to seek out adventure, and to visit other time periods they had only heard of in stories.  

// ARUXANDIA //

CLASS // SWORDMASTER WEAPON // SILVER SWORD ORIGINS // PLEGIA BIO // A Plegian mage turned swordswoman. Her magic was sapped by a spell, leaving rune-shaped scars all over her body and a never ending vengeance burning within. 

// GARETH //

CLASS // SWORDMASTER WEAPON // SILVER SWORD ORIGINS // OUTREALMS BIO // A proud wandering mercenary. His family is rather large, branching out across different realms. He some day wishes to return home to his husband and child, bringing many a tale with him. 

// WALLACE //

CLASS // GENERAL WEAPON // SILVER LANCE ORIGINS // VALM  BIO // Sibling of Ward. A powerful Valmese general, boasting mass strength. 

//  WARD //

CLASS // GENERAL WEAPON // SILVER LANCE ORIGINS // VALM BIO // Sibling of Wallace.  A powerful Valmese general, boasting a powerful mind. 

// KECHI //

CLASS // GENERAL WEAPON // SILVER LANCE ORIGINS // OUTREALMS BIO // A rather short sellsword. He adventures for the sake of adventuring, and that is truly all there is to it. 

// IRNABELLEI //

CLASS // GENERAL WEAPON // SILVER LANCE ORIGINS // OUTREALMS BIO // A travelling warrior who sells her shield as a job. She began following Priam after they shared in a spar against bandits. 

// THOMAS //

CLASS // GENERAL WEAPON // SILVER LANCE ORIGINS // OUTREALMS BIO // A man erased from history, who now aims to make his legacy known once again. 

//LACHESIA //

CLASS // GENERAL WEAPON // SILVER LANCE ORIGINS // MACEDON BIO // The youngest sister in an order of four nobles. Despite her frail form, she fights effortlessly in the impermeable bubble of her armor. 

// QUILBUS //

CLASS // GENERAL WEAPON // SILVER LANCE ORIGINS // OUTREALMS BIO // A military commander form a land far away. Will stop at nothing to get his own way, but still trusts those he calls his allies to do the right thing... Even if that means stopping him when he goes too far. 

// ETAENA //

CLASS // GENERAL WEAPON // SILVER LANCE ORIGINS // ARCHANEA BIO // An ancient warrior from a time when the Hero-King stood tall and vile dragons still plagued the land. Keeps tick marks on her weapon noting each enemy she has killed. Many think she is quiet, but in reality, the can not speak at all. Her large frame is covered in scars and marks, with one distinct line across her neck. 

// ARGIS //

CLASS // GENERAL WEAPON // SILVER LANCE ORIGINS // OUTREALMS BIO // some have a hard time believing that this fierce man isn’t a monster. Despite his gargantuan appearance and savage warrior spirit, he hails from a nomadic magical tribe of pacifists that live among a riverbank, thriving off off of the earth. 

// LEO //

CLASS // SNIPER WEAPON // SILVER BOW ORIGINS // OUTREALMS BIO // A timid member of a noble family’s guard, but when pressed in a corner, can fight on par with the best warriors of them all. 

// IGNIS //

CLASS // SNIPER WEAPON // SILVER BOW ORIGINS // CHON’SIN BIO // An over-dramatic sniper with a penchant for all things glorious. He has the biggest head in the entire army, and claims to have never missed a shot, even when first handling a bow. Despite his pious remarks, he actually is an excellent shot. 

// MONICA//

CLASS // SNIPER WEAPON // SILVER BOW ORIGINS // OUTREALMS BIO // Wishes to become the best archer in the world, modelling herself after the ancient bow users of the lands. Has adopted a reckless yet precise style despite her training, typically putting herself in danger to aid her allies. Can attack from a distance or close-up with ease.  

// GARLAN //

CLASS // SNIPER WEAPON // DOUBLE BOW ORIGINS // MACEDON BIO // A sentient Einherjar spirit who gained its own free will, and joined Priam’s ranks with force. Despite being nearly intangible, it can still dole out fierce attacks to mortal foes with its ghastly arrows. 

// GLORIAN //

CLASS // SNIPER WEAPON // GLASS BOW ORIGINS // OUTREALMS BIO // A radiant warrior who has a rather fine taste for armor. Only the finest of materials go into his shining armor, and only the most costly of preparations and rituals are used in forging his weapons. He has become something akin to a joke in his homeland, a bleak and grey military encampment. 

// SIREN //

CLASS // SNIPER WEAPON // SILVER BOW / ‘THE HEARTBREAKER’ ORIGINS // OUTREALMS BIO // A philandering, towering beast of a man, covered in scales and bones from head to toe. Fights for the approval of the men of the world, going so far as to even collect an entire harem-like gathering of fans after every conquest he makes. Has dubbed his weapon ‘The Heartbreaker.’ Priam recruited him after Siren emerged from the ocean itself, landing a perfect strike above his left breast... Even after performing an exuberant back-flip. 

// KELIAN //

CLASS // SNIPER WEAPON // SILVER BOW ORIGINS // OUTREALMS BIO // A lowly military recruit with unfathomable power. Being the runt of the litter, he was kicked around by his peers, and seeked out Priam to prove a point to his tormentors. Priam was impressed with his aptitude and lack of fear in the face of pain. A peerless opponent and a worthy ally. 

// CECIL //

CLASS // WARRIOR WEAPON // SILVER AXE ORIGINS // OUTREALMS BIO // While they may be relatively slow, they are known to be able to topple an enemy with one strike.  

// BREUM //

CLASS // WARRIOR WEAPON // SILVER AXE ORIGINS // OUTREALMS BIO // Despite having lost a leg protecting an innocent person who got caught in the middle of a magical duel to the death, he still fights with the same spirit and vigor of a whole man. The team’s moral coach. 

// YOBA //

CLASS // WARRIOR WEAPON // SILVER AXE ORIGINS // OUTREALMS BIO // A woman who was once revered as a prophet in her village, now fights to avenge the people she lost due to an unforeseen eldritch cataclysm. 

// HAR’KA’AN //

CLASS // WARRIOR WEAPON // BOLT AXE ORIGINS // CHON’SIN BIO // A stoic warrior who uses his own leather-hard skin as his armor. As durable as he is dense. Born to two elusive Feroxi mages, yet abandoned in Chon’sin and trained to harness his natural affinity for battle in his duels.  

// SIMON //

CLASS // WARRIOR WEAPON // KILLER AXE ORIGINS // OUTREALMS BIO // A deft man, one so fast that none see him before he drives his axe into their skull with a single quick flick of his wrist. 

// NATALIE//

CLASS // WARRIOR WEAPON // IMPOSING AXE ORIGINS // OUTREALMS BIO // Fights alongside her wife, Kiel, to protect their homeland from an unseen threat. The two of them have become local legends. 

// KIEL //

CLASS // WARRIOR WEAPON // HAMMER ORIGINS // OUTREALMS BIO // Fights alongside her wife, Natalie, to protect their homeland from an unseen threat. She is almost never seen outside of the arms of her lover. 

// CORAN //

CLASS // WARRIOR WEAPON // SILVER AXE ORIGINS // OUTREALMS BIO // A simple warrior who leads a simple life, and holds a simple goal; settle down with a nice person, and make a lovely family in a land free from war. 

// LARSON //

CLASS // WARRIOR WEAPON // RAPIER ORIGINS // OUTREALMS BIO // an elderly warrior. Fights with the power of an God within his blade, all to avenge the memory of his former lover. Good friends with Siren and Etaena. 

// FIORA//

CLASS // SAGE WEAPON // BOLGANONE ORIGINS // PLEGIA BIO // The 1st of nine sages. Possesses the element of fire within their veins. Joined the advocates due to Priam’s warrior blood and powerful skills as a leader. 

// AZURE //

CLASS // SAGE WEAPON // BOOK OF NAGA ORIGINS // PLEGIA BIO // The 2nd of nine sages. Possesses the element of water within their veins. Joined the advocates due to Priam’s spirit, as well as how he holds and composes himself. 

// LEIFFEN //

CLASS // SAGE WEAPON // CATHARSIS (STAFF) ORIGINS // CHON’SIN BIO // The 3rd of 9 sages. Possesses the element of nature within their veins. Joined the advocates due to Priam’s copious amounts of kindness and unfortunate simplicity. 

// VOEX //

CLASS // SAGE WEAPON // GOETIA ORIGINS // PLEGIA BIO // The 4th of nine sages. Possesses the element of darkness within their veins. Joined the advocates due to Priam’s strength and determination. 

// ARIA //

CLASS // SAGE WEAPON // REXCALIBUR ORIGINS // MACEDON BIO // The 5th of nine sages. Possesses the element of wind within their veins. Joined the advocates due to Priam’s unyielding persistence. 

// TOTHRUNIM //

CLASS // SAGE WEAPON // THORON ORIGINS // VALM  BIO // The 6th of nine sages. Possesses the element of electricity within their veins.  Joined the advocates due to Priam’s radiant personality and character.

// PEIXES //

CLASS // SAGE WEAPON // MIRE ORIGINS // PLEGIA BIO // The 7th of nine sages. Possesses the element of poison within their veins. Joined the advocates due to Priam’s veiled yet incredibly intriguing  past. 

// TERRANCE //

CLASS // SAGE WEAPON // HAMMERNE (STAFF) ORIGINS // YLISSE BIO // The 8th of nine sages. Possesses the element of the earth within their veins. Joined the advocates due to Priam’s strength of heart and mind. 

// IX//

CLASS // SAGE WEAPON // VALFLAME ORIGINS // VALM BIO // The 9th of 9 sages. Possesses the element of destruction within their veins. Joined the advocates due to Priam’s power, pure and unrelenting. 

//D’IORE //

CLASS // HERO WEAPON // ARMORSLAYER ORIGINS // CHON’SIN BIO // A dark and mysterious hero from the coast of Chon’sin. Anything that moves, he can hit with needle-like precision, leading to him gaining the title of ‘the Seamstress.’ Unfortunately, his precision is only clouded over by his easygoing, flirtatious way of life. Many butcher his title, preferring to instead call him ‘the Seductress.’ 

// IKIDAN //

CLASS // HERO WEAPON // SILVER AXE ORIGINS //   OUTREALMS BIO // An unknown figure who emerged from the mist of an ancient waterfall. Fights with the harshest of strikes, and does not say a word while doing it. 

// ETHIRMA //

CLASS // HERO WEAPON // TOMAHAWK  ORIGINS // YLISSE BIO // A blacksmith who uses her father’s own axe to cull the weak and the poor. A rather cold-hearted individual. Don’t ask her how she ‘inherited’ that weapon unless you are a fan of gruesome tales of murder and woe. 

// CADENCOE //

CLASS // HERO WEAPON // SILVER SWORD ORIGINS // ROSANNE BIO // A bodyguard who once served the old Duke of Rosanne. Now uses her skills to protect her allies, holding no remorse within her soul for whoever gets in her way. 

// ZAURN //

CLASS // HERO WEAPON // SILVER SWORD ORIGINS // YLISSE BIO // A member of the Ylissean royal guard, and a personal friend of the exalted bloodline... Or at least they used to be. 

[jaykay123456789p]

Saga of Patricia the Ferals chapter 2

Newdawn cave had always been a misleading name. The locals called the place like that when it became shelter for the first settlers many years ago, when there's still a wall in the back of it. When people started mining there and knocked down the wall, they found an entire cave system behind it, all nestled under a small mountain, along with valuable stones, metals, and even coal. Eventually, the mine ran out of resources and was abandoned. Since then, groups of monsters tried to settle in and make it their home base. Sometimes a group of Orcs, others a bunch of Kobolds but every time a new group appear, the guild would send adventurers to clean them up.

Now, Patricia is taking a similar quest. A few months ago, goblins moved into the cave and flyers were sent out, recruiting people for a raid. However, just as Lennox said, five adventurers had attempted the quest but all gone missing. Despite all that, Patricia still feel confident about completing the quest. "I'm gonna show him. I'm gonna clear this cave then shove the rewards up his face! On second thought though, that might not be a good idea, if what the others say are true." Mumbling to herself, she made her way to the cave, which is a few hours away south of Newdawn. She faced monsters a few times on her way, of course, but none of them were any match for her. The slimes got their core crushed into paste, the giant hornets broke their stingers and died in one hit. She even found and broiled a small cockatrice. Everything was exactly what the young Feral imagined it would be. The beautiful scenery outside the town walls, the vast Newdawn field filled with things to do and monsters to kill. She felt as if nothing can stop her from realizing her dream of becoming a hero like her father.

Eventually, she found the cave. Its entrance is surprisingly large, almost as tall and wide as a barn house. The first room was empty as usual, save for a weird looking totem near the mine entrance. "That must be a territory sign. But something's different about this one." Patricia thought. Normally, a goblin totem like this is only kneecap height, with very crude carvings to signify ownership over the place to other monster races. However, this totem was as tall as Patricia herself. The carvings were also more careful, more intimidating than usual. "They must have a champion in there. No matter, I can take them" she told herself and pressed on deeper into the cave. She took a torch with her at first but discarded it since the walls had small miner lamps, all of which were lit. However, just because she can see the path didn't make it less of a nightmare than it was. It was small, claustrophobic and reeked of goblin smell. The ceiling was barely tall enough to stand upright while the walls were just slightly wider than the old rail road, which was almost gone from all the pillaging done by the monsters. After a while, with no sign of any goblins, Patricia grew bored of the place and started making a lot of noise. Tapping on the walls with an old wooden handle, kicking pebbles around. She knew that attracting monsters to herself was a bad idea, especially in their own territory, but nothing seemed to happened.

After the third turn on the road, Patricia finally found action. A group of four or five goblins, each armed with only a small knife and loin cloth, dragged a big bag of something deeper into the cave. Without thinking, she jumped out to challenge them. One goblin slashed her with its knife, missing a mile away. Using its own momentum, Patricia grabbed the goblin by its neck and slammed it on the nearby wall, smashing its head and killing it instantly. Others started attacking also, slashing and clawing wildly. Each tried to aim for her wrists, ankles or thighs, places where it's hard to defend but if injured can immobilize an opponent. Not hesitating, she dodged the first two slashes and punched one goblin in the face. Two others tried to attack again. Using her tail, Patricia tripped one then drove the third's knife into the other's chest, impaling both with their own weapons. Not wasting a second, she stomped down with her foot, crushing the first one's rib cage, killing it. "Wooohh! That was awesome! And he said that I couldn't do this." Patricia looked around to enjoy her first kills in a quest. Four goblins lied dead on the floor with their loot bag abandoned nearby. Ignoring it, she headed deeper into the cave.

After the battle, Patricia's spirit grew even higher. She had just killed goblins in their own cave. If everything went well, she would be back outside in no time. Even the cave itself seemed more comforting. Even though the stench is getting stronger, the walls and ceiling widened, which means she must've reached one of the mining areas. Suddenly, a small clicking sound sprung up. Looking around, she couldn't find anything suspicious. The cave is absolutely empty, with no places to hide and even partially lit with the old lamps. Assured that there's nothing wrong, the young Feral pressed on deeper. But out of nowhere, a club flew out aiming for her head. Dodging it, Patricia jumped and turned around to see the attacker. It was a huge goblin, definitely a goblin champion, with arms as thick as its own club, which was stuck in a wall because of the missed swing. It was as tall as the Feral herself but with twice the size and weight. With grey skin and huge bloating muscle, it was truly intimidating. "You ...dodged club. You good" It spoke with a raspy voice, which made Patricia fur stood up. What kind of abomination is this thing? It talked yet didn't seem to have any humanity in anyway. The fact that apparently, this thing had some mind of its own just made things creepier. Focusing herself, Patricia launched a barrage of punches and kicks. One straight punch to its face, followed by a roundhouse kick then a heel smash, all were blocked by the goblin's club. While it cracked up a bit tanking all those attacks, Patricia knew she couldn't waste her strength trying to break it. However, none of her attacks seemed to reach the opponent. It moved like a human, crudely dodged and blocked her attacks. Having been used to fighting non sentient monsters, Patricia slowly grew panicking. How could it defend itself for so long? Even a bear twice her size could be killed more easily than this. Not only that, the goblin even started attacking back, thrusting and swinging its club. Even though there's room to move around, a cave was still a cave; she knew she mustn't keep fighting any longer. The goblin swung its club once again but this time, Patricia braced herself and took it with her arms. Pain shot up but she held on, grabbing the club with all her might and threw it, along with the goblin into a wall, breaking the club. The goblin, however, was not harmed as much as she had wanted. Not wasting a beat, she launched herself at it, intending to deliver one last hit. But out of nowhere, another goblin champion busted out from the wall and beat her dead on the head. "You strong. Me like it" The goblin said. Sill dazed from the attack, Patricia couldn't defend herself against two champions like that. More and more hits connect with her body, her strength sapped over time. "NO! This can't be. How..." By this time, she couldn't think straight anymore and stumbled on a pebble on the ground. A goblin grabbed her by the neck, held her up high while the other punched her again and again in the stomach, making her coughed out blood then threw her against a wall. Lying there, no strength left to run, she saw two hulking figure lumbering toward her but can do nothing about it. One lifted her up again by the throat, glaring like looking at some sort of prized trophy.

"What do you want?" Patricia weakly asked.

"You strong. Me make you slave now" The goblin said and started dragging her deeper into the cave.

"NO, LET GO OF ME. SOMEONE, ANYONE..."Patricia panicked and struggled in its grasp but to no avail. The two of them were way too strong for her injured body.

"No hear you now. Me like slave's scream." The two goblins laughed like mad men, enjoying their victory and Patricia's demise. The more she struggled, the more they laughed and held her tighter.

But suddenly, a bottle flew out of thin air and shattered on the floor. From it, purple smoke started fuming out and choked the goblins. Falling from their grasps, Patricia panicked, thinking it was poison but the smoke didn't seem to hurt her. Out of nowhere, a dagger sprouted from one of the goblin's neck and it dropped down like lumber. Strangely, the dagger's handle seemed to be broken in half right down the middle, with the two pieces dangling from the base of the blade. The other panicked and swung its arm around like swatting fly but neither it or Patricia could understand what was going on. A shadow of someone grabbed the dagger in the dead goblin and rushed to the other, climbing up its greasy back. The goblin tried to reach for the attacker but was too late. It dropped dead on the floor like its friend, with the dagger deep in its back, exactly where the heart was. Patricia felt horrified, scrambled back in fear. What if this was something even worse than those monster? She was exhausted, injured everywhere and defenseless. "STAY BACK!!" she screamed and tossed a rock at the figure standing before her taking a breath after the fight. "OW!" the rock hit its target right on the head. "Is this how you Ferals return other's favor?"

"Wait, Lennox? What are you doing here?"

"Looking for you, what else! I told you there's something wrong with this cave but this is worse than I thought. Now sit still."

Taking out materials from his pockets, Lennox began grinding them in a bowl then cooked them up using one of the miner's lamp on the wall. Eventually, he came up with a dark, bitter smelling liquid.

"Drink this, it's gonna help you out."

The taste of the liquid was even worse than its smell. It was hot, bitter and there were even something lumpy in it. With a sour face, Patricia finished the bowl and found herself back on her feet.

"This sucks. What the hell did you put in there?"

"Just your usual potion stuff. Few types of grass, mushroom, animal bile, hornet stingers,... I didn't have that much on hand but someone actually left a giant bag of it behind, can you believe that?"

Realizing it was the loot bag the first goblins left behind, Patricia's face reddened. If she had those things with her, maybe she could've heal herself better.

"Glad I made it though. It would be awkward telling Marcus that his daughter dies on her first quest."

"Yeah, it would. Sorry about what I said in the guild. It was childish."

"It's OK. That made me realize, we haven't formally introduced ourselves. I'm Lennox."

"Call me Patty. So, what did you use back there? The purple smoke."

"That's normal monster repel. Normally, we spray our clothing with it to keep monster at bay but I found out that taking a huge sniff of the stuff is considerably harmful to them as well. But enough of that, how do you feel?"

"Almost back to normal. But don't worry, I can heal myself now, with my ki."

"Right, we're gonna need you in top shape. What we did on our way here were definitely loud and clear, they won't let us out easily now. It's best that we finish this quest and signal the others."

After helping each other up, both adventurers headed deeper into the cavern. Just as Patricia said, her body healed quickly as they walk. The deeper they went in, more and more goblins, both normal and hobgoblins, attacked in bigger groups. They tried to surround them and strike from behind, still using their old tactics. Patricia and Lennox fought on, dispatching groups after groups, until eventually, they reached the end of the old mine. Or what it was supposed to be.

"That's strange. Hey, Patty, correct me if I'm wrong but isn't this supposed to be the end of the mining rails?" Lennox asked, pointing to his map.

"Yeah, you're right. We turned here, here, here and here so this is supposed to be the end"

"So the goblins must've dug this new tunnel."

Indeed. What was supposed to be the end of the mining tunnel was now extended, leading past the natural cave and dug into the mountain. The path, while twice as wide as the mining tunnel, was not something one would like to walk through. Despite its size, this new tunnel had no supporting beams and reeked of goblin's smell, even more so than the outer paths. The walls and floor must've been dug with man power alone since they were bumpy and uneven.

"Well, there's definitely something big in there. Something that can control those green midgets. Normally, they will gladly fight one another for a scrap of food." Patricia remarked.

"Yes. Must be a group of champions or even a king. The small ones will do anything they said, no question asked. This tunnel looks fresh, must've only been one or two weeks, so the big guy must be new. We must stop them now, before they can establish anything bigger. They won't see us coming."

"Then what're we waiting for? Let's go!"

Carefully, the two of them entered the new tunnel. The deeper they went, the worse the smell. Along the way, they even found a few skeletons. All adventurers, trying to clear this quest.

Eventually, they saw light at the end of the tunnel. Torches burning, lighting up a room as big as the guild's main hall. Hugging a dark wall obscured by a rock bulging out, they saw dozens of goblins scurrying around, pushing scraps and trash out of the place. A few hobgoblins stood in line, facing a throne at the back of the room. On the throne, sat the biggest goblin anyone ever saw: a goblin king. Twice as tall as a man and looked four times heavier, with emerald green skin and a face full of warts. Its nose and ears stretched comically long but the goatee it sported and the cunning in the eyes made them look intimidating instead of hysterical. Its body rippled with muscle, all wedged under a rusty suit of heavy armor, a cloak on its back and a makeshift crown on its head. It seemed to be communicating with the hobgoblins and, upon receiving some sort of bad news, got mad and started yelling toward the underlings. An unfortunate goblin was caught in its sight and immediately crushed under its foot. Everything in the room panicked, hurriedly scurried around trying to appease their leader. On the side of a wall, two people were chained, locked inside a steel cage. Both of them females, their clothes stripped down to their underwear. Their legs were cut and bruises covered their body.

"How could they do that?" Patricia quietly asked, obviously horrified. Had Lennox not been there, she would've ended up like those two.

"Goblins don't have females so you do the math. Luckily for them, the big guy seemed more interested in expanding his castle rather than his work force. Most likely, it keeps them there as rewards."

"We've got to save them Lennox!"

"Yes, we will. But we need a plan. Now, empty your pockets. Pull out anything you have and maybe I can make something useful."

With her face reddened, Patricia pulled her pockets inside out. All she had was dried food, some shiny stones she found in the mine, and her house key. What ridiculous things to bring along on an adventure. The more time she spent with Lennox, the more inexperienced she felt.

"Wow, there's not much isn't it. No matter, I can wing it. Let's see, I have five bottles of slime cores, some monster repel, and a bottle of potion. You have lighter armor so you keep the potion. The slime cores can be combustible but we have nothing to make a spark..."

Looking at the stones Patricia had, Lennox's eyes brighten.

"OH MY GOD! You're a life saver! We have flints in here. And these... These are obsidian. Now, you break them into shards. But be careful, once broken they can cut a finger clean off."

Following his order, Patricia carefully broke the obsidian stones into shards, using her claw. Meanwhile, Lennox rigged two pieces of flints together using the ring on his partner's house key, so that they would rub on each other when they hit the ground. Carefully, they poured the shards into a bottle of slime cores and attached the flint on it. Finally, they put the rest of the slime cores along with the rigged bottle into the loot bag earlier and added some pebbles and monster repels, creating a makeshift grenade.

"Alright, this is the second most dangerous thing I've ever made." Lennox said "When I said go, you toss this thing in, not too close to the walls or it will hurt the prisoners. Aim for the throne, try to damage fatty there as much as possible."

Picking up the bag carefully Patricia took aim like Lennox said. This should be easy for her considering how she hunted rabbits with pebbles when she was younger. One shot of her and the poor creature's spine was severed. Taking a deep breath, she waited for the signal.

Meanwhile, Lennox carefully made his way into the room, hugging the walls and climbed to the ceiling, using his own daggers to stick to the walls. Observing the room, he saw about 40 or 50 small goblins, 8 hobgoblins running around the room, cleaning and digging under constant demand of the goblin king. The big one was still on its throne, looking disappointed and angry. Suddenly, a hobgoblin accidentally knocked down a torch, taking the attention of the whole room. Just as the big one looked away, Lennox yelled "GO!"

The bag exploded right at the foot of the throne, just as expected. Purple smoke streamed out, making every goblins choke and cough uncontrollably. Dropping down from the wall, Lennox brandished his daggers and began stabbing left and right. At the same time, Patricia jumped into the room, clawing, punching and kicking. All small goblins dropped dead unopposed while the bigger hobgoblins did put up a better fight. They blindly struggled through the repel smoke, swinging their arms around trying to hit something but most of the times they only hit each other. Wasting no time, Patricia elbowed a hobgoblin, crushing its ribs, and kicked another in the neck. Lennox slashed one's leg, falling it instantly and tripped another, which soon had its own knife sprouting from the chest. Just as they were done with the hobgoblins, the smoke cleared. The goblin king still stood straight, looking both hurt and pissed off. Its skin riddled with holes, with both obsidian and glass shards embedding in them. Its armor was blown off, dangling on its shoulder with a single strap intact. Its goatee singed and an eye collapsed from the pressure of the explosion. With a deafening roar, it ripped off the damaged armor and brandished its weapon. The thing was too big to be called a sword. To be blunt, it looked like a hunk of metal on a handle. Its single edge was unpolished and chipped in places but the sheer weight of the thing made it an effective blunt weapon.

The goblin king launched itself at Lennox and swung the blade. Jumping out of the way, he saw the floor beneath him cracked in half, with the blade lodged deep in the earth. Twisting his body with the momentum, Lennox slashed the goblin under its left arm and landed facing its back a few steps away. Immediately, Patricia rushed forward and performed a spinning kick, hitting the goblin square in the face and broke one of its tooth off.

Seeing how its opponent moved, the goblin king changed its strategies. Holding the giant blade in both hands, it made fast and wide slashes all around its body. It was just a simple maneuver but the size of the blade and the strength of its wielder kept the adventurers at bay. Wearing light armor, both Lennox and Patricia couldn't approach it without getting their limbs lobbed off.

"What now?" Patricia yelled, sweat trickled out from her paws.

"No wonder it kept itself hidden for this long. Anyone made it here would either be captured by the small ones or killed by that thing. Any idea how to kill it?"

Watching and avoiding its blade, Patricia notice something. Since it made too many swings without rhyme or rhythm, the goblin king seemed to be tiring. Its foot starting to loose balance with every swing while its hand on the blade started slipping.

"It's tiring itself out! Now, just a little longer, maybe I can hold that blade down and you try to stab it where it hurts."

"Then maybe we don't need no longer."

With determined eyes, Lennox said and, strangely, bit on the sword handle on his back. Suddenly, his mouth stretched into a snout, his ears reformed and relocated itself to the top of the head. His spines bent down while fur began to cover his entire body.

"YOU'RE A WEREWOLF?" Patricia asked, obviously surprised. Werefolks don't socialize very often. They live in secluded self-providing communities deep in places where few people travel through. Though friendly and helpful to lost travelers, every once a month they would have to turn and satisfy their killer instinct by hunting in the woods under animal forms, or else be consumed by it and never turn back to human again.

"I'm a changeling. We're very different from the werefolks."

Lennox answered, now as a wolf standing as tall as his old self and somehow still holding the sword in his mouth, and blocked the goblin's blade. While his sword is shorter and slimmer, it was a masterpiece compare to his opponent's weapon. Its handle fit perfectly in its wielder's mouth, the blade polished to perfection and gleamed under the torches flame. Being exhausted after such long fight, the goblin's movement became predictable but it could still rely on the weapon's size to do the job. Luckily for Lennox, the transformation gave him extra muscle and weight, helping him redirect the blade safely to the sides. Capitalizing on a missed swing of the goblin, he drove the giant blade into the ground and held it tight with both front paws. Just then, Patricia launch herself forward, running up the wolf's back. For all this time, she had been focusing her ki into the right arm and now, it glowed faintly with energy. With a loud roar, she drove her fist straight in the goblin's rib cage, shattering it completely. It staggered back and took another hit, this time across the stomach by Lennox's sword. Fatally wounded, it dropped to the floor.

"WE DID IT!" the two adventurers cheered. Turning back to human, Lennox offered his partner some water and they sat down, facing the goblin. Just as they sat down, they could hear the goblin king's laugh, gurgled and with blood flowing along.

"What's so funny?" Patricia asked, victorious but still cautious. She knew these things can be tough and heal quickly.

"Yeah," Lennox followed, equally alarmed. "You seemed happy for someone who got their intestines cut off and breathing on a lung ... (Goblin king launched into an uncontrollable cough.) Make that half a lung then. Got a joke you wanna share?"

To their surprise, the goblin king answered, with both glee and regret in his wheezing voice. "So... Ironic, you know? In... the void ... (Cough) I've heard so many stories. Of the old generals. How they failed, how they were crushed by your (Cough) Heroes... but now, it seems... I have failed most ... (Wheeze)... most spectacularly. Not killed... by a Hero, but by two nobodies like you. The Evil one, would be so ... mad right now."

The room suddenly felt colder, more serious and urgent. If what it said was true, then another crisis would come very soon.

"You're lying! The Evil one can't return this soon!" Patricia grabbed the goblin king's shoulder and screamed in his face. Everyone knew all too well how the last appearances went down. Blood were spilt into rivers, bodies, both of monsters and people, piled into hills. Survivors all wounded, disabled and malformed beyond recognizing. Not even the Heroes were guarantee to escape the war unharmed.

"But it's all true, young Feral. Of all the things... I learnt over my years... always trust a dying one's words, be it man or monster. Now, while you were... (Cough) good, I wish my comrades luck in battle. All... seven...of...them."

Taking his final breaths, the goblin king welcomed his death. Lennox tried his best to keep him talking but nothing worked, it was too late for him. Leaving the king's body behind, Patricia broke the prisoners out of their cage while Lennox exited the cave and signaled other adventurers for help. A few hours later, a party of 10, all familiar faces in the guild, arrived and brought carriages and supplies with them.

"We saw the signal. Congrats, Patricia! Your father's gonna be so proud!" The party leader greeted the Feral.

"Thank you, sir. But if it wasn't for Lennox here, I would've been captured."

"So, how does it feel saving a girl, Lennox? Better savor it before she leaves you after finding out you steal something of her."

"Ha ha, very funny. Now, you take your party inside and broil the place. There're two prisoners inside, both are missing adventurers. We also found the cards of the other three. They didn't make it."

"Hey, Lenny. You don't give commands here, alright. I do. Now boys, do what the thief said and scram before he gets to our wallets."

With more laughing and joking, the party entered the cave to clean up and escorted the prisoners out.

"You can keep the reward for locating the missing people!" Lennox yelled in after.

"Wow, you're generous! But why would you let them keep that reward?"

"Yeah, about that. We should go before they found out that I swiped the goblin's crown. Can you believe this thing is actually a solid piece of gold? SCORE!"

"SO YOU ARE A THIEF! When did you even do that? I was with you the whole time!"

With bantering and laughing, the two adventurers headed back to town. By the time they got to the guild, it was already sunset. Taking her first reward, Patricia turned to Lennox: "Thank you for today. If I can repay you anyhow, just tell me, ok? But of course, just something reasonable."

"Well, considering that you made me waste my whole day not getting any work done, I'm currently broke now. Maybe you treat me dinner tonight? I know a great place that sell actual food. UNLIKE THIS GREASY PUB OVER HERE!" jokingly, Lennox added. Immediately, he was bombarded with booing and snarky insults from other people. Pushing their way out of the guild, both happily headed to the restaurant, leaving the rowdy crowd behind them. Looking at her partner, Patricia knew just what to say: "Hey, Lenny. Wanna make a party?"

"Of course. This is gonna be fun!" Lennox answered, looking forward to new adventures.

Elsewhere

A messenger hurriedly ran in a long and decorated hallway. His head dotted with sweat and panic in his eyes. Pushing the door open, he wheezed out the message: "Your Majesty, forgive me for my unsightly appearance. But we have a problem!"

On a throne in the middle of the room, sat a man in his sixties. Though his body now look weak and fragile, signs of great struggles and triumphs in the past can still be seen in his posture. His white hair and beard still well groomed, his eyes still sharp. With a warm and soothing voice, he welcomed the messenger: "Come now, my faithful servant. There's nothing to be so urgent like that. Come, take a seat. My maids will get you something cold to drink. Quench your thirst first then I shall hear what you have to say."

"Thank you, your Majesty. But I'm afraid we have no time for this. Today, in the town of Newdawn, two adventurers claimed to have slain a general of the Evil one. I afraid we will face him soon now."

Worries and fear sparked in the king's eyes. He knew full well that no monster would be dumb enough to proclaim itself to be a general if it wasn't one. The cycle had made a full lap, and now crisis will rise again. Standing up from the throne, the king said, in the calmest voice he can muster: "Unseal the holy weapons! Let them roam the world to find new wielders. Send words to all corners of the world. We need to prepare for the upcoming battle!"

Upon the king's word, everyone in the room scrambled, each returned to their post. Everyone knew full well the devastating result of past risings. "May the spirit be with us" The king sat down on his throne, focused deeply in his thoughts.

[typewriter-telepath-blog]

Crypts of Colour

Chapter One - Silent Dynasty https://typewriter-telepath.tumblr.com/post/173025342441/crypts-of-colour-chapter-one-silent-dynasty-it

Chapter Two - Crippled Kingdom https://typewriter-telepath.tumblr.com/post/173120498346/crypts-of-colour

Chapter Three - Dead Apples Breed Insects

It took Lusita an impressively short amount of time to gather the gist of what was occurring in Nikureth. She began the slow but painful descent down the cliff face, repressing a mad little voice inside her head suggesting how much easier it would be to just fall to the grass beneath. The rock was full of elixir, which meant that every time she pressed her hands against its surface, it left a glowing oil-slick print that faded quickly after a delay. Such created the illusion that an unseen spirit of some kind was sluggishly following after her, and she quickened her pace to escape in the dippy game she played with herself. The mad little voice was ushered away by one of curiosity and amusement, which again dulled the pain so much that she could barely feel it. How much she longed to bath in her elixir crypt in her chambers! The need to clamp her tired muscles in this chameleon paint which consumed her ails and plunged her into a state of semi-consciousness. It was the molten key to the planet’s immortality and it was locked inside this rock. She continued to place her hands firmly into the surface like a bear cub trying to get honey out of a beehive. Again, her mind dragged her elsewhere and eventually down the cliff. When she reached the ground she took a moment to lie there, grounding herself. It was a method handed to her by Sir Nikureth. He noticed the way Lusita’s mind was exceedingly advanced for her age and that she had trouble focusing her train of thought. It was more like a station of thought, with 10 platforms and 11 trains leaving at once. Teéyo immediately noticed the way it could accomplish brilliant and foolish things, but only when focused. She needed to control the voices; to stop them conversing with one another. Excruciating pin-pointed pain usually did this, but the scent of blood would prove her stealth futile. What were five things she could see? Ruby trees, scuttling crustaceans, sap mounds, hovering rocks and stars. Four things she could hear? The wind and rustling responses whistled through the foreground, the background tainted with much more unpleasant sounds - screaming, clawing, and hurried footsteps. Three things she could smell? Auras, dewdrops and smoke. Two things she could taste? Blood, and saliva. One thing she could feel? Anticipation - seeping into the granule rock beneath her. Tunnel vision. It was as if her mind was liquefied and poured into a thin funnel. She felt the rest slip away; the contemplation of existence, the analysis of history. Her mind stopped circling around encyclopedias of distant and dissolving cultures. The chains of control fastened her, providing a welcoming sense of security. Security, confidence, execution, dominance– a simple chain of consequences she would enjoy pushing over like dominoes. It was simple, petty, of this world. It gave her a sense of present – the flow of the past and limbs of future possibilities became separated from the now.

…

“He’s dead,” Anora announced definitively. Zir statement was met with the furrowed eyebrows of young Sir Nikureth. “Look at him!” Ze said in defense, gesturing towards what was surely a corpse. Most of the flesh around his face was rotten, his cheek bones dry and hollow like driftwood. His moldy cheese-block hands lay folded on his lap, which served as a nest for a swarm of tusstra. The insectoid creatures were about an inch in length, with blue webbed wings and a glowing esca hovering above the rich black void of their pupils like a desk lamp. Anora watched with disgust as these lights dimmed and strengthened in the cavities of his body, one nestling comfortably in his right eye socket.

“With all due respect I beg to differ,” began Teéyo. His squeamishness was as transparent as the lake water that so often clung to Lusita’s skin, yet his politeness was still intact. Anora wished he’d just get to the point. “I… can ever so faintly sense his aura.” Teéyo blurted out, sensing Anora’s disapproval. His senses were almost as acute as The Prey’s telepathy was strong, and so Anora did not doubt him. Instead ze turned to The Prey with scrutiny, and upon observation noticed how his one good eye held them in a wavering gaze. In a situation such as this, Anora found it difficult to believe this was all that remained of an apparently once revered individual. How a creature so small and so crushable could inject a venom so addictive that the victims could not help but feed themselves to their predators for the remainder of their existence was beyond zir. Ze and Teéyo watched as they dug their tiny claws into his flesh and scooped it out as if it belonged to a nectarine. Grotesque. How could Lusita live with such creatures?

“CAN... HEAR… YOU,” The Prey managed. The syllables were simple and comprehensible, but there was so much unspoken meaning behind them. They hit the pair like bucket of searing oil dripping with emotion. Both Anora and Teéyo were dragged forcibly across the clearing like kites caught in the wind; the vibrations from The Prey’s telepathy loud enough to cause a painful aneurysm. The shock on both their faces was priceless for an eavesdropping Lusita, who clung tightly to the trunk of sandy-red tree ten feet away, ears ringing like wind chimes. Of course, she was acquainted with such a man. The tusstra served her, after all. The brilliant spiral of Siyakeé Archives could not be maintained, or protected, without them. “Can you answer us then?” Anora questioned rather than and interrogated, which was unlike zir. Ze dusted zirself off and wrapped a violet-silk cloth around zir head in an effort to brace zirself. “PERHAPS,” he answered. The pain of the words eventually numbed, but zir could not chase away the echoes of them. Such echoes danced around Anora’s head to avoid being seen like children playing a game. They carried stories ze had little time to interpret, history like a wringed cloth desperate to be unraveled. The muscular person gritted zir teeth behind pursed lips before continuing.

“Excellent,” ze breathed, craving a reply yet dreading it at the same time. Teéyo would be better at this - saying the right things in the right way, but he had retreated into his submissive state the way he usually did around unpredictable factors. He needed zir confidence and strength, but ze needed his communicative skills. How would he word their demands?

“I’m sure you are aware of the panic you arose among the populace. Why cast unfiltered telepathy and how far does it reach?” Ze settled on. Ze was determined not to mention The Reckoning, instead ze wanted him to bring it up. The man’s good eye widened in alert, tired and full of trapped truth.

“KNOWLEDGE… GRANTED…FREE… WARNING,” he bellowed, his rickety bones trembling much to the dissatisfaction of the diminishing cloud of parasites. It was hard to believe so much power stemmed from the empty shell of a being before them. Anora was faced increasingly more with reality-crumbling disbelief. It was something ze seldom saw before ze met Lusita, and something ze was getting better at hiding. By the time ze came to zir senses, ze realized Teéyo had started talking!

“Sir, please do tell us what this warning does signify.” He had finally mustered enough courage to communicate, even more daring was that he chose to do this by speech. Spoken words were a crude, raw display of emotion – one could not lie with them. Wise was his choice, as such was much closer to mirroring the casting of The Prey. Conversations needed to be balanced, after all. His right hand yanked on a lock of his faded curls like babies do to others affectionately, but Lusita deduced that it was a coping mechanism. So, pain was not a comfort to her alone: important intel.

“FLAMES…SCARLET…SCARLET…FLAMES,” he repeated with the deafening screech of a buffering record player.

The young girl listened intently, making mental notes. She got so much more out of The Prey’s answers than the others did. Lusita was skilled at reconfiguring condensed information. She pulled apart the sounds like wires in her head and downloaded files containing images, visions and stories. Only The Prey could do this: cast four words and mean four thousand, and only Miss Siyakeé could do that: hear four words and interpret four thousand. The seemingly public conversation was really a private one between the two of them, and although The Prey did not let on to Lusita’s presence, he knew it too. She watched, not for the first time, as the nagging words left unheard weighed down on Anora and Teeyo’s brains like pooling water. Tears, sweat and fog made their bodies soggy – it was clear they would not hold out for much longer. Perhaps it was their weakened state that caused them to fail to notice it? The way the tusstra had slowly withdrawn from their host and drifted towards their lady in the same fashion that a cloud breaks apart and scatters along the horizon.

Anora wiped zir slick black fringe off zir forehead – a film-like transition to the next delicate slide. If Miyako was turning the crank to the wooden, handhold projector like Lusita made out, she was truly an excellent director. The girl sadistically sauntered into view like a hot lamp, the tusstra clung to the side of her resembling geckos in humidity.

“A queen is never late, everyone else is simply early,” she said mockingly, scrunching up the folds in her blue gown and curtsying dramatically. Anora wished Lusita would stop making ridiculous references to cultures she obsessed over, but nevertheless ze dismissed it. Anora had other questions. Where did she land? Was she injured? How could she be such an annoying little shit and distract zir like that? The sickness of uncertainty brewed an anger in zir blood. It was further heated by the strength of The Prey’s telepathy, and flowed through Anora like battery acid. Ze felt zir rubbery veins rub against each other and zir muscles started spasming. Anora wasn’t used to being hurt like this; ze solved zir problems almost exclusively with zir fists, and part of zir knew this situation was consequential. Teéyo caught the exact moment zir eyes glazed over and ze wasn’t really there. Lusita eventually noticed Anora’s disassociation as well, after she ceased being visibly fixated with her own image, of course.

“A little man with eyes like wells

Thousands of stories he’s willing to tell

But only you two gather around

Filling the air with pointless sounds…“ Her voice was impossibly high and sickly sweet. It seemed to carve around the spaces in between words and sink on certain syllables. It occurred to Anora that ze’d never heard anyone else sing besides Lusita, so ze had nothing to compare it to, but ze was secretly in love with the sound. For a moment ze felt the pain leave zir. Zir confusion faltered, then zir eyes. Anora was lucidly lethargic. Ze felt breathe on zir, the heavy breathe of someone cooling tea, before toppling into the cup.

“Well you look at that, Nori’s fainted,” Lusita exclaimed. She faked astonishment when in reality she knew it was only a matter of time before the Distinguished Dynastrus gave in. Ze hit the Doom head-on and faced several blasts from the mysterious ‘Prey’.  She went to caress ze’s cheeks but pulled her hand back reflexively as if she had just touched searing metal. Anora had drained zir mental strength, zir final moments of stupefaction and bewilderment radiating from her skin like heat from a spit-roasted beast.

“I would advise keeping your distance, my lady!” Teéyo urged, casting shakily. Lusita immediately blocked his sound waves, and the former felt as if his mind had struck a brick wall when the words ricocheted back into his face. It was a deliberately rude and dismissive gesture, but Lusita already knew what he was going to say. She already knew that upon Anora’s awaken ze would return back to her full strength and no doubt be frustrated by zir own limits. The combination of the two was a recipe for cataclysmal repercussions for anyone within proximity.

“Teéyo,” she addressed, eyeing the monarch with a stare that left no room for negotiations. “Go get Nori some elixir. We may be on the edge of your kingdom but my beacon is closer. Seéran’ll let you in,” Sir Nikureth bathed in the silence following Lady Siyakeé’s words. He felt the salt air nuzzle his cheek, dragging his locks in the direction of the wind as if pulling him towards the decided location. The watchful eye of Seéran flashed past him. A reckless nymph servant with little regard for status or social hierarchy. If unwanted, he would be treated as any old peasant banging barbarically on the hinges of the doorway. Teéyo silently hoped that Lusita’s message did reach him and such a fate would be cancelled out. He often imagined fate as a train meeting many forks in its path, confidently deviating from terminating tracks…

“I suppose my lady would not care for the venture herself?” He cast, the desperation leaking into each word.

“I’m not leaving zir.” She remarked definitively, placing a searing kiss on zir lips.

“But what about…” He turned in distress towards the Prey, but in the man’s place was a stone statue. It was an ugly effigy; caught mid breath it looked as if he was gasping, his eye tired and full of pain. The tusstra were nowhere to be found, it was clear to him that Lusita had discretely called them away.

“It’s their way of preserving their hosts when they are unoccupied. Think of it as him having an off switch.” I wish you had an off switch, he thought to himself but dare not cast let alone say. Lusita smirked knowingly.

“The mechanics of Siyakeé ecosystems never truly made themselves known to me.” He admitted, and before he fully processed what he was doing, Teéyo was already climbing the red mounds. He faltered, and then turned around. Lusita already knew what he was going to say.

“Don’t worry, Niki,” she said in an uncomfortably familiar manner. “I’ll just tell your people that the situation was nothing more than the ramblings of a mad man. The images he cast towards them were clearly nothing more than flashbacks from when he fought in the conflict all those centuries to go. Stupid old man.” She smiled cheekily, and it put Teéyo at ease. At least some things remained undisrupted, cursed to never change. After a deep breath he continued to make his way towards the bridges that bound the 8 individual asteroid kingdoms of Yethika together. Towards the home turf of the Siyakeé bloodline, and towards the unexpected spectacles that awaited him there.

[jsteeleuniverse]

DAILY DRABBLE: ARANEA HIGHWIND

DAILY DRABBLE is an exercise I’m doing. I’m just writing one-shots/short stories in one sitting to see what I can do. My goal is to reach 3-5 pages in Microsoft word per drabble, and to do 1 drabble every single day. On top of this, I am using the word of the day (https://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-day ) to try and boost my vocabulary.

Tools used:  https://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-day http://www.losmedanos.edu/core/documents/OneHundredWaystosaySaid.pdf http://rainymood.com/watch?v=vdPNCYj2MI0

Note: Writing this under a bit of distress. I just found out a family member was killed tonight.

Character: Aranea Highwind Word of the Day: Debilitate (Flamboyant, Nativity, Conciliate, Abeyance, Hortative) Definition: to impair the strength of: enfeeble Start Time: 12:46 AM End Time: 1:52 AM Final Word Count: 2,111 Words

There were still three days of light left. The daemons would certainly rule the endless night once it occurred. It was not only the right, but the necessity for those left alive to defend themselves. Not one was to be without a pistol, a blade, or a means of protecting hearth and home. While the entire world’s populace seemed to converge in Lestallum, Aranea took to the roads bravely on foot most nights. Not only did she hunt the daemons, she confronted them not for gain of materials, but gain of self-assurance that she was mighty enough to brave the unknown. However, not all were as strong as she was. Some individuals were sapped of their strength in one fashion or another. Though their friends did their best to support them, there was no getting around the fact that their impairments were not going to improve. Knowing Ignis to be too proud to truly ask for assistance, Aranea took initiative. She interrupted Ignis’ attempts to navigate the abode provided for him and was welcomed inside by Gladio personally. “You here for somethin’?” The deep-tone of Gladio questioned. “I’m in need of a hunting party. Just need Ignis.” She began. “I’m looking to hunt for some food. Who better to teach me a thing or two about local delicacies?” “Iggy isn’t one to really hunt these days,” Gladio explained. “But if you think you can convince him otherwise…have at it. One less hour of me fussing with him.” With Gladio’s blessing, Aranea searched for Ignis on the ground floor. He’d been sitting in the kitchen, listening to Prompto cling and clang about with different pots and make his third attempt to boil water without over-filling the pot. “A bit heavy on the water, Prompto. You don’t want it to heat longer than the recipe requires.” Ignis scolded lightly. “You want everything to be on time. Dump the water and for goodness sake, measure this time.” “How’d you--?!” Prompto scoffed in annoyance. “Alright, alright. One more shot. Oh, hey Aranea!” The photographer waved at her in glee. Aranea inclined her head his way in greeting. Though her alignment seemed to be in abeyance, she remained friendly enough to greet Prompto as a friend. They’d already been through so much together, it would have been rude of her to do anything less-than. “Prompto, no photos please.” She chuckled. “Ignis is being a backseat chef? I guess every kitchen needs its mother.” “And every family needs its pet dog.” Ignis added in and adjusted his glasses. “We feed Gladio well enough.” He quipped. “I’ll take your word for it, Iggy. I’ll also take you with me because I need your help.” Aranea continued. “There’s been some beasts spotted around town in the daylight hours. I figure if we hunt we can gather some food and the like to make a good few dishes for the townspeople. Take part in some kind of feast to keep spirits high.” Ignis gave it some consideration. Prompto or Gladio were probably better suited…but he did not want them to take further pity upon him either. “Very well,” Ignis accepted and stood. Despite Prompto’s hortative words that followed, Ignis had his mind made up. “I will accompany you and that is that. We will return before the nightfall.” Aranea agreed, “Don’t worry Prompto, he’s in good hands.” She assured him. “I’ll take you to dinner if you let Iggy slide this one time. Is that enough of a conciliation?” “Well…,” Prompto mused. “I have a dinner with Cidney lined up. But maybe I--…” “Rule number one,” Ignis interrupted. “Never tell a woman you have plans. You either accept or you decline.” “But Gladio said to be honest!” Prompto argued. “Of the three of us, which one has the least trouble with women?” Ignis walked along and left Prompto in the kitchen with Aranea. Aranea was both impressed and amused. The three could at times bicker like children but somehow kept their friendship intact. “Good luck at your dinner, Prompto. Make sure you get a goodnight kiss ya hear?” She said with a slight mock of Cidney’s accent before catching up with Ignis. The walk from the home was mostly quiet. Ignis followed the sounds of Aranea’s footsteps on the cobblestone streets. He didn’t have many questions by way of what they were hunting, but he was thankful to get a lungful of fresh air for the time being. Conversation only really started when their feet hit the lush greenery that was starting to wilt further away from the city. No one knew how long vegetation could or would last, but they were braced for the worst. “Are you okay, Ignis?” Aranea asked now that they were out of earshot of any other human being. “You sound the same, but you feel different.” “I’d figure I was a sight for sore eyes.” “Something like that.” “I feel fine. I just need an opportunity to test myself and improve.” Ignis explained. “An impairment is not the end of life. This much is clear. I cannot let it debilitate me.” Aranea admired his inner-strength. For a man who had lost so much, including the place of his nativity, he certainly kept a cooler head than expected. She supposed it was because of his servitude and higher calling in this life. “It won’t. You’ve got me watching your back. I’ll whip you into shape.” She promised as the two traveled on the abandoned roads and grassy paths. Eventually, the pair happened upon a heard of beasts. They were vastly more daemon than animal. The pig-like creatures were vast in number, and brutal for the environment they lived in. They’d done away with vegetation and rotted trees in their presence. It was clear these were not the edible type. “It smells like we’re the clean-up crew.” Ignis stated. “Do you think we are fit for this?” Aranea didn’t give it a second thought. She sprung into combat with her spear guiding her path. Ignis supported her from afar, blazing the masses with flamboyant bursts of flame that tore into their rough hides. The two’s combined effort cleared the weak from the strong, but the struggle continued on. Aranea’s weapon slashed and jabbed into rough hides and parried tusks. Ignis senses kept him trained on her location, and his daggers tore the winds to make the killing blows on the necks of the hogs to swiftly end the confrontation.

Beasts fell under their combined might, but it wasn’t without its injuries. Arenea suffered cuts along her arms and sides from sharp tusks, and Ignis took a ramming headbutt to the back that knocked him onto his front. Instinct took over for Aranea. She fended off the creatures near Ignis and helped him up with her other hand. With her arm around his waist, she sprung high into the air and got several yards distance from the aggravated remains of the heard. There were too many for them to keep fighting alone, for certain. “I can still fight!” Ignis pleaded. “We’ll fight another day. These things are stronger than I thought—..” “I can take a hit, Aranea! I do not need your pity!” “And I don’t need your foolishness! You’re not dying on my watch. We’re retreating.” The two ran from the battle until the hogs became winded and gave up the pursuit. Though once they were within range of the city, they slowed into a walking pace. “I’m sorry I yelled,” Aranea began. “We need everyone. I can’t let you get hurt, Ignis. We need to start things slower.” “Start things slower?” Ignis parroted. “This is to gather supplies. How much slower can it be?” “It’s not just that. I want to help you improve and get better than ever.” Aranea confessed. “Your friends are going to baby you or refuse to take you places that are dangerous. I want you to accompany me, and you will have a judgement-free zone and can start at your pace, not mine.” The offer created dead silence between the two for several moments. Ignis placed his hand on her shoulder to use her as a guide. His hand increased its grip on her shoulder as he allowed himself to lower his defenses. “I accept.” Ignis said with a dash of reluctance in his tone. “We start again tomorrow, then? Somewhere that the beasts are much smaller?” “You got it.” Aranea agreed. She stopped at the town’s gates where they were allowed in by the watchmen. “I may know of a few areas. I’ll pick you up tomorrow afternoon.” “And dinner after?” Ignis added. “I may have plans.” “I assure you these plans are vastly better.” He insisted. “Consider the offer and I’ll cook the meal for you myself. I make an excellent Lasanga Al Forno, you know?” His persistence drew a humored response from Aranea. “I’ll make my choice tomorrow when I see you. For now, try not to make your friends lives a living hell, and go easy on Prompto. He’s a good boy.” “I thought that was Gladio,” He chuckled. “Very well. Tomorrow I will bring my best. Do try and keep up, Aranea.”

The words between the two were light, but after their parting of ways, Aranea could not help but feel a weight fall upon her shoulders. For the day the light returned, the world was going to need Ignis and his friends to be at their absolute best. It was a duty she put upon herself to make sure she could at least lend a small hand in the salvation of her world. Even so, there was no promise everything would work as intended. There was still the possibility of her heart growing found with more time spent teaching and protecting the man who she once opposed in battle. The small tinge of sympathy could at times grow without warning, but even the platonic nature of friendship made the possibility of ‘goodbye’ when it was all done even harder to face. Ignis made his choice long ago, and to honor his bravery Aranea would too face the darkness approaching with vigilance. Three days light remained, and the long road of ten years time until the next dawn felt like an eternity. Day in and day out she spent with Ignis. She trained him, improved his ability to the point he could go out on his own and combat even Iron Giants on his own will. She supervised from afar, but once he was beyond his old self again…her mission was accomplished. In ten years she’d never done more than comfort or spend time with Ignis and his friends. She’d grown older and colder with the years of harsh survival. At times she was forced to leave town for some grand adventure…and when she returned, Ignis was the first one there to greet her. He always stood at the gates, waiting for her to pull into town. This was only friendship, wasn’t it? The question repeated in her mind time after time again. However, the day she dread finally came. Noctis had returned. News of this spread through town like a wildfire. Everyone knew the end of the darkness was near. But even as a dawn was on the horizon for survivors of the night, Aranea saw only darkness. She helped Ignis dress for his big day. She saw him off – but before he parted with her she grabbed his hand. She held it tightly and stared up at him. The connection they shared in the warmth of their hands spoke much louder than words she could ever speak. As she let him go, Ignis gave a knowing nod to her. Whatever ‘this’ was, he felt the same. It was painful to leave like this. Once he set off to meet with Noctis, Aranea waited at the gate. He was gone, and he was never coming back. She felt it in her heart the night that the darkness ended. When the colors of life and light spread over the land, a single bleak figure stood at the gates waiting for a vehicle to drive into town. A vehicle which never came. She was left with the warmth in her hand and the memories of missed opportunities. Fearing attachment only made it stronger, and with that fear preventing progress…she was left feeling empty and lost. Maybe she should have done things differently and with more courage than she had. For the next three days of light she swore she never left that gate. Even when she roamed town and work a mask of happiness, her soul remained waiting. He would return one day.