#sent a picture of it to my classmates who found it very very strange

[actualbird]

Random thought. Pyromaniac Luke. Except he's trying to hide those pyromaniac tendencies and the NXX figured it out on day one because Artem mentioned a problem and Luke immediately went "we could burn it down" "that's a person" "oh"

as a luke kinnie who has pryomaniac tendencies, this ask is the PERFECT TO ME

i love this. i love luke having a probably unhealthy obsession with fire and starting fires. i like to think that this trait would be funniest if it didnt start during his NSB days (which wld seem logical) but INSTEAD began when he was a wee child experimenting with matches and stuff. and oh, mc's parents were horrified at the normally well-behaved lukey setting fire to scraps of paper in their backyard.

luke: isnt it cool?

mc: i dunno, i dont get it

luke, fire reflecting in his eyes uncannily: it's so pretty

mc's parents barging in with a fire extinguisher: NOPE NOPE NOPE

in high school, he probably bought a lighter from a convenience store and mc nearly had a heartattack because she thought he started smoking but no. no, what he was up to was more bizarre. he'd just watch the flame flicker. it was oddly calming to him

when he reached his NSB days, he probably solved a lot of missions with explosives. and it worked, the explosives were Productive At Achieving The Mission's Purpose, but aaron probably found it super weird how gung-ho luke always was at setting things ablaze, especially when luke would linger at sites on fire just to watch things go up in flames.

aaron: when there is a FIRE you are supposed to GET AWAY FROM IT

luke: but it's so nice being around fire :(

aaron: there is something wrong with you that even i cant fix (affectionate)

and now, at the NXX Team. im screaming at luke suggesting to set a PERSON on fire. unhinged. on brand for him. but now that he's re-assimilated into normal society and no longer has access to NSB explosives, he doesnt have an outlet!! the pyromaniac in him is scratching at the walls of his skull!!!

artem, trying to be supportive but also Not down on setting people on fire: why don't we have a team barbecue? you can man the grill

luke, bad at cooking but good at fire: SWEET

the barbecue he grills is rather....charred. but he had fun, and thats what matters to the team

[hooked-on-elvis]

Elvis escaped a crew-length haircut more than once before the army

It is widely known by the fans that one funny story of how Red West saved Elvis from getting his hair cut off by bullies when he was only a teenager attending the Humes High School in Memphis, Tennessee. For those who never heard/read this story before, well.. long story short, Elvis was kind of a misfit in High School because of the way he used to dress different from his mates. "He looked like a sore thumb," said Ronny Trout, a classmate who shared a workbench with Elvis in wood shop in school (as wrote by Peter Guralnick in one of his books on Elvis). While all the guys usually had crew cuts and dressed in jeans, Elvis had this "movie star" look. Apart from the flashy clothes — such as ascot ties and dress pants Presley is said to have worn while attending classes — he also would proudly show off his truck driver sideburns and a duck tail hairstyle around the hallways. Some of the kids in his school just couldn't stand it. Most of them thought Elvis looked weird, possibly they got the impression as if he was cocky or something but more likely they just found him strange, out of place. One day some guys corned Elvis in the bathroom and threatened to cut his hair right off. Red West came in just in time. Even tho they weren't friends yet, that selfless good deed of Red turned Elvis into a, let's say, fan of his. Presley was beyond grateful for the unexpected help. This was before Elvis was, you know, "Elvis". West and Presley became friends after this day, little by little - not immediately, and it turns out that a long, long term friendship between the two came out of that uncanny situation. At a point, Red West became part of Elvis' personal security guard and remained friends with him up until July 1976, a little more than one year previous to Elvis's death in August 1977. Anyway, Red's efforts only postponed Elvis' haircut. Presley actually had to surrender to the crew cut style in March 1958 when he was inducted into the U.S. Army. But did you know before the Army's intervention and after the High School incident, there was another time when Presley's hair almost was chopped off? That was during movie production of "Jailhouse Rock", in 1957.

The still photographs of Elvis wearing the short "Butch" wig were taken on Monday, May 13, 1957. William Tuttle (head of the make-up at MGM Studios) and his department produced very convincing results. This was the first time the wig was ready to be fitted, and the first scene shot using the wig was on May 20, scene 11 - Barber Shop. Elvis is wearing the wardrobe for Scenes 5 & 6 - Courtroom.

Having read the script for Jailhouse Rock, Elvis was fully aware that the storyline called for his character to be sent to prison, and was told by the studio that, to be authentic, he would have to get his hair clipped. Elvis set off a personal appearance tour, prior to reporting to MGM Studios in Hollywood. The short tour commenced on March 28, 1957. The first stop was Chicago, at a press conference at the Saddle and Sirloin Club at the Stockyards Inn that afternoon, when Elvis spoke to the assembled press. When the subject of his haircut for his new picture was raised, he revealed: 'When I get back to Hollywood, I'm gonna have my hair cut. They're gonna cut it down to crew length for this new movie. Personally, I don't care if they cut my hair, I don't think it makes much difference. Because it'll grow out again.'

March 28, 1957. Elvis Presley at a press conference at the Saddle and Sirloin Club at the Stockyards Inn, Chicago, Illinois.

Within a week, MGM Studios and producer, Pandro S. Berman, were swamped with four thousand letter and post-cards from Presley fans begging that the studio let their hero act with his original hair. "Don't Be Cruel - Don't Cut Elvis' hair," they demanded in varying terms. Some threatened to boycott the picture; some said they'd see it anyway because they'd always be loyal to Elvis - but they'd be "All Shook Up." It was decided something had to be done to save Elvis' hair and also alleviate the fans' feelings, so the Studio started to look at alternative ideas with tests quickly set up in the Studio make-up department under the stewardship of William Turtle, head of the make-up at MGM Studios. Elvis revealed the solution to columnist Aline Mosby, 'So now the studio has decided I'll wear a wig, a crew-cut wig, for the prison scenes.' During pre-production, tests were undertakes with the 35mm film camera, to establish any issue. It was realized by Director of Cinematography, Robert J. Bronner, that Elvis' hair required a red tint due to the black and white film. Elvis later confirmed this in an interview once filming had been completed: 'My hair will look the same, except it was reddened because in black-and-white it photographed like a cap instead of hair.'

The fans plea worked good this time but there's the old saying that goes like: "what's meant to be will be".

Elvis Presley gets his hair cut before entering the Army, at Fort Chaffee in Barling, Arkansas. Presley entered the service March 24, 1958 at Fort Chaffee Reception Station. Picture of the 23-year-old rock star and barber Pete Peterson.

On December 10, 1957 Elvis received a letter from the Memphis Draft Board notifying him he was up for the next military draft. Presley's fans, once more, confident that their pleas would be heard just as they were by the Hollywood people, begun sending hundreds of letters to certainly everyone they could find would be helpful on the matter. They begged, "Please, please, do not touch Elvis' hair!" — some of them even felt kinda "suicidal" about Elvis' hair being cut off. One of the fan letters addressed to then U.S. President, read: "Dear President Eisenhower, My girlfriends and I are writing all the way from Montana. We think it's bad enough to send Elvis Presley to the army, but if you cut his sideburns of, we will just die."

NO DEAL WAS MADE THIS TIME. On March 24, 1958 Elvis was inducted into the U.S. Army and finally had to surrender to the crew-haircut. Truth be told, his fresh unfamiliar haircut didn't affect a bit his exquisite beauty - if anything, Presley appealed even worse to his female audience as a soldier.

Well, that's it. There it goes the story of how it took at least three attempts, including one movie and the U.S. government, to finally get that famous sideburns and pompadour out of Elvis' pretty little head.

SOURCE: Excerpts from book "The Making Of Jailhouse Rock" (Book "Movie") by David English and Pål Granlund (2021).

[ilovehimmore]

Hmm~ and now it's awkward.

I've been putting in effort, ya know~ you can't just leave me to dry, with such a dry response, like "thanks", ya know~~~~~

Heyhey~• if I'm putting in effort, I expect ya to do the same~

Hahahahahahahaha! But that's dumb. Look at you. Now look at me. It's so obvious, who's trying to suck up to the other. Oh, it's me! But I never wanted this. I never wanted to force myself, to suck up to you.

But you did it first. You stroked, my poor, delicate ego. And now I'm stuck chasing after you~

Because I started. Now I can't stop, WAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHA!

Oh~ Mr, oh Mr, I love you. You know, I actually drew a comic after you! I called the main character, "Mr Sin". And I made the little kid who was chasing after him a little strange, a little obsessed, just like me! But of course, I don't envision them together, in the end. But Mr Sin looks just like you. Oh, nevermind. That's a real stretch. You look so much more beautiful. But I also wanted to add a Ms Lim~! And another character, who I wanted to name "Ben", but that's Basic and Boring. So I was thinking ummm, hmmm, ok I forgot the name but he's kinda weird and kinda like me too. He enjoys stalking Ms Lim online, finding out all her info, and eventually finds her onlyfans or something. Honestly, Ben wasn't interested in Ms Lim at first. He always had a knack for being able to sense someone's true character immediately after meeting them, and he just thought Ms Lim was an average, boring, gentle, polite woman. But he was intrigued and couldn't process how he was wrong, after getting sent a post from his classmate, Ms Lim in a bikini. And her expression was awfully immodest! He would've never expected her to have such a side hidden within her. So he started the search. He looked up all that he could find, studied her daily habits, and found himself so very infatuated with her. She's so versatile, so dynamic.. she has so much to her. He found her onlyfans, or at least one that resembled her, even without a picture of her in the pfp. But he knew. The bio, he name, the picture and innocent, simple design she chose for her page, that was her. For sure. He started chatting with her from a catfish account, to get the password, then sign up for her onlyfans. He was willing to spend money on her. He was willing to kill his family for her, even. This was an intense longing, from someone who had nothing, from the inside out. He didn't have much, he had a tough childhood full of abuse, and a difficult social life. So he thought he'd seen it all.

But no matter what, he was still a kid.

She came over to his house, without warning, and taught him what the world was really like. What being an adult meant. And no matter how much he'd already gone through, a 10 year old child would've never prepared himself to be assaulted that night.

And so he became her favourite student. He frequently got called to stay back after class, and for a while, he was okay with it. He told himself that he was happy, lucky. That he enjoyed it. After all, even before that night, he was already the highest scorer, her favourite student. The one she dotes on.

But he started failing. He couldn't do it, he couldn't study, he couldn't try anymore. He had planned to see her as his life goal, motivation to get into a top university, and come back as a teacher to become her colleague. And maybe date from there, and marriage is a possibility!

But now, he couldn't do it.

"How could you fail, chemistry lover?"

"because I'm not obsessed with you anymore. And I want to die."

[kcthefirebreathing-bitchqueen]

Sexual Selection

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 coming soon

phdstudent!reader x professor!reid

summary: Reader is a phd student at the college i her city. Her friends convince her to download a dating app for "self proclaimed nerds and geeks," and who does she meet through this site but Spencer Reid. Little does reader know.. she might have to interact with him more than she anticipated.

warnings: small age gap, mentions of childhood bullying, slight social anxiety, i think thats it so far.

A/N: Inspiration struck for this very swiftly and I have not been able to rest until it was out of my brain lol so enjoy.

Seriously WHAT were you doing. A little under a year after a rocky break up, your friends convinced you to download a dating app.

At first you strongly protested due to your severe lack of social skills and crippling fear of messing up socially, being too strange or a "know-it-all", as so many of your classmates called you in grade school. Your friends often described you as "intelligent in the way that makes you just a little socially awkward."

But you should've known that your fellow phd candidate friends would figure out a solution, which they did. You were adding the final touches to your "Zazo" account, a dating app for "self-proclaimed eccentrics" as the website advertised. You filled out a bunch of questions, some surface level but some with more depth. The last thing you had to fill out was a "pet peeve" question, to which you responded "People using improper pipetting techniques in the lab". Which hopefully would lure in the right crowd.

Your issue was that even though you should have known the app would draw in the people slightly on the other side of weird, you were still disappointed to not find people you had any interest in. Almost at the point of admitting defeat, you were swiping through the profiles so swiftly that you almost absentmindedly swiped past "Spencer, 29" whose first picture gave you pause.

He had this shaggy dirty blond hair that hung around his face in loose, relaxed waves that you immediately want to run your fingers through. But his face. He was nothing short of beautiful. You swiped through his picture and were surprised as warmth spread in your chest at his wide toothed grin as he held a puppy.

Good Lord, you thought to yourself, this deserves a superlike. Thats a thing right? You really had no idea. So you just casually indicated your interest, not wanting to be over eager.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You left your phone in the kitchen of your apartment while grinding out a few hundred words toward your thesis paper and came back awhile later to a new notification.

*Zazo*

2 new notifications

Your phone recognized your face and then your heart bottomed out.

-----------------------------------------

You've matched with Spencer ---------------------------- Spencer sent you a message ----------------------------

You stared at it dumbfounded. It was easy to be bold when Spencer didn't know you existed. But now you need to INTERACT with this intimidatingly handsome man. And somehow convince him to find you interesting. There was a reason you saught out a dating interface for essentially weirdos, and you were hoping it was the same way for him.

Spencer Hey! I see you're very passionate about proper pipetting techniques. I think it's so fascinating that roughly 65% of errors in a lab setting can be attributed to human error so its great that young scientists know that and want to improve it. Looks like you're not just a pretty face ;)

This is why you wanted to join a weirdo dating app because you're pretty sure you just found your soulmate.

You Yes! Thank you! Finally, someone who understands! Maybe you and I should stand on soap boxes in the street together and preach about proper lab technique.

Spencer I think I'd like that :) Market St. Saturday 5 pm?

You

See you then ;)

What the hell just happened.

chapter 2

[hacked-by-jake]

Jake gets infuriated when he sees mc (Natasha) is giving more time to one of her college friend (Chris)

She didn’t notice..

Summary: Not enough talk, too many misunderstandings, too fast condemnation, too much jealousy. Too much attention and too much fear. 

Pairing: Jealous!JakexMc (Natasha)

Words: 3,8k

Warnings: Just a little swearing. Jealous Jake. Slightly arrogant Jake. (Fast plot (I'm sorry))

A/n: Thank you very much for your request, I hope you will like it and that it is okay. Otherwise have a nice evening/ day/ night and take care of yourself, stay healthy.

"Yeah, you’re right, class today was really funny, chemistry went a bit wrong, but next time we’ll make it, okay?" you finish the voice memo to your classmate Chris. You just come home from college and poured yourself a glass of water in the kitchen. "Hello MC" Jake greets you while he come out from his study. "Hi babe" you also greet him while you unlock your phone again to listen to Chris' quick response. You hold the phone to your ear and giggles as he says he thought the blue liquid was different than he thought. Jake sits on one of the kitchen chairs and watches you quietly. When you take your phone off your ear, he asks you, "Who are you talking to?" “Just with Chris from my college class, we had a funny accident in chemistry today," you tell him. "Who is Chris?" he asks a little skeptical.

"He’s not from here, he moved here to go to university, his father runs a big computer technology company. I don’t know exactly what the name is, but it’s one of the greatest, really cool, right? You two would probably get along" you excitedly tell him about Chris. He nods briefly for confirmation and you frown, "I don’t think so" he speaks so softly that you can’t understand him properly. "Everything okay?" you ask carefully. "Yes, all right, I have to keep working, okay?" The question was more rhetorical than he already got up to go back to his study. You shrug your shoulders and decide to answer Chris. "Mistakes happen to the best ones," you reassure him giggling, then you complain,"I just can’t chemistry, it doesn’t go into my head. At least you chose blue, I wanted to put the green stuff on it."

The first thing you decide to do is take a little break on the sofa before you start doing your tasks. "What about learning for IT? You said you had problems with one program, I know how to do it, I can help you." Chris suggests, and you like the idea. "That would be incredibly nice of you, I really need help, I just don’t understand this stupid program," you whine. "So I can right now if you have time?" he asks and sounds a little hopeful in his audio. "Sure, today is a good, I don’t have much to do," you confirm with a smile. Chris is really good at this topic, he will be able to help you perfectly. "Okay, how about 4 p.m., in the coffee rainbow?" he suggests, and you agree, "That fits" "Good, see you later."

-

The hacker sits annoyed in front of his 4 screens and stares at the loading bar which reveals how far the update is that he needs for one of his new programs. He stares at his screen in a bad mood that it is a miracle that the screen does not start crying. He bites his jaw tightly and his hands are clenched into fists.

He had heard that you wanted to be helped by someone else. That you’re meeting someone else to get a computer program explained. His father runs an IT company? That’s why you let this Chris help you? Damn it, he’s the best hacker the world has ever seen, and he’s your boyfriend. B-O-Y-F-R-I-E-N-D! He thinks about whether he should dare to check this Chris. But you just shouldn’t find out, otherwise you’d probably be mad at him forever. On the other hand, it’s actually his right to see who you want to meet. After all, Chris could been sent by the government, right? It’s possible they found out where he is and sent someone to arrest him. At one of his other screens, he begins the systematic search for Chris and also for the company.  He decides to take a look at the company first and then the rest. It quickly turns out that the company is a company that creates firewalls for large corporations. He laughs mockingly, he created the best firewall in the world. He’d get into the security system in a few clicks.

He have NYM-OS as a firewall.  NYM-OS is the best security program in the world. If he would sold NYM-OS and made it available to others, all other companies could close.

He would normally not react as extreme as he is now, if it weren’t for days. You’ve been talking to Chris every free second of every day. Even when he and you watch a movie together, he always notices how you consistently take a look at your phone. And as soon as you have a new message, you answer. It’s driving him crazy. And every night you get this 'good night' message, and always with two red hearts, two red hearts! Damn, he’s not a person who cares about emojis at all. He’s the ':)' type, who only uses  '<3' as a heart.

But what if that’s not enough for you? What if you want more, someone using the right emojis? That’s ridiculous, it’s just emojis. Does Chris know you have a boyfriend? Did you tell him about it? Actually, you guys tend to keep it private. Why would anyone care?

But right now, he wants you to tell the whole world. Everyone should know, even if that weren't good, even dumb. But the hacker just has the urgent need that everyone knows is at your side.  A look at the clock in the corner of his screen reveals that it is already half past three.  So in 15 minutes, you’d be going to your meeting.

He decides to wait with the search for Chris until you leave, so that he can concentrate on it. His program is finally finished, so he’s going to do this first.

-

Until you knock on the door 10 minutes later. "I’m meeting with Chris at the Kaffe Rainbow now, okay? He’s helping me out for college" you explain, and you’re smiling at Jake.  He is really so beautiful.  "Okay, which subject?" he asks you casually without turning to you.  "A tool. This doesn’t work right, but it’s important for my subject."  You don’t even seem to notice how much your words hit him, and the openness you tell him about it hurts him. Of course, it’s better than lying to him, but it still hurts him.  "All right," he grumbles and taps annoyed around his keyboard with his fingers.

"Aren’t you saying goodbye to me?" you ask unsure, wondering why he is so dismissive of you. "Of course," he answers quietly and finally turns around.  You bend down to him to give him a kiss but after a second he immediately moves away. "Take care, see you later" he sounds almost disinterested and you notice a prick in your chest. "I love you, my heart" you mumble. "Yes, I love you too, Natasha"

Wow, 'Yes, I love you too?' Yes? Why 'yes'? 'Why is he so dismissive? Did I do something wrong?' you wonder in your head. You decide to talk to him later when you get back, but now you have to go, you don’t want to keep Chris waiting.

The door falls shut and Jake moans loudly and rubs his hands through his face.This fucking jealousy is really terrible! He’s growling, the thought of you going out to meet this Chris guy makes him mad.  His heart is racing and he drops his head backwards against the back of the chair.

This is not normal.

Yeah, that sounds very dramatic. But he swore he’d always protect you and never let you go. You’re the first person he really cares about besides Hannah and Lilly. You are the first person he can imagine sharing his life with, and right now he sees this future in danger. All the attention you’ve paid to Chris over the last few days is making him nervous.

And even worse, he doesn’t know how to deal with it or what to do so that he doesn’t feel so bad about it.

He really would have a lot of means to get rid of Chris, which sounds a lot like Mafia, but that’s not what it mean. He could make a few simple clicks to get Chris to move back to the city he came from. Get him kicked off campus or something. But unfortunately, he swore to himself that he would use his arts and talent exclusively for good and important things. He could never destroy anyone’s future.

He just has to trust you, you would never lie to him or cheat on him. You wouldn’t leave him, you love him, you said it a few minutes ago. But his thoughts seem to really drive him crazy. Scenarios where you’re in the end because of Chris, spitting through his head. How he sees pictures of you on Instagram, how you spend your life with Chris. How you still keep in touch with his sisters, and all those things.

Luckily, it suddenly rings at the door and drives away these horror stories for a short moment.  He jumps up from his chair to escape from the room, which suddenly seems so narrow and small.  He hurries to the front door and with a lot of momentum he opens it. Outside, Hannah stands looking at him in surprise, "Hi," she chuckles as she sees his strange look, "Have you been drinking too much coffee or where does this energy come from? “  "Oh well, Hello Hannah" he greets his sister and makes room to let her in.  "How are you? " she asks lovingly as she closes the door again.  "Yes," he replies, as quickly as the thoughts have gone, they have now returned.  "Huh? Yeah? Jake this is not a real answer to this question" she informs him.

„Oh no, I mean, yeah, all right, and with you? " he goes straight back to his room. Hannah follows him with a skeptical look.  "Ok, something is wrong here! " she notes and folds her arms in front of her chest, waiting for an answer.  "Everything okay, Hannah, really, but what are you doing here? " he quickly distracts and lets himself sink back into the chair.  "I’m here to pick up Natasha, the whole group is meeting at the  Rainbow, where is she? " she inquires. Jake snorts bitterly,  "She forgot your meeting, but don’t worry, she’s already in the rainbow," he explains. „Wow, wow wow, okay. It’s not just 'something' wrong here, Is there a war or what? What happened? Did you have a fight?" worried, she sinks onto the small couch.  Jake have his arms crossed and looks at the ceiling, and turning around on his chair. "Ask Chris when you’re at the cafe," he murmur "he'll tell you, whats going on" "Who is Chris? " Hannah raises an eyebrow in surprise. Her brother grins mockingly,  "Someone from her college. Who really gets a lot of attention"  His sister twists her eyes,  "Now don’t let me ask everything! Just tell me what happened"

In the short version, the hacker tells his half-sister about his problem and what happened the last few days. How he feels and also reveals to her his fear of losing you.

"Watch out" begins Hannah, "Put on your shoes and a jacket and let’s go!" Motivated, Hannah jumps up. "Where?" Jake asks cluelessly.  "Well, you’re coming with me to the rainbow. We’re all meeting, and you’re now with everyone, too. And I’m your sister so you have every right to come along!" "I don’t think it’s a good idea, otherwise Natasha still thinks I’m spying on her" The brown-haired one laughs, "Yes, that’s exactly what we do, so come on," she forces him.  "Hannah I-" he tries, but she raises an index finger to silence him, "No, get dressed! Come along!" "Stop beeing so revenge funny, Natasha is your friend," he reminds his sister.  "Jake, you’re my brother, and even though she’s my friend, I don’t like the way she treats you right now. And I’m not doing anything, we’re just going to have a coffee. Besides, I have every right to be mad because she forgot about us, and I think that’s a shame"

Said and done

5 minutes later, the siblings enter the beautiful coffee. Immediately the large group is noticed, which has to push two tables together each time, so that there is enough space.  "Ah Hannah" shouts Thomas as he discovers his girlfriend.  She takes her brother by the hand to pull him behind her, but his gaze is not on the group, but on you. You’re laughing at a joke he made for you by Chris while he explains to you how exactly the program works. Jake doesn’t like how close you sit next to each other, of course you both have to be able to look at the screen, but that’s extremely close.

-

The call of Thomas for his girlfriend makes you look up from the screen and immediately you meet the neutral, almost cold look of your boyfriend. Surprised, you draw your eyebrows together. You didn’t expect him here. You don’t have a chance to give him a sign like a smile or something, he’s already sitting at the table.  From here, you can’t hear what the others are saying, but when you see the look on Hannah’s face, you suddenly come to remember that you were on a date with the group.  "Can we go on?" Chris asks and pulls you out of your mind,  "Ooh, sure," you mumble. You really have to apologize later.

"What are you doing here?" Richy asks the hacker, "And why is Natasha sitting back there with someone else?""  Before Jake can answer, Hannah takes the job off him, "Natasha is otherwise busy, she forgot about us." "Serious?" Dan asks in amazement and then looks at Jake, "Trouble in paradise?" "Funny Dan. Really funny" Jake hisses and twists his eyes.  "Hey, that was just a joke," the bearded one explains, "I just wanted to say that the guy is weird."  "Did anyone talk to her?" Hannah asks. "No, we were just waving at her, I thought she’d be here soon, but it doesn’t look like it," says Thomas. "Hi guys" Lilly welcomes the round. They’re all here now. While Jake’s second sister takes off her jacket, she asks, "What’s going on here?" She points to you and Chris in the corner.  "We’ve been transferred," Hannah tells her again.

After Lilly sits down, the hacker begins to tell again what the problem is. "And she didn’t realize you weren’t happy about it?" Lilly asks and sounds a little angry.  "No, she doesn’t know," Jake sighs. "I’ll clear this up" the blond-haired woman shrugs her shoulders and gets up.  "No wait" her brother tries to stop her but she doesn’t let herself be disturbed.

You notice Lilly coming towards you with a not enthusiastic look.  "Hello Lilly" you greet her still smiling.  She nods neutral and pulls a chair back that creates an unpleasant squeak on the tiles. "Hi" she calls and looks expecting, "Who is that?" She immediately comes out with her concerns. You are almost swallowing up, "This is Chris, we have some subjects together at college," you explain to her. What’s going on now?

She stretches her hand across the table to Chris, "Hi, I’m Lilly Donfort. A friend of Natasha’s and her boyfriend’s sister," she imagines herself abruptly. Chris even twitches slightly at her sharp tone, "Hi, I’m Chris" responds a bit insecure and shakes her hand. "Haven’t you forgotten something?" explores she further. "Yes, I know, I’m really sorry, I’m just stressed about the subject, the exam is in two days and I don’t understand it yet. Chris offered to help me and I just forgot, "you apologize.  "Why do you let Chris help you? You haven’t forgotten who Jake is, have you?" she says cynically. "He’s mad, isn’t he?" you ask in shame and look away.  "Of course, think about why, and if you’re watching a movie while you’re in his arms, pack up the phone," the blond-haired gasps. You swallow. You did something wrong. "I didn’t want to hurt you," you mumble.

"Oh you didn’t hurt me directly.This with the meeting isn’t so bad. It’s just about Jake" "Wait, so you have a boyfriend?" Chris asks in between.  "Oh, she did," Lilly knocks twice on the table to underline her statement.  "The one who looks over here in between with this death look?" he asks amusingly.  "What’s funny about that?" Lilly pulls up an eyebrow. "Well, he’s trying to kill me with his looks, as jealous as he seems," Chris explains.  "Hey, stop talking so pejoratively about him, okay? He loves me, so he shows," you defend Jake right away.  "It’s okay, I didn’t mean to attack you, but I wonder why you didn’t tell me you had a boyfriend?" "I didn’t think it was important. I mean, why? That has nothing to do with the university?" astonished you look at him. "Well, I thought if we were meeting, you’d be single?"  "Oh no" Lilly chuckles easily, "Here’s a misunderstanding" "Yes, that’s it, I thought there is something between us," Chris shakes his head.

"You have thought wrong," Jake suddenly interrupts you. Without wasting a second, he leans down to you to press his lips on yours.

A goose bump runs over your body, his voice sounds icy and rough. His lips are possessive and the hand in your neck makes sure you can’t leave his lips. But you don’t want it either; this moment should freeze. Each of his kisses is like a piece of heaven.

You get lost in that kiss. Forget everything around you, your thoughts, the people who luckily aren’t too many, Chris, Lilly, the group.

All you feel is your heart racing and your lips tingling. A short moment later, Jake releases you, "I’m sorry for the rudeness" he whispers against your lips.

You smile, "No, I’m sorry, I think we need to talk."

Jake turns his gaze away from you to Chris, but stays close to your face, "I think you can go now" with a mocking grin on your lips. Chris pulls up an eyebrow, "calm down" "Bye" the Hacker growls and waves while Chris puts his laptop in his pocket.  "I’ll see you in class tomorrow," Chris turns back to you. "And next time, maybe you should be careful what chemicals you mix together. Anyone who can read is clearly in advantage," Jake pushes another mockery after him.

Jake sighs and puts his eyes back on you, "I won’t apologize," he immediately clarifies.  "You don’t have to apologize, I guess I was a little too inattentive in the last few days" "Just a little bit" he jokes and sits down on the chair next to yours.  "I should have thought about what I say. And I shouldn’t have ruled you out," you apologize, "and I should have explained to you why I let Chris explain to me how it works, and not from you. l really didn't mean it bad, I just didn’t want to keep you from working.You’re so stressed right now and if I’m honest, Chris' father is also a professor and he teaches my informatics course. And when Chris tells his father that he help me, the father sees that I care. Simple psychology. His father will keep it in mind whether he wants to or not. And honestly, when you explain something, I feel like you’re telling me how to hack the NSA," at the end you chuckle easily.

"Maybe you should talk about it at home. I don’t know if you still want to stay here but I would like to order a coffee now also" Lilly shows to the waitress who stands at the table of the group and writes the orders of the others on a piece of paper.

-

"You know, actually, it wasn’t bad at all what you did," Jake murmurs. You’re lie half on him, your cheek is squeezed together on his chest while he plays with your hair.  "I think I exaggerated, I was too jealous. But you know, I’m a computer nerd, and my girlfriend asks someone else for help with a program on a computer. I know it’s ridiculous, but somehow I felt personally attacked, like that you think he’s better than me. Do you understand?" he asks quietly.  "Yeah, of course I understand, but don't think like that, okay? No one is better than you," you pull with your finger small circles on his chest, "And I would have been jealous too. You know, I like Chris as a friend. I didn’t want you to think I was paying too much attention to him. And the fact that I always answered him immediately doesn't mean anything. I wasn’t just looking at my phone because of him," you assured the hacker.

"And I didn’t think it bothered you that much, if I’d understood it before, I wouldn’t have done it. But I should have thought more, then I would have understood it sooner. We should both talk to each other more openly next time, okay?" you suggest and hold your hand towards him. He nods, "Deal!" he puts his hand in yours then shakes it.  "I just love you way too much to be able to see someone else at your side. I’m just afraid I’m not good enough for you."  "Jake, you’re way too good for me, really. Never think you are not good enough, you are everything and much more, I love you to infinity and beyond." "I love you even more" he whispers, and then turns so that he lies sideways opposite you. He presses his forehead against yours and sighs, "But I still don’t like him"  Before you can make a teasing comment, he’s already pressed his lips on yours.

His jealousy is just to sweet :)

🌹🎭

Masterlist

[cheshiremadd]

Uprooting Bindweed

Ao3

I'd had the idea of Rena and Chat talking about Marinette and Adrien in my WIP folder, and then @galahadwilder posted the perfect prompt on discord to go with it: what if Chat Noir fired Rena Rouge.

Thank you SO much to @alexseanchai and @sweetmeatdale for your feedback! 💜

Speaking of Alex, they came up with the title, because they're amazing like that. Bindweeds are used as "food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species, including the convolvulus hawk moth". With that information and the Bindweed tarot card, I knew a more perfect title would not be found.

-

The Akuma of the Week was searching for Marinette. The fourth time this month, and he was really hoping there was nothing to that. So many targeting the same person not Chloé or Lila seemed strange to him. But that was a worry for another time.

Chat Noir and Rena Rouge had been sent ahead to the bakery (he was very glad that he’d stashed Marinette somewhere else). Rena was to Mirage herself into the designer and play bait, but they had to wait until Ladybug could lure the akuma closer. Five minute timer, and all.

Rena reached her balcony first, and went to the trapdoor without hesitation. Chat figured he’d have to be the one to open it, and had been planning how to go about it without giving away how familiar he was, but Rena had no qualms. His stomach soured at the thought that he wasn’t the only superhero to visit Marinette.

She’d redecorated some since he last was in her room. He wasn’t able to come as often as he wanted, and they typically preferred the open air and view of her balcony when the weather was warm.

Adrien’s modeling photos were still present, but they’d been updated to more recent shoots. On another wall were more candid pictures. Their friends and classmates. People he assumed were Marinette’s family (only some of whom he’d met). Several of Kitty Section. Her and Jagged Stone and Penny Rolling (it still blew his mind that she’s on a first name basis with them). Lots of her and Alya and Nino. Fewer of Adrien.

He knew she had more of Chat than of Adrien. But she kept those on her phone, locked away in a secret folder. Too much chance that someone would see her walls.

One caught his eye, placed directly in the center, the spot of honor. A high res of Chat-him and Ladybug. They’d thrown their arms over each other’s shoulders and snapped half a dozen selfies. It’d been Ladybug’s idea to submit the best of them to the Ladyblog, giving civilian them plausible deniability.

The last wall, above her sewing supplies, held her inspiration boards. One for general inspiration, holding her favorite pieces from her favorite lines (only one of which was a Gabriel piece, he noted with some interest), some fabric squares of different colors and patterns, and scenic pictures from around Paris. The other, he knew, was more specific to whatever she was currently working on. Pinned to it was a handful of dried flowers, a fabric swatch to match each flower, and several sketches.

Chat glanced at Rena, realizing she’d been quiet this whole time. She was staring at Adrien’s modeling photos, the look on her face unreadable. He looked with her. He wondered if there was a specific shoot Marinette favored.

“This must look so strange to you.”

Chat looked back at her, but said nothing. He wasn’t sure what he could say that wouldn’t give away exactly how close he was to Marinette.

“I promise she’s not some weird stalker in love with a celebrity. Well. He is a celebrity and she does have the biggest crush on him.” Um. What? “But they’re actually friends. She didn’t even like him when she first met him. The—the Wall actually started because he wasn’t allowed to hang out very often, and no one could get any candids of him.”

What?!

His shock must have shown on his face. He turned back to ‘the Wall’ in an effort to hide at least some of it.

“You seriously didn’t know?” Rena said. “You’ve got to be, like, one of two people in Paris that doesn’t. I keep flopping on whether Adrien knows or not. One minute it’s like he’s encouraging her feelings, the next he’s going on about how glad he is to have such a good friend.”

Chat tried not to sputter. “How—how does ‘no candids’ turn into—” He gestured at the collage of Adriens.

“None of them were perfect.” Rena said it like she’d heard it a million times. “This photo shows his sincere eyes, but the rest of the face is photoshopped too much to be his real smile. ‘That advertisement had most of his real smile!’ ” She pitched her voice higher in mimicry. “ ‘But they shaved several centimeters off of his waist! Several! He’s skinny but he’s not that skinny can you believe they felt like they needed to change that, Rena?’ Well, she didn’t say Rena, she said my civilian name. I mean—you get it. And, oh, that outfit looks really good on him, it looks like something he’d choose to wear himself, but he looks so tired in that one. I bet that was at the end of that all-day shoot.”

(They didn’t actually shave inches off his waist. They did shave a little, but that wasn’t the point because—) He never realized that Marinette paid so much attention to him. He wanted to deny it. She’d specifically told him that she didn’t have a crush on him. And Marinette hates liars.

But. But she’d been embarrassed, that day. And she was embarrassed around him a lot. Especially when Alya was involved. It’d taken him a long time to notice that, but once he had, he saw it everywhere. And with this new piece of information…it shone a whole different light on many of their interactions.

Chat swallowed. He wasn’t sure what to do with this knowledge. He’d been in love with Ladybug for…for a long time. And Marinette. Marinette was special. Rejecting her was hard enough the first time, but at least he’d known that it’d never work between a superhero and a civilian.

Oh, Kwamis. She had a crush on Chat, too! Adding that event with this new understanding, he realized she never meant to confess to him. She’d probably been about to backtrack, but then her parents interrupted, and it was out of control from there.

What better evidence that someone truly liked you for who you were than falling for you twice and not realizing it?

Rena shuffled a bit, finding other things to poke her nose in, and Chat realized that he’d never responded.

“So, you don’t think it’s creepy that this girl has like twenty pictures of her crush on her walls?” He didn’t think it was creepy. He thought it was endearing. But he was curious what she would say. She’d been interestingly defensive of Marinette.

She snorted. “Hey, if it’s crazy, Adrien’s her same kind of crazy. He’s got more photos of Ladybug on his phone than I do, and that’s saying something.”

His brain came to a complete stop. And then worked overdrive. How the fuck did Rena Rouge know that.

She sighed, picked at her flute, and continued. “I’ve been wondering if she shouldn’t give him up, though. It’s starting to get unhealthy. Ruining her friendships in class.”

His chest tightened and it became hard to breath. Loving him was bad for her. The thought rattled around, but what she said next wiped it all away.

“There’s this girl in class, Lila. She’s an amazing person, done all these things, and has a real chance with Adrien. Marinette can’t let it go. She swore that Lila was lying, then dropped it and now just gives her the cold shoulder. Won’t go to group outings if Lila’s involved. Keeps flaking out. Avoids her completely. Lila’s trying, so hard, to keep the peace, mend bridges, and Marinette just refuses to listen.”

Rena dropped her hands, hitting her thighs, and paced. Agitated.

“It’s jealousy, pure and simple. And if she’s going to be like that, then I just don’t know if I can approve her being in a relationship. Especially with him.”

Chat felt something inside him harden. Gritted his teeth. Considered biting his tongue. He knew who this was. It’s plain as day now, and he’s mildly surprised he didn’t see it before. She’s supposed to be Marinette’s best. friend. And this was how she thought of her?

To be fair, Rena looked torn over this. Chat could see the hurt in her eyes, the worry in her bitten lower lip. The frustration in the creases of her brow. And she was telling all this to Chat, whom she only passingly knew.

But he couldn’t keep the distaste from his face. “Marinette’s right. Lila Rossi is a fucking liar. You think she’s got a real chance with Adrien Agreste? He wouldn’t touch her with my extendable baton. He only does photoshoots with her because clearly no one at Françoise Dupont knows what proper procedures for expulsion are, and that stunt Rossi pulled almost turned into Heroes Day 2.0.” He tugged down one of Adrien’s glamour shots. Marinette’s handwritten and detailed critiques ran along the edges. “From what it sounds like, Agreste would be lucky to date a girl like Marinette.”

Rena stared at Chat, stunned. “What do you know about Lila?”

He let out a short and hard laugh. “Enough. That little interview on the Ladyblog? I doubt there’s a true word in it. I mean, Ladybug’s best friend? I’m Ladybug’s best friend!”

Some of the tension released from her shoulders and she rolled her eyes. “Right. I forgot how jealous you can be, too.”

Chat growled at her. His ears flicked back, low on his head, and his tail whipped through the air agitatedly. “If you’re going to sit here and defend that manipulative bitch then you might as well take that miraculous off right now.”

Rena stepped back into a defensive stance. She was a decent fighter, but he was better. If she refused to give it over peaceably—

Something thumped on the roof. Ladybug. There was still an akuma, and that took priority. They needed to be where Ladybug expected them.

“Mirage, now.” His words were short and clipped. He pounced past her and opened up the window opposite of where the akuma would be coming from. “Follow the plan. We can talk about this later.”

The plan worked out like most of Ladybug’s plans do: perfectly. Chat’d tied the villain up in Marinette’s tarp-roof, presented with a string-of-lights bow and a flourished bow to his Lady to his Lady. She did her thing, tossed the spotted paperclip into the air, and Marinette’s balcony and room put themselves back together. The glamour shot even taped itself back on the wall.

Chat sent Ladybug a look. She gestured in a direction and he nodded. He was pretty sure he knew the roof she meant.

Rena passed by him with wariness, but he paid her no visible attention. She took off with Ladybug in the agreed direction while he turned to the akuma victim. He had a princess to protect.

“Here, let me get you down to street level,” he said. The deakumatized girl seemed hesitant to step into his arms, but relented after seeing no other way down. “Do you remember anything?”

Tears shone in her eyes for a moment, but she swiped at them and tried a smile. It didn’t work. “I—I think I’ll be okay. It’s stupid, I just…let my stress get the better of me.”

He opened his mouth, but she cut him off with a gasp. “Oh, no, Marinette! I didn’t do anything to hurt her, did I?”

“Mlle Dupain-Cheng is fine,” he hurried to reassure her, “but…do you remember why you were after her? Did she do something wrong?”

“No! No. Marinette is lovely; she’s always helping us out in the Garden Club!” The girl paused, ashamed. “I was just feeling overwhelmed and she always seems so put together, she juggles all these responsibilities…I was jealous. Like I said. Stupid.”

“Hey, hey, your feelings are not stupid. Everyone gets stressed and feels like they’re drowning at times. I bet if you asked Marinette about it, she’d say that she always feels like that.”

He remembered himself and what he had to do, and glanced upwards.

“I’m very sorry. I’d usually stay longer and make sure you’re really okay, but I have an urgent something.” He handed her one of the business cards he’d made up. It had information on a number of Akuma support groups. “I can be back in about 30 minutes if you want to wait?”

Her smile turned a little more real. She took a deep, calming breath and let it out slowly. “I think I’ll be okay,” she said again. “I’ll—that’s good advice. Talking to Marinette. Thank you, Chat Noir. For caring.”

He smiled and saluted her, then bounded off. His baton confirmed that Ladybug and Rena were still active a few rooftops over. But then he watched Rena’s signal go out and put on a burst of speed to get there in time. They weren’t on the roof, it turned out, but in the alleyway adjacent to the building.

Ladybug’s eyebrows raised in silent question when she saw him. “Sorry, Bug. This is something that needs to be done.”

Alya looked between the two. Suspicion bloomed and, with it, fear.

Pernicious cat gods, this was going to be awful.

“Alya Césaire.” Chat held his hand out. “The Miraculous. Please.”

She grasped it so hard her knuckles turned white. She took a big gulp of air and said shakily, “This feels final.”

He stared at one of his closest friends, and didn’t let himself waver.

“Your recklessness has put many in danger, including Ladybug and myself. You gave Lila Rossi a platform to speak, to spread her lies. You, who had held a miraculous before, and likely would again. Whom Ladybug had shown a partiality to in interviews and questions. You had every opportunity to check Rossi’s story.”

And, oh, he sounded exactly like his father. That grated.

“In giving her credibility, you opened several of your classmates up to her manipulations. Your best friend warned you about her lies, and you wrote it off as petty jealousy. You tried to write off what I told you as petty jealousy.”

He could kind of see how she’d come to that conclusion, assuming Marinette never told her about that cringe-worthy ice skating date and knowing that she was in love with him. (Alya said ‘crush’. Having this new option to attribute to Mari’s behavior, he knew it was more than that.)

“Furthermore, I can guarantee that at least one terrorist watches your blog. A civilian claimed to be a superhero’s best friend and you broadcast that to the world. What happens when said terrorist decides to use that?”

It was harsh, and damning. But it had to be said. She needed to understand.

Alya looked from him to Ladybug and back, then repeated the motion. “You—you can’t…” Alya’s voice broke. Her eyes settled on Ladybug, who appeared to have turned to stone, she held herself so rigidly. “He can’t do this. Right? You hand out the Miraculous; it’s your decision. Not his!”

Ladybug’s stormy eyes turned to ice. The Ladyblogger realized her mistake and opened her mouth to salvage something, anything, but Ladybug cut her off. “You, of all people, should know that Chat is my equal. He’s right. I should've…but I didn’t…” She shook her head, once. “I stand by his decisions.”

Chat released a breath he hadn’t known he was holding. Alya’s eyes grew bright with tears and she clutched the Fox Miraculous harder. She stared at them, and they stared at her, and she finally dropped it into Chat’s claws.

Ladybug’s hands fluttered in Alya’s direction. She pulled up short, though, unsure if her touch would be welcome.

“This doesn’t make you a bad person, Alya,” she said gently. “You’ve been lied to and manipulated. That’s not your fault. But, as a reporter, it’s important to consider the consequences of distributing information. Just as it is to produce evidence to back your stories.”

Alya’s hand pressed against her mouth, muffled a sob.

Ladybug hesitated, considering, and then spoke again. “You can still be a hero, Alya. Magic, the miraculous, it doesn’t make you into what you aren’t. You make you a hero. And, like I told Chloé, being a hero starts with your everyday life.”

Silence. The only sounds were the girl’s sniffling and the pounding of Chat’s heart. Even the sounds of the city muted. He had to force himself to stay still. Fidgeting felt disrespectful somehow. It was broken by Alya.

“So—so Lila was never your friend?” she asked thickly.

Ladybug’s voice was so gentle, yet cut through what the Ladyblogger had known like a knife. “No.”

Alya nodded. Wiped her eyes and tried to pull herself together. Her short gasps of breath betrayed how upset she was. “I. I think I’ve—” She swallowed. “Got some thinking to do.”

She turned to face the street, straightened her spine, and walked out. Her walk looked a little robotic to Chat, a little too forced to be her normal. She barely made it ten meters before Chat heard Nino call out to her.

Good, he thought, deflating a little. Nino will protect her.

His priority was his Lady.

“Well, it looks like you finally joined me in getting past the time limitation.” His attempt at lightening the mood fell flat even to him.

Ladybug didn’t respond at all. She took a big, shuddering breath.

“Oh, Bug…” Chat was quick to wrap his arms around her, and gently pull her head to rest on his shoulder. He coaxed her into a shuffle-walk until his back met the dirty alley wall, the heel of the hand that still held the Fox necklace rubbing up and down and across her back. “I’m so sorry.”

She shook her head back and forth; his claws tangled further in her hair. He tried not to listen to her quiet tears. He drowned out the sound of Nino and Alya moving on. The cars on the street. Instead he looked for the delicate and distinct sound of an akuma’s wings. She deserved a moment to mourn without worry.

Ladybug took a deep breath.

“You were right.” Her voice sounded wet. “Her blog affects many, and we were probably the only ones she was going to listen to.

“Actions…actions have to have consequences. Alya wasn’t seeing them, and—and maybe we shouldn’t be judge, jury, and executioner, but—the longer this goes on the worse they’ll become.”

Neither of them moved. He continued to find no evil bugs. Or feathers, but they usually went weeks in between Mayura sightings.

A gentle wind blew. They were having a round of good weather. Sunny days that were just warm enough to make the breeze feel perfect. He was hoping it’d hold through the weekend.

Ladybug pulled away to wipe her eyes. He fumbled a folded black handkerchief with green embroidery into her hands and she shot him a grateful, if watery, smile. “Thank you. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

Oh, that just warmed him down to his toes. And emboldened him to push a little more. “Hey, I was wondering, would you mind saying that bit about me being right again? Because I could listen to that all day—”

He internally cheered as his partner huffed out a laugh and rolled her eyes. “Careful, kitty. I can see your head getting bigger by the second.”

She returned fire!

Mission accomplished.

.

That meant it was time to go, he guessed.

.

Chat stood there a moment longer. Contemplative.

“What are you thinking about, minou?”

He turned to her with a small smile, trying to hold it back and mostly failing. She crinkled a smile in return and raised an eyebrow.

“I’m going to get me a girlfriend.”

He said it so resolutely, so surely, so smugly, that she couldn’t help but laugh. “You are, are you?”

He nodded. His smile spread to full blown glee. “If she’ll have me. Rena said something while we waited, and it just made me think. There’s this girl, LB, and fuck is she amazing. She’s been waiting for me for the better part of two years, and I just realized that I’m crushing on her. Hard. I don’t even know when it started.”

He sighed, happy. “I’m going to ask her out. Tomorrow. And pray to the kwamis that she gives me one last chance.”

(Adrien didn’t ask Marinette out the next day, because Alya looked awful and he figured she needed the support. He’d count himself lucky if she didn’t get akumatized over this, and would attribute the entirety of that luck to his princess. He did invite her to lunch the day after that—he’d thought it’d be more difficult than it was, but Alya was already leading Rose off to a quiet corner—where he managed a stuttered and stilted confession. He honestly had no idea how Marinette managed to understand it, but she must have because she gave an enthusiastic “Yes!” and the next thing he knew they were making plans to explore the city together on Saturday.)

-

It's the job of the Black Cat to recognize when something’s not working, and to get rid of it. Destruction is necessary for Creation to truly thrive. And, sometimes, that means destroying what Creation loves. But, sometimes, the thing Creation loves is the vine that's choking her.

(Or enables the vine that’s choking her.)

[corishadowfang]

Forest Child - Original Fiction Big Bang

My piece for @originalfictionbigbang!  I was paired with @cecilsstorycorner, and they created an amazing illustration for the story; visit their blog to check it out!  (Link)

Summary: Nobody goes into the Forest at the edge of town.  People say you’ll go missing if you do--that’s what happened to Mary’s Uncle Ian, after all.  But after briefly entering the Forest on a dare from some friends, she realizes there might be more to it than she thought.

Trigger Warnings: Child abuse as a major story theme; some instances of body horror and general horror elements; brief instance of alcohol-induced anger towards the end.  If you think these will be triggering, then please stay safe and skip this one.

Story is under the cut.  Or, if you’d prefer, you can read it on the Google doc here.

           “Look at this!”

           Mary, much like the other students near her, started at the sudden exclamation.  She’d been drawing, absorbed in trying to get a bird’s wings just right, and hadn’t even noticed one of her classmates excitedly bouncing into the room with something cupped in his hands.  Now the boy proudly presented the item—a small stone—to a group of surprised fifth graders.

           One snorted. “That’s just a rock, Blake. What’d you do, pick it up during recess?”

           “It’s not just a rock,” Blake protested.  “Look closer.”

           Several of her classmates glanced at each other, as if deciding whether or not it was worth risking the embarrassment.  Mary found she didn’t really care much about the risk, and so she leaned forward, squinting a little.  “Is it glowing?”

           Blake beamed. “Yeah!  It’s easier to see if it’s dark.”

           Someone shouted, “Get the lights!”

           The student nearest the door flicked the lights off, and suddenly everyone was crowding closely around Blake and his find.  The rock glowed a very faint purple, the color spreading out across Blake’s hands.

           Mary’s fingers itched to draw, and she scooped her sketchbook into her hands, fumbling for a purple pencil.

           “Where’d you get it?” someone asked.

           “From my brother,” Blake said, and then, in a conspiratorial whisper, “and he found it in the Forest.”

           Mary’s pencil skittered across the page.  “He actually went in?”

           “Uh-huh!  He wouldn’t tell me how far, though.  Said he saw these weird glowing lights and felt like they were drawing him closer.  Before he knew it, he was suddenly standing underneath eerily dark trees, with something moving in the undergrowth.  Ran out of there as soon as he realized!  The stone got caught in his shoe, so he gave it to me.”

           “Right,” said one of their classmates.  “I bet he just painted a rock with glow-in-the-dark paint.”

           “It’s true!”

           Mary asked, “Can I see it?”

           Blake clutched the stone tightly, giving her an almost-suspicious look.  After a few moments he relented, tipping the stone from his hand to hers.

           Mary stared at it for several moments, running a finger over the stone and watching as the purple glow painted the tip.  She scratched at the surface with a fingernail.

           “Hey!”

           “No paint’s coming off,” she said, and gave the stone back to Blake.  “I think it’s real.”

           “See?”

           “I still think you’re lying,” one of their classmates said.  When Blake opened his mouth to retort, she continued, “Or your brother’s lying.  Nobody goes into the Forest.”  She paused, then amended.  “Well, nobody goes into the Forest and comes out.  That’s why people keep disappearing around town, right?”

           Blake opened his mouth, closed it, and then frowned thoughtfully.  “Well,” he said slowly, “there’s one way to find out.”

           A few moments of silence passed before someone hissed, “Dude, seriously?”

           “You can’t really be thinking about going into the Forest, right?”

           “If you go missing, do I get your stuff?”

           “I’m serious,” Blake said.  “I mean, come on!  Hasn’t everyone thought about going in there at some point?  You guys are just scared.”

           Mary’s breath caught, and she clutched her sketchbook to her chest.  The town was filled with stories of the Forest, most of them some degree of frightening, but the ones she most remembered were the ones told by her Uncle Ian, a man she mostly remembered for his soothing voice and exciting tales.

           “Sometimes it just looks like a normal forest—maybe a little darker than average, but nothing out of the ordinary.  But then—then you see these things at the edges.  Great big, monstrous things that look like they’d tower over the trees if they stood upright.  Birds with too many eyes, covered in glowing feathers.  Things that might’ve been deer, at one point, but are so covered in moss and vines that they look more plant than animal.  And the lights—those are what get you.  Bright colored things that hop and bob and mesmerize anyone who stops to look.  If you’re not careful, they can lead you into the woods without noticing.  And then—bam!  You’re trapped there.  You become part of the Forest.”

           “Is it real?”

           “Well, see, lots of people around town don’t think it’s real.  They think someone’s inside the Forest, doing something to make all those people disappear.  But you and I?  We know better.”

           Before she really had time to consider what she was saying, she breathed, “Can I go, too?”

           The class went quiet. “You?” one of her classmates asked. “Isn’t your dad, like, really strict?”

           “I-I—well.  We don’t have to tell him!”

           “Getting rebellious, huh?”

           “I-I’m not!  I just—I just don’t want to worry him, that’s all.”

           Blake snorted. “Sure,” he said, “you can come.  Anyone can come.  We’ll go to the Forest this Saturday around lunch.  Anyone who’s not a chicken can meet up there.”

           The lights flicked on.

           Everyone whipped towards the front of the room.

           Their teacher watched them with a skeptical look.  “So,” she said dryly, “I hate to interrupt your weekend plans, but I have a class to teach.  And besides that, none of you are allowed to go anywhere near the Forest unsupervised.  It’s dangerous.  I’m sure your parents have all told you this already.”  She gave Mary a pointed look.

           Mary shrank in her seat.

           Blake tried, “But we just—”

           “No buts,” their teacher interrupted.  “If I hear any more of this, I’ll have to inform your parents.  Clear?”

           Mary caught her breath, and found herself blurting, “Please don’t.”

           Someone murmured, “Knew she’d back out.”

           Mary flushed.

           Her teacher just gave her a long, tired look that, if Mary stared at it long enough, might’ve been read as sympathetic.  Then she said, “Pull out the homework from last night.”

           Class passed in the usual manner, but Mary found her mind drifting, a nervous, fearful excitement bubbling in her chest at the thought of stepping foot in the Forest.  No one’s ever gone too far in, she thought.  Nobody’s come back to talk about what’s in there.  What if I’m the first?  It could be like—like an adventure!  I could draw pictures of all the strange things in there, and people would talk about it forever.

           Maybe it’d help stop people from disappearing, too.  Like Ian did.

           The intercom came on, startling Mary out of her thoughts.  “Good afternoon.  Baseball practice has been cancelled tonight due to rain…”

           The rush of students shoving things in their desks and packing their backpacks overrode the sound of the intercom.  Their teacher shouted, “Wait until announcements are over!” to very little success.

           Mary sat at her desk silently.  She closed her sketchbook, slowly, ignoring the nervous tension ticking through her shoulders.

           The announcements ended with, “Teachers may now dismiss their students.”

           “Now you can go,” their teacher said.  “And Mary?”

           Mary looked up at her.

           Her teacher sighed, looking resigned.  “You know the drill.”

           Mary nodded, tugging her backpack on.

           “Sucks to be you,” someone said.

           Another shouted, “See you later, Mary!”

           Blake said, “Saturday, if you still want to come.”

           Mary gave him a weak smile, but didn’t dare reply with her teacher still watching.

           The school emptied and went quiet.  Mary walked slowly to the office.  She hated this part; hated the waiting, hated that she couldn’t go and play with her friends after school, hated the tension that built in her chest as she sat in those hard plastic chairs.  But she knew Papa wanted to check on her grades, and make sure she made it home safely, and that he was really just worried about her wellbeing, and so she tolerated it, settling into one of the chairs to wait.  She didn’t know what to draw, this time, but the conversation about the Forest was still buzzing through her skull, and so she found herself playing with one of her bird sketches, adding eyes and strange, curling plants.

           Her homeroom teacher showed up a few minutes later, looking as tired and disgruntled as always. Mary gave her a weak smile and went quickly back to drawing.

           The entryway doors opened.

           Mary’s shoulders rose, just a little.

           Papa looked intimidating, sometimes; she didn’t know if he meant to be, but he always had this serious, stern look on his face that made her wonder if she’d done something bad. He studied her carefully for a few moments and, seemingly satisfied with his findings, turned towards the teacher. “How was she today?”

           Her teacher flattened her lips.  “She was fine, Rick.  As usual.” Her teacher seemed to hesitate a moment, and then continued, “She talked about going to visit the Forest with some friends—”

           Mary sent her a panicked look.

           “—but I put a stop to that and explained why it wouldn’t be a good idea.”

           Papa said nothing, but he did turn, slowly, to look at Mary.

           She couldn’t quite meet his eyes.  “I-I didn’t—we weren’t really going to—it’s just, Blake’s brother found this rock, and—”

           “Thank you,” Papa said, curtly, and it took Mary a moment to realize he was talking to the teacher and not her.  “I’ll make sure she understands not to go there.”  He reached for Mary’s arm, grabbing it tightly as she tried not to flinch backwards.  “Come on,” he said, dragging her to her feet.  “It’s time to go home.”

           “Rick,” Mary’s teacher called.

           Papa paused.

           “I don’t think these meetings are necessary anymore.  Ian disappeared years ago.  Mary hardly seems to remember it.  It certainly hasn’t affected her grades or performance.  What might affect her is being unable to spend time with friends outside of school.”

           Papa didn’t answer for several long moments.  “Thank you for the input,” he said, “but I’d like to keep up with this, for now.”

           Mary’s teacher made a disgruntled noise.  “I agreed to this as your friend, and out of concern for both of you, but Rick—I understand you’re still grieving, but you have to move on—”

           “I’m fine,” Papa said, “and my daughter’s fine.  We’ll keep up the meetings.”  And then he was dragging Mary, again, out of the school and to the car.

           Their town wasn’t particularly large; it had a few small convenience stores, the school, a gas station and a diner.  Beyond the edge sat the Forest, equally small, but strangely separate from everything. Mary tried not to look at it, slipping her sketchbook slowly into her backpack.  Papa didn’t say anything to her, but she could see the furrow of his eyebrows in the rearview mirror, and so she turned her head to look, firmly, out the window, and tried hard not to think about the pit in her stomach.

           They pulled into the driveway too quickly, and Mary fiddled with her seatbelt, unbuckling it slowly.

           Papa stepped out of the driver’s seat and slammed the door.

           Mary flinched.  She found herself caught between moving quicker and dawdling.

           Papa decided for her, opening her door roughly and catching her arm; she’d just barely gotten free of the seatbelt when he dragged her free, corralling her up the stairs and into the house.

           It was very quiet, for a while.  Papa turned to look at her slowly, expression downturned, and Mary found herself desperately trying to fill the space.  “Papa, I—”

           “What have I told you?” Papa’s voice was low, rough, just on the edge of angry.  “You don’t go to that Forest.  You don’t even think about going.  You understand?”

           Papa’s grip was too tight around her arm.  She pressed on his hand a little, trying, “Papa—”

           Papa grabbed her other arm, his hands still too tight, and shook her roughly.  “Do you understand?”

           Mary swallowed and nodded.

           “This is for your own safety.  That Forest is dangerous.”

           “I-I know, Papa.”

           “You’d best remember it.” Papa let go, finally.

           Mary didn’t rub at the handprints on her arms, instead holding her hands tightly at her side. Papa liked to keep her in his sight—wanted to make sure she never got into trouble—and she knew, if he was already mad, it’d be a bad idea to leave before she was dismissed.

           His eyes softened, just a little, and the tension eased out of Mary’s shoulders.  “Go change out of your school clothes,” he said, “then come down for dinner.”

           She nodded, then hurtled down the hall to her room.

                                                             ~*~

             -Mary almost considered not going to the Forest on Saturday. Almost.

           She didn’t want to make Papa worried—or get scolded again—but the Forest was still a fascinating subject, filled with mysteries she was aching to solve.  Something inside her tugged her towards the tree line, and a part of her desperately wanted to follow that pull, even if it meant getting in trouble with Papa.

           But she couldn’t just walk out the front door.  She’d have to sneak out; Papa didn’t like her going anywhere without him.

           She worried her lip, debating.  He usually likes to come and check on me if I’ve been in my room for a while.  Her door didn’t have a lock, so she couldn’t keep him out.  Her eyes darted to her dresser.  She slid off the bed, opening a drawer and pulling out some clothes. She shoved them underneath her comforter, arranging them as best she could to make it look like she was just sleeping underneath.  It didn’t look much like her, but she hoped it would be enough that Papa wouldn’t notice she’d slipped out.

           She hesitated before moving to her window.  If I do this, she thought, then I’ll be disobeying Papa.  If he finds out, I’ll get in a lot of trouble.  She glanced nervously at the door.  He doesn’t have to know, she decided.  I won’t be in the Forest that long. Just long enough to try and see something cool.

           Mary gripped the bottom of her window and worked it open.  It made barely a sound, and she hesitated for just a moment longer, glancing uncertainly at the door.  Then she grabbed her sketchbook and a pencil and slipped out the window.

           Her feet hit the ground with a quiet thump.  She stood there, eyes screwed shut, half waiting for someone to come by and yell at her. When they didn’t, she opened her eyes a little.

           She was outside. She was outside, and Papa didn’t know, and no one was saying anything.

           Mary just suppressed a giddy laugh, her shoulders shaking a little.  She was out!  She was going to the Forest!  She was going to see things no one had seen before!

           She just barely remembered to pull her window closed before darting away, sock feet slapping against the ground as she hurried towards the edge of town.

           The other kids were waiting there already, hovering near the tree line.  Mary lifted her free arm to wave, shouting, “Hey!  Hey, wait for me!”            

           “We didn’t think you’d show up,” one of the kids said—Henry, she thought.

           “Of course I was coming,” Mary said, skidding to a halt, lifting her chin and trying not to show her nervousness.  “I want to see what’s in there, too!”

           Blake snorted and turned towards the Forest.  “So,” he said, “who’s going in first?”

           All of them swiveled to stare into the darkness between the trees.  They remained very quiet, and in the silence, Mary strained her ears, trying to see if she could hear something from within the trees.  She caught no birdsong, no rustling of the undergrowth—nothing.

           “I think Blake should go,” someone said.

           “What?” Blake protested. “Why me?”

           “Because it was your idea.  What, too scared to go in now?”

           “I am not!  I just—I just think someone else should have the chance.  You know, since I already have that cool stone.”

           “Don’t be such a baby—”

           “I’ll go.”

           Mary hadn’t even entirely realized she’d spoken until the group turned to look at her.  She clutched her sketchbook a little closer.  “I’ll go,” she repeated, more firmly this time.

           Blake recovered first, looking at the other kids and saying, “Hear that?  She’ll go.”  He turned to give her a scrutinizing look.  “So?”

           Mary turned back to the Forest.  For a moment, it felt like it was just her and the trees, the group of students fading to background noise behind her.  A breeze stirred the leaves and ruffled her clothes.  The darkness stretched in front of her, deep and thick enough that she wondered if she’d feel it when she stepped inside.

           Mary took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and took a step forward.  Then another.  Then another. She hesitantly stretched out a hand, and didn’t stop walking until her palm brushed rough bark.

           Her hand rested against a normal-looking tree, the bark chipped and peeling away, a couple of bugs skittering out of holes in the wood.

           Mary’s shoulders relaxed marginally.  She turned back to the others, who were still watching warily from the Forest’s edge. “Come on!”  She hurried into the trees.

           The darkness deepened, and she slowed a little.  She wondered if the trees were the ones blocking out the sunlight; she squinted at the tree tops, but couldn’t see well enough to tell.  The darkness made her shiver, but she stuffed it down, calling, “Hey, why do you think there aren’t any animals here?”

           “Don’t know,” Blake said, closer to her ear than she’d expected.  She yelped and jumped, scrambling to keep her sketchbook from falling. Blake snorted; in the dim lighting, she could just barely make out a dryly amused expression.  “But we need to find something cool.”  He moved towards one of the trees, feeling around the trunk curiously.

           “Isn’t coming in here enough?” one of the kids asked.  “I mean, we all did it, right?  It’ll be something to talk about at school.”

           “No,” Blake insisted. “I want to find something else like my stone.”  He reached up and tugged on a branch.  It came free with a crack, and he stumbled, almost falling off the root he was standing on. “See anything weird about this?”

           The kid leaned forward. “Dude, it’s just a normal branch.”

           He tossed it aside. “There has to be something.”

           The bushes rustled.

           Mary jumped, whipping towards it.  The leaves shifted, and for a moment, Mary thought she could see a flash of eyes. “Um.  Guys?”

           Blake and the others didn’t pay attention to her, moving towards some ferns and cautiously shifting through them.

           The bushes rustled again. Hesitantly, Mary inched towards them.

           The thing inside them moved.  It flicked its attention to her, and for a moment, the creature seemed to glow, two sets of eyes blinking up at her.

           Mary started backwards.

           The thing disappeared into the undergrowth.

           Mary braced herself against a tree.

           A branch creaked overhead, and something whispered through Mary’s ears, more impression than sound, almost forming words that sounded like, What is it?

           The whisper echoed with the rustling of another bush, with a brief flutter of bird wings overhead, or with the quiet creek of the trees:

           What is it?

           What is it?

           What is it?

           “Guys,” Mary asked, voice sounding unusually loud, “are you the ones saying that?”

           “What are you talking about?  Hey, do you think this leaf is glowing, or am I just imagining things?”

           Humans, the whisper voice said again.

           Humans.

           Humans, danger.

           Breaking, breaking, breaking—

           Something landed overhead.

           Mary whipped towards it, stumbling away from the tree.

           A faintly-glowing bird perched on a branch.  Flowers wove through its feathers and gathered on its back, leaves raising like plumes on its head.  Its glowing eyes flickered as it leaned closer.  It opened its beak, and the whisper-voice pressed, more insistent, into her mind, words a flurry of quiet trills and a ruffling of feathers: I know you.

           Mary’s mouth opened and closed several times as she stared at the bird.  It took her a moment to realize there had been confusion in the voice—the bird’s voice?—and that made her still.

           A sharp crack sounded behind her.  Blake yelped in alarm, then shouted, “Nope!  That won’t work!”

           The bird whipped towards the noise almost as quickly as Mary did.  It let out an ear-splitting screech, and Mary rushed to cover her ears. The bird took flight, swooping low over the others’ heads, nearly brushing Blake’s hair.

           A low rumble went through the Forest, shaking the ground.  The trees suddenly seemed like they were leaning in, closer, closer, pressing until the branches dipped too low.  The whole Forest suddenly came alive with noise, and between the rustling leaves, the buzzing, the hoof beats, Mary could barely make out something that sounded like words:

           Breaking breaking breaking get out stop breaking leave go leave leave leave—

           “What is that?” someone whispered.

           Another turned and sprinted out of the Forest.

           Blake didn’t move right away, standing frozen, staring blankly into the trees.

           “Blake,” Mary hissed, starting towards him.

           Something split from the shadows.  It reared, dark, above Blake.  Glowing patches seemed to ripple across its back, and its mouth stretched just a little too wide as it roared.

           The sound shook Mary, and for a moment she wanted to clamp her hands over her ears, the pressure beating deep inside her mind.  Her legs shook and she wondered, very suddenly, if she should’ve snuck out at all.

           Blake seemed to break out of his stupor finally.  He screamed, sprinting away from the strange, shadowy beast.

           Mary’s legs moved without her conscious input; she turned and followed Blake, hurrying out of the Forest and breaking into the sunlight.  She stumbled, then fell, losing her sketchbook upon impact.  Her palms scraped the ground, tearing up grass and dirt. She scrambled back to her feet, and then started running again, and kept running until she could scramble back into her room’s window.

                                                             ~*~

             -Mary couldn’t get what she’d heard in the Forest out of her head.  The rest of the day, she wandered around in a daze, a part of her half-focused on the creatures that had emerged to terrify her and her classmates, the rest focused on the strange words.

           I know you.

           “You’re distracted,” Papa said, and it started her out of her thoughts.

           “I-I’m fine, Papa!” she said, forcing a grin.

           “You should be focused on finishing your homework,” he said.  His scowl deepened, and he said, “You should have finished that Friday night.  Or earlier today, when you were in your room.”

           “I-I know, Papa.” She leaned over the paper, but her mind drifted.  She found it hard to focus on math equations when her mind still pounded with the words, over and over again.  I know you, I know you, I know you—

           “Papa,” she asked before she could think better of it, “what happened when Uncle Ian disappeared?”

           Papa stiffened.

           “I-I just—did he disappear because, um—”  Because something in the Forest spoke to him? she wanted to ask, but couldn’t quite get the words to form.

           “I’m not going to talk about him,” Papa said, voice harsh.

           “I-I, I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean to—”  She trailed off.  “I just wanted to know.”

           Papa was silent for a long moment.  “Go finish your homework in your room.”

           Mary knew better than to argue.  She just nodded, scooping up her papers and scampering to her room.

           She knew Papa would check on her, eventually, to find out whether or not she’d actually finished her homework.  She tried to do it, but her attention kept slipping, flicking back to the window and the Forest, not quite visible, beyond.

           She didn’t want to go back to the Forest.  Not really. She was still curious about what was inside, but her adventure with her classmates had given her a scare.  But—

           (I know you.)

           I left my sketchbook there, she thought.  I should go back and get that, at least.

           She didn’t acknowledge what would happen if Papa came to check on her and she wasn’t there.  She just slid out her window, hurrying across the town in bare feet, trying not to worry too much about how dark it had gotten.

           The Forest was just as dark and silent as always.  She noticed a dark shape, pages fluttering a little, on the slope.

           Mary hesitantly lifted her sketchbook.  It’d sustained some wear and tear, the pages covered in dirt, the cover torn a little bit. Mary brushed off what she could, fingers gently running over the pages.  She clutched it to her chest.  I should get back, she thought, before Papa notices that I’m gone.

           The Forest loomed in front of her, dark and imposing.

           (I know you.)

           Mary bit her lip. She shifted a little on her toes, glancing furtively down the hill.  After a few long, agonizing moments, she took a few cautious steps towards the tree line. “Hello?” she asked, her voice coming out as more of a squeak.  She cleared her throat, then tried again: “Hello?  Is, um.  Is anyone there?”

           The trees creaked ominously, but nothing answered.

           Mary fiddled with the edge of her sketchbook.  Maybe whatever it was is mad, she thought, because we were breaking things.

           After a few moments of debate, Mary murmured, “I’m sorry for breaking things.  I won’t do it again.  I just had a question.”

           For a few moments, she didn’t think anything would answer.  Then a low breeze stirred, and with it, a quiet, almost imperceptible murmur: Human human human back danger back they’re back they’re back.

           “Why are you here?”

           Mary jumped, whipping around, trying to figure out where the voice had come from.  It didn’t sound entirely human; it felt almost as if the words had been pressed into her mind, formed between the low wind and the steady creaking of the trees.  “Who are you? Are you that bird?”

           The breeze picked up. Something flickered between the trees.  “I have been called many things by many humans,” came the voice again, making Mary’s head ache faintly.  “You would not understand most of them.  Your people do not have a name for me.”

           “Are—are you the Forest?”

           The Forest didn’t answer.

           Mary caught her voice. “You can talk,” she breathed.  “Have you ever talked to anyone before?  Nobody’s ever said anything about that!”  She took a half-step forward, suddenly excited.  “Is it because of magic?  Can you—”

           The wind picked up, blowing past her so strongly that it almost knocked her back.  Something growled from the shadows.  Danger, a cacophony of voices seemed to whisper.  Breaking breaking breaking—

           “I-I—”  Mary’s voice caught in her throat, and she backed up a little, not quite leaving the edge of the trees.  “I’m sorry.  I d-didn’t mean—I won’t do it again.”

           “Humans say many things,” the Forest said, “and rarely do they mean them.”  The murmur quieted, fading to low chittering sounds, then silence.

           Mary’s shoulders hunched a little, and she couldn’t help the guilt that bubbled in her chest.  “I just had a question,” she murmured, “about something you said.”

           The Forest didn’t speak, but she thought she might have heard the fluttering of wingbeats overhead.

           Mary steeled herself and said, “Y-you—you said you knew me.  B-but I’ve never been here.  How?”

           The Forest was silent so long that she didn’t think she’d get an answer.  “I don’t know,” came the quiet response, like a whisper of a bug against her ear.

           “Oh.”  It was almost disappointing, and she felt a little silly for even trying to ask.  “Okay.” She took a couple steps backwards. “I guess—that’s all I wanted to ask.” She started to leave, then paused. “I—I really am sorry.  We just wanted to see if what we’d heard was true.  Honest.”

           The Forest didn’t respond this time.

           Guilt flickered in her chest for a moment.  I wouldn’t like it much, she thought, if someone hurt me.

           (Papa never apologizes.)

           The guilt solidified into something a little more solid and actionable.  She squared her shoulders and, an idea forming in her mind, made her way back to town.

                                                             ~*~

             -Mary stood outside the Forest with her backpack slung over her shoulder, decked in her overalls and heavy boots and her coat. Papa hadn’t noticed her sneak out the window, and she hoped he wouldn’t come looking for her just yet.  I won’t be long, she thought.  I just need to do this.

           The Forest was very, very quiet.  Mary squinted, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t see more than a few feet into the trees.  “Um. Hello?”

           She waited a little while for a response, but when she didn’t get one, she let the backpack slip to the ground.  She unzipped it and pulled out one of several water bottles, hesitating at the Forest’s edge. “Um.  Is it okay if I come in?”  When the Forest didn’t answer, she took a deep breath, and stepped forward.

           Darkness shrouded her, and she blinked.  The dim lighting made it difficult to see, but one hand reached out to brush the trunk of a nearby tree.  She twisted the cap off the water bottle, opening it with a quiet crack.  She poured the water onto the roots of the tree, humming a quiet song to herself as she tried to look further into the woods.

           Something rustled behind her.  She jumped, then held her breath, but nothing moved again.

           She finished pouring the water and darted back into the sunlight.  Her chest rattled with a few deep, shaky breaths.  After a few moments she bent, grabbing the next water bottle and hurrying into the Forest.

           She’d made it through three bottles and was well onto the fourth when that same strange impression of a voice asked, “What are you doing?”

           Mary was so startled that she lost her hold on the water bottle.  She tumbled backwards with a quiet oomph!

           Things stirred inside the trees; vague shapes she couldn’t identify, tall gangly things that looked like they were bent out of shape, the gleam of eyes that were clustered too close together for comfort, the twitching of tree branches that seemed to move all on their own.

           Mary took a shuddering breath.  Her hands shook a little, but she managed to keep her voice steady as she said, “Watering you.”

           She didn’t think she was going to get a response for a moment.  Then the voice came again, brushing around her like a breeze: “Why?”

           “Be-because! Um.  Because I want to make up for the other day.”  She stood and brushed off her overalls.  The bottle was empty, now, so she stuck it underneath her arm and listened to it crinkle.

           “I did not require reparations,” the Forest said, in the hurried footsteps of animals, in the quiet whisper of the leaves.

           “Oh.”  Mary bit her lip.  “Well, I’m going to keep watering you, anyways.  Is that okay?”

           The Forest didn’t answer.

           Mary nodded decisively. “Okay.  I’m going to get more water.  Um, please don’t do anything to me?”  She started back towards the Forest’s entrance, then paused. “Oh!  Um, by the way.  My name’s Mary.”

                                                             ~*~

             -It became a routine, of sorts.

           Mary didn’t know how much she owed the Forest—wasn’t sure if she’d repaid it after giving it a few water bottles—and so made a game out of bringing it things she thought it might be able to use.  She planted some seeds, near the edge; stole bird food out of the feeder; brought table scraps for some of the animals.  She made sure to stay close to the Forest’s edges, always wary of going too far.  (Of going missing, and of no one coming to find her.  She wondered if Papa would grieve like he did for Ian.  She wondered what that would look like, with no one else around.)

           It was fun, almost; it felt like she was getting away with something exciting and new. Papa would pick her up after school, and she’d wait a while, then duck out the window and run to the Forest, some new item stuck in her bag, ready to see if it was something that it would like.

           The Forest didn’t really say anything, but that was alright; Mary had plenty of words for the both of them, and would often talk to herself—as much to keep her nerves down as to explain things.

           “Kevin said he could fit three whole golf balls in his mouth, but I know he’s lying because his mom would yell at him for putting even one in.”

           “I found a feather today! I think it was from a blue jay, but I didn’t see the bird.  See, see, I put it in my hair.”

           “Kathrine says that you can keep frogs as pets.  I want one, but Papa says that we can’t have pets.”

           A breeze brushed across the back of her neck.  “Why do you keep coming back?”

           She stiffened, her hands twisted in the grass as she tried to plant some flower seeds.  “Huh?”

           Lights blinked faintly in the darkness.  Something moved a little, still too coated in shadow to accurately make out.  “Most humans stay away.  Why do you return?”

           Mary fidgeted with her pants.  She rocked back on her heels, careful not to sit.  “Do you not want me to?”

           A long, long pause, before the Forest answered, “You do not do harm.  You can stay.”

           Mary grinned, and surprised herself with her excitement when she chirped, “Okay!”

           An animal (a deer?) started, jumping away into the undergrowth.  A couple of birds took flight, letting out odd, tinny cries. “But you did not answer.  Why do you return?”

           “O-oh.  Um.”  She worried her lip, suddenly feeling very much like she had done something wrong, somewhere, and couldn’t quite figure out what it was.  “Well.  It’s. Um.”  She shrugged, looking at her feet.  “I just want to,” she finished quietly.

           When the Forest didn’t respond, she hurried to say, “Um!  I like—I think you’re very cool!  And, uh, and I still owe you for—for what happened.  And—and you listen.”  She trailed off, hands wrapped around her legs.

           For a few moments, nothing moved.  Mary wondered if she should start heading back; time always moved strangely in the Forest, and she found she could end up staying here for hours instead of minutes, if she wasn’t careful.  (Papa had almost caught her climbing in her window, once, and she’d sat on her bed frozen, expecting to be scolded, or to find her window locked from the outside, or—

           Papa had never said anything, but she hadn’t gone out for a few days, to be safe.)

           A bright glow caught her attention.

           One of the strange birds had hopped down from its perch.  It ruffled its feathers, bouncing closer, head tilted towards one side.

           Mary caught her breath and held it.

           The bird moved just a little bit closer.

           Mary, hesitantly, reached out to pet it.

           Its feathers were unusually soft—softer even than the blankets that were piled on the couch at home. Up close, she could tell that the bird had what looked like flowers twined through its down, long stems twirling round and round its body.  Mary fingered one of them, but didn’t pull, gently running one thumb over a petal. “I need my sketchbook,” she breathed, and got up so quickly that she startled the bird into flight.  “Um!  I’ll be back!”

           Her cheeks ached from grinning as she sprinted down the slope.

                                                          ~*~

             -“Hey, Mary, I’m having a birthday party this weekend,” Helen said, coming up to her with a grin.

           “A birthday party?”

           “Yeah!  You should come.”

           Mary’s grin faltered a little.  “Oh. Um.  Papa doesn’t usually like me going places without him.”  But I go to the Forest, don’t I?  She tried not to think about Blake or the others, sitting not that far from her. “But maybe I can ask!”

           Helen nodded, appeased, and Mary tried to ignore the nervous excitement buzzing in her stomach. Maybe Papa could come, she thought.  Then he wouldn’t have to worry, and I could still go and hang out with my friends.

           When Papa came to pick her up after school, she asked, “Hey, Papa?  Helen’s having a birthday party this weekend.”

           “I’m sure she’ll enjoy that.”

           “She invited me to come. Can I go?”

           Papa studied her for several long, agonizing moments.  “You’ll have homework to do,” he said carefully.

           “I’ll get it all done Friday night!”

           “You never get it done that early.”

           “But I will!  You can watch me.  Or, or you could come to the party, too.  I won’t get into any trouble, Papa.  I promise.”

           “You’re a child, Mary. Trouble is all children get into.”  He shook his head.  “No.  I don’t think you should go.”

           “Come on, Papa, please. I never get to hang out with my friends.”

           “You spend time with them at school.”  Papa grabbed her arm, roughly, and dragged her to the car.  “You can go when you’re older.”

           “How much older?”

           Papa didn’t say anything.

           “I really won’t get into trouble,” Mary said, something tightening in her chest.  She didn’t know why this bothered her so much, but she found herself pressing, “It could even just be for a few moments!  I just want to—”

           “No, Mary.  I want you safe.  Where I can see you.  This discussion is over.”

           “Everyone else gets to hang out with their friends.”

           “You aren’t everyone else.  I don’t know why any responsible parent would let their kids run around unsupervised—not when so many people go missing.”

           Before Mary had really had time to think about what she was saying, she muttered, “Just because Uncle Ian disappeared—”

           “Don’t talk about him!” Papa roared.

           Mary shrank.  Her heart thundered in her chest.  Very suddenly, she was aware of the fact that they were still in the school parking lot, and that people had stopped to stare at Papa’s outburst.

           Papa seemed to realize this, too, because his attention swept around the observers.  He took a deep breath and closed his eyes.  “You’re not going,” he growled.  “That’s final. I don’t know why you’re putting up such a protest.  It’s unreasonable.”

           All she could do was nod, even as something tightened in her chest.

           “Get in the car.”

           I don’t want to, some part of her thought desperately, but she listened, anyways, sliding into the front seat and trying not to hunch her shoulders.

           Papa got into the driver’s seat.  He started the car, and they pulled away from the school, the worried faces of Mary’s classmates disappearing behind her.

           Something welled in Mary’s chest and clogged her throat, but she bit her lip and shoved it down, some part of her understanding that crying would probably make Papa angrier right now.

           “I’m doing this to keep you safe,” Papa said, breaking the silence.  “You understand that, right?  I can’t risk you disappearing like—like others.”  He stumbled over the words, and his voice was strained, like he was trying hard to keep it level.

           “I-I know, Papa.” Her voice cracked, a little, and she didn’t quite dare look at Papa to see how he reacted.

           Papa didn’t say anything more—not even when they got home—and Mary hurried to her room, shutting the door.

           She hadn’t even had half a second to think about what she was doing before she was scrambling out her window.  Running to the Forest was almost second nature, now, and she found herself sprinting up the grassy slope before she’d really had time to think about it.  Her eyes burned, and her vision blurred, a little, as she hurtled between the trees.  She nearly collided with a sturdy trunk; her hands flew out to brace herself against it, and she just stood there for a few moments, shaking, tears flowing down her cheeks.  She stayed quiet, scrubbing at her eyes as she tried to get the tears to stop.  It’s stupid, she thought.  I shouldn’t be so upset.  It’s just a birthday party.

           “Your face is wet.”

           Mary started, despite herself.  She pulled away from the tree.  “Y-yeah.”

           “Why?”

           Mary rubbed her eyes fiercely.  “B-because I’m crying.”

           “Crying?”  The Forest’s voice trailed off into a breeze, the word picked up by various creatures inside.  After a few moments, an answering murmur came: sad upset overwhelmed too much emotion—

           “You are hurt.”  It wasn’t a question, and there was something almost angry underneath it.

           Mary flinched backwards, because for a moment all she could hear was Papa’s voice, and she hadn’t come here because she wanted to be yelled at again—  “Don’t be angry. Please.”

           The whole Forest seemed to suddenly go quiet.  “You are hurt,” the Forest repeated, and this time it sounded vaguely uncertain, “because of anger?”

           “I’m not hurt,” Mary said stubbornly.  “It’s stupid.”

           “Mary,” the Forest said, and for a brief, fleeting moment, she was reminded of Uncle Ian, gently soothing her after she’d fallen and scraped a knee, just before picking her up to tell her a story.

           (Papa had told her stories too, once.  When had that stopped?)

           When the Forest spoke again, its voice was back to normal, and she could believe she’d imagined the whole thing.  “It is understandable,” the Forest said.  “Humans often hurt others when they are angry.”

           “H-he—he just wants to keep me safe.  He’s just worried.”

           “But you are still hurt.”

           “I don’t want to talk about this,” Mary said quickly.  “I just—I don’t want to think about it.”

           The Forest went silent again.

           Mary stayed silent, pressed against a tree, until something fluttered near her foot.  She blinked, lifting her head.

           A bird had fluttered closer.  Its faintly-glowing feathers illuminated the ground around her.

           Something shifted in the undergrowth.  A creature that vaguely resembled a fox emerged from the bush, lifting its head to press against her hand.  Mary’s fingers curled into the animal’s fur, and it curled up against her.  Mary giggled, the sound wet, as more animals emerged, gently pressing against her.  “Thank you.”

           A low hum went through the Forest as a response.

                                                              ~*~

             -The Forest asked, “Why do you talk to me?”

           Mary stopped pouring the water for a moment, startled by the unexpected question.  “I, um.  Do you not want me to?”

           The nearest tree creaked. “It is simply strange.  Humans do not often talk to me.”

           She wasn’t sure how to take that—as a reprimand, as a statement, as a question.  She tried to answer, anyways.  “Well, um.  It’s because I like having someone to talk to.”

           “You do not have humans to talk to?”

           “I do!” she hurried to say.  “I have Papa, and the kids at school, and lots of other people!  But, um.  They maybe don’t listen as well?  But it’s okay!  I know they’re just busy and have lots of other things to worry about and I’m just a kid who makes them worry and causes trouble and—”  She paused for breath, and found she wasn’t sure how else she could continue, so she just fell silent instead.

           The Forest waited.

           Mary whispered, “It’s lonely, sometimes.”

           The trees creaked. The wind echoed between them, making the whole Forest sound strangely hollow.

           Mary asked, “Is it lonely for you, too?”

           Birds fluttered overhead; vines twisted a little around the nearest tree trunk.  “I have never talked to anyone before.”

           “Is it because of the stories?  Because if it’s the stories, then—then I can make them stop!”

           A wingbeat fluttered near her ear.  “I do not know the stories,” it answered.  “I have never had need to talk to anyone before.”

           “Oh.  How come?”

           “Everything within my borders is connected.  The trees,” the trunks leaned forward, “the birds,” one rushed overhead, “the stones,” a couple pebbles bounced down the path.  “I can see, and hear, and feel everything that is connected to me.”

           “Even me?”

           “No.  You are not a part of the Forest.”

           Mary tried not to think about how strangely empty that made her feel.  “But you know I’m here.  You can hear me.”

           “Yes.  Through the ears of the birds, and the mice, and the deer. I can see you through the eyes of the ants and the rabbits and things humans have no name for.  I can speak through the voices of the wind, and the leaves, and the stones, and you will hear because of your presence within my boundaries.  I am many and one at once; I have no need to talk to others.”

           “Oh.”  Mary scratched a finger in the dirt.  “But, um.  Then.  Um.”

           The Forest waited, silent save for a bird call, somewhere in the distance.

           Mary chewed her lip, then took a deep breath.  “There are stories about people disappearing when they come here.  I thought maybe, um—maybe you were taking people because you were lonely?  But if you don’t need to speak to anyone—and it’s silly, anyways, I’m being dumb, because if people disappeared then you would’ve taken me and Blake and it’s just a silly superstition, anyways.”

           Something soft brushed against Mary’s legs; when she turned, it had already disappeared, eyes gleaming in the undergrowth.  “Sometimes,” the Forest said, “things from the Outside enter my boundaries.”

           Mary cocked her head.

           “Some find their way out. Others stay, and become a part of the Forest.”

           “Become a part of you?”

           “Yes.”

           “But, um, how does that—how does that work?  Do they build homes here?  But then why don’t they come back to see their families?  Dad had a friend—he thought he came here.  They never found him.”

           “No,” the Forest answered, in a long burst of wind that was more like a sigh.  “You do not understand.  They become a part of the Forest.”

           Mary frowned.

           “I can show you.”

           Some warning rang in the back of Mary’s mind, then; some instinct that told her that she should leave, that she would not like whatever she was about to see.  But she didn’t move, her legs too stiff, her eyes wide as she stared into the too-dark depths of the Forest.

           The undergrowth rustled and shifted.  A nearby tree creaked and cracked, loudly, and it took Mary a moment to realize it was turning, the roots tugging free of the ground and shifting.  Small lights flickered from the grass and popped around the tree’s trunk.  A large, bulbous growth had formed on the side of the tree, half-covered in bark and moss; the layers peeled back slowly with a cracking, snapping sound to reveal what lay underneath.

           The thing might’ve been human, once.  It looked vaguely human-shaped.  The arms were twisted above its head, almost completely subsumed by the trunk.  A large branch curled through one shoulder, sprouting several large, faintly glowing flowers.  The legs had elongated into something that almost resembled roots, toes breaking through shoes that had half-decayed.  Moss patterned the lower portion of the person’s face like a beard.  Its eyes were half-lidded, glowing white and pupil-less in the dark.

           A jumble of emotions Mary couldn’t quite parse apart fluttered in her chest.

           Then the maybe-person’s mouth moved, and spoke in a voice that rasped with disuse.  “This is what I mean,” it said, and the words seemed to be echoed by the birds, by the leaves, by every single thing around them until Mary felt too hemmed-in.  “They are transformed by the Forest.  They become a part of me.”

           Suddenly it felt like the unnatural darkness of the Forest had lifted, and Mary couldn’t help gaping.  Each tree seemed to have something else attached to it—a deer skeleton, threaded through with vines, or a fox that still seemed mostly alive but was covered in mushrooms, or nothing more than a vague face that had been trapped in the hollow wood.  The mouse that skittered across the ground carried fungus on its back; the deer that pranced, just in view, had antlers that had twisted out of shape, greenery growing along its chin and neck, legs too long and too many. A many-eyed thing blinked at her, long claws trailing through the undergrowth.

           Mary didn’t know when she’d surged to her feet, nor when she’d started running, nor when her breath had gotten caught in her throat.  All she knew was that she needed to get out, out, out, back to light and safety and away from that thing in the tree—

           She burst into daylight, tripped, and fell, skidding across the grass and scuffing her palms. She lay there a few moments, shivering, hiccupping, waiting for something to step out of the Forest and follow her.

           Nothing did.  When Mary pushed herself onto her knees, the Forest was as silent as always.

                                                            ~*~

             -The man in the tree wouldn’t stop staring at her.

           She saw it whenever she blinked, or looked in a mirror, or caught something out of the corner of her eye.  She couldn’t stop seeing it, those glowing eyes boring deeply into hers.  It made her chest clench, and her breath shuddered.

           “Mary,” one of her teachers said, voice just on the edge of concern, “are you doing alright?”            Mary looked at her teacher, and for a moment, she thought his eyes were glowing.  She blinked, and it was gone.

           (I know what happened to the missing people.)

           Mary forced a smile and said, “Fine!”

           “I can call your father. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind picking you up if you’re not feeling well—”

           “No!”  Mary took a deep breath, then continued, “I’m fine. I don’t need to worry him.”

           The teacher didn’t look convinced, but he let it go.

           The day passed in a haze. One moment, she was sitting in class, staring at a worksheet.  The next, the end of day announcements came on, and she was wandering down the hall towards the office.

           Papa came to pick her up and speak to her homeroom teacher.  She couldn’t really focus on what they were saying; she kept staring at Papa, wondering if she should tell him.  (I know what happened to Uncle Ian.)

           Papa tugged her towards the car, and she didn’t protest, allowing him to usher her into the seat. Ask, a part of her whispered.  Ask me what’s wrong. Please.  I need to talk about it.

           Don’t ask, another part of her hissed.  I can’t do it.  I can’t say anything.  I don’t want you to be mad at me.

           She didn’t even realize how silent the ride home had been until they pulled into the driveway. Papa pulled her, roughly, from her seat and dragged her into the house.  He shut the door, but didn’t let go of her arm.

           Oh, she thought.  He’s noticed.  He’s going to ask now.

           “Mary,” he said, and for the first time she noticed how hard he was working his jaw, and how harsh his voice came out.  “One of my coworkers said they saw you running out of the Forest yesterday.”

           Mary’s heart dropped like a rock into her stomach.  That’s not what I wanted to talk about, she thought, desperate.  That’s not how I wanted this conversation to go.

           “What did I tell you,” Papa asked, “about going to the Forest?”

           Mary knew she was supposed to say something, here, but she froze, Papa’s image overlapping with that of the man in the tree.

           “I told you,” Papa growled, “not to go back there.”  His voice lifted, rising to an almost hysterical pitch.  “I told you not to go to the Forest!  You could get hurt!  Do you want to disappear like all those others?  Is that what you want?  To disappear and leave me alone?”  He shook her, roughly, and her head spun.

           Maybe it was the disorientation, or Papa’s words, or the desperate attempt to get attention off her. Maybe she just didn’t know how to keep it in anymore, because she blurted, “I know what happened to Uncle Ian.”

           Papa suddenly went very, very still.

           “H-he—the Forest—it’s magic.  He became a part of it.  He’s still there.”  Mary looked at Papa desperately.  “I’m sorry.”

           Papa didn’t move for several long, long moments.  When he did, it was to hit her, sharply, across the side of her face.  Mary would’ve fallen, had Papa not still had such a harsh hold on her.  “Don’t talk about Ian,” he shouted, and he hit her again.  “He made his own choices.  It’s his own fault he’s gone.”  And again.  “I won’t let you make the same mistakes.”  And again.  He was crying, now, his voice near hysterical.  “I’m doing this for your own good.”  He hit her again.  “Don’t go back to the Forest.  Don’t go back there!”

           “Papa—”  Her head throbbed.  She was crying too, she thought, but her world was spinning, and she was having trouble focusing.  “Papa, please—”

           She woke up on the floor, with the house dark, and Papa gone.

                                                            ~*~

             -Mary hadn’t intended to go back to the Forest.  Not really; not after seeing—

           Eyes glowing, moss coating its chin, Mary wondering desperately if this was how the Forest knew her—

           But she was tired, and lonely, and hurt, and she no longer knew where else to go.

           The route to the Forest seemed longer than before.  She wondered, absently, if Papa would notice that she left and come after her.

           (Did it matter, if she didn’t come back?)

           Mary dragged herself up the slope; she shook, a little, her heart thundering in her chest.  She pulled herself inside the tree line, but didn’t make it very far before she collapsed, curling up against the trunk of the tree.

           The Forest was silent. That was good; Mary wasn’t sure what she would’ve done if something had come to see her.

           She stayed curled against the tree, shaking and silent, for a long time.  “Is Uncle Ian here?” she whispered.

           The Forest didn’t respond, save for a quiet wind that, if she listened closely, she thought might’ve whispered Ian’s name.

           “It’s just—he went missing.  Like a lot of people.  Him and Papa were really close.  They used to tell me stories—Ian was really fascinated about the Forest, you know. But then he disappeared, and Papa stopped telling stories.”  Mary pulled her knees to her chest, but it couldn’t quite stop her shaking.  “Why?” she whispered.  “Why do you take people, and—and—”  She couldn’t quite bring herself to say the words; she didn’t know what she might’ve said if she did.  “Can you let them go?” Mary asked instead.  “I-if Uncle Ian were—if he came back, then maybe Papa would change back, too. Maybe he’d stop—”  She broke off, a fractured part of her brushing against another thought she didn’t really want to have.  “Please let him go.  Please.”

           The Forest was silent for a long moment before something gentle brushed her shoulder.  “I can’t.”

           “Why not?”

           “They are interconnected to my magic.  They are part of the greater consciousness.  I do not know if their consciousnesses can be unwound.”

           “Oh.”  Mary leaned heavily against the tree.  “Do you think,” she asked tiredly, “I could become part of it, too?”

           The Forest went still.

           “I don’t know what to do,” she whispered.  “Papa’s always angry or worried or—he’s not happy.  A-and I don’t—he scares me.  I don’t want him to scare me, because I know he loves me, but he does, and it’s—!  And I keep thinking about the—the person in the tree, and I can’t sleep, and Papa won’t listen because he’s just mad that I went into the Forest, and I’m tired!  I don’t want to go back, and I don’t want to think about—about what happened to Uncle Ian, and I don’t want to be alone anymore.”  She didn’t know when she’d started crying, but once it started, she couldn’t stop.  She shook and heaved, great shuddering sobs rattling her chest and she pressed herself against the tree trunk.  “If I disappear into the Forest,” she whispered, “then no one would mind.  Papa would be sad for a while, but then he wouldn’t have anything to worry about anymore.”  Her words died out slowly, and she just sat there, a heavy sense of exhaustion weighing down on her chest.

           The silence went on for a little longer.  Then, in a voice so quiet she might not have heard it, had it not been magic: “I hurt you.”

           Mary curled up tighter.

           “I hurt you,” the voice repeated, and it sounded so strangely human that Mary couldn’t help thinking about the person in the tree again.  “I am sorry. I am sorry, I did not mean—I only wanted to explain—I should not have showed you that.”

           Mary shrugged, shoulder scraping the bark.  She winced, but didn’t move away.

           “If I hurt you,” the Forest asked, “why did you come back?”

           Mary didn’t know how to answer that for a long moment.  “Papa hurts me, too.  But he does it because he cares.  I—I know you didn’t mean it.”

           “That does not make it okay.”

           Why do you sound so human now? Mary wanted to ask, but didn’t, almost afraid of the answer.

           (A part of her wondered if it was because of the people who were a part of the Forest’s consciousness; if they gave the Forest a way to understand what humans were like.  She wished it had worked a little sooner.)

           “What can I do?” the Forest asked, the trees creaking.

           “Just let me stay here. Please?”

           The Forest didn’t respond, and Mary took that as an affirmative.  She stayed, curled against the trunk of a tree, until faint sunlight started to peek through the tree line.

           She knew she should leave, then.  She didn’t want to.

           (Didn’t want to go back. Didn’t want to stay.  Didn’t know what she really wanted anymore.)

           Eventually Mary stood, her legs stiff.  She hesitated just inside the tree line.  A part of her thought of turning and running deeper; going so deep that she’d be lost in the Forest forever.

           (She wondered if that was the reason so many people went missing; if they had just gotten so tired of living in the town that they’d decided leaving for the Forest was better.)

           After a few long moments of deliberation, she took a step back into the sunlight.

                                                              ~*~

             -Mary made it back to her room as the sun was coming up, tumbling into her bed and falling asleep almost as soon as she’d hit her pillow. Papa came to wake her up barely a moment later.  He didn’t say anything; he just ushered her along, shoving her school clothes at her, driving her to school in silence.

           (Mary didn’t want to go, but she didn’t want to stay.  The car felt suffocating with its silence, and she practically held her breath until they reached the school building.)

           The whole day seemed to pass in a sleep-deprived haze, but that was alright; it meant she didn’t have to think about Papa so much, and about his reaction and what it meant.

           But she did think about the Forest, her mind twisting in useless circles as she tried to make sense of her feelings.

           (She liked the Forest. She liked that it listened, and she liked the mystery, even if it scared her.  But she didn’t like that it took people, and that they ended up like the thing in the tree, and that maybe there were other people out there like Papa who—

           But the Forest had been upset to find out it had hurt her, and it had apologized, so maybe—

           Papa never apologized.)

           She hiked back out to the Forest after school, tired but determined, and set foot into the tree line with a mission in mind.

           The Forest spoke, much more quickly than she’d anticipated, the ferns lifting to brush her legs, lights flaring in the darkness.  “You’re back.”

           “Y-yeah.”

           “You did not have to come,” it said, “if I made you distressed.”

           “I-I know,” she said. “I wanted to.”

           The Forest didn’t say anything to that, and Mary gathered herself, trying to find the words.  “What is it like,” she asked finally, “deeper inside?”

           The Forest was silent for several long, long moments.  “Are you sure you wish to see?”

           Mary steeled herself. “Yes.  I want to know if—if there’s anything—I just need to know.”

           “I hurt you last time. I do not wish to hurt you again.”

           Mary smiled, despite herself.  “I-it’s okay. I’m choosing to do this, this time.”

           “That does not—” The Forest broke off, and Mary was struck again by how strangely human the sentiment was.  “If it is too much, then please say so.  I will guide you back out.”

           “Okay,” she said, voice shaking a little.

           Carefully the trees pulled back, inching along the ground, dragging their roots from their places until there was a long, grassy path into the darkness.  Lights flickered along the edges, guiding Mary inward.

           For a moment, Mary remembered the stories about those lights, and how following them could lead to a person getting lost forever.

           But she also knew that the Forest wouldn’t mind if she chose to turn and walk out, instead.  Slowly, hesitantly, she edged forward, walking carefully along the path.

           The pathway was bright, lit by brightly glowing balls of light that kept the darkness in the rest of the Forest at bay.  Trees and stones and animals continued to move out of her way, extending the path further and further into the Forest’s center.  She wondered if she could keep walking and come out on the other side.

           (She wondered if Papa would come looking for her, or if he’d just stay in his empty house and grieve.)

           The trees stopped moving, and Mary stepped into the center of a large, dark clearing.  She blinked, trying to peer through the darkness, willing her eyes to adjust.

           Lights flickered in the clearing, a rainbow of blue and pink and yellow, flooding the grass and the trees with brilliant, fractured hues.  The long strands of grass shimmered with dew, waving in the slight breeze.  A massive tree grew in the center of the clearing, trunk twisted so that it looked like it was made up of dozens of smaller trees.  Bird nests filled the upper branches, protected by a thick canopy of leaves.  Tiny hatchlings peered out of their nests at Mary, feathers still dull, but scattering small bursts of light as they ruffled their downy wings.  A larger bird flew overhead, gliding towards one of the nests and perching to feed one of the chicks.

           Something emerged from the trees, and Mary gasped as a large stag walked towards her.  Its antlers looked like gnarled branches, chipping apart in areas to reveal bursts of color.  Its neck seemed too long, its legs too spindly, and when it huffed, it breathed mist.  Mary was almost afraid, until a doe and fawn stepped out behind it.  The fawn looked much like its father, if a little more proportionate, but had a pair of extra legs it bounced on.  It jumped towards Mary, curiously lifting its head and nuzzling at her hand.  Mary giggled, stroking its velvety fur.

           “Being part of the Forest is not always death,” the Forest said, and it took Mary a moment to understand it was coming from the stag.  “There is life, too.  One is given power and care through life, and when they pass, they become a part of the Forest again, to help support life.  It is the way of things.”  A pause. “But I should not have shown you the man.  It distressed you.  That was wrong.”

           Mary knelt, scratching the fawn under the chin.  “You didn’t know.  You, um. You hadn’t interacted much with humans before.”

           “It was still wrong. I should not have hurt you.”

           A bird fluttered near her, and the Forest shifted, voice coming from it, instead of the stag.  “I do not always understand human morals,” it said, “but I understand harm.  My concern has always been whether or not harm has been done to those that are a part of me.”

           “Y-you said that’s why you chased us out before.”

           “Yes.  I allowed you to stay because you did not cause harm. I should not have then caused harm to you.”

           Mary stood.  A couple more birds fluttered around her, stirring her clothes and making her giggle.  “It’s beautiful,” she admitted.  “I wonder if that’s why people stay here, sometimes.”

           The Forest went quiet, suddenly.  “They get lost,” it said after a long, long moment.

           “They can’t find their way out.”

           “Sometimes. Sometimes, they are lost in their minds, rather than in the physical world.  They stay here and do not leave.”  A pause.  “I do not want that to happen to you.”

           “But you can always guide me back out.  Right?”

           “Yes.”

           “And—and you can guide others out, too?”

           A pause.  Lights flickered, lighting up a path.  “If they choose,” it said finally.

           “Good. Because—because I don’t want—I don’t want people like Ian to go missing anymore.”

           The Forest stayed silent for a long time.  Mary didn’t mind; she let the silence grow, absently petting the fawn until it felt like things had grown too late.  Then she stood, letting the Forest guide her back to the edge, lights flickering along the path.

           The Forest stopped her briefly with a whisper of, “Mary.”

           She cocked her head.

           “You are always welcome here,” it said, “if you need refuge.”

           Mary smiled, a small thing that felt more real than anything she’d given over the past several days.  “Okay.”

                                                             ~*~

             -Mary hadn’t really meant to talk to anyone about the Forest—at least, not until she had a better plan.  She didn’t know how to explain what she’d learned (didn’t think anyone would listen), and so cautiously hoarded the information to herself, going back to the Forest when she could in order to speak to it and learn more.

           But then it was the weekend, and Papa was having people over from his work, and they’d gotten into the adult drinks and gone red in the face and started hollering and laughing in the living room.  Mary knew that she wasn’t supposed to go in there—wasn’t sure she wanted to, really—but she’d heard one of Papa’s friends say, “All those stories about the Forest are bullshit.  Mark went in a couple days ago, and he came back out, perfectly fine.”

           Mary paused, hovering close to the doorway.

           “Maybe he just—maybe he just got so lost that he came out the other side.”

           “Nah, nah, I’m telling you—he said he saw these colored light things.”  The words were slurred, but Mary couldn’t help her grin, and she pressed her hands tightly to her mouth to keep from giggling.  “Said they led him right out.”

           Papa said, “You shouldn’t tell such stories.”

           “Oh, come on, Rick, lighten up.  It’s all in good fun.”

           “You shouldn’t—you shouldn’t talk about stuff like that.”

           Something in Papa’s voice made the hairs on Mary’s neck stand on end.  She peered cautiously around the doorway.

           Papa was leaning forward in his recliner, bottle clasped in his hands, his expression distant and haggard.  “Ian talked like that,” Papa said.  “Ian talked about that all the time, about his—about how the Forest was magic, and how he’d go see it one day.  Nobody believed it.  People just—just fucking ran away.  But Ian believed in those stupid fairytales, and he wouldn’t stop looking.  He believed them so much it killed him.”

           One of the men laughed, and slapped Papa’s shoulder, and said, “Right, a story’s what killed him.”

           Papa shoved the man’s arm away.  “He wouldn’t leave it alone!  He kept—he obsessed over it until—until there was nothing left.  He’s dead, now.  Maybe if people didn’t talk about those damn stories—”  He shook his head and took another swig from his bottle.

           Mary stepped into the living room, and without truly pausing to think, she said, “But they’re true, Papa.”

           All eyes were very suddenly on her.  She quailed under them, suddenly wondering if she should run back to her room.

           “Look at this!” one of the men said, pointing at Mary.  “Kiddo’s going to join us!  What’ve you got to say, kiddo?”

           Papa stared at her, a dark look on his face.

           (Mary remembered telling Papa about what happened to Ian.  Papa had been so angry, then.  She wondered if it’d be different now, with friends around.  She wondered if it mattered.)  “I-it’s true, though.  The Forest—people disappear because they become a part of it.  But it’s not trying to!  It’s because of the weird magic stuff.”

           “Weird magic stuff,” someone repeated, laughing.

           “Yeah!  It’s not all scary, though.  Some of it’s really pretty, too.  A-and we worked out a way to maybe keep people from disappearing? That’s what those lights were.  I talked to the Forest about it the other day, and—”

           “You went back to the Forest?” Papa asked.

           The room suddenly went very, very quiet.

           Mary took a hesitant step backwards.  Papa’s scowl had deepened, his eyebrows so low that they cast his eyes in deep shadow.

           Papa stood.  He stumbled, a little, and nearly dropped the bottle.

           Mary scrambled back further.

           One of the men said, “Hey, Rick, maybe you shouldn’t—”

           “I told you,” Papa said, low and quiet and fierce, “not to go back to the Forest.”

           Mary’s eyes darted towards the door.

           “Look at me!”

           Mary whipped towards Papa, who had come much, much closer than she’d expected.  “I-I’m sorry.”

           Something sharp stung her cheek.  She fell and sprawled across the floor, hands scraping roughly against the wood.

           “Rick, hey!”

           “Why did you go back there?” Papa snarled, and the way his face contorted made him seem more like the not-human from the Forest, rather than the Papa she’d known as a child. “I told you not to.”

           “I’m sorry!” Mary said, scrambling backwards.

           Papa lifted his hand again.

           One of his coworkers caught it, hissing, “Rick, I think you’ve had a little too much—”

           “Let go of me!”

           Mary scrambled to her feet and ran.

           Papa roared behind her, but she didn’t look back, crashing through the door, sprinting bare-foot through the darkening streets.  She wove through the houses, and after a while she heard an angry shout of, “Mary!” from behind her.

           Papa was chasing after her.  Papa was far away, now, but he could catch up quickly.

           (What happens when he catches her?)

           (“I will give you refuge, if you need it.”)

           Mary stumbled from between the houses and onto the field, the Forest looming dark and silent ahead. She hurried up the slope, chest rattling, breathing heavy, scrambling up, up, up, one hand reaching frantically for the trees.

           Heavy breathing and footsteps sounded behind her, and she’d just made it to the tree line when Papa grabbed the back of her shirt.  She stretched an arm, frantically, towards the Forest, but Papa dragged her backwards, lifting her like a disobedient cat.  “Where are you going?” Papa asked, shaking her, and it hurt.  She fumbled for his arm, and she shook her again.  “Huh?  You think you’re going back there?”

           Mary choked on a sob. “Help,” she said, and it was more a sob than an actual cry.

           “Help?”  Papa snarled. “I am helping you, I’m keeping you from ending up like Ian.  You should be grateful, but you never know how—nothing but trouble.  We’re going home. We’re going home, and then you’re going to—”

           A harsh wind echoed between the trees.

           Papa stopped.

           Mary dangled, the tips of her feet touching the ground.

           (“He has caused you harm,” something that sounded eerily like the Forest whispered in her mind.

           He’s protecting me.

           Is he?)

           “You aren’t helping me.”

           The world went very quiet, and it took a long moment for Mary to realize she’d said anything at all. When Papa responded, his voice was low and dangerous: “What?”

           Mary swallowed, but continued, one hand reaching to grab Papa’s arm.  “You’re hurting me,” she said. “A-and I know it’s because you’re scared, but—but—but I want you to stop hurting me!”

           “I’m trying to keep you safe.”

           “Then why do I feel safer in the Forest then with you?”

           Papa’s face contorted into a snarl.  He shook her, roughly.

           Mary grimaced, her head spinning, one hand silently reaching back towards the Forest. Something brushed against her fingertips.

           Papa growled, “We’re leaving.  You are not to come back to this Forest.  You are not—”

           And then the Forest spoke, long and low and rumbling, like it was shaking the very earth. “What are you doing?”

           Papa froze.  His grip loosened, just enough so that Mary could drop to the ground, coughing and sputtering.

           Rough hands—almost like wood—gently touched Mary’s arm.

           Papa’s voice came, low and broken and uncertain: “Ian?”

           Mary blinked up, and for a moment she saw Uncle Ian’s face as it once had been, soft and friendly with a twinkle in his eyes.  Then it shifted, a little, and she noticed the rough, cracked edges of his face and the bushes along his back.  He lifted Mary carefully and turned towards Papa, face contorting into a scowl.

           The trees leaned forward ominously.  “You have done harm to the child.”

           Papa took several steps backwards, eyes too wide.  “I’m protecting her,” he said.  “Ian, I’m making sure she doesn’t get hurt.  I’m trying to keep her from ending up like you.”

           “This is not protection,” the Forest rumbled; Uncle Ian’s chest reverberated with the words, and things moved behind him, large and dark and intimidating, gnashing teeth and snarling loud enough that the cries seemed to blend together.

           “Sometimes,” Papa said, but his voice was wavering, “sometimes you have to hurt people to protect them.  Ian, you have to understand.  Sometimes—”

           The wind roared through the trees, moving so quickly that it stirred Mary’s clothes and nearly knocked Papa off his feet.  “No,” the Forest said.  “You have done her harm.”

           Papa’s expression contorted, into something angry and feral and frightening.  “What do you care?” he snapped.  “You’re not really Ian.  You’re not really here. You’re just some sort of—some sort of crazy hallucination.  Just a bunch of trees.”

           “I have many names, and none at all,” the Forest boomed, and it sounded like the thunder of falling stones, of countless animal cries and the crash of waterfalls.  “I have been here since time began, and even before. I have seen humans far stronger and braver than you.  I have seen love, and life, and death and pain.  I have survived throughout the ages, and I shelter those who would take refuge within my trees.  And I will protect my own.”

           A creature lunged from the depths of the Forest, massive and snarling ferociously, covered in bark-like armor with long claws that stretched like shadows towards Papa.  He scrambled backwards, panicked, as it swiped at his chest.  More appeared, wraith-like and warped, a mass of long fangs and claws and eyes.

           Ian’s fingers curled tighter around Mary, and she lifted a hand to grip his shoulder.

           Papa looked at Mary for a moment, then to the wall of darkness that snarled at him.  He stumbled a step back, and then another, and then turned and bolted back to the town.

           The creatures stayed where they were for a few moments, waiting until he was out of sight until, one by one, they moved back into the trees.

           “Are you alright, Mary?” the Forest asked, Ian carefully setting her back on her feet.

           Mary hiccupped and shook, but she said, “Y-yes.”

           The Forest did not answer, and she found herself admitting, “N-no.”  She sat, and hugged her legs to her chest, and tried not to think about how much her neck hurt.  “I-I can’t go back.  I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.”

           “Then stay here.”

           Mary’s head whipped up, but she had no one to look at, save the empty expanse of the Forest. “I-I don’t—I don’t want to end up like—”

           Ian stretched out a hand, slowly, and reached to gently touch the space above her heart.  Light flickered through his fingertip, warm and bright and alive.  “I cannot stop that from happening, if you choose to stay here permanently,” the Forest said, and for the first time it sounded pained.  “But I can give you refuge, when you want it.  I can guide you to the edges, so that you won’t be lost for so long that I overcome you.  I can provide you with a piece of my magic, so that even if you travel, you will have my protection with you.  But,” and its voice went whisper-quiet, “only if you want it.”

           Mary touched Ian’s hand, gently.  “You’d look after me?”

           “Yes.”

           Mary grinned, then laughed, and though the tears still stung, they didn’t feel quite as bad anymore. “Okay.”

                                                              ~*~

             -Most of the time, nobody goes to the Forest outside of town.

           There are stories, though; of a young woman who lives within the Forest, who can do strange magic and plays tricks on travelers, who has traveled through the world herself. They say that she was the daughter of someone who lived in the town, once, and that her parents died, or moved away and left her there, or were stolen away by the Forest itself so that it could have their child.

           Sometimes people claim to see her—a wild-haired woman in hiking gear or a mismatched dress or heavy winter clothes, sitting in the trees or talking to animals or yelling at travelers when they get too close.  She’d guide people out of the Forest, sometimes, and those people talked about the fantastic things they saw within—about fairy lights, and unusual creatures, and shifting trees.

           Most people don’t believe the stories—a forest is just a forest, after all.  But every so often, someone gets curious enough to go to the edge and look in.  And, when they do, they sometimes find her grinning back at them.

[lala-ladybug]

Healing Hands: Chapter 5

Can you say ~trauma~?

Jasonette Sword Art Online AU

Read here on AO3

Tag list: @iloontjeboontje

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Chapter 5: Yes, Dick? You’re looking particularly dickish today

After so much commotion, the silence as they sat made Marinette’s ears ring. She and her Order were gathered in the spacious living room of Chloe’s house. After checking to make sure it was empty, she and the other miraculous holders had reassured their civilian classmates and sent them off to bed. They’d spent the better part of the day getting out of the overcrowded town. Thank Kwami they hadn’t still been travelling after the sun went down, but the noises from the woods still kept them all awake. Kagami had dug out a teapot from the kitchen cabinets and brewed several mugs for those who had needed one. No one was hungry.

Marinette’s hands shook slightly as she sipped her tea. That was another blessing, that Chloe’s VIP pass included a partially stocked kitchen to begin with. They would explore the rest of the house tomorrow, but for now, while the others rested.... They needed to talk.

She set her cup down with a sound that was amplified in the heavy quiet, then took a deep breath. “Okay....” The words felt strange in her mouth. She swallowed against the lump in her throat. “Can anyone sense their Kwami?”

She looked around at the blank faces of her friends as they all tried to reach for their respective powers. Chloe’s lip trembled, but her eyes were dry. Luka and Kagami’s jaws clenched, and Adrien frowned as he shook his head.

“None of us can, then,” Luka stated evenly, finally voicing what she’d been afraid of.

Marinette bit her lip. Kagami placed her cup of tea down forcefully. “What are we going to do.” It wasn’t a question so much as a statement.

Marinette rubbed her eyes. Kwami, what could they do? They should count themselves lucky they weren’t dead yet. She could only imagine her Maman and Papa’s panic, but they hadn’t tried to pull her out, so she hadn’t....

They could still die though, if what the Game Master had said was true. If their HP dropped to zero, they would die. There was no Second Chance or Lucky Charm this time. But they were still likely among the best trained people in the game. Her mind was made up.

“We fight.” She finally said with all the confidence she could muster. “There are thousands of civilians stuck in here with us, so we need to fight for them. We need to beat the level bosses in order to advance, right?” The question was rhetorical, but Chloe nodded and Kagami blinked in affirmation all the same.

“Good,” Marinette stood up. “We will be the ones to fight these bosses. So they don’t have to. Think about it, even without our Kwami, we still have an edge on everyone else here. The faster we beat the game, the faster they can go home.”

“And us too!” Adrien jumped up with a smile. “And us too,” Marinette echoed.

Luka drained his tea and stood next. “So it’s settled then,” he put a hand on her shoulder, steady as ever.

“Indeed,” Kagami rose beside them.

Chloe stared up at them, eyes wide. “You really think we can do this?” She asked in a small voice.

Marinette looked her in the eye and said, “I know we can.” The blonde released a small sigh and stood as well. A gleam of determination entered her eye as she said, “Okay. Let’s go save everyone from this ridiculous game.”

* * *

Jason, Jaime, Cassie, and Zatanna returned to the center of town. It was nearly deserted now, the murky twilight creating pockets of shadows around the square, perfect for hiding lurking figures. But it was nothing Jason couldn’t handle. In fact, with his current mood, he damn well dared them to try.

They’d spent hours hacking away at the wild boars, Jaime even joining in as his allergies permitted him. The four had gained a few player levels and a decent amount of money and loot. But damn if it wasn’t tiring as hell.

His crossbow was much more taxing than using guns, and it used different muscles in his shoulders and arms than he was accustomed to working. He could tell the others were similarly weighed down by exhaustion. Cassie’s whip demanded an endurance she wasn’t used to without her super strength, Jaime’s throws of a handaxe grew increasingly shorter the longer they fought, and Zatanna wasn’t used to fighting with physical weapons at all. It took everything they had left to drag themselves back into town.

One of the shadows a few feet away swam with sudden movement. Jason equipped his crossbow, arms shaking with the effort of just holding it. Damnit, now was not a good time, but he’d still fight these bastards with everything he had.

He relaxed when he saw it was Dick and the rest of Team Alpha approaching. Putting his weapon away, Jason crossed his arms and planted his feet firmly. Dick better have gotten them those fucking beds for the night.

“We’re just waiting on Beta,” Dick said in a low voice. “Then we can go to the inn and regroup.” The others could regroup. Jason would be heading right to sleep. He stalked over to the brick wall Bart sat slumped against and leaned his shoulder against it. The cool roughness grounded him and kept his eyes open.

He distantly heard Zatanna telling Dick that they had made out okay in the west. Unnecessary talking when there were other players listening nearby. He swallowed against the urge to forcibly silence them that was rising in his blood. It sang with the persistent thrum of battle, unshakable as it was insistent. He closed his eyes and counted his breaths. One. Breathe out and picture a color. Blue. Breathe in. Two. Out. Yellow. In. Three. Out. Green.

He’d barely reached ten by the time Tim led his group back to join them. The song in his blood stilled for now, he pushed off of the wall and followed as Dick and Wally guided them to the inn. He hardly registered his surroundings as they entered and divvied up the rooms. He, Dick, Tim, and Wally were in one room, the girls in another, and the other boys in a third. The place seemed clean enough as he cast his tired eyes around the tavern.

They climbed the stairs to their rooms and settled in each. Dick and Tim sat on their beds talking about going to the other boys’ room-- the largest of the three-- to discuss strategy. Jason hardly heard them as his head hit the pillow and he fell asleep.

* * *

The warmth of the early morning sun on her face woke Marinette up. She stretched and yawned, wincing at her soreness. Sometimes this game was a little too realistic. In the bed beside hers, Chloe grumbled something about the girls’ room having no curtains over the window and rolled over.

Marinette gave a strained smile at that. She quietly dressed and descended the ladder from their small loft to where the rest of the girls were still sleeping, and tip-toed out to the hall.

Down the stairs was the kitchen, empty save for a softly steaming tea kettle that meant Kagami and Luka would soon be joining her. She prepared dough to make fresh croissants as she had every couple of days for the past few weeks since they’d been trapped in the game.

The thought briefly gave her pause, that they’d already been here for close to a month, but she shook it off and formed the croissants onto the baking tray. She slid them into the oven just as Kagami and Luka trailed in from the garden. They’d been harvesting the already-ripe blueberries, and laid a heaping basket of them on the countertop.

Chloe’s VIP pass had saved their lives and then some. It came with a comfortably sized house that included a full kitchen, sitting area, storage room, balcony, two massive bedrooms with enough room to house all twelve of them, a garden ready to be planted in, and stables already stocked with several horses. It really was luxurious, and if they weren’t trapped in the game, she would have found it much more enjoyable.

The property also included a small pond that had proved to give a refreshing swim after training sessions, a well, and a few acres of woods. The latter was where they did most of their monster-training. Marinette had already reached a player level of 10 just by fighting the various denizens of their backyard. The rest of the new Order wasn’t far behind her, ranging from levels 7 to 10 between the four of them.

“Good morning, Marihime,” Kagami inclined her head respectfully, then poured the tea into three waiting mugs. Luka thanked her and shot Marinette a quick smile as way of greeting.

She nodded back and stirred a generous helping of sugar into her mug. The three sipped their tea while they waited for the croissants to bake. Once they were finished and cooling, Marinette and the others donned cloaks to protect against the morning chill and started their brisk morning walk into town.

The dirt path wound down to the base of the hill where several more paths for other player houses split off the main track that they now set on. The lush grass on either side was covered in a slight blanket of mist from the evaporating morning dew. Birds chirped high above, darting between the sparse trees. The walk took about a half hour, and their tea was nearly finished by the time they arrived at the outskirts of the city.

Kagami polished off her mug and placed it back in her inventory, then rested her hand warily on the hilt of her rapier as they began encountering more people. Their destination, a news stand, was thankfully not too close to the center of town. The less people they encountered, the better.

“Get your daily paper here! New news every day! Two copper pieces for a paper, one gold for a yearly subscription.” Marinette veered towards the NPC shouting her wares.

“Hi, one paper please,” she said breathlessly, and slid two copper pieces onto the counter.

“Here you go!” The vendor, an ample woman of thirty, took the coins and handed Marinette a folded newspaper with a smile. “You know, you’re one of my best customers. I’ll give you a deal,” she winked, “how about fifty silver for a yearly subscription!”

“Oh, that’s very kind of you miss, but I’m afraid we won’t be staying quite that long,” Marinette replied. At least, she hoped not.

“Very well dear, have a lovely day!” The NPC thankfully seemed unbothered, and went back to shouting her prices to the general population.

Luka and Kagami moved from their posts of casually guarding Marinette while she dealt with the woman manning the stall. The three set off back the way they’d come, ready for another day of training and exploring the first level.

Marinette unfolded the newspaper and skimmed the headlines while they walked, trusting her companions to keep an eye out for her. However, they weren’t expecting her to stop dead in her tracks. It took a moment for them to turn around and backtrack to where she stood staring intently at the paper in her hands.

“Holy Kwami....” She said, and read the article title again. “‘Exploration team finds boss dungeon entrance!’” She read aloud.

Luka moved to peer over her shoulder and read it alongside her. “You know what this means?” He asked with a small smile.

Kagami put her hand on Marinette’s shoulder. “We are on the path to ending this.”

* * *

Jason woke up to an empty house. It had only been a few weeks since the start of the game, and his idiot brothers were out in the village. Again. He groaned at the motion of swinging his legs off the bed to sit up. Training to get used to the in-game movements was getting old.

He stood and rubbed the back of his neck, loosening some of the stiffness that seemed to have soaked into his bones. He went downstairs to the spacious kitchen to get some fruits for breakfast. With twelve people to make money and collect resources, the team had made quick work of purchasing a large house to use as a base.

Grabbing a few apples for the road, Jason traced the now-familiar path to find Dick and a few of the others in a communal amphitheater. Bart and Wally were handing out flyers near the entrances, chatting people up and trying to convince them to come listen to where Dick and Tim were speaking below.

Jason took a seat next to Artemis, near the back. “At it again?” He asked her, crunching into his apple.

She was leaning forward to prop her elbows on her knees, her chin resting in cupped hands. “Yup,” she said, popping the “p.” She sighed and sat up. “All week, and we’ve only got a handful of recruits.”

“We’re all in this together after all,” Dick was saying loudly. “So join us to help end this game! I have a plan to train recruits for taking on the first level boss.”

Jason yawned. Same old fuckin’ stupid plan. There’s just no way to make risking your life sound enticing. “The others still out hunting?” He nudged Artemis’s knee with his own.

She nodded in affirmation, looking similarly discouraged and bored. He got up and started to leave, deciding to make himself useful and join the rest of the team in fighting.

“Jason!” A shout made him stop. He looked to the sky and muttered to himself about patience, then turned to face his brother. “Yes, Dick? You’re looking particularly dickish today.”

Dick crossed his arms. “Haha, very funny. If you’re not busy, I could really use you here spreading the word.”

“Look, people just don’t want to go up against something they’ve never faced before. Hell, half these dumbasses haven’t even been in a real fight before.” He shook his head. “This is a waste of time. I’m going to fight some monsters so that I can level up and be ready for when we inevitably face the big bad without these posers.”

Dick narrowed his eyes at that. “Now hold on a minute, we have no idea what we’re going up against here. We need a bigger group before we’re ready to go up against the boss. More than half of us aren’t up to par with our special moves out of the picture, and we’re still trying to figure out the gameplay.” He held his hands out placatingly. “An exploration group just found the probable location of the boss dungeon, so that’s half the battle already. We just need to wait for more recruits and a more solid plan.”

“So how long are we supposed to wait, Dick?” Jason asked incredulously. “A week? A month? A year? How many people are going to die while we ‘figure out’ how to do something we already damn well know how to do.” He poked an accusatory finger at Dick’s chest. “We’ve been training for weeks already, we can handle this.”

“I hear you Jay, but we have no idea what kind of a threat this is going to be. We need to take our time and--”

“What you need is a fucking backbone. We’re the best hope that thousands of people have at surviving! I say we train some more and then fight the damn thing ourselves, recruits or no.” He couldn’t believe Dick. Saving people was supposed to be his schtick, not Jason’s. “Hundreds of people have already died, in case you forgot, and this is only the first fucking level. Time is a luxury we do not have.”

Dick looked ready to retort when a young boy came up to him and tapped him on the elbow. “Excuse me, mister? I’m interested in recruitment!”

Jason took advantage of the distraction and stalked off towards the center of town. What a... well, Mr. and Mrs. Grayson picked a damn good name.

If Dick wanted to know what they were up against, then fine. He’d go find out for him.

[nobodyfamousposts]

Welcome the Demon School, Marinette!

Because I’m bored and you’re here. Presenting a Miraculous take on Iruma-kun.

_____________________

It was shaping up to be the worst day of Marinette's life. 

She woke up late. Again.

This only happened because her alarm didn’t go off. Which was because said alarm was in her phone, and the battery had died. And she had no time to charge it.

The small lizard that she had been taking care of the past couple weeks had disappeared that morning with no sign of where it had gone. She was worried her parents may have found it or that it could have gotten lost somewhere. 

She got to school just on time, only to be tripped and have her belongings scattered across the floor (much to the snickers and commentary of certain observers who of course did nothing to help), forcing her to take time to collect them all and resulting in her actually being late to class.

Lila was regaling the class with some new and most likely completely made up story as everyone seemed to gather around her and stare at her in wonder like she had hung the stars (and given their gullibility, Marinette couldn't put it past them to not fall for that if Lila HAD claimed it). Marinette quietly shuffled past them and slipped into her seat in the back, feeling the weight of their cruel glares and mocking smirks. All in all, an indicator that Lila's takeover of the class and even the school was still in effect. The only thing that saved her from any biting or passive aggressive comment was the teacher starting the lesson.

Except then she learned that her homework had been one of the things to fall out of her bag, but one of the items she had failed to recollect afterwards. The fact that Lila presented a project that just "happened" to look exactly like hers and even had the name smudged out and replaced with her own clearly meant nothing as far as the teacher was concerned.

This resulted in a failing grade for Marinette, and any attempt that she made to argue were quickly shot down as Lila pretended to cry at the "horrible accusation" and the teacher proceeded to lecture Marinette in front of the class for trying to steal credit for another student's work. Marinette's evidence (which included pictures and video of herself making the project at multiple stages of the process, pointing out the smudged name, or her own scraped knees from when she fell earlier and the project went missing from her bag) meant nothing and was disregarded as the teacher forced Marinette to apologize for something she hadn't done before sending her off to the principal's office.

Which resulted in her being suspended for "continued bullying" and sent home to her no doubt ready to be disappointed parents, who seemed all too willing to believe the worst in their daughter based off a liar they barely knew. Not that Marinette was bitter about that or anything. (Lie. She totally was.)

She trudged home in dismay. And as she made the walk of shame from her school to her home, much to the snickers and cruel comments of her former friends, the upturned noses of her teachers who once believed in her, and Lila's own smirk at yet again getting another win over the poor girl, Marinette could only ask herself:

"Can my life get any worse?"

Which clearly turned out to be the exact wrong thing to say, because yes, in fact, it could.

As Marinette soon discovered when she was kidnapped by a demon.

"Wait—WHAT?!"

Introducing one Jagged Stone. A Demon Lord of the Demon Realm. Well known for his wild appearance and unusual style, even among demons. He was popular. He was eccentric.

And he was apparently Marinette’s new guardian as of today.

“Wait, wait! I’m sorry—WHAT?!”

“Just call me Dad. Or Uncle Jagged! Oo, I like the sound of that. Uncle Jagged! Yeah, call me that!” He told her, not really seeming concerned with why she would have reservations about this entire thing, how sudden it was, or the fact that she was a human who was not only being faced with the prospect that demons exist, but that one had officially claimed her as a ward.

“No wait, can we back up to the part where I’m adopted now?” Marinette questioned, confused and frustrated and just shy of freaking out.

“I thought that was rather clear.” Jagged stated, grinning widely and outright spinning with glee. “I’ve always wanted a kid! And now I have one! Thank you, Fang!” He turned to the crocodile-looking creature hovering nearby.

“Of course.” It replied—and okay, the thing could talk.

Jagged stared at it teary-eyed before hugging it—him? “You’re the best familiar, Fang. Finding me the perfect child to spoil and eventually become my heir.”

O…kay…

“But…I have parents?” She tried to interject weakly, still confused about all of this.

“Oh, we’ve taken care of that.” Jagged explained vaguely, waving it off.

Marinette’s eye twitched. “Meaning…?”

Please don’t say they’re dead. Please don’t say they’re dead. They may not have trusted her and she may be unhappy that they believed Lila over her, but she didn’t want them hurt. His other demonic assistant, apparently named Penny, answered. “You are now officially the ward of Jagged Stone.”

“Isn’t it great?” Jagged grinned.

Well, that was…not completely horrible, at least.

Still, it begged a question.

“I’m a ward of a demon? HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?”

“Well, if you remember…” Fang started.

Marinette sighed pitifully as she stared out a window.

“Oh, how my life is horrible and filled with pain and sadness! If only there was a magical demon familiar to rescue me and take me somewhere rock and roll.”

With a poof, a much bigger and scarier looking Fang appeared and grinned down at her.

“How fortunate for you, for I happen to be a magical demon familiar!”

“Le gasp!” Marinette exclaimed in shock.

“And as I am very grateful to you for taking care of me, I shall happily take you with me to a better place and destroy your enemies. Not necessarily in that order.”

Marinette clapped gleefully.

“Yay! Do that! Blow up that evil institute of learning and fry everyone inside! And then eat my parents because they're jerks who tried to smack you with a broom and flush you down a sewer drain.”

Fang smirked.

“Certainly!”

And thus Fang flew off to destroy the school and devour everyone inside—

“Okay, I’m pretty sure that’s not how it happened.” Marinette exclaimed dryly, interrupting the amusing and clearly wish-fulfilling fantasy.

“Well, it could.” Fang replied. “If you want me to, I can.”

“NO THANK YOU.” She exclaimed with a shriek before getting her emotions under control. “Just…why? Why me?”

The demonic crocodile-like familiar floated in a circle around her. “Well, it made sense. Jagged wished for a child to become his heir. You wished for an escape from your life. And you were quite helpful to me when I had been injured, proving yourself to be a human of kindness and honor. If anyone was to be worthy of being taken in as my master’s fledgling, you seemed most deserving.”

Well, that made her blush.

Wait…

“The lizard that I’d been caring for? That was you?”

Fang smiled and nodded.

Jagged rested a hand on the creature’s head and smiled at Marinette. “I have to thank you for looking out for my little Fangy. Who knows what could have happened to him all alone in the human world. Isn’t that right?” He spoke to Fang directly in a rather baby-ish voice as he nuzzled the creature.

Fang nuzzled Jagged back. And…okay, this was kind of cute—crazy situation aside.

“I’m…honored.” Because she was, strangely enough. Craziness and kidnapping aside. “But I already have parents. And a life.”

“Not a good one.” Fang growled out in irritation.

Jagged nodded solemnly. “Right. Fang told me all about it. Your school sucks. Your classmates suck. Your parents…” Seeing her unhappy expression, he coughed. “Well, they’re taking a liar’s word over yours. All in all, it’s been incredibly un-rock and roll. You definitely deserve better.”

“Well…” She trailed off because yeah, they weren’t wrong.

The demon smiled. “Which is why we’ve erased their memories.”

“WHAT?”

“This way, no one will question your disappearance!”

“WHAT?!”

“So this way you can stay here without having to worry about anyone trying to find you! Isn’t it great?”

…

“WHAT?!”

______________

Things that would follow may include but are in no way limited to:

Demon Miracuclass. (Meaning Alya, Nino, all of them are demons in the demon world Marinette will be befriending and not Marinette’s former human friends whom shall remain nameless extras).

Otaku Adrien (aka: a secret human fanboy because of course he would be).

Flower demon Rose.

Mermaid Juleka.

Siren Luka.

Kwamis as teachers.

Plagg as Fluff Fluff. And abusing it to get out of work. (Tikki: DAMMIT PLAGG!)

Gabriel still being horrible.

Lila exiting the story after chapter 1.

And more!

[vfdarkness]

AVFD Script - S2EP03 The Forgotten Man

[[Intro]]

You’re at a bus stop and your bus is late.

Finally, it pulls up, you step aboard, and for a brief moment… 

the driver’s facial features - their eyes, nose, mouth are in all the wrong places. 

As you stare, their face quickly rearranges itself to appear more normal. More human.

The door closes. There’s no one else in the vehicle.

You need my help.

[[AVFD intro music kicks in]]

This is A Voice From Darkness.

[[AVFD intro music fades out]]

Hello, this is Dr. Malcolm Ryder, parapsychologist, here to help you with all problems paranormal, supernatural, and otherworldly. And we have a wonderful show planned for tonight. There’s two national alerts for the state of Florida - one for the panhandle, and another for the everglades. After we go over these we’ll explore one of the strangest roadside attractions in American history. And of course we’ll finish our show with the phone lines open so you, our listeners, can call-in. But first, let's get to our national alerts

[[National Alerts music starts]]

A sinkhole has appeared in the middle of Kelson Ave in Marianna, Florida. The hole’s depth is currently unknown however twenty feet down, stone carvings of faces appear. The carvings continue for as far down as anyone can tell. Each is unique yet is made to grotesquely express either the emotion of fear or that of delight. A spelunker descended into the hole to gather information about its depth. Two hours into his descent contact was lost and he was pulled out. When he resurfaced he was said to be in a daze. He removed his harness and immediately jumped back into the hole. Please be careful while driving on Kelson, Ave in Marianna, Florida. 

Our second national alert is for the Florida Everglades. The Singing has returned to the wetlands. All those in the area are advised to wear hearing protection for at least the next 72 hours or until otherwise instructed. The source of The Singing is unknown but is said to compel all who hear it to walk into the wetlands and be devoured by the creatures there-in. Again, please wear hearing protection if you’re within earshot of the Florida Everglades.

And that’s all we have for national alerts this evening. 

[[NA music fades out]]

Next up we have Today In Odd America, where we’ll discuss a manifestation that once haunted every corner of this land. And afterwards we’ll open the phone-lines.

[[Today In Odd America]]

Today in Odd America we find ourselves across the highways of our country. Forty four years ago today marks the last known visit to a roadside attraction commonly called The House of Narcissus. No physical evidence of this place exists. It was never found in the same location twice - yet hundreds of oral testimonies swear to its existence. Tonight I will cobble together disparate accounts from those who claim to have toured the fabled roadside museum. My hope is this will paint you a picture of what the experience was like for those who wound up touring a space dedicated completely to themselves. 

“I was driving down Route 8,” Maise Bridges stated to the Columbus Dispatch in 1955. “It was late and dark. No other cars were on the road. Then I saw it - a billboard illuminated by a single dim light that read: Know Thyself, Next Exit. No other words. But next to them, taking up the entirety of the right side was a painted picture - of me. Unmistakably me. Done in a sort of… Norman Rockwell style I suppose. I just… What was I supposed to do? Of course I took the next exit.” 

All descriptions of The House of Narcissus begin this way. A strange billboard on a lonely road, mere seconds to decide to take the exit or not. Oddly, there are few confirmed cases of those who saw the billboard and kept driving. It’s impossible to say if that says something overall about human nature or merely the people The House chose to manifest for.

“I was overwhelmed when I first drove up to the house,” Curtis Johnson said to the Louisville Times in 1948. “I’m not ashamed to admit it, but I might have cried a bit. I mean the place was just, just magnificent. Out there, in the middle of this grassy field, in the middle of nowhere there’s this small piece of heaven, you know? I didn’t feel like I was about to tour some cheap-o roadside scam where they show you a mannequin in a five dollar gorilla suit and tell you it’s Bigfoot. I felt like I was home. Of course I rushed right outta my car up to the door. Why wouldn’t I? I was home.”

Descriptions of the museum are typically left vague. Abstract. At least when describing the exterior. Visitors will speak of the joy they felt upon seeing the house. Often they’ll say a sense of nostalgia or homecoming overwhelmed them. However no one was ever able to give a single concrete detail of what The House looked like. How many stories were there? What color was the siding? What the house looks like remains a mystery to this day. But there’s much agreement about its interior. At least in some respects.

“There’re no employees, no turnstyle to go through, nothing like a museum or roadside attraction typically has. You just go in the front door, and you’re suddenly there - in the first room. It’s filled with photographs along the walls. They were all of my family, friends, neighbors, teachers, former classmates, folks from my church, employers, co-workers. People I might have talked to only once in passing. None of these were photos I took or remember anyone else ever taking. None are in any photo album I own,” said Judge Michael Harvester in 1972, when he called into the KIRT radio station of Olympia, Washington. 

The Photo Gallery is always the first room visitors find themselves in. Under each photo is a brass plaque, on which a single sentence is etched: the last words said by whomever is touring the house to the person featured in the photograph.

Even this first room can be disarming to a visitor. As Judge Harvester said: “You don’t realize how many people you speak to, thinking you’ll do so again, but then never do. It adds up over a life. It really does. I didn’t look at all the pictures, or read all the plaques. I had to stop after awhile. I saw one in particular… the last words I said to an old neighbor of mine, lived a few houses away from the place I bought right after law school. Me, him, and some of the guys down the block would get together to play poker twice a month. Last thing I said to him, ‘I’ll see you in a few weeks.’ I don’t remember what happened after that. I guess the poker game fell apart. I don’t think either of us moved, I don’t remember us getting into any fights. But I never spoke to him again. And that’s just one example. People like to call that first room the photo gallery, and that makes sense, I guess. But that’s not what it is. It’s a monument. A monument to lost relationships.”

Most visitors to The House expressed regret coming there at all after visiting this first room. Unfortunately, the way they entered disappears after entry - replaced by a wall filled with photographs. Once you enter, The House forces you to continue through the rooms. That is, if you wish to leave.

“The second room was a full scale replica of my childhood home,” said Sara Lopez to the San Diego Tribune in 1966. “All five rooms of our house back on Balboa Avenue. “I went through the cabinets in the kitchen. The dishes… they were identical to ones we had. There were these little hand drawn designs on them. They’re abstract, hard to describe, but the plates in that museum. They matched perfectly how I remembered them. It was impossible.” Most statements regarding the second room share similar amazement at the level of detail on even the most insignificant items - stains on the carpet, entryways scuffed and dirty from children’s shoes. “What really got me about the second room, “Sara Lopez said, “were the smells. The kitchen had this overwhelming odor of garlic and cumin, spices my mother put in everything. The carpet near the entryway smelled like wet dog. Our lab, Daisy, would run through our neighbors sprinkler then come inside, right to that patch of carpet, and roll around. Little things like that, I’d forgotten about completely. Hadn’t thought of in years, but suddenly a million memories came rushing back to me.”

The average visitor reported spending somewhere between four to five hours in The House of Narcissus. There were outliers of course, in both directions. Some, after seeing the photo gallery, ran through the other rooms without lingering. Others claimed to have spent days and only left when they were near dehydration.

There are dozens of other rooms in The House. Too many to go over tonight. But I’ll end by stating what’s in the only obligatory room, the last room. The room with the only way out.

At the very end of a long hallway is a plain wooden door with a small sign above that reads: What if…

Inside is a small movie theatre. There’s a single red cushioned seat in the room with the perfect view of a small screen. To the right of the screen is a door with an exit sign above. The door will not open unless the visitor sits down in the chair and watches, truly watches and listens, to the film that plays in that small theatre.

“On the day of what was supposed to be my wedding I called my best friend - my bridesmaid. I cried and I gave her the awful job of telling my husband-to-be I’d changed my mind,” said Tonya Blanton to the Sante Fe Dispatch in 1958. “I was living in Minneapolis at the time. Born there, was to be married there, figured I’d die there eventually too. I don’t know what overcame me. But I got in my car and drove. Found myself in New Mexico and started a new life. My parents were furious. And I never spoke to the man who was to be my husband ever again. He sent me a letter when I’d settled in Santa Fe. I wasn’t brave enough to open it. But in that last room. In that last room of that awful house - a film played. It showed what my life would have been had I stayed in Minneapolis. I won’t… I won’t say what all I saw. What all I missed out on. All I’ll say is I know I made the wrong choice. I’ve thought about that every single day since visiting that terrible place.”

Tonya Blanton is not a unique case. Chicago journalist Studs Terkel in his book The American Road: An Oral History devoted a chapter to The House of Narcissus. He conducted over twenty interviews with those who'd toured the roadside wonder. When asked if they could change places and live the life they saw in that last room - would they? Every person he interviewed said they would.

The House of Narcissus only existed for some sixty odd years. The last known visit occurred in 1977, outside of Spring Green, Wisconsin. “People say I must’ve burned the place down or something,” Buddy Palmer, the last recognized visitor, said to the Madison Gazette in 1980. “I didn’t, I swear,” he went on, “but if I had some matches and kerosene on me, would I of? Sure thing. No one should ever be forced to watch the movie that plays in that last room. I’ll think of that picture the rest of my life. I’ll know I messed up early on and I’m not living my best, happiest life. You know how hard it is to get out of the bed in the morning with that hanging over you? Sometimes that movie plays in my dreams. I usually gotta call in sick to work the next day when it does. I just can’t stop thinking about it. The rest of the place too… it’s just... Just too much.”

For those of you listening to this while driving alone, rest assured, you’re unlikely to see a billboard with your own face staring back at you and the words: Know Thyself, Next Exit. But in the rare chance such an event occurs, please consider my advice: don’t take that exit. Just keep driving. There are some truths about ourselves perhaps better left unexplored.

And now back to our main show.

[[TIOA music fades out]]

​​ACT II

RYDER

And we're back and we already have a caller on the line. Why don't you tell us your name and the nature of your supernatural problem.

RENE

Hello, Malcolm. I was wondering if we'd ever get the chance to speak again.

RYDER

(uncertain)

I don't recognize your voice. Have you called into the show before?

RENE

A few times, yes. And we met once or twice in person.

A beat.

RYDER

Who is this?

RENE

My name is Rene Dupont. And though I've explained this to you before, I will kindly do so again. I exist with a peculiar condition. People can rarely retain memories of me. Not in any form. As this conversation gets to a certain point, I'll begin to vanish from your mind as well as most of your listeners. If you try to write down anything about me during this call, you'll likely only produce gibberish or the vaguest of details.

RYDER

I've read case studies of similar situations. There was a man in Utah-

RENE

(interrupts)

Yes, yes.

Nathaniel Cotwell who lived in a small town that couldn't create new memories of him past the age of eight. And so as an adult they'd still treat him as if he were a young boy. You studied him and Sarah Pullman of Butte, Montana who went missing one night in the woods. When she found her way home again, her family had completely forgotten her.

A beat.

RENE

The few times we've spoken, you've wished to demonstrate knowledge of people who've existed with Memory-related ailments and those are your two most common examples.

RYDER

It seems we have spoken before. Mr. Dupont-

RENE

Please, call me Rene. No need for formalities. We're old acquaintances after all.

RYDER

Yes. Of course. And why have you called into the show tonight, Rene?

RENE

There's been a man following me. Repeatedly.

A beat.

RYDER

(realizing what he means)

And of course that's a difficult task to accomplish, as it's so hard to remember you.

RENE

You're correct. I am Anonymity Incarnate. But there's a man in a grey suit who seems to have found my scent. A further detail about him: he's missing one of his fingers. I'll let you guess which.

RYDER

Why is The Traveling Salesman after you?

RENE

I called you in search of an answer to that very question.

RYDER

In all likelihood he wishes to strike a deal with you. That's why he seeks anyone out. That, or to kill them.

RENE

Let's assume the former for the moment: what sort of deal would he want to make with me?

RYDER

I have no idea. Perhaps he needs information from someone. But he doesn't want this person to know they've given their secrets up. I imagine with your talent that's something you'd be good at.

RENE

Before the wall was destroyed in '89 I was employed on both sides doing something akin to what you just suggested.

A beat.

RYDER

Then that might be what he wants. Or perhaps something more... metaphysical.

RENE

Such as?

RYDER

Your ability to be forgotten. Julian already has some power over memory, but not that.

RENE

Could he really take that from me?

RYDER

Not take. Trade. The Salesman doesn't steal, Rene, but his deals are often one-sided, exploitive, as he'll neglect to tell you pertent information before you agree.

RENE

So he wouldn't really be taking something from me so much as he'd be giving me the gift of being able to be remembered.

A beat.

RYDER

That's a dangerous way of viewing such a deal.

RENE

Dangerous for you, perhaps, but of great advantage to me.

RYDER

It would be dangerous for the whole country for The Traveling Salesman to be easily forgotten. One of the few weapons we have against him are the memories of devastation he's brought about by the deals he's made. The only reason anyone ever turns him down is because his reputation precedes him. Take that away-

RENE

(interrupts)

I have the means and resources to go to many other countries. Julian Holloway can have this one.

RYDER

You'd potentially sacrifice hundreds of millions of people to-

RENE

(interrupts)

To be remembered. And yes, I would. This "talent" of mine came to me when I was young. For most my life I've been unable to have a meaningful relationship with another human being.

To even have an extended conversation. What's my name?

RYDER

Rene...

Malcolm searches his mind for the surname.

RYDER

Rene Dupont.

RENE

You're close to forgetting already, Malcolm Ryder.

A beat.

RENE

If I made a deal with your friend for him to take this power away, you'd never even know.

RYDER

The Traveling Salesman is not my friend.

RENE

If your former friend might help me where no one else could before, including yourself, then I would take him up on his offer.

RYDER

That is if he even wants to help you. He could be searching for you, as I already said, to kill you.

RENE

And why would that be his objective?

RYDER

There are limitations to his power. I don't fully know what they are, but I know they exist.

RENE

Again I ask, why would this necessitate him wanting me dead?

RYDER

Because you possess power in one of his realms - Memory and Dream. And if you have more power than he does, and if he can't use you, or your power, towards his own ends, he'll want you dead. You're a liability otherwise.

A beat.

RENE

You're bluffing. Trying to stoke fear in me so I stay away from him. So I can't make a deal. If what you said was true, your friend Charlotte Price would be dead.

RYDER

Charlotte has found ways to take care of herself. She's forged alliances with things even Julian fears. Have you done the same?

A beat.

RENE

What you're telling me is that I need leverage before I allow Julian Holloway to try and offer a deal to me.

RYDER

That's not what I'm saying at all. Under no circumstances should you attempt to make any deal with him.

RENE

That's not what I took away from this conversation. Thank you so much, Malcolm. As always, you've been helpful.

RYDER

No, wait-

Dial tone.

A long pause.

RYDER

There was someone on the line just now. I swear there was.

I have notes I made, most are illegible which isn't like me. Of what I can read: Shadow, Mirror, Flesh, Spirit, and Dream. I tried to write Memory but it seems my hand was unable to. Odd...

A beat.

RYDER

I think we'll end the show there tonight. I'd like to play back the recording of the past several minutes. See if I can see what I'm missing.

A beat.

RYDER

But if you're experiencing anything supernatural, paranormal, or otherworldly, please feel free to call in next time on A Voice From Darkness.

[[AVFD outro music fades in and out.]]

[meowmerson]

hi meowmers! just read your latest tomione fics and i'm so glad you're back here blessing us. would love to read your take on head boy & head girl tomione fic? or maybe an au where auror! hermione chases after dark wizard tom riddle

head boy head girl you say??????????????? one of my favorite tropes you say????????????????????????? I ACCEPT

–

Hermione knew it would be him. He was top of their class (a title she had been battling against him for since their first year) beloved by their professors and classmates, he was a natural-born leader, handsome, likable - it would have been outrageous for head boy to be anyone other than him.

Didn’t mean she had to like it.

Hermione always found something suspicious about Tom Riddle. She was certain she was the only one who thought so, save for maybe Harry, but then Harry was easily won over when people were kind to him. And Tom Riddle certainly went out of his way to be kind.

But he was mysterious. No one really knew where he was from - everyone knew he was an orphan, but no one knew how, or where he lived now. Everyone just thought he was a poor tortured soul and that those things should never be mentioned.

He had a close circle of friends who followed his every command and cowered in the face of his glare. She had seen Malfoy once laughing and subsequently cowering from nothing but a look from Tom Riddle, nothing more than a glance, and suddenly Malfoy was swallowing his laughter and averting his eyes to the ground. Malfoy didn’t do that for anybody.

How could someone so allegedly kind strike that kind of fear into someone’s heart with nothing more than a glance?

He was fake, she had decided. He was nothing more than secrets upon secrets shrouded beneath a pretty face, a friendly smile, an intelligent mind. But there was something there, beneath the surface. Something secret, something dark.

And Hermione never liked liars.

“Would you just admit you want to ride his dick til you pass out so we can move on?” Lavender drawled from her bed in the Gryffindor seventh year room.

Hermione sputtered for a solid thirty seconds while Padma and Parvati absolutely killed themselves laughing. Ginny, who was lounging on Padma’s bed while the twins lay together on Parvati’s, stared at Hermione awaiting her reaction with unrelenting glee.

“Lavender!” Hermione finally managed to choke out, bringing on another round of obnoxious laughter from the girls.

“Oh come on, Hermione,” Lavender said, “You have wanted to hop on that since first year!”

“I have absolutely no idea what you are–”

“Oh, look at him Hermione!” Ginny said, “That boy is sex on legs,”

“Whether or not he is sex on legs is not the point!” Hermione snapped, “Have you been listening to anything I’m saying? I have to share a living quarters with a boy who–”

“So you admit he’s sex on legs then?” Lavender interrupted.

“Ugh!” Hermione pushed herself to her feet, “I am finished with this conversation. I’m leaving.”

“Make sure you get back before curfew starts,” Padma said, and Parvati added, “Or Riddle will need to punish you!”

“Fuck all of you!” Hermione swore, and the uncharacteristically foul language sent the girls into another round of laughter.

–

She tried to speak to Harry and Ron.

Ron said, “Ah, this is about how badly you want to snog Riddle then, is it?”

Harry laughed, and Hermione picked up the bottle of firewhiskey they had snuck in and poured it out the window as revenge.

–

She put off returning to the common room as long as she could. Guiding the first years around had been alright, mostly because they split up those responsibilities and didn’t take them together, but they would be doing rounds tonight, together, just the two of them, then returning to the Head’s common together.

It all felt very strange.

Tom was stood outside the portrait to their common room when she arrived. “You’re nearly late.” He said.

“Nearly,” Hermione agreed, “But not quite.”

“Meeting up with your friends?” He asked as they started down the hall. He always did this, attempted friendly conversation, as if they were familiar enough to do so. She nodded curtly. “Did you meet up with any of them over the summer?”

“No,” She answered. She didn’t elaborate.

“Ah,” He replied, seemingly nonplussed, “It must be nice to catch up, then.”

When would this torture end?

“Yes, it is.” Hermione agreed.

“And did you have a nice summer?” He asked.

She glanced toward him, but looked away before she caught his eye. He was peering around the corridor, keeping an eye out for any students out after curfew or first years who had gotten lost. She wondered what he was playing at, why he was trying to make friendly conversation. What did he have to gain, here? What did he want?

“Miss Granger?” He pressed.

“Hm?”

“I asked if you had a nice summer.” She looked toward him again, and this time his eyes were fixed on her.

“Did you?” She asked, just to see the twitch in his brow in response. He did that sometimes, little ticks to show that his endless patience wasn’t really so endless. She loved to see it, see those glances into whoever he was behind his mask of perfection.

“Yes.” It was the shortest response he’d given her that night.

“Oh,” She said, and offered him a strained smile, “Yes, I did.”

He didn’t speak to her for the remainder of the evening, except for a polite ‘have a good night’ when they returned to the common room.

It felt like a win

–

They split up rounds, after that. They worked on a one night on, one night off schedule, trading off. It wasn’t typical for head boy and girl to do this, but Hermione had suggested it, and Tom hadn’t argued.

He never did, she found out. He had debated her countless times in class, but they had never had a personal conversation before this year, and it seemed no matter what she said, what she suggested, he tended to agree.

She didn’t understand what he was up to.

Her friends wouldn’t stop relentlessly teasing her, and wouldn’t listen to a single one of her suspicions. And why would they? She didn’t have anything to go on, just this feeling in her gut.

Maybe it was just an issue of attraction.

He was handsome, certainly, and extremely intelligent. He impressed her, and it had been a while since she had met someone who genuinely impressed her. He had a way with people that she always lacked, everyone liked him, maybe it was jealousy. Or maybe it was the way she had so often caught herself thinking about him over the year, wondering what it would be like to know him, for him to know her.

Was this feeling nothing but her own convoluted emotions making her over paranoid?

Living in close quarters to Tom was easy. He kept to himself, didn’t invite anyone over, she would only see him if he was reading in front of the fireplace in their shared common area. She never saw him up to no good, never heard strange noises or saw strange things. He was perfectly normal, perfectly good, perfectly perfect.

She was beginning to doubt herself.

“You know,” Harry told her once, “I thought I hated Draco for ages until I realized I just like blokes.”

“But you also hated Draco,” She reminded him.

“True,” He agreed, and shrugged, as if that didn’t really matter.

–

It was her turn for rounds, and she was dutifully making her way through her assigned route. It was a quiet night, she hadn’t run into any first-years sneaking around the castle, or third-years finding their way to the kitchens, or sixth-years hooking up in abandoned classrooms. She was grateful especially for the last one, she hated stumbling upon that.

She was about ready to finish, head back up to her room and go to bed, when she saw the slightest glow under a classroom door.

It only lasted for a moment before it was gone, like a candle being burnt out, or a spell being cast. She crept toward the door, it was probably a couple of naked teenagers again, trying to get their rocks off in the potions classroom. She pressed her ear against the door to see if she needed to knock or if she could barge in.

She could hear nothing.

She moved away, furrowed her brow. There was definitely someone in there, but they put up a silencing charm. Definitely a couple. She went to open the door, it was locked. So she cast an Alohomora, and to her surprise, nothing happened.

Something icy settled in her stomach. She could only think of one person that she could imagine casting such advanced locking charms. But it wasn’t his night for patrols, and she thought he was in his room.

She was being paranoid. She knew she should knock and demand whoever is in there comes out immediately, deduct house points for being out late and finish her rounds. She shouldn’t be overdramatic about this, lest she look like a fool.

She blew up the lock and removed the silencing charm.

She heard a boy yelp as she pushed the door open. There was a bit of smoke from the exploded lock that had to clear before she could see what was going on inside the room.

Malfoy stood inside, his eyes wide and wet, and Tom stood opposite, looking like he was trying very hard not to look angry.

“What is going on in here?”

“Miss Granger,” Tom said calmly, “Was blowing the lock truly necessary?”

“Was locking and silencing the room truly necessary?” She replied, but she was quickly distracted by Malfoy. He looked terrified, he was blinking rapidly, his eyes wet, and he was shaking like a leaf. She glanced between the two of them, Malfoy looking traumatized, and Tom looking the picture of poise, his eyes locked on her.

She wondered what could have been happening before she opened that door.

“Are you alright?” She asked Malfoy quietly.

“Draco sometimes has nightmares,” Tom answered, “It’s not something he is particularly open about. I was trying to give him a space to calm down with a bit of privacy.”

Hermione watched Tom for a long moment, examined the friendly tilt of his lips into an almost-smile,  the gentle tone of his voice. He was for all intents and purposes, a dedicated friend.

Hermione wasn’t buying it. “I asked Malfoy.” She said.

Something changed in Tom’s expression then, something she hadn’t seen before. It wasn’t just the twitch of his eyebrow or a slight, barely present frown. His whole face went startlingly blank, and his eyes became sharp. She had never seen his eyes like that, focused and intense.

She looked back to Malfoy, who stared back and forth between them with wide eyes. “Malfoy.” She repeated.

He looked at Tom first, who met his gaze. Malfoy then looked back to her, and finally spoke, “Yes,” He said, and the breathiness of his voice made Hermione wonder what had been happening before she interrupted. Did people really sound like this just from crying from a nightmare? “I get night-terrors. Tom was simply calming me down.”

Hermione didn’t like the way Tom turned back to her with a smile. “If you don’t mind, Ms. Granger,” He said, “I’ll take care of Malfoy.”

Malfoy had not stopped shaking.

“I can take him back to his common room,” Hermione said, “It isn’t your night for rounds, Mr. Riddle.”

“I would rather Tom takes me back to the common room.” Malfoy interjected.

There was nothing more Hermione could do then, except look sadly at the state Malfoy was in and ask, “Are you sure, Draco?”

She used his first name on purpose. Malfoy blinked at her, and Tom turned his head slowly to look at her as she said it. She didn’t look at Riddle, kept her eyes on Malfoy and waited for his response.

He nodded, so there was nothing else she could do.

“Fine,” She nodded, and didn’t look at Riddle when she added, “Take him straight back to his common room, it’s after curfew and I don’t want to have to deduct house points.”

“Of course, Hermione,” Tom said.

It was the first time he ever used her first name.

–

Hermione didn’t see Tom that night, and she left her room early that morning.

She didn’t see him until breakfast.

“I need to tell you something,” She said to Harry and Ron, “Something I saw last night.”

“What is it?” Ron said through a mouth full of food.

She looked around the Great Hall. Tom Riddle hadn’t made his appearance yet, but Malfoy was at the Slytherin table. He looked normal, his typical haughty self, it was as if last night had never happened. But Hermione couldn’t chake the memory of his expression, frightened and shaking like a leaf.

“I was doing my rounds,” She said, looking back to Ron and Harry who were listening closely, “And I walked in on Riddle and Malfoy.”

“Doing what?” Harry asked.

“I’m not sure,” Hermione said, “They were in the potions classroom and had a silencing charm and complicated locking charm on the door.”

“Doing what, though?” Ron pressed.

“I don’t know!” Hermione protested, “I can’t imagine what they could have been doing, but–”

“Were they fucking?” Ron asked outright.

Hermione sputtered for a moment, “No!” She said, “Well, I–I don’t think so. No. Malfoy looked terrified.” She thought of the two of them, standing there, Riddle’s calm stance, Malfoy’s wide, wet eyes. “No, definitely not. I blew the lock and walked in unannounced and they weren’t even touching, no clothes askew.”

“Wait,” Harry interjected, “You blew the lock?”

“Yes.” Hermione confirmed.

“Bloody hell,” Ron said, “Why’d you do that?”

“I couldn’t unlock it.” Hermione shrugged, not understanding the fuss. “That’s not the point.”

“So what did they say?” Harry asked.

“They said something about Malfoy having nightmares,” Hermione sighed, “That he needed to calm down, and Tom was helping him.”

Ron shrugged, “Sounds believable to me.”

“Does it?” Hermione asked, astounded, “Does it actually?”

“Yeah, why not?” Ron asked, and commenced shoveling food into his face again, “They’re friends, aren’t they?”

“Riddle doesn’t have friends,” Hermione protested, “Have you ever heard him call anyone by their first name? Have you ever seen him spending time with someone outside what is absolutely necessary?” She didn’t miss Ron rolling his eyes, but she ignored it, “Something was going on, I’m sure of it. I’m just not sure what.”

“What does Malfoy have nightmares about?” Harry asked.

“I don’t know, Harry!” Hermione replied, exasperated, “That’s not the point.”

“The point is,” Ron said through another mouthful, “Hermione is pissed her boyfriend was canoodling with another guy.”

“Ronald.” Hermione said sternly.

“Hermione.”

That wasn’t Ron. That wasn’t Harry. Hermione looked up to see Tom Riddle stood behind her two best friends, a small, friendly smile on his face. Ron’s eyes practically bulged out of his skull when he turned to see who was behind him, and he turned back to Hermione to raise his eyebrows and she knew what he was trying to say to her without words, ‘he calls you Hermione, huh?’

“Riddle.” She greeted, pointedly avoiding his first name.

“I was hoping I could speak to you.” Tom said.

“No.” Hermione replied, secretly delighted by the slight falter in his smile, “I’m in the middle of a conversation.”

“We just finished, actually!” Harry chirped, smiling at Tom and then turning back to Hermione, “Go ahead, ‘Mione. It’s fine.”

She wanted to kill Harry.

“Fine.” She said, and stood slowly, “We can talk.”

“Excellent.” Tom said.

They were on opposite sides of the long table, and the distance from where she was sat to the main door of the great hall felt like a funeral procession. She glanced toward him, over the heads of the students at the Gryffindor table. He looked straight ahead, his hands clasped behind his back, his head held high. He had excellent posture and a perfect mask. It felt dreamlike, walking alongside him with only a table full of oblivious students between them.

Once outside the Great Hall, Tom walked beside Hermione until they reached a relatively quiet corridor. It was lined with windows that overlooked the courtyard. Sunlight streamed in, and they stopped in the light of one of the windows, but Tom stood just outside of the sunlight.

She waited for him to speak.

“You blew the lock off the door.” Was the first thing he said. She didn’t understand why everyone was so hung up on that.

“Yes.” She confirmed, “You cast very complicated locking spells.”

He smiled tightly, “We wanted privacy.”

“What for?” She asked.

He paused, examined her for a quiet moment. Hermione wasn’t sure what he hoped to find, but he stared into her eyes for what felt like a very, very long time before speaking again, “Forgive me to saying so, Hermione,” He used her name again. She didn’t know why he did that. “But you seem suspicious of me.”

“Is there something I should be suspicious of?” She asked.

“I certainly don’t think so,” He laughed, “I told you the truth last night, I’m sorry if it appeared suspicious.”

“Why was he so afraid of you?” She tipped her chin up, tried to search his eyes for some kind of answer like he seemed to try to do with her.

He laughed, “Hermione,” He said her name again, she felt something uncomfortable coil in her gut, “He was not afraid of me. I don’t believe anyone has any reason to be afraid of me.”

She didn’t believe him. That was the strangest thing about all of this - despite his nice smile and his kind words, she couldn’t find it within herself to believe him no matter how she tried. But it would do no good to say so, so she looked away and said, “Of course. Forgive me, I’m a bit on edge.”

“Are you alright, Hermione?” He asked, “Is there anything I can do?”

You can stop lying to my fucking face, she thought. But she just smiled tightly and shook her head.

He reached out, gently laid his hands on her arm, and it took everything in herself not to flinch. “Let me know if you need anything.” He said kindly, “Perhaps we can start doing rounds together?”

She didn’t like the idea of spending any more time around him than absolutely necessary. But then she didn’t like the idea of him galavanting around Hogwarts at night, either. At least this way she could keep an eye on him.

“Alright,” She agreed, “Let’s do that.”

He smiled, and let his hand linger just a moment too long on her arm.

–

Hermione cornered Malfoy in the library.

“Draco,” She greeted, sitting down across from him where he was reading. He looked up, and promptly blanched.

“What the fuck do you want, Granger?” He snapped.

“Just checking in.” She said, “How are you feeling?”

He stared at her for a very long time, a sneer steadily spreading across his face. “Fine.” He spat.

“No more nightmares?” She pressed.

There was a split second, barely there at all, where his brows started to press together, and he looked confused. It was gone in a flash, and he averted his eyes and followed along, but it was all Hermione needed to know she was right. “Yeah, nightmares…” He agreed, “I’m fine, Riddle helped.”

She leaned closer, folding her arms on the table in front of her. “But it wasn’t really a nightmare, was it?”

Malfoy grit his teeth. “What are you on about?”

“It wasn’t a nightmare,” Hermione repeated, “It was something else, right?” Malfoy was glaring fiercely at her now, “What happened to you in there? Why were you so scared?”

“Granger,” He started, and it sounded like a warning. Hermione ignored it.

“What did he do to you?” She pressed, “Malfoy, if you tell me, I can help you.”

Abruptly, Malfoy slammed his hands on the table and stood. He leaned toward her, and in a quiet tone, he furiously spoke, “I have never once asked for help from a mudblood,” Hermione sat back, the word sinking deep into her chest. She blinked once and willed herself not to show how it bothered her, “And I won’t start now.”

She stood and slammed her hand down on his book, let her magic seep out through her fingertips to set it on fire.

She left him there, frantically stamping out the flames, and felt foolish for caring.  

–

She was studying in the heads common room. She didn’t usually do that, opting to study in her room instead, but she wanted a change in scenery, so she sat on the floor of the common room by the fire, taking in its warmth and focusing on her coursebook.

She didn’t expect Tom to sit in the chair across from her by the fire.

She glanced up, and saw he was staring at her intently. He hadn’t greeted her yet, just stared. It was evening time, and the room was dark except for the fire. She watched the glow play along his features, and felt something strange in her belly.

“Hello, Riddle.” She greeted first, because he wasn’t saying anything yet.

“Hermione.” He greeted, and smiled a small, private smile. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine,” She answered, “Why?”

“I heard about your conversation with Malfoy.” He explained, and she felt herself go cold despite the warmth of the fire.

She didn’t answer. She wasn’t sure what she was meant to say.

He pursed his lips for a moment, then moved from the chair to sit on the ground across from her. “Hermione,” He said quietly, “I heard about what he called you.”

She suddenly felt very confused. She thought he would ask why she was still asking about him, still acting like he was suspicious. She couldn’t fathom why he, a Slytherin who had absolutely used that word before, would be concerned because someone called her a mudblood.

It wasn’t precisely that it didn’t bother her. It did. Every time someone called her by that name it made her feel angry, upset, ashamed, all at the same time. But she was used to it, to some extent.

“He’s called me that before,” She finally answered, “I know you’ve used that word before.”

“Not against you.” He argued.

A strange argument, because it hardly mattered who he used it against.

“Regardless,” She continued, “You’re hardly in a position to comfort me if someone calls me a horrible name.” His brow twitched, “Besides, it isn’t the first time and it won’t be the last. I’m fine.”

“I’ve spoken to him,” Tom said, “He won’t call you that again.”

She felt well and truly lost. She couldn’t hide the confusion on her face even if she tried.

“Shouldn’t you be more concerned with other parts of our conversation?” She asked.

It was a foolish thing to ask him, but she couldn’t help herself.

He laughed, glanced away for a moment to look into the fire. Hermione found herself unwillingly fixating on the glow of his cheeks, the slope of his nose, the way the firelight danced in his dark eyes and made them glow red.

“Do you know what I think, Hermione?” He asked, still looking into the fire. She didn’t answer, and after a moment he looked back at her, and there was something in his gaze that made her stomach twist. “I think there are better things we could be doing than fighting each other.”

Hermione suddenly found herself rather short of breath. There was no mistaking what he was implying, his tone of voice and the weight of his eyes made it very clear. Though for all of the female attention Tom Riddle received, she had never heard of him being so forward. Quite the opposite - she had often heard girls bemoaning the fact that Tom was so standoffish, refused to make a move or pursue anyone, was nothing but a perfect gentleman at all times.

He was trying to distract her, she thought. It was the only explanation. He was trying to take her mind off of things that he didn’t want her to be thinking of.

She wondered…

She set her book aside, leaned toward him slowly. There was no sound except for the crackling of the fire. She watched his eyes as she leaned toward him, closer and closer until there were only a few inches between them. He watched her, sat as still as a statue. She paused, left a breath of space between them and watched his expression, but he showed no emotion.

Quietly, she spoke, and as she did, his eyes fell to her lips, “I would love to know what it is you think we should be doing, Tom Riddle.”

His eyes met hers again, impossibly dark. She didn’t notice he lifted his hand until she felt his fingers drag gently up her arm. He didn’t move closer, he left that decision entirely up to her. Clever, she thought. To let her believe she is entirely in control, to ease any thoughts of suspicions that he should be hiding something by distracting her but making it feel like it is her decision.

Briefly, she did consider the possibility of going through with it. It would grant easy access to his bedroom, and she could surely find all sorts of things in there to clear some of his mystery. But there was no guarantee she would have a moment in there without his watchful eye, and she felt a bit uncomfortable at the thought of sleeping with someone to get what she wanted.

She wasn’t like him.

She could feel the heat of him, as strong as the fire, blazing against her chest. She was struck by the uncomfortable thought that some part of her, buried beneath the suspicion and frustration and anger, would like to kiss him. It made her angry, the way some parts of him seemed to call to her, it made her deeply uncomfortable that the thought of being with him made her stomach twist with anticipation.

It especially infuriated her that all of this was only a show. She knew without a shadow of a doubt that someone like Tom Riddle - intelligent, poised, enigmatic, Slytherin - would never look at her that way. He must think her a fool to fall for something as simple as this, to trip over herself because he gives her an iota of attention.

Hermione tilted her head. He still hadn’t moved. She found it fascinating, the way he held himself so still, allowing her to make all the moves. Somehow she doubted someone like him, someone capable of instilling os much fear in his friends, would be so submissive in matters like this.

“How stupid do you think I am?” She asked, breaking the silence with nothing more than a whisper. He blinked, a slight pinch to the centre of his brow. “What kind of simpering fool do you take me for?”

His hand dropped. “Hermione,” He started, but she caught his hand by the wrist and he fell silent once more.

“Perhaps next time,” Hermione spat, “We can come from a place of mutual respect, rather than pretending I am like every other person you have ever seduced, intimidated, or threatened into doing what you want.” His face was carefully blank, but he didn’t interrupt, he didn’t move, didn’t even pull his hand away. “You can start by telling me what was happening with Malfoy the other night, and then perhaps I can withstand your present long enough to have a conversation.”

He didn’t say anything, so Hermione turned to pick up her book and began to stand. Tom Riddle caught her by her wrist before she could get far, so quick and so sudden that he startled her. She dropped her book as he pulled her back down, and in a tone sounding very unlike him he spoke.

“How about we start with you telling me something,” He said, and she noted his voice was higher when he was angry, sharper, more cutting. It wasn’t a nice sound, not like the way his voice usually sounded. “Why do you care so much about what happens to Malfoy?”

“So you admit it?” She pressed, “Something happened to Malfoy?”

“Don’t you know that he hates you?” He spat, and this version of him was so different than any version of him she had seen before. She took in every inch of him, the downward curl of his sneer, the slight wrinkle of his nose, the cutting gaze, the slope of his brow. There was even a slight flush to his cheeks, a sign of life that she hadn’t even noticed wasn’t there before. “More than he hates Potter, more than he hates anyone, he hates you. He find you repulsive, dirty—“

“I have never cared what Malfoy thinks of me and I won’t start now.” She interrupted.

“Then why do you give a shit about what happens to him behind closed doors?” His grip on her wrist was bruising, but she wouldn’t flinch. This was the most brutal, honest display he had ever shared with her, and she wouldn’t miss a moment, wouldn’t shy away, not now when she was getting exactly what she asked for.

“Because it doesn’t matter how much of a bigoted arsehole someone is,” Hermione spoke through gritted teeth, “Doesn’t mean they deserve to be tortured.”

It surprised even her when she said it. She wasn’t sure what precisely it was she suspected when she found Malfoy shaking and terrified in that room with Riddle, hadn’t thought on the details too much. But it made sense to her somehow that someone so perfect and so poised, so falsely kind, could only be capable of horrible, unspeakable things.

Tom’s face closed off immediately, and any and all emotions she had been rewarded with was suddenly gone. His eyes went blank, cold, and a dead smile stretched across his lips. “Oh Hermione,” He murmured, “What a dark imagination you have.”

She snatched her wrist out of his grip, and realized a moment after he did that her hands were shaking. His eyes followed the movement of her hands as she picked up her book and pressed it against her chest.

“I’m not so easily fooled, Riddle,” She said as she stood, “You can deny it all you want, but we both know I’m right.”

“You always are, aren’t you?” He asked, his tone mocking, looking up at her from his place on the ground.

Such a strange and unusual stalemate, she thought, standing her him while he stared up at her with cold, emotionless eyes. She was too quick to call him out, it was too sudden, and because of that they were back to square one. He hadn’t admitted it, but he hadn’t denied it, and he hadn’t lashed out at her either. She might’ve expected more anger in light of her accusations, but he just sat there, the picture of ease, staring up at her as if he had nothing to worry about.

She didn’t say anything in return, instead she stormed to her room, shut the door, and cast three separate locking charms.

She didn’t sleep well that night.

—

Hermione wasn’t sure what she expected the following morning, but seeing Tom Riddle waiting for her on the couch in the common room stopped her in her tracks.

“Hermione,” He greeted.

“Riddle,” She replied, pointedly refusing to use his first name. “What do you want?”

“I’d like to walk you to the Great Hall.” He answered, standing smoothly. She narrowed her eyes.

“Why?” She asked.

“Because I’d like to show you something.” He answered vaguely.

She didn’t like this, it gave her an uncomfortable feeling, but she wasn’t sure what else she could do. If she resorted to violence, its more than likely people would side with Riddle. Running away would do no good, as they went to school together, shared multiple classes, and slept in rooms next to each other. Not to mention, the idea of running away felt cowardly as well as foolish.

She sighed through her nose and nodded, approaching him with measured steps. He held his arm out to her with a smile as if to guide her, and she ignored it.

They walked in silence. He didn’t try to speak to her and she had no interest in speaking to him. She paid close attention to the corridors, trying to see if any of his friends were lurking about, ready to jump her. She kept a hand on her wand at all times, ready for anything, but nothing happened.

When they neared the Great Hall, she saw a head of white blonde hair lurking outside the entrance. She glanced at Tom momentarily, then looked ahead, tightening her grip on her wand.

Malfoy straightened as they approached, and Hermione readied herself for…for what, she wasn’t sure. It seemed foolish to start something right outside the great hall, and Malfoy didn’t have his wand in hand. His eyes were trained on the floor as they neared him, and he didn’t look up.

“Malfoy.” Tom greeted.

“Riddle,” Malfoy returned, and then more quietly, “Granger.”

Hermione had no idea what was happening, even less so when Malfoy squared his shoulders and spoke.

“Granger,” He repeated, louder this time, somehow managing to sound haughty and arrogant even while his eyes were trained on her shoes, “I apologize for my behavior yesterday. It was inappropriate and uncalled for.”

Hermione was at a loss of what to say. At her extended silence, Malfoy glanced up at her, and then toward Tom. His eyes quickly fell to the ground again, and to Hermione’s utter shock, he lowered his head in what was almost a bow.

She had seen purebloods do this often, mostly to their elders, bow their heads in respect. They rarely did it to anyone on their level, classmates or colleagues, and certainly never did it to muggleborns. “Please, forgive me.” Malfoy said.

Hermione turned her head slowly to look at Tom, who was watching Malfoy with a blank expression, but something dance in his eyes, something almost gleeful.

She turned her head back to see Malfoy, head still bowed. “I forgive you.” She said quietly, and watched the way his shoulders sag, like he was expecting differently.

He straightened, tipped his chin up and nodded before heading into the Great Hall. Hermione watched the empty space where he had just stood.

Tom started to move, but Hermione caught his arm before he could enter the Great Hall. “What in Merlin’s name was that?” She hissed.

“A gift,” He said, and stepped close to her, so close that she had to lift her chin, tip her head back to meet his eyes. “Did you like it?”

“What are you doing?” She asked quietly, and he smiled.

“You don’t like it then?” He surmised, looking like he was enjoying this far too much.

“What did you do to him to make him do that?” She snapped, keeping her voice low.

He dipped his head just a bit, and whispered, “Nothing more than he deserved,” Then he straightened up again, and continued, “Don’t you like him better this way?”

“What are you doing?” She repeated, quickly losing her temper.

Tom Riddle smiled, an unusual thing, because it wasn’t just a quirk of his lips. It was a fully-fledged smile, one that showed his teeth, dimpled his cheek. Hermione felt that smile deep in her belly, twisting and tugging, shortening her breath. “It’s time for breakfast.” Is all he said.

“I’m not eating with you.” She said, furious at how breathy her voice sounded.

“I would be surprised if you did.” He answered.

He took her gently by the arm, and it was only then she realized she had never let go of his arm. She let go as if burned, but didn’t shy away from the gentle fingers on her arm. He guided her toward the entrance to the great hall, and waited until they had entered, until they had caught the gaze of the students nearest to the entrance, before he dropped his hand and nodded his farewell, heading toward the Slytherin table.

Hermione ignored the twisting in her belly, the heat where this hand had touched her arm, and wondered what it meant that when she turned her head to peer over the heads of all the students as she walked toward her table, Tom Riddle’s eyes were still fixed on her.

[despairofthefuture]

She may be looking for Sonia Nevermind, the Ultimate Princess, or Gundham Tanaka, the Ultimate Breeder. They're both into dark occult stuff. They're also in the same class as Chiaki and Ryota. I think they're pretty close friends, so if you find one you'll probably find the other not far off.

"Princess!?" Hiro repeats, his eyes widening. "There's a princess at this school!?"

"As amazingly cool as that is-" Leon says, trying to bring them back on topic. "-this Gundham dude....Why would a...breeder know about occult bullshit?"

"The same reason a princess would?" Hiro mutters under his breath.

Chihiro furrows his brow in thought, the small boy looking very worried. "W-well, Mukuro did say it had nothing to do with his talent." He reminds them. "So perhaps it's a hobby of his?"

"Well, regardless, this is all we have to go on, and you guys havent been wrong yet!" Leon says determinedly, flashing the spirits a grin. "Since Mukuro specifically said 'he', we should check up on this Gundham weirdo first. So hurry the hell up, Hiro! Look up this Gundham guy!"

The clairvoyant nods and does as he was told, looking up a picture of Gundham Tanaka. When he finds one he stares at it in surprise. "This...this guy works with animals?" He asks, stunned.

Leon looks over his friend's shoulder and raises a brow. "Damn. Yeah, he looks more like an Ultimate Clairvoyant than you do! He obviously seems to be embracing the occult for a start!"

This earns the ghost a glare, but Hiro quickly shakes his head and returns his phone to his pocket. "Well, whatever. We know what he looks like, so let's go to his dorm."

As he begins making his way there, Chihiro frowns. "You know, the fact that Mukuro knows about this Gundham means she and Junko must have been studying him, or at the very least his class." He points out. "Which would make sense considering how much of her plan revolves around 77-B." His face saddens. "Poor guys. It's bad enough Junko put us, her classmates and friends through something like a killing game, but to basically torture a whole other class?"

"Its sick." Leon agrees, his eyes narrowed angrily. "She's sick."

Hiro simply nods in response, a frown on his face as he walks. Suddenly, he freezes in place. "Wait, what about Hajime?!" He asks. "I was supposed to meet up with him and-"

"That can wait a minute!" Leon interrupts him. "If we dont hurry and stop Mukuro, who the hell knows what could happen!"

Hiro nods in understanding, breaking out into a sprint towards the dorms, causing a brown haired boy in a Reserve Course uniform to look up and give him an annoyed look as he passed.

~~~

Hiro was thankfully able to find Gundham's room with relative ease. As he stands in front of the Ultimate Breeder's door, he hesitates.

"Dude, what's the hold up?" Leon asks impatiently.

Hiro frowns and begins picking at his skin. "Its just...the energy surrounding this room...its...really heavy and...dark..." He mutters.

Leon groans and rolls his eyes. "Oh for the love of-Hurry the hell up!" He snaps.

Hiro sighs and nods, reaching a hand up and knocking on the door.

A quiet exchange of voices could be heard along with some shuffling until the door is opened.

"Who dares disturb the Overlord of-"

The boy behind the door stops when he sees Hiro. The two lock eyes, and a wave of energy courses through the clairvoyant.

The extravagantly dressed man before Hiro stares at him for a moment more before he smirks. "Heh. I had thought the dark lady and myself were the only ones dabbling in the forbidden arts, but I can sense they run through your veins as well."

Hiro blinks in surprise at the guy's strange speech patterns. "Uh...i-if by 'forbidden arts' you mean fortune telling, then yeah!" Hiro finally responds, forcing a smile onto his face. "My names Yasuhiro Hagakure. I'm the Ultimate Clairvoyant!"

The other man lets out an impressed hum. "Clairvoncy, hm? Then have your visions sent you to my side for the aid of my dark powers?!" He suddenly poses in a strange way, and Hiro blinks in confusion.

"Uh...y-yeah. More or less. Youre... Gundham Tanaka, right?" He asks, scratching his head as he begins to regret coming here.

Gundham's smirk widens as he nods. "My reputation of course precedes me. Indeed, that is my name! GUNDHAM TANAKA!" The...eccentric fellow bellows out his name, cause Chihiro to flinch slightly.

Leon rolls his eyes. "Dear Lord this guy is gonna be annoying." He mutters.

Hiro gives a subtle nod in agreement before forcing the smile onto his face again. "Well, great! Do you, uh, mind if I come in, Gundham?'

Gundham shakes his head and steps to the side. "But of course not! A fellow user of the dark arts is always welcome in my abode!" He declares. "Although my Third Eye has failed me, for I did not forsee your visit." The breeder suddenly blushes, catching Hiro even more off guard as the man attempts to hide the flush by raising his scarf over his face. "I currently have...company over. The dark princess, Sonia Nevermind. But do not fear! I am training her to be my apprentice, so you need not hold your tongue with anything you must tell me!" He declares with finality as he turns with a flourish and walks into his room.

Hiro stands still for a moment longer, sharing an unsure look with Leon and Chihiro, before following the breeder into his room and closing the door behind him.

The dark atmosphere Hiro had felt from outside the door was tripled the moment he took a step inside, and he shivered. Gundham's room was dark, light blotting curtains hung at the windows that allowed the only light inside the room to be the many lit candles that were scattered around. There was a bookcase against one of the walls, and on it several heavy looking leather cased books.

"Well I guess we found the right guy." Leon mutters.

Hiro nods in agreement as he continues scanning the environment. His gaze stops at something that seemed out of place. A brightly colored hamster cage where four happy looking hamster were currently rested inside.

"Well, he is the Ultimate Breeder." Hiro thinks to himself. "I guess it would be more weird if there wasnt anything animal related here."

"Oh, Gundham! You have company!" A sweet, feminine voice speaks up, causing Yasuhiro to turn his head in its direction. He couldnt help but stare. There was a beautiful blonde girl, sat upon Gundham's bed.

"Indeed I do, dark mistress." Gundham confirms, coming to a stop in front of the hamster cage. He opens the lid and places some treats inside, the four critters skittering over to them and eating them hungrily. "He says his name is Yasuhiro." A grin spreads on his face as he turns from his four pets. "He is also a user of the arts."

The girl, who Hiro assumes to be Sonia Nevermind, gasps and clasps her hands together excitedly. "Really?!" She exclaims happily. "There is another one at the school?!"

"It indeed seems that way, Sonia." The breeder confirms, his gaze going to Hiro. "He says he is a clairvoyant, and that he received a vision that called him to me."

Sonia gasps and looks to Hiro as well. "Is that so? Then please! I insist you inform us of the details of your vision at once!"

For some reason Hiro felt extremely compelled to bow towards the upperclasswoman and the need to hurry with the explanation. He blinks and clears his throat, attempting to calm his nerves. "R-right. Well, it's a long...and, well, pretty unbelievable story if I'm being honest." He sighs before continuing. "But I swear to you, Buddha, Gandhi, Mother Earth or whatever deity you believe in its true.

It started when my classmate Junko Enoshima came to me, asking me to read her future...."

~~~

"...and then Mukuro mentioned someone else with knowledge of...occult stuff." Hiro finishes explaining, holding back the urge to explain his distaste for the occult. "And the spirits mentioned it could be one of you two." He looks between Sonia and Gundham, both of which look extremely surprised. "And since Mukuro said 'he' we went to your room first." He chuckles and rubs the back of his neck. "So...yeah. We wanted to make sure Mukuro's ghost...future ghost...didnt come here and find something she could use."

Gundham stares at the clairvoyant for a while, seemingly at a loss for words. Finally he clears his throat. "Well...that certainly is...quite the ordeal." The breeder recovers quickly, a grin forming on his face as he poses. "However you are in luck! I am quite skilled in this department, and while I cannot see your apparitions-" He walks over to his bookshelf and shifts through the many books before letting out a soft 'ah ha!' and pulling out a rather large one. He flips through it before placing his finger on a page. He then begins muttering something, which causes Hiro to frown and shift uncomfortably.

Gundham's eyes close, and a soft wind suddenly blows through the room, despite there being no open window. When he opens his eyes, he meets Hiro's eyes. They then shift over to Leon and Chihiro, his grin turning to a smirk.

"Ah ha! Hello there, fiends!" He looks over to see the shimmering outlines of the unknown spirits. "And to you as well."

Hiro's eyes widen in surprise. "You...you can see them?!"

"Of course!" Gundham boasts, slamming the book shut with one hand. "Did you believe these tombs were for show?!"

Hiro holds his tongue.

"Now I can be of more help to you and your miss-" He stops, his gaze slowly moving over to his bookshelf. He narrows his eyes. "....I assume this is the fiendish ghoul you mentioned."

Hiro blinks before following his gaze. His eyes widen further. There, looking through the books, was Mukuro's ghost.

Gundham Tanaka can now hear you! He is open for questions!

A/N: I hope things arent getting too crazy lol. I promise everything has a purpose! Supernatural stuff is canon in Danganronpa, and its especially important in this AU, so please bare with me lmao

[daretosnoop]

Chapter 2: The Investigation Begins

Chapter 1

This chapter is more descriptive heavy. I changed the layout of the upstairs area to include a bathroom and another bedroom. 

At first, all Nancy felt was dizziness. It was strange. It wasn’t the first time she’d been knocked out by someone. But it was the first time it was done by a masked skull figure, and they didn’t exactly knock her out so much as throw, something, towards her face. Whatever it was, it was potent. She still felt woozy and would have gone back to sleep if it weren’t for the thunder and a woman’s voice.

“Here, drink this”.

The sudden smell of something bitter filled Nancy’s nose.

“Don’t give her anything strange, then I really will have to take her to the hospital,” came another, lower, voice.

“Oh hush now. Just get back to your work,” the woman snapped back. She turned towards Nancy and urged the drink.

“It will make the dizziness go away, dear”.

Ignoring all warnings of caution, Nancy reached for the drink and drank. It was bitter, not that she expected it to be anything else, but it worked. She quickly found herself coming back to terms with her surroundings.

“There’s a dear,” the woman said. “I’m Renee. Mind I ask what you were doing unconscious in the Bolet manor?”

“Someone attacked me”.

“Someone, attacked you?” Renee repeated, not understanding.

“Someone dressed as a skeleton attacked me. I’m Nancy Drew. I’m looking for Henry Bolet”.

“Girl, you sure you didn’t hit your head too hard? Should we take you to the emergency?”

“No,” the lower voice broke in. “No emergency rooms! I’ve already got enough to deal with, and this power outage doesn’t help matters!”.

Renee sighed and shook her head. She turned towards Nancy.

“If you need me, I’ll be out in my garden”.

Saying so, she got up and left out through some double doors.

“I’ll call them and put them on hold and see how they like it!” the low voice grumbled after Renee left the room.

Slowly, Nancy got up and looked around. The room was dimly lit. Candles were everywhere, decorating bookshelf after bookshelf. One bookshelf was oddly decorated by teeth, with each book depicting a tooth on its spine. Another had a stuffed lizard on it. Trophies decorated the other side of the room, and in the left hand corner a desk sat with a young man on a swivel chair.

“Uh,” Nancy called weakly, then cleared her throat. “Excuse me. Are you Henry Bolet?”

The swivel chair turned and she came face-to-face with an oddity of a man. He dressed sharply and was very fit, but he leaned into the red chair and slouched a bit. His crisp looks were contrasted with features that Nancy recognized as a goth look. Not quite one or the other, she thought.

“I am”.

“Uh, well. I guess I’m the woman who fell unconscious at your house. Sorry about that. Bad way to introduce yourself, though, I guess it could be worse.”

Henry looked at her perplexed. “How so?” he asked.

“Well, for starters, I could be all up in your face demanding why you kidnapped my friend”.

“Okay,” Henry drawled.

“Long story. I’m Nancy Drew. We have a mutual friend, Ned Nickerson?” She held out a hand towards him. “Pleased to meet you”.

Henry shook her hand firmly.

“Ah Ned,” he started but then dropped the sentence. He knew who Ned was, barely. They shared accounting courses. Ned Nickerson blended into the class and Henry would have never thought to approach him. But somehow Ned noticed him and stuck around to give a friendly wave and smile.

“He’s, persistent,” Henry concluded.

“Well, that’s Ned for you,” Nancy said, giving Henry a bright smile.

Ned was the only one to notice Henry being even more gloomy and withdrawn as usual. Perhaps he overheard the phone calls Henry had with Bruno Bolet’s doctor and solicitor. Henry didn’t know, but Ned asked him how he was coping with his uncle’s loss. When Henry said he was going to New Orleans, Ned insisted on having someone check in on him.

“I’m guessing he sent you here to check on me. I kind of come off as needy, but I’m fine, really. So you can just go on home and tell Ned I’m fine. Go out and enjoy New Orleans”.

Henry didn’t really understand why Ned would send some friend over. They barely knew each other, so this Nancy person would find things even more awkward. It was best to just get this over with. The sooner she left, the better it would be. The whispers were chattering amongst themselves. They weren’t loud, and they seemed at ease. It was a new sensation.

Skull… find… mask… skull… her…

“I can’t just leave! I don’t know how you’re doing. Plus,” Nancy started to shift her weight from one foot to another. “You see. I’m the type of person, well,” she sighed. “Look, I just can’t let go of what I saw”.

“What did you see?”

“The door was open so I stepped inside. When I entered the living room, there was a man dressed in all black with a skeleton mask. He threw something at me and I got knocked out”.

She’s really lost it.

“I have not lost it!” Nancy snapped, reading his face.

“Are you sure you didn’t just make it up?”

“I know what I saw, and I’m determined to figure it out”.

Well, at least she’s not bothering him about his feelings.

“Can I at least look around for some clues. I promise not to break anything”.

Henry sighed.

“Alright. But I better warn you. Uncle Bruno was eccentric and into all sorts of exotic pets and things. So be careful. Just because he’s dead, doesn’t mean they are”.

Way to sound ominous Bolet. He didn’t mean to scare her, but also didn’t want to deal with a bigger headache than the one his uncle left for him.

But Nancy just smiled, thanked him, and left the room.

 Nancy really didn’t understand why Ned asked her to go and visit some classmate of his. He even acknowledged that he barely knew this Henry Bolet, but she’d be damned if she let the Nickerson charm fail now on account of her. Everyone became enthralled by a Nickerson. So she came down to the French quarters of New Orleans with a friend, Bess Marvin, for a week of good sights and good food, only to have it pour down rain for two days. Trapped in their hotel room, she and Bess called their friends, Ned and Bess’s cousin, George Fayn. It was there that Ned requested her to check in on Henry, and seeing as the rain had no intention of stopping, Nancy went alone.

She was expecting it to be a simple check-in, nothing longer than an hour or two. When she knocked on the door, on one answered. She learned from the concierge that most folks kept their doors open in New Orleans. It wasn’t just on account of friendly neighbours It was also to allow ghosts to exit the house after accidentally entering it. Apparently, ghosts became cranky if they get trapped in a house. Twisting the knob, she entered the manor and went to the foyer. Towards her right was a room and she walked towards it. A person stood in a black tailcoat and boots with his back to her. She called out to them and as they turned, a shiver ran along her shoulders. The person had no face. Or rather, their face was obscured with a skull mask. Before she could ask who they were, what they were doing here, why even were they wearing a mask, the electricity went out. Rats, she thought. Trapped in an empty house with a skeleton person, well done Nancy. A flicker went off and a flash of lightning lighted the room. Within that brief time, the skeleton person managed to tramp up to her, close enough for her to see the eyes underneath the mask. They threw some powder in her face and between her stinging eyes and choked coughs, Nancy lost consciousness.

Had she not been an experienced detective, Nancy knew she probably would have become one today. She went back to the living room and started to investigate. The skeleton figure was inspecting the model cemetery when she entered, so she headed towards it. It was really beautiful and Nancy could see why it would have won an award. This Bruno person clearly appreciated cemeteries from the intricate figures of each burial ground. She read the names. Sleeping Meadows, Terra Siesta, Crowing Crypts, Sorrow Park, Withering Roots Memorial, Forty Winks Mausoleum, all clearly meant for a final resting place. Each burial ground was uniquely decorated and had crypts that indicated how a person was buried. She followed each paths around the cemetery, anticipating any indication of what the skeleton figure was looking at. There was a swamp with an alligator in it, surely a creative addition. There was also a large mausoleum separate from the other burial grounds. It seemed randomly placed and as Nancy peered closed, she saw that there were four engravings on it.

There were buttons that allowed her to change the engravings. Clearly this was some sort of locked box, but she didn’t know the combination that would open it. But she was confident that this was what the skeleton figure was looking at. Stepping away from the model, she looked around the room. There was a collection of portraits on the left wall. These must be the Bolets. They were quite unique in how their appearances overlapped. Guess, this must be where Henry gets his looks and style from. Each portrait revealed the personality of the subject. Oddly enough, they each held some object in their hand. One frame was empty and below it, Nancy saw a piece of paper. She picked it up. On it was an etching of a crow. It matched the engravings on the solitary mausoleum. Surrounding the crow was a detailed border. But Nancy remembered that only one of the engravings had this border. So, there must be three other pictures I need to find.

Nancy looked closely at the bird drawing. It looked like someone stenciled it from some surface. I wonder if this belonged to the Skeleton figure. The paper was slightly damp. So, that must mean the skeleton figure, must have stenciled this outside somewhere. I’ll have to take a look around outside.

Pocketing the paper in her trench coat she moved towards the fireplace. It was cold, but there were indications that it had been previously used. It’s too hot to be using a fireplace right now. She picked through the coals and found scraps of some paper. Most of it was too small and burnt off to be of any use, but she did find one piece with a name on it. Zeke. It looked to be the name of some business, but what?

Nancy stood up and went back to the study room. Henry was still typing away at his computer.

“Henry? I have some questions for you”.

The man swiveled around and raised an eyebrow.

Start small Nancy, you don’t want to scare him. He already thinks you’re seeing things.

“How well did you know your uncle?”

Henry shrugged. “Barely knew him at all”.

“Didn’t he raise you?”

“I guess. If you could call sending me to boarding school, summer school, military school as raising a child. He may have looked after me, but he never cared to spend any time with me”.

“Oh”. Great going Drew. She tried again. “Well, what about your parents?”

“They died in a car crash when I was eight. Then I got dumped onto my uncle. End of his bachelorhood I guess”.

Okay, that didn’t go so well either. She might as well rip the whole Band-Aid off.

“I think this skeleton figure was looking for something in this house. Is there some big object or hidden money or something that people might want to get their hands on?”

Henry looked at her, puzzled.

“Uh, maybe? There’s a lot of junk in this house, as you can see. Some of it might actually be worth something.”

“Well, I think they were after whatever is locked up in the mausoleum box in the cemetery model. It has a lock on it and this,” she took out the crow stencil. “This must have been left by the skeleton figure. If we can unlock the mausoleum, we can get whatever’s inside before the skeleton figure comes back. Do you know where the solitary mausoleum is located?”.

“Look,” Henry began and Nancy internally groaned. She knew that word and tone all too well. Distrust and disinterest. It was rare to ever find another person who had the same interest and excitement in uncovering mysteries. Most people didn’t care about the little odd threads that didn’t add up, only to cry when everything become unwound. It was times like these where she sometimes wished she had her friends and fellow detectives, Frank and Joe Hardy, to back her up. People were more willing to listen to a group than an individual.

“Why are you so concerned about this skeleton figure?” Henry asked.

“Why are you so calm?” Nancy countered. “Someone broke into your house and you’re calm about it? I clearly interrupted them which means they might come back, which means you’re in danger”.

“I got a lot of work to complete”.

Who doesn’t. Nancy sighed, “You don’t need to help me, just tell me a bit about the garden space. Is there a mausoleum that’s separate from other burial grounds?

Henry hesitated. There was such a mausoleum and he knew it very well. Too well.

“What do you need from that mausoleum? The door is completely locked. No one had been inside in years”.

“I don’t think I need to go inside. I just need to look at the building itself. There are engravings that could match the key for the model one”.

Henry nursed his head. “Alright. Once you enter the cemetery and go past the bent tree, the mausoleum should be to your left. Just keep heading that way. Hard to miss”.

Nancy beamed. “Great, thanks so much. She turned to go out towards the door, then turned back.

“Yes?” Henry drawled.

“Do you happen to have any paper?”

“Sorry. Ask Renee”.

Nancy nodded then headed out the door.

Henry watched her leave then turned back to his computer where an excel sheet filled with numerical data awaited him. God, I hope I don’t regret this.

 Outside the Louisiana heat infused into Nancy’s skin. She was not accustomed to the humidity and could already feel her back start to warm up and stick to her dress shirt. She turned to her left and saw a small alcove draped over by green vines. Tucked inside was Renee who was busy potting young plants.

“Hello,” Nancy called out.

Renee looked up sharply and Nancy wasn’t sure whether it was the heat or Renee’s grey eyes that initiated the sweat droplets down her back.

“Hello, dear. Welcome to my little lantern-lit corner of the world. Come in here where it’s dry”.

“What are you growing?” Nancy asked.

“Whatever I need dear”.

“Nothing like freshly grown herbs to add to your food, right?”

Renee looked hard at Nancy and her voice dropped.

“I don’t use these herbs for cooking, darling”.

Then what do you use them for? Nancy wanted to ask Renee this, but the older woman switched topics.

“Have you had a chance to talk to Henry yet?”

“Yes, I have. From your conversation earlier, am I correct in assuming you two are not on the best of terms?”

“My you’re forward aren’t you!” Renee laughed. “Henry is a very morose, very negative young man. Very cunning too”.

“How so?”

“I am almost certain he’s selling his uncle’s property on the sly. When he’s not supposed to, that is”.

“Doesn’t it all belong to Henry now?” Nancy asked.

“Absolutely not!” Renee exclaimed. “According to Dr. Bolet’s will, Henry is to receive thirty percent of the estate. Dr. Bolet’s physician, Gilbert Buford, is to get thirty percent. Our Lady of Route 57 Dentistry and Cosmetology gets thirty percent, and I am to receive ten percent”.

“Is the cemetery part of the estate?”

“Yes and no. It’s not legally part of the estate, but it technically belongs to the Bolet family. It all belongs to Henry now, along with his thirty percent”.

“Who is Gilbert Buford?”

“That’s Dr. Bolet’s heart doctor and best friend. Those two go long back. Thick as thieves”.

Nancy reflected on what Renee provided her with.

“Does Henry seem upset by only getting thirty percent?”

Renee drew her head up and stood tall. “Young lady,” she started. “The Bolet family is intrinsically connected to New Orleans. Henry is not only gaining assets, but also a name, title, and land. Thirty percent of the Dr. Bolet’s fortune is quite a tidy sum, never mind the Bolet family fortune and cemetery”.

“Oh”.

Renee looked towards her plants and slowly resumed her potting.

“I suppose I gave you the impression that Henry is greedy. While I cannot attest to it, Henry is nonetheless not someone you can trust. You best watch yourself around him”.

Renee potted some soil then paused.

“One more thing dear. That skeleton man, I’ve—I’ve seen him too. Now don’t ask me more questions, I don’t want to think about it. But just know, there is something in this house that’s just not right”.

Nancy nodded then switched the topic.

“Do you happen to have some paper?”

“Get the urge to draw something?”

“Yep!”

“Well, now. I know I have some paper in my room, but I won’t be able to go get it till after I’m done potting my plants”.

“I can help you pot the plants”

Renee laughed. “Impatient one you are! No. No. No need. Just take this key and go on up yourself. And while you’re at it. I’m feeling a bit hungry. In my cupboard there’s a stash of Koko Cringles. Be a dear and bring one down for me, and help yourself to one too”.

Nancy took the key and headed back inside. Henry didn’t acknowledge her entrance, so she continued out of the study and up the staircase. It was wonky and creaked a bit. There were four doors. One door was on a lower level and the other three were sequentially placed along the top most level.

She didn’t tell me which door was hers.

Nancy placed the key in the first door, but the handle had no lock. Curious, she pushed open the door and saw an empty room that was bare of anything save a drawer and bed. There was some clutter around the bed and she assumed it was Henry’s. Why would he sleep here though? It was so, lifeless. The rest of the house had character, but this room just looked sad. Nancy quickly shut the door and move up a floor.

The next door had a vase decoration near it, though Nancy didn’t recognize the plant resting within. This door had a lock and she tried the key. The door unlocked. She stepped inside.

 The room looked like a doll house. A creepy one at that. There was an elegant but simple bed with green bedsheets. The bedside cupboard. A vanity table was littered with all sorts of bottles and herbs, and a chest sat in one corner, opposite the bed. Nancy first went to the table.

A bottle with the label ‘hiccup powder’ sat at the forefront. Surely not, she thought as she picked up the bottle and opened it. But to her surprise the burst of powder caused a series of hiccups to come bursting out of her. She quickly put the bottle back, then began to rummage through the other bottles. There was nothing labelled sleeping powder or knock-out powder, though some of the bottles were unlabeled. She didn’t think it was wise to open them though. There was no paper on the table, so she went towards the cupboards.

Opening the top drawer, Nancy found the paper. She then opened the bottom drawer and found a stash of chocolate. Jackpot baby! She took one for Renee, and then ate one. The warmth of the melting chocolate felt good in the creepy room and Nancy couldn’t help but take one bar for the road. No telling when she would need to keep her fortitude up in this house. She got up and turned towards the door when something on the wall caught her eyes.

The wallpaper itself was old, faded and ripped in places, but clear as day in the centre were seven symbols surrounding a major rip. They contrasted a glaring red against the pale yellow wallpaper. Blood red. Nancy stepped towards the symbols and tentatively placed a finger on one sign. The colour was dry and odorless. Probably not blood. But she had no idea what those symbols meant.

Walking around the room, Nancy noticed a rocking chair and went towards it. Lightning flashed and as thunder rumbled, Nancy caught a glimpse of a doll. Not just any doll, but one she specifically saw with an old case of hers. A doll that belonged to a woman that died more than 200 years ago. Nancy had no idea how Renee could have gotten her hands on that doll seeing as the company closed a long time ago. She turned to her right and saw the chest.

Squatting down, she saw four abstract figures on each corner and a large blank circle at the centre. Surrounding the large circle were a multitude of buttons. Curious, she pressed one, and a line appeared on the centre circle. She pressed another and another line appeared. The centre image was now beginning to look like one of the corner figures. She pressed two more buttons but both failed to finish the image and the circle blanked out.  

Nancy looked back towards the wall symbols, then at the chest. Random symbol equals random symbol? She tried again to replicate one of the corner abstract figures. This time it worked and the figure turned blank. Curious lock, she thought as she solved the other three figures. Once all the figures turned blank she heard a click and the chest lifted a little.

Opening the chest, she saw all sorts of odds and ends and a book on hoodoo symbols. She opened the book up and skimmed through the pages. On one page she noticed that the symbols on the wall matched the one’s in the book. Beside each symbol a name was written. Bah? Boo? Dee? Mo? They didn’t spell anything, nor make any sense. Still, it was best to record it down. Nancy took out a notebook and pen from her trench coat and jotted down each symbol along with their associated name. She then packed everything up and headed out of the room and back towards the garden.

[quicksilversquared]

The Wavering Peahen: Chapter 7

When Nathalie started feeling oddly ill again, both she and Gabriel were worried that the Peacock Miraculous might somehow (impossibly) be to blame again.

So naturally, they pick someone else to be the Peacock for a bit. You know, as a test subject. Except the new Peacock… doesn’t exactly know that.

links in the reblog

Marinette was really glad that the picnic broke up as soon as the ambulance vanished around the corner, because she couldn't get home fast enough.

Was the pin real? It had to be, since otherwise Tikki wouldn't have sensed it. But why on earth would Hawkmoth think that giving Lila a Miraculous would be a good idea?

And how did Lila's strange illness fit into it all?

"I suppose she could just be sick and that part could have nothing to do with Hawkmoth at all," Marinette told Tikki as she dug the Miracle Box out from under her bed. She had to talk to Wayzz right now and see if he could shed any insight on the absolutely astronomical levels of crazy that the past half-hour had been. "But she's been sick for most of the time that Pavona was out and about. Why would Hawkmoth let someone who was sick fight alongside him? If I were him, I would want someone healthy out with me. Whenever I'm sick, I don't do as good of a job fighting. Sneezing and coughing just throws me off and leaves me open to attacks. I mean, maybe he doesn't have any other choice, depending on what happened to Mayura, but still."

"Normally I would say that it's probably just a coincidence, but the Peacock's energy seems off again." Tikki was frowning. "I would have thought that Hawkmoth would have fixed the Miraculous once he got his hands on Master Fu's translations, and it certainly seemed like that was the case when Mayura started coming out to battles all the time. I might be wrong, since I'm not the expert, but my guess is that Lila got sick because of the Miraculous."

"I'd just ask- what was it, Duusu? But honestly, if his energy is off, I don't want to charge in headfirst. If I get sick like Lila, then I won't be able to fight as Ladybug." Marinette glanced over the box, then tapped the section for the Turtle. "So I want to talk to Wayzz first. He was the one who was always with Master Fu, so maybe they talked about whatever was going on with the Peacock." There was also the issue of whether it would even be safe to pull Duusu out when she wasn't transformed. If he felt any loyalty to his previous holders- which he might, after being with them for what was really a decent amount of time- then she might be running the risk of him seeing her identity and then escaping and bringing it back to Hawkmoth.

She wanted to believe that that wouldn't happen. That Duusu would be excited about being saved. But she had heard stories about kwamis getting attached to terrible holders before, when their viewpoint got warped around so that they thought their villainous holder was in the right, and as one-half of Paris's superhero team she just couldn't take any chances.

"Hopefully Wayzz and Master Fu discussed the Peacock," Tikki said as Marinette pulled the Turtle out. "If they didn't, we're going to be going in blind."

"Not completely blind. Wayzz is sensitive to what's going on with the other Miraculous and the auras around them. It should help." A green light flashed across the room, and Marinette grinned as Wayzz showed up. "Hey, buddy!"

"Marinette! I sensed a disturbance- a change in the aura around the Peacock- wait! It's close- very close- it's inactive!" Wayzz spun around in a wild circle, then made a beeline to the pile of fabric that was Lila's scarf, digging through it until the Peacock pin was exposed. "You have it! It's here! It's broken, but it's here! Duusu has been saved!"

"So it is broken again," Marinette confirmed. "How would it have gotten like that again? Are the Miraculous really so easy to damage?"

Wayzz shook his head, one paw stroking the Peacock pin as he talked. "Not at all! It's just that when it was fixed last time, it was not fixed correctly. Master Fu saw to that. When he was writing down the translation for that particular spell, he deliberately wrote down one step incorrectly. The spell would appear to fix the Miraculous, and then gradually wear off as time goes by. He did that just in case he lost the translation or it was stolen from him, since he knew that it would make things very difficult for you if the Peacock was fixed for good." Wayzz sighed. "I believe that he thought that the 'repair' would wear off a whole lot sooner, but those sorts of things are hard to control. I suppose it did end up doing what it was meant to, though."

"Eventually, yeah." Marinette grinned, then sobered a little. "Though I honestly would have preferred that it take out Mayura instead of Pavona. Then we would have at least gotten an insight to who Hawkmoth might be. With Lila, though, I just know that the only reason she's connected is because she doesn't like Ladybug."

There was a chance, of course- probably (hopefully) a really good chance- that Duusu would be willing to help and give them clues towards Hawkmoth's (and Mayura's) identity, but clues could only go so far. There were millions of people in Paris and the chance that she and Chat Noir would actually put together the supervillains' identities with only a few clues was pretty low. They could call up the police to help, of course, but even the police didn't know everyone in the city.

"I wonder how much manipulation went into getting Lila to go along with Hawkmoth," Wayzz commented. He raised an eyebrow at Marinette's dubious look. "...if any?"

Marinette shook her head. "I doubt that there was any manipulation. He probably offered up the Miraculous and she took it right away. And I'm definitely not going to let Lila get away with that. She's old enough to know that she shouldn't be working with a supervillain."

"I think even a little kid knows not to work with a supervillain!" Tikki agreed emphatically. "Remember that little kid that got akumatized a month after the attacks started and was super upset about it? He couldn't have been more than six or seven, but he knew that working with a supervillain was a bad thing and wouldn't calm down until you convinced him that being akumatized didn't count as working with Hawkmoth."

Marinette nodded. That had been pretty heartbreaking, actually, and she and Chat Noir had ended up running a whole publicity campaign affirming that akumas weren't responsible for their actions and that they were victims, not villains. No one chose to be akumatized, they had said- which wasn't strictly true, presumably Mayura had allowed herself to get akumatized to create Scarlet Moth and Marinette wouldn't be surprised if Lila had willingly and eagerly accepted a corrupted butterfly (or five) as well- and people shouldn't beat themselves up over it. People should try to avoid getting akumatized or causing akumatizations, of course, but they weren't the villains. Hawkmoth (and Mayura and Pavona, of course, but they hadn't been around at that time) was.

Of course, that was entirely beside the point at the moment. Lila hadn't been akumatized this time around, she had accepted a Miraculous from a supervillain willingly. That was different.

"I can probably say that a classmate of Lila's found the pin on her and alerted me at once," Marinette decided after a moment's pause. "So that's how we found it, and that's how we establish the first connection. Then we add on that the Miraculous has been broken and her symptoms are consistent with the use of a broken Miraculous, so we're positive that it wasn't planted. Or wait, no- I shouldn't mention planting at all, that would be dumb of me. I can just say that that's, uh..."

"Extra confirmation that she was indeed the one holding the Peacock most recently," Wayzz suggested. "Or that that makes it undeniable that she was Pavona, that way you're not suggesting that there was any uncertainty about Pavona's identity once the Peacock came to light."

Marinette jabbed her finger at him. "Yes! I like that. Hang on, I'll write that down. Now, next question- how soon should Chat Noir and I tell Paris about Lila? Right away, or do you think we might be able to catch Hawkmoth off guard if we don't publicize that Lila's identity was discovered?"

Tikki perked up. "Ooh, the second one! I would talk to the police and the hospital right away, though," she added. "To make sure that no news stories run about Lila's collapse. Maybe it's not likely, I don't know, but just in case."

"They probably wouldn't release names for several days anyway, but that's a good idea. The police will understand why we don't want to risk tipping Hawkmoth off, in case he doesn't already know somehow." Marinette pulled out her phone, opening the secure messaging app that she and Chat Noir used and shooting her partner a message. She wanted to let him know what was going on as soon as possible. If they could both be there when Duusu came out, that would be great. As she sent it, another thought hit her. "Wayzz, will it be dangerous for us to pull Duusu out considering that his Miraculous is broken? Will it affect us like it affected Lila?"

Wayzz shook his head. "It shouldn't. Lila got to the stage that she's now at by repetitive use of the Miraculous. Heavy repetitive use, and recent, from what I'm sensing around Duusu's aura. Which is odd, considering that Hawkmoth hasn't been active today...or this week at all."

Marinette gasped, stabbing one finger into the air as a revelation hit her. "That's how Lila got the photos! Today she had pictures of herself with all sorts of famous people, including Ladybug," she added to Wayzz when he looked confused. "To make her stories seem more true. I figured that she had just been using Photoshop, but I bet all of those celebrities were actually sentimonsters plus a poster behind her."

"Somehow, I am not surprised." Wayzz let out a long sigh. "Fitting that that would be her downfall, really. She must have used the Peacock's powers a number of times in a very short timeframe to become as ill as she did at the end. You will simply be pulling Duusu out and not transforming or using his powers, which means that the broken magic from the Miraculous won't affect you at all."

"Good." Marinette let out a long breath- that was a load off of her shoulders- and then checked her phone as it buzzed. "Chat Noir is available now. I'm telling him to go to Master Fu's old parlor- Hawkmoth never found that, so it should be private and safe enough. We can pull Duusu out there, so both of us can talk to him at once." She slipped the Turtle bracelet onto her wrist. "Is there anything I should be bringing along other than the Miraculous, Wayzz?"

"Some fruit, if you have some to spare!" Wayzz told her. "Duusu loves fruit, and I'm sure that the lying girl didn't give him enough. She seems the sort to only give the bare minimum and then snap when asked for anything more, which- ironically- would have just sped up the rate at which she was affected by the Miraculous being broken. You don't have to take a ton, but a snack would be nice."

Marinette nodded, already headed for her trapdoor. "That's easy enough. We always have fruit sitting out for snacks. No one is going to think anything of it if an apple and a couple of bananas go missing, that's what they're there for."

It took almost no time at all to grab the fruit, gather up the pin (and the scarf) and then hightail her way over to Master Fu's old shop. Going in felt a little odd- she had to slip in a back window as Ladybug instead of going in the front door as Marinette, and the shop had a distinctly abandoned feel to it instead of feeling like a home- but it was the best place they had to work out of. Chat Noir was already there, waiting anxiously in what used to be the living room.

"What's going on?" Chat Noir wanted to know as soon as she came in. "You said it was urgent? There's not some sort of invisible akuma or something, is there?"

"No, no akuma," Ladybug told him, pulling a pillow and a box that sometimes served as a sort of table over next to him. "There was an, ah, incident at one of the local parks not very long ago. Lila Rossi- you know, the liar girl- she passed out and fainted. And when Marinette was checking her over, she found...this." Ladybug reached out, depositing the Peacock on their box-table. Chat Noir's eyes went wide. "And Tikki and Wayzz have confirmed that it's the real thing."

"No way! That's- but how was Lila- I mean, I guess it makes sense considering how Pavona acted, she always seemed to think that she was more of a threat than she actually was. But- wow." Chat Noir let out a long breath, still staring at the Peacock. "How lucky is it that she just happened to be sick and passed out right then? Now Hawkmoth is down an ally, and maybe we'll get some sort of lead."

"It's not entirely luck, really." Ladybug tapped the Miraculous. "You remember how we thought that it was broken before, right? And that Hawkmoth fixed it? Wayzz said that Master Fu didn't write down the correct translation of the spell. He altered one step so that it would look fixed and feel fixed for a short while and then wear off. So the Miraculous has been making Lila sick, and then she used it a bunch- that's what we're assuming, at least- to fake some photos with famous people, and that was enough to push her over the edge into- well, she hadn't woken up yet from what I heard, so who knows? Maybe she's in a coma."

"Oof, that's- well, honestly, that's well-deserved." Chat Noir let out another breath. "It's a good thing that we found that out with the supervillains, at least. Imagine if we had gotten the Peacock back somehow and tried to fix it ourselves! That could have been really dangerous."

"I wouldn't have done anything to it without consulting all of the kwamis first," Ladybug told him. "And then I would have made sure to have Wayzz keep an eye on it, since he's best with the auras. I wouldn't feel confident enough to fix a Miraculous myself without supervision to actually use it afterwards without triple- and quadruple-checking to make sure that things actually went the way they were meant to. And- and Master Fu would have known that."

Chat Noir nodded. "That makes me feel better. I'd be pretty lost if you got sick and then vanished off of the face of the earth."

"I'd stop way before getting to the coma stage, believe me. One cough, and that Miraculous would be retired to a corner until I could contact the Order." Ladybug took a deep breath, her eyes returning to the Miraculous. "I haven't talked to Duusu yet. I didn't think it would be safe to at home, and it made more sense than interviewing him by myself and then trying to remember everything to pass it along to you. Besides, if Duusu gives us a lead to who Hawkmoth is, we should both be here."

"Ooh, fingers crossed that we get a good lead." Chat Noir settled down, shifting anxiously on his heels. "Ready to talk to him now?"

Yeah." Ladybug gave herself a shake, then straightened and turned her attention fully to the Miraculous, focusing on pulling Duusu out without actually touching the Miraculous. It took a minute, but then the Miraculous lit up with blue light. It glowed for a long moment, and then a blue bubble popped free. It glowed brighter and brighter, and then burst. Duusu yawned widely, then blinked blearily over at them. After a moment, his eyes widened and he shot up in the air.

"Oh, thank goodness!" Duusu exclaimed. "I've been saved! You would not believe the terrible people that I've had to put up with, it was awful!"

  As it turned out, Duusu was an absolute gold mine of information. Maybe he couldn't say the names of his former captors, but he could certainly talk and talk (and talk some more) on about them until there was absolutely no doubt in Ladybug and Chat Noir's minds about who Hawkmoth and Mayura were.

And then Duusu kept talking, on and on and on. He complained about Lila ("Such a little brat, and so full of herself!") and about Mayura ("I don't know why she's going after a married man, he's hardly a looker or kind or a good dad or anything, no redeeming qualities at all!") and about another, previous holder, who apparently had been kind, if perhaps a little manipulative sometimes, and who was currently in some sort of cursed coma related to her use of the Miraculous in Hawkmoth's sub-basement lair.

Ladybug had to roll her eyes at sub-basement lair. What kind of unnecessarily dramatic (and rich) villain needed two lairs in the same building? It was absolutely excessive and ridiculous.

"Okay, so Hawkmoth is Gabriel Agreste, Mayura is Nathalie Sancoeur, and Emilie Agreste isn't missing, but a former Peacock and is hidden under the house," Chat Noir summed up once Duusu finally stopped talking for a minute in favor of inhaling some of the fruit that Ladybug had brought along. Her partner looked more than a little shaken, his face so pale behind the mask that Ladybug was starting to wonder if she would have to call for another ambulance. "Uh, is there any way to- to get her out of the coma? To heal her, I mean?"

"Once my Miraculous is properly fixed, the energy that I sapped from my users should slowly return," Duusu told them. "Well, as long as the they have my Miraculous on them. It won't work without that contact. They might need a little medical attention and maybe a boost from a potion or two to get the process really going, but unless the damage runs deeper than I can sense, it should be a pretty straightforward process to fix everything!"

Ladybug nodded, part of her mind already combing through the potions and spells that she and Chat Noir had gone through together. There were a couple that might be of some use, though she would want to do a bit more digging through things and consulting with the kwamis before she gave anyone any potions.

There was also, of course, the question of how they were meant to heal Lila- and possibly Nathalie as well, depending on how she was doing- without running the risk of them taking the Miraculous and running with it. Handcuffs and 24-7 supervision could only go so far when magic was involved.

The other part of her mind was- well, it was mulling over the discovery of the supervillains' identities. After all, that was what she and Chat Noir had wanted to learn for months now.

She wasn't as surprised as she thought she would be, really.

Part of it was the fact that she had suspected Mr. Agreste before. He had had the Miracle Book and had a butterfly as his brand's logo. He had a motive with his missing wife. He had the money and job security needed to vanish for hours on end to somewhere secluded and safe to unleash his akumas on the world. And, to top it off, he wasn't a very nice person. It was pretty easy to imagine that he would think that the rules didn't apply to him and that causing other people suffering and fear and distress was just a minor inconvenience that could easily be ignored.

And then the other part... well, both she and Adrien had commented on how odd it was that Lila, Nathalie, and Mrs. Agreste had all come down with the same symptoms at separate times. Once Lila collapsed and Marinette found out that she had been Pavona and the Peacock Miraculous had been what had caused the odd illness, that oddness had been nagging her from the back of her mind, begging to be noticed.

Marinette hadn't paid it as much attention as she might have otherwise because there had been a lot going on that had also needed her attention, but if she had had a couple minutes to give it a proper think over, she probably would have come to the same conclusion that she had now. With that one piece of the puzzle it would have all snapped into place anyway, even without Duusu's helpful comments. He had just sped the process along and ensured that they were absolutely 100% positive about the supervillains' identities.

"I guess the most pressing question now- well, other than how to fix the Miraculous- is how to deal with defeating Hawkmoth and then approaching all of the stuff with Lila," Chat Noir said hesitantly after a few moments had passed. "Mr. Agreste is out of town at the moment, I've heard, though he's coming back- er, tomorrow, potentially? At least that's what I've heard."

Ladybug blinked at that, puzzled, before giving herself a shake to refocus. How and why Chat Noir knew Mr. Agreste's schedule off of the top of his head was anyone's guess, but it also wasn't immediately important. If she remembered, maybe she could ask him about it later. "I got to talk to Tikki and Wayzz about that before coming here, actually. We thought it would be a good idea to go to the police and catch them up on what is going on, and then they could restrict what information gets released so that we don't tip Hawkmoth off about Lila collapsing and us getting the Peacock back ahead of time."

"And should we tell them about who Hawkmoth and Mayura are, or just Lila's identity?"

Ladybug let out a long breath. Honestly, she wanted to talk to Tikki about that to really feel good about her decision. After all, she was just a teenager with experience fighting akumas and pretty much all she had talked about with Master Fu was in regard to their battles, not what she should do once they had figured out who Hawkmoth was. "I mean...maybe? I don't- I don't know if I want to risk them trying to take over now, but I'm coming up a bit blank on ideas."

"Right." Chat Noir leaned back on his pillow, clearly deep in thought. "Well, if we want to surprise Hawkmoth- Mr. Agreste- then we want to get him before he has the chance to find out about Lila. So I think we should find out when he's going to be back for sure, and catch him coming off of the plane."

"Hopefully Mrs. Rossi hasn't contacted him already." Presumably she wouldn't have- after all, with Lila likely in a coma, Mrs. Rossi was probably too overwhelmed to think of doing anything like contacting Lila's employer- but it never hurt to shut down those possibilities before their advantage could get spoiled.

...honestly, it was a bit questionable as to if Mrs. Rossi knew about Lila's modeling at all. Somehow Ladybug doubted it.

Chat Noir frowned. "I hadn't considered that. But assuming that she hasn't yet, maybe we could ask the police to ask her not to spread any news about Lila? Then Mr. Agreste would come back unprepared, and we could catch him and Na- er, Mayura at the airport. If he tries transforming there, everyone will see him and he'll know it."

"If he knows that we already know, it might not matter," Ladybug pointed out, but she could see his point. "I think that's a good idea."

"If it helps, Mrs. Rossi doesn't know about Lila's modeling!" Duusu chirped helpfully, finally emerging from the slowly shrinking pile of fruit. "It was all a secret! I'm not sure if she would have allowed it or not if she had known, but Lila didn't really tell her mom anything. She can't stop it if she doesn't know about it, right?"

"I feel like Lila took that approach with most things," Ladybug sighed. She looked over at Chat Noir. "I feel like we probably thought about everything. Ready to go talk to the police?"

"In a minute?" Chat Noir had curled up on himself, his eyes on Duusu. "I'm just... I know we have to work fast, but everything is still sinking in. I just can't believe that everything is coming together and finishing so quickly."

Ladybug nodded, re-settling on her cushion. Honestly, they could use a few extra minutes before they headed out, just to decide what they wanted to say. "I know what you mean. I never imagined that we would learn Hawkmoth's identity this way. It feels really strange to be planning his defeat instead of just beating him during a battle."

"Mm-hmm." Chat Noir had a rather funny look on his face. "...yeah. But I- I'm glad that we did find out this way, instead of during a battle. Now we can, uh, prepare."

"Exactly!" Ladybug smiled over at him. There was a fair amount of trepidation creeping in- now that the shock was starting to recede, there were a whole lot of possible problems and things to consider that were threatening to overwhelm her. The takedown wouldn't be terribly complicated, but how they wanted to deal with the fallout, and getting Duusu help, and what should or shouldn't become public, and- and-

But that could all wait. Right now, there was finally- finally- an end to all of the endless battles in sight, and she wanted to focus on that.

  Gabriel Agreste was pleasantly surprised when he woke up on the last day of his business trip to a continued lack of news about any sort of superhero-supervillain activity in Paris.

If he was being entirely honest, he hadn't been completely positive that Lila would follow his instructions to not go out with the Peacock, even with his threats. Her ego was big enough to fill a mansion, and she had proven time and time again during her time as Pavona that she thought that her strategic planning was eons better than anyone else's, even though that was nowhere close to being true. He had had to whack her and her ego back down to make her into an even remotely competent partner, and he had worried that she would just bounce back and act out again without him there to issue corrections immediately.

Perhaps he would have had a more restful week had he collected the Miraculous from her before heading out on his trip and simply returned it afterwards, but his worries about if Lila would disregard his orders hadn't really surfaced until it was far too late to do anything about it.

"I do wonder how we should approach using the- the bird," Gabriel murmured to Nathalie, letting his voice drop into a whisper so that none of the other passengers in first class would overhear. "Like how much longer we should allow the girl to use it. We're not going to get any closer to the jewels with her assistance, but you seem to be feeling better now that you've had a break from using the pe- using the bird."

"I'm inclined to believe that my illness was a coincidence, given the fact that Ms. Rossi has not complained about feeling sick despite the rigorous pace you've set," Nathalie told him. "And I've been thinking about my return as well, and came up with a potential approach. If you bring her back out onto the battlefield for a couple of fights- let me finish, Gabriel, do not interrupt- and then reclaim the- the bird. I will use it and look just like her, atrocious outfit and all, and then we can take them off guard. They will be expecting a weak opponent and an easy monster and instead, come face-to-face with- well, me."

Gabriel hmmmed, stroking his chin. "Ah, yes. I like that idea. You might have to tr- to use her form before," he added, glancing around to make sure that no one was listening in. Thankfully, it seemed as though everyone in the rows around them either had headphones on or was asleep. "To get used to the difference in height and the, ah, outfit." He had to shudder at the thought. Pavona's outfit was one of the most garish and tasteless things that he had ever seen. Frankly, it was a bit concerning that Lila was spending so much time around fashion and had still managed to come up with that. "Speaking of Ms. Rossi and her health, I think it might be prudent to call her up for a shoot before you return, just so that we can see her in person and ensure that she isn't hiding an illness."

Nathalie tapped at her tablet. "Of course, sir. How soon should the shoot be?"

"After several attacks. She has gotten some time off from them, after all." Gabriel tapped his fingers against the arm of his chair, a sharp staccato as he thought. "Let's allow for three or four in quick succession. That way, if she has any symptoms, they should be at a detectable level."

"A solid plan, sir."

Gabriel only nodded in acknowledgement.

The remainder of their flight passed quickly. Gabriel sipped away at the wine that he had bought earlier in the flight- enough to take the edge off of the mind-numbing dullness of travel, not so much that he would appear remotely incapacitated once he had to get off the plane- and sketched while Nathalie took advantage of the airplane Wi-Fi to take care of her emails and plan out both his and Adrien's schedules for the next two weeks.

It wouldn't do to return behind schedule, after all. There was a lot of work that went into running a company like Gabriel, and it was getting harder and harder to fit everything in around their increased number of akumatizations without anyone noticing. Every spare minute had to used wisely.

Hopefully everything would be sorted out soon. With Nathalie's suggested plan, Gabriel figured that they should have the Miraculous in their hands by the end of the following week. Then they would have Emilie back, so there would be no need to continue the time-consuming akuma attacks, and she would be able to help both him and Nathalie with their work. They could get caught up, and then Gabriel would be able to expand several of the fashion lines and use his extra time to continue growing the business into a few new countries.

Emilie would probably insist on them going to a few of Adrien's fencing tournaments or basketball games or something, but Gabriel could always bring along his tablet so that he could continue working and wouldn't be wasting so much time on such frivolities.

"We got an email from Adrien's school yesterday afternoon," Nathalie commented as the plane started its descent, swiping at something on her tablet and then setting it aside as the announcement to put electronics away came over the intercom. "I hadn't looked at it before, since it wasn't marked as urgent, but it sounds like there was some sort of incident during one of their class outings. It doesn't go into details, but I suppose we should ask Adrien about it."

"I imagine that it's just some schoolyard drama, but yes, I suppose." There was, of course, the off chance that something moderately interesting had happened, but based on prior emails the school had sent out, it was far more likely that someone had tripped and scraped their knee and then someone else had felt faint at the sight of the blood or something ridiculous like that. "I do wish that the school was a bit more discriminating about what they bother parents about. If I wanted to know about every inconsequential detail about what is going on at school, I would ask Adrien."

Nathalie nodded. "Precisely. I suppose that they had to deal with complaints from overly-involved parents who wanted to know every detail about what their kids were doing and that's why they felt the need to send something out- and for something that didn't even happen on school grounds or during school hours, either."

"Ridiculous."

Nathalie nodded, and they fell silent as the plane finished its descent and landed. As soon as they were stopped at the gate, Nathalie was up and pulling their carry-ons down from overhead. They were almost the first people off, striding up the jetway towards the airport. It would mean a longer wait for their luggage, but Gabriel much preferred that over sitting in the plane for any longer.

"Do you think that you'll be checking in on Ms. Rossi tonight?" Nathalie asked. "To update her on the plan?"

Gabriel shook his head. "No, for several reasons. Since she's Adrien's classmate, she's likely to be aware that I was gone as well, and she's likely find out that I returned today. That's the problem with us including her at all. She's too high-maintenance and spoiled. I worry that if I tell her that I'm going to be taking the pin back ahead of time, she'll try to stab me in the back and run off with it. I'll give the attacks a break for another day or two, then do an attack and visit her afterwards. I think that would be best."

"And then when you want to take the pin back, just do it the day of," Nathalie agreed as they stepped into the airport. "Wise choice. I'm looking forward to not having to deal with her anymore. Or, well, not having to deal with her on that side of our lives. I suppose she still serves a purpose as a spy at the school."

Gabriel sighed. Honestly, he would rather not have to deal with such an unpleasant child, but she was a mildly useful tool. "Yes, at least for a while longer. As soon as we get-" he lowered his voice "-the Miraculous, then we can drop her like a hot potato. She's a pain in the rear at photoshoots, she's been holding up the entire proce-"

He never got to finish his sentence. Out of nowhere, Nathalie got sent flying as a black pole slammed into her back, and Gabriel found himself hog-tied and dragged sideways abruptly, with no chance to defend himself. His face hit the floor with a smack and his nose started stinging as he was yanked across the cheap airport carpet, fibers and dirt and stray tiny stones scraping across his skin. The sensation- along with the tearing noise that was almost definitely coming from either his jacket or his pants or both- was a distant concern, though, behind the absolute panic that was welling up in Gabriel. He thrashed frantically, trying to catch sight of who had roped him, but there were too many people around. There were shouts of surprise and panic from the crowds as people started running away, tripping over luggage and other people as they did.

Gabriel was yanked across another few meters of carpet before coming to an abrupt stop, still face-down on the carpet. There was something uncomfortably sticky across his cheek, and now-

Now there was definitely a foot pressing down on his back, holding him down. It didn't feel that big, so Gabriel tried to thrash.

The foot pressed down harder, clearly stronger than its small size indicated.

"Look at what came off!" a male voice called, and Gabriel twisted his head just enough to see Carapace straightening up, a scrap of fabric in hand. Just a little further back- where smooth floor switched to rough carpet- Gabriel's red and white-striped clip-on ascot lay on the floor, having apparently popped off-

-wait. Carapace?

No. No no no no no no no-

"One butterfly-themed brooch!" Carapace announced, waving the scrap of cloth around. "That was easy!"

"Nice!" a female voice cheered, and Gabriel's eyes shot over to where Rena Rouge and Chat Noir were handcuffing Nathalie, who... well, it looked like she might have been thrown into the coffee shop area when she was initially hit by what must have been Chat Noir's baton. "No last-ditch transformation attempts!"

"What-" Gabriel croaked, his mind spinning as he tried to piece together what was going on. It sounded like they knew that he was Hawkmoth and Nathalie was Mayura, but how was that even possible? They had been careful! They had made sure to not go in and out of the mansion from as Hawkmoth and Mayura- well, at least not from any visible entrances or ones that could be connected to the mansion- and they had never been unmasked in front of anyone. They made to detransform in hidden spots that didn't have any cameras, if they decided to detransform somewhere that wasn't in the mansion. "No, I'd like that back, it- it has a picture of my wife in it, it's very special to me-"

Carapace snorted. "Yeah, I bet it's special to you, Mr. Supervillain."

"Welcome back to Paris," Ladybug said cheerfully from where she stood on top of him, her friendly smile a little too wide, a little too toothy, just on the edge of dangerous. "By the way, you're under arrest."

  Paris flew into an uproar as soon as the news of Hawkmoth's defeat reached the public, shock and joy filling the streets. The police wasted no time in releasing the official story that Ladybug and Chat Noir had fed them, which was that a classmate found the Peacock Miraculous on the civilian Pavona while administering first aid following Pavona's collapse. She had grabbed it to give to Ladybug and from there, the superheroes had been able to piece together the clues that led them to Mr. Agreste and Ms. Sancoeur.

Hawkmoth and Mayura's identities had been known as soon as the arrest was made, of course. People in the airport had seen the superheroes making an arrest and waving a pin around, and it was easy enough to put two and two together. The police had initially declined to confirm the reason for the arrest, but it hadn't been long before it was obvious that no one was buying it.

The public then turned to the next question: Gabriel Agreste was Hawkmoth and Nathalie Sancoeur was Mayura, but who was Pavona? Perhaps she hadn't been on the battlefield as much as Hawkmoth or Mayura, or for as long, and really she had been more or a minor annoyance for the superheroes (and a source of amusement for the rest of Paris, who rather enjoyed seeing the supervillain constantly getting beaten up), but she had joined the supervillains and needed to face the consequences.

This time, the police declined to release any names right away. They might have confirmed- with Duusu's help and with the recording of Hawkmoth recruiting Lila that they had found at the Agreste mansion- that Lila's participation was 100% voluntary, but since Lila was underage, they wanted to be more careful.

Needless to say, the superheroes were not thrilled about that, particularly once Lila's estranged father appeared and looked like he might be moving to use his connections- connections that did exist, unlike the ones that Lila claimed- to keep Lila's involvement on the down-low. She would still go to jail- no connections could make the evidence go away- but no one would know. Everyone in her class- in the whole school, really- would remember her as the super-cool, super-nice student who was going to save the world, only to be suddenly felled by an illness and then vanish.

Lila didn't deserve that. She had been a supervillain by choice, and that made her fake everyday-superhero persona an insult to everyone who actually dedicated their lives to helping others.

And so the superheroes tipped the scales, so to speak. All it took was them mentioning in the ex-supervillains' hearing range why Lila had taken ill so suddenly and intensely that she had collapsed and spilled the beans. Gabriel Agreste had been so thoroughly infuriated about the fact that Lila had gotten sick from her own entirely selfish use of the Miraculous instead of just by using the Peacock for his cause that he had told reporters who Pavona had been himself during a press conference several weeks after his arrest.

Once upon a time Adrien might have felt a little bad about manipulating his father to do his dirty work for him, but not anymore. After all, Lila deserved to be exposed, and Mr. Agreste really couldn't get in any more trouble than he was already in.

Besides, Mr. Agreste had made Adrien put up with Lila during photoshoots and study sessions that Adrien had objected to, so if he looked at it that way, his father owed it to him to ensure that Adrien wouldn't have to listen to his classmates gushing about and worrying over Lila for who-knew-how-long going forward.

As was to be expected, the truthfulness of the story was questioned when it first broke, but it didn't take people long to figure out that there was no point in Mr. Agreste lying. In fact, since his identity had been figured out due to Pavona's collapse, he was bound to be pretty motivated to take her down with him.

Besides, Lila had, in fact, passed out at a park and was still in the hospital. All of the details fit, and Paris was convinced.

After that, it wasn't long before the police confirmed Pavona's identity. Lila's father had raged, but at that point, there was no point in denying it any longer. Everyone knew the truth, and it wasn't long before all of Lila's other lies came to light, too.

Lila's reputation was in the trash and- well, no one could say that it wasn't very well deserved.

"Well, at least one good thing came out of Lila being here," Adrien commented as he and Marinette watched the latest news coverage on the upcoming supervillain trials in her family's apartment. Ever since they revealed their identities to each other, they had been practically attached at the hip as Adrien came to terms with his father's betrayal and anxiously waited for news about his mother's condition. It had been hard at first, but now that Mrs. Agreste was definitely on the mend- as the only non-villainous Peacock holder, it had been a unanimous decision to let her use the Miraculous to heal first while they figured out security measures for healing Lila and possibly Nathalie- he had been much more cheerful. "After all, she sort of caused Hawkmoth's downfall, even if it was sort of indirectly and very much by accident."

Marinette giggled, curling closer to his side. "Ooh, imagine her face when she realizes that. She joined Hawkmoth to try to cause my downfall, and it completely backfired on her."

"D'you think it would be rude if we sent her a thank-you card as superheroes once she finally gets healed?" Adrien mused, and then immediately shook his head. "No, never mind, that would be rubbing it in. Not a very good look for superheroes."

"I think that there will be plenty of people reminding her of that without us chiming in." Onscreen, the news gave way to a commercial break and Marinette muted the TV so that they didn't have to listen before turning all of her attention to Adrien. "I'm glad that everything worked out in the end, at least. It'll be nice to have our class go back to normal."

"It will be," Adrien agreed. He smiled over at Marinette, reaching over to take her hands. "Though I wouldn't mind there being a few changes to our old normal, Buginette."

Marinette's answering smile was shy. "Oh? I don't suppose the changes that you're thinking of just have to do with the fact that we won't be skipping class all of the time to fight akumas?"

"That'll be a bonus, sure, but it wasn't what I was thinking of." Adrien flashed a smile at her before his eyes dropped down to their joined hands. "My Lady, I was wondering- well, you know that I like you and, uh, I was kind of maybe getting the impression that, uh..."

Marinette couldn't hold back her grin as her poor kitty floundered. She let him try to recover for another second or two, then leaned forward and cut him off with a kiss. Adrien startled, then immediately melted into the kiss, his smile so wide that she could feel it.

The last couple of weeks had been tough, what with Adrien's father getting arrested and then immediately having to deal with getting the Peacock fixed so that they could start healing Mrs. Agreste (and eventually Lila), but they were past the worst of it now. Now they could start moving on and settle in to a new normal.

And honestly, neither of them could wait.

[hectabdr]

Dragon Raja IV - Chapters 11 & 12 (Abridged)

Hi everyone!

Today's chapters are a little slower than the previous ones, but they have a lot of insight on Nono, Luminous and the nature of their relationship. I also kept more of the original dialog for the same reason.

BTW, this is the point where the illustrations suddenly stopped for some reason so... No more drawings :P

Previous chapters.

Chapter 11

A girl waited in the top lobby of the Black Prince International Financial Center. At 21 years old, Tu Xiaojiao was already known as the "Sophie Marceau of China". She was in that building to meet the legendary "Master Shao", the inheritor of this powerful organization. If anyone else in the world made Miss Tu wait for more than half an hour, she would leave the place immediately, but Mr. Shao was different, he could offer her the role of her life, so she decided to stay in the waiting room.

When the receptionist finally allowed her to enter Shao's office, she found him next to the window, reading a poem out loud. She had to wait for him to finish for fifteen minutes, her high heels started making her feet feel numb, wondering if he was mocking her, Shao didn't even notice her presence. To her dismay, once he finally saw her in his office, it didn't make much of a difference, since Shao only had one topic in his mind, his adored senior was back.

Miss Tu tried to be polite, and asked to know more about this "senior" girl. When Shao was younger, he had a girlfriend, she was actually one year younger than him, but she demanded to be referred as his senior and he obsessed over her for the rest of his life. He even showed miss Xiaojiao a picture of himself and his senior back when they were a couple. Tu Xiaojiao was confused, in the tiny photograph, there were two children, one looked like Shao and by his side, there was a girl who seemed completely indifferent towards him. This was cut from a kindergarten group photo, and he carried it in his wallet ever since.

Shao had everything at his disposal since he was born, his focus in the entertainment industry was nothing but a hobby. He could visit any place that he wanted, he could buy any piece of clothing and of course, he could date some of the most beautiful women in the world. But he didn't want any of them as his wife. The woman of his life had to be someone who would make him beg for her affection, someone who would make him kneel in her presence. The only woman who could make that to him, was Chen Motong.

Every time that Miss Chen came back to the country, he felt like a five year old all over again, but getting her heart wouldn't be an easy task. She acted cold and demanding, when she arrived he asked her out for dinner but she just wanted to borrow a car from him and left. He heard about an Italian man, apparently her boyfriend and he couldn't learn anything else about him, it was driving him crazy, but he received some information that brought some hope back into his eyes. Miss Chen had a friend in town, and he was in the hospital. Shao left his office with Miss Tu in it, on his way to meet Mr Luminous.

Young Lu was also disheartened because of Nono, although, his reasons were different. His 91st attempt to save her also ended in failure. When he realized that they were once again going to die, Nono desperately tried to make him react, but he lazily waited in the car seat for the whole scenario to restart, frustrated and annoyed, as the gravity of the situation slowly became less palpable. He looked to his side and saw Nono's face looking at him. Her expression was as ruthless as ever but in her eyes he saw deep sadness, he almost felt like hugging her before they died but the simulation ended. To him, death meant that he would have to start all over again, but for Nono, every single time it meant a genuine end.

To interrupt his depression, a young, short, overweight man entered his room. He called himself a friend of Miss Chen and Luminous thought for a second that she sent him there to get him out of the hospital, but Shao was there to speak.

He started making questions, in particular, who was this Italian scumbag that he heard about? Tragically for him, Luminous spoke highly of Caesar's fortune, personality and actions, and to make matters worse, he wasn't only Chen's boyfriend, but her fiancé.

A depressed Shao proceeded to tell an anecdote from his childhood. When he was studying in the United Kingdom, Shao felt belittled next to ehe aristocratic children that studied with him, so he started bragging about his own family's wealth and promising other kids money for listening to him, when he tried to show off in front of Nono, she beat him up and told him to call her "Senior Sister".

The school's Rugby matches also got violent, Shao played aggressively, so the other kids retaliated against his attitude by deliberately kicking him in the face and hitting him with the ball. His front teeth got broken as there was no coach present to stop them. He sat down on the grass, defeated, when Nono took his place in the match, she fearlessly rushed into a defense of fifteen boys while Shao swore to his heart that one day he would marry that girl, even if he had to kneel and crawl in front of her.

Shao compared himself to the protagonist form "The Great Gatsby", who desperately needed to be with his love interest, Miss Daisy.

-Why should a girl be with a man who needs her?

She should be with a man she needs. My senior sister doesn't need me, I am the one who needs her.

Before Shao left, Luminous reminded him of a scene in "Journey to the West" where Tang Sanzang found a silly monkey who lived behind a waterfall. The cowardly monkey recognized Tang's strength and left his hidden home to follow him around the world. There are two types of monkeys in the world, the smart ones that can survive out there on their own, and the silly ones, who need a master they look up to.

Shao understood his metaphor and he felt encouraged. Realizing he could trust the strange mental patient enough to untie one of his hands, Shao gave Luminous a can of beer and they toasted. When Shao left, Luminous took a syringe from the side table and injected himself with more sedatives. This was his 92nd attempt.

Shao returned to his office, motivated and lively.

-I met a new brother today!

He encouraged me to come back here, he's a philosopher and his words are very touching!

People living in mental hospitals are all experts in this kind of stuff.

He realized that he left without saying goodbye to Miss Tu, but his apology wasn't answered, because the girl in his office was Nono. She was drinking, looking tired, she didn't wear any makeup and silently stared at the window.

Shao was determined to win her over, but Nono answered most of his questions briefly and coldly. She didn't want to speak with him, she was just there to return the car keys and now she wanted to leave.

Shao's pitiful voice tone softened her attitude a little so she asked him for some gin with ice. Nono drank the whole glass in one sip and asked for a refill. She had another glass, and another.

- Senior sister, is someone bullying you?

- Who could possibly bully me?

- Usually no one, but aren't you engaged now?

- Caesar wouldn't do that, don't worry about it, just take care of yourself.

- Are you really going to marry an Italian? Those guys spend their money so recklessly!

- Could you give me a better reason not to marry him? Who are you to say those things? Stop messing around and just confess your intentions.

- I'm your boyfriend from kindergarten! If you gave me a chance instead I could be endlessly more confident and...

- You? "Endless"? Nono was so angry that she laughed.

Shao Kneeled and asked Nono to be his girlfriend instead. He kneeled in one knee, so she asked him to kneel on both like he used to, and he did, but not for begging, he used to do so as punishment. Nono didn't like his subservient attitude.

- We were just classmates, I was wrong to treat you so hardly, but you don't have to hold on to me, I am engaged and you could marry just anyone.

Shao kept begging, Nono deflected every single one of his arguments until he recited Luminous's "Journey to the west" reference. His delivery was incredible, but she had no reaction to it, she looked at her glass with tired eyes. She got up on her feet and entered the elevator.

After she left, Shao was avidly celebrating, he interpreted her reaction as progress and showed off in front of his employees.

Nono stopped at a small ramen restaurant to warm up her rain-soaked body. Chu Tianjiao was her last clue and she lost it. If Luminous was actually sick, why didn't she give up on him yet?

Why did she feel the need to insist on his case? This wasn't only about her, every moment she spent in the middle of nowhere, escaping from the secret party, she got Caesar in trouble. How was she supposed to explain this to them?

She had to admit that she cared too much about Luminous's well-being. She wouldn't doubt to give him her diving suit, she immediately called him last year when she and Caesar were overwhelmed by Scythe ferrets to warn him of the impending danger and now that the whole world was against him, she kept insisting on proving his sanity. Regarding his feelings for her, she comforted herself with positive thoughts. Who didn't have a crush on a senior girl at some point in his life?

Zero was great for him, so was Isabelle, if she had known Erii in person, Nono would have considered them to be "such a fucking perfect match".

Over the last few years, this petty boy had grown up, he became more energetic, better dressed and gained so much experience, yet he kept holding on to her. She left Shao's office without saying a word because she recognized those words belonged to Luminous. They were about Luminous.

- Chen motong, you're such a fool, you messed everything up.

Chapter 12

An exhausted Su Xiaoyao leaned back on her office chair, she had spent a long day on work meetings and in the middle of the night her phone kept ringing. This was her life ever since she had to leave school to take over her father's business. She had gained some weight ever since but no one really cared, she was still one of the top bachelorettes in the city and she had just accepted a blind date, excited to take a break.

During the student reunion, seeing Luminous made her cry a little. It wasn't because she used to have a crush on him during their high school years, she just realized that those carefree days would never repeat themselves. Back in the day, she and the other girls used to sit on the basketball courts to see Luminous play basketball. Even the air felt different.

Su took her high heels off and put her feet on her desk to take a quick nap, but her phone interrupted her attempt to display an urgent text message. It was Liu Miaomiao, her old rival in love.

- Su Xiaoyao, find a way to get here, quick! They put our senior brother in a mental hospital!

Game level: Gungir light, 101st load.

- So, where did you get that rocket launcher again?

- I found it under the seat...

The whole fight seemed extremely rehearsed by now, Luminous always knew exactly where to shoot, it almost looked like he could predict the future.

- Did you learn that in your special training? I want to take that special training too!

Nono slowly became the most problematic element in the simulations, she didn't retain her memories after every attempt like he did. This was probably the first time Luminous felt something other than absolute admiration towards her, she became a little annoying, but he couldn't really blame her. They got in the car and tried to escape, but one of the tires was damaged.

- Are you hungry? I just found some nuts in this car!

He knew Nono was trying to calm him but he was still a little anxious, he repeated the steps to replace the tire in his mind but the car-wheel escaped his hands and rolled over the highway.

His tantrum surprised Nono, who dropped her snacks all over the floor. Ming·Z paused time and got out of the car.

He noticed that Luminous asked to reset his last six attempts instead of waiting for his death, he seemed far more tired than usual after his conversation with Shao, it made him reflect about his feelings for Nono to the point of getting distracted in battle.

- First of all, I'm not the only monkey that she brought out from the waterfall, second, I am the one who needs her, she doesn't need me.

- Brother, I expected you to regret going to Cassell College, you wouldn't be so sad otherwise.

- I don't regret it, if I hadn't gone to Cassell College, I wouldn't know my senior brother nor my senior sister or the boss, nor would I know Finger, the Japanese "Lonesome George" brothers... And Erii.

Luminous ignored Ming·Z's snarky remarks and got a better hold of his feelings.

- I always ran after my senior sister, I like her so much that it makes me very sad that I can't be with her. Caesar was born with everything, he could have married any girl he liked but he picked the only one I cared about.

Suddenly I realized that I'm wrong, that was just wishful thinking on my part.

There are more people for me out there, Erii liked me, but Nono was the only one I had eyes for. Nono doesn't need me, I'm the one who feels at ease when I follow her, like she'll feel relieved when she marries the boss. She wouldn't feel like that if she were with me and to pursue her is to act on my most selfish side, why did my senior brother support me?

- Your senior brother wasn't that upright, don't you think?

- Finally, are you willing to admit that he's real?

- Okay okay, Johann Chu really does exist, but there is something wrong with him and you need to get him back"

- Then I'm relieved.

Ming·Z confirmed more things, the city was closed on all exits due to the weather conditions and the Nibelungen was invading their reality on a large scale.

- Thank you, Ming·Z·Lu. Why do you call yourself Ming·Z? You deliberately used my cousin's name"

- No, my name is Ming·Z·Lu, there has always been a Ming·Z·Lu in your life and that's me, not the fat boy in your uncle's house.

Luminous went back to the car, picked the dozens of floating snacks and put them back in Nono's palm one by one.

- Sister, don't worry, you will be fine, I will definitely find a way, I changed my mind, I will attend your wedding, I'll see you in your white dress holding orange flowers, walking on a red carpet full of happiness... Maybe you should throw the bouquet in my direction.

Three girls were sobbing next to his bed when he woke up, Chen Wenwen was the first face he recognized, followed by Su Xiaoyao and Liu Miaomiao. Su was one of the most influential persons in town, so she demanded that her old classmate got released from the hospital.

They took him out on a car and decided to stop on a luxurious bar. They all felt a little insecure about what they were wearing, so Su Xiaoyao asked her driver to bring them their old school uniforms.

Sitting at the bar, after multiple drinks, the girls kept reminiscing of their old days in high school, Luminous past in this reality was the same as Johann's, including his Saxophone recitals at the cultural festivals. He used to envy Johann so much back then...

He stood up and told everyone that he was going to the bathroom, but he changed back to his normal clothes and got out of the bar. A man with a motorized tricycle was waiting for potential passengers outside and Luminous gave him his expensive watch as insurance for borrowing his small vehicle.

He drove all the way to the Number 10 highway and entered the Nibelungen again. Odin was waiting for him far away, he didn't say a word but he slowly raised his lance. Luminous turned around and left the god's prison.

Back in his old apartment, Finger had befriended Luminous's aunt and kept doing shores for her. Nono came back to the place and they argued about their course of action.

- If I had known this was going to happen, I wouldn't have rescued him from that theater.

- Feels like you stepped in bubble gum and you can't take it off.

Finger suddenly left the room and came back with the news, Luminous had left the hospital with three old classmates. Nono grabbed an umbrella and ran out. She knew the bar and she knew about Su Xiaoyao, they weren't going to be hard to find.

By the time she arrived, the three girls were arguing after Luminous left. They actually tried to blame each other, the way they admired him was surprising to Nono. Suddenly, Luminous came back and justified his absence by saying that he went to a convenience store to get something to eat.

Nono watched them from the dark, feeling really stupid, there was a strange obsession that she couldn't let go of. In fact, she should have driven away the silly monkey that pestered her long ago, the more she helped him, the more he would rely on her. This wasn't good for any of them, but she couldn't bear to refuse.

She was afraid that he would end up crying alone in the wilderness, where no one could listen to him. She hoped that one day he could become one of those smart monkeys who run around happily, but maybe this silly monkey was smart from the beginning and she was pitying someone who didn't really need her.

She strolled under the heavy rain, her clothes were soaking and stuck to her body, it was a long way back to the uncle's house but she wanted to walk alone. She felt colder and colder and for the first time in her life she missed the Golden Iris Academy. She felt like going to a ramen stand again but there were no businesses in sight, however, there was a phone booth.

One call, that's all she needed to give away her location, Caesar made her memorize an emergency number long ago, it was the right thing to do, the person she should trust the most in this situation was not Finger or Luminous, but Caesar. Dialing felt like betraying her old classmates, but she started pressing the numbers.

"No, no, no, no, no, don't be like this, don't be like this"

Subconsciously, she looked aside and saw a small boy in the rain, looking at her from the other side of the glass. What was such a young boy doing out there on his own?

He was delicate and beautiful, like a porcelain doll.

- Are you looking for me? She asked.

The expressionless face of the boy slowly got horrifyingly distorted by the raindrops on the glass. She couldn't breathe due to an overwhelming sadness, so she opened the door but the boy was not there anymore. She took the calling card out of the booth and hanged up the phone.

Rome, Italy.

Caesar was waiting in front of a phone, he was under a lot of pressure, but the moment he received Nono's call, all of his problems would be over, yet the phone was silent.

The family elders felt like Luminous had stolen something that belonged to their heir, so they suggested that he cancelled his marriage.

- No, there are only two people in this world who can dissolve that engagement, Nono and me.

To avoid being put under heavy suspicion, he had to act calm and decisive, like he did a few days ago, when he released the monsters from the ice cellar to find the fugitives. Parsi entered the room and informed Caesar about the worsening weather conditions in Beijing, this type of climate phenomenons usually signaled the awakening of powerful dragons.

Luminous, the never-existing Johann Chu, the grim reaper, it was all starting to make sense. Caesar instructed Parsi to prepare his private jet and his desert eagles, he also dissuaded Parsi from going with him. At the lionheart club, president Babru informed the former president and dragon slayer Abdullah Abbas that Caesar wanted to team up with him to hunt the dragon down.

Intrigued, Abdullah accepted and instructed everyone to get ready.

To be continued, final update on Monday.

[autisticchicc]

Autism and Love

TW: Mentions of physical and emotional abuse, drug-related metaphor

Love and obsession, for me, are separated by a very thin line. Even if I weren’t autistic, I know I would still love fiercely, but I also know that autism has a profound effect on the way that I feel and express love.

In my life there have been numerous occasions where I thought I was in love, and I often still debate with myself about whether I have ever been ‘in love’. Nowadays I tend to take the view that love is something very personal, and just because it doesn’t last doesn’t make it any less valid. Being someone who is still on good or even great terms with all of my ex partners, I’d say I absolutely loved them at one point in my life. Maybe I still do love them, but I live a strictly categorised life. That love is now a purely a platonic love that comes from knowing and trusting someone for a long time. That ability to categorise so strictly is something some of my exes have had a hard time coming to terms with, I am quick to move them into the platonic love category and keep them there. Once someone has been placed in the platonic category, they do not leave. I don’t get back with ex-partners, and I don’t actually think its possible due to that strict categorisation.

My very first boyfriend sent me a message the other day asking if I ever still think about him. I replied honestly and said that I do not. I think that this comes from the strict categorisation too. If you are my friend, I think about you, but not that often. I have a lot of things happening in my head at all times, a sensory cornucopia that is exhausting to sort through, a conscious stream of five or six trains of thought, and my special interests. Special interests are a really intriguing factor in the context of autistic love, because I believe that the intense focus and adoration we treat our interests with absolutely translates to the people we fall in love with.

Anyone who has been close friends with me while in a relationship knows how insufferable I am when I love someone. I talk about them at any given opportunity, for longer than the other person probably cares to hear about it at times. When I love someone, they become a source of great inspiration, I find the characters I write resembling them, I could spend hours editing pictures and videos of them, my artwork is littered with their image. Love, for me, is an all-encapsulating thing. It invades every aspect of my life, consciously or subconsciously. They become the most beautiful person in my eyes, I drink in their image as though dehydrated. Curiously, even things I perhaps did not like about them before suddenly become things I look at fondly. Something about that shift from like to love, it is a very powerful shift for me.

Ironically, I’m not very forthright with my expressions of love. After mulling it over for years, I’ve realised that I’ve been conditioned to believe that love and pain go hand in hand. When you love someone, you must expect them to hurt you. At least, that’s what I thought until I deconstructed why I thought that. I had become accustomed to people weaponising my love for them, using it to blackmail me emotionally or to excuse physical abuse. As such, although I feel so deeply for the people I love, I am always very anxious about showing it in ways that can be used against me. I don’t show them the story or the art that I created inspired by them, for fear that they might think me obsessed for spending so much time on something pertaining to them.

I get very embarrassed when performing acts of service for my partners. I enjoy tidying and cleaning a lot, and I often want to do it for my partners to make their lives easier, but I get scared that they will think I’m being subservient and that they can take advantage of me. When I see my partner enjoying something or fostering a talent, I desperately want to invest in it, buy them tools and find resources so that they can develop it further, but am scared that they will think me strange and over-enthusiastic. I’m the kind of partner that loves extremely hard, and wants to express it as such, but I cannot quite get over the shame.

I have only recently been able to engage in non-sexual physical touch without flinching. Learning that touch is your love language when you have been shying away from it for years is a strange thing. It almost feels like a betrayal of sorts. Why was I denied this thing that I love for so long? And the reality is, it was a part of that fear. I have to be vulnerable with someone in order to allow them to touch me. Vulnerability has never come easily for me, although I always desperately wanted it. Finding someone that I can entangle limbs with, that I can kiss and hug on a whim, that I can show physical affection in my ‘weird’ autistic ways with has been very therapeutic for me. For the first time, I feel like I can have vulnerability and touch without it being thrown back in my face. It feels desired and reciprocated, not only do I want to touch and hold this person, but they want to touch and hold me too.

Another lesson within that has been ensuring that while I maintain my tough, outer visage, I am honest about needing to be soft and fragile sometimes. I have always been forced into being strong and resilient, it was never a conscious choice that I made for myself. I was forever pushed to be strong for other people, constantly making sure that those that needed me didn’t have to see me struggling or breaking under pressure. I never had someone I felt I could truly cry in front of, ugly, drunken sobbing type of crying. At least not without feeling judged or treated like a flight risk. Having someone I can be unapologetically sad in front of and they don’t force me to be strong for their own comfort feels so alien to me, but the relief it fills me with is immense. I am no longer pretending, and I am no longer embarrassed to be fragile. I can break down in front of this person and they will never question my strength.  

While crying and vulnerability are certainly an obvious hurdle for plenty of people in relationships, for autistic people there is the added stress of getting used to unmasking in front of a partner. I didn’t get diagnosed for a very long time, which will tell you just how good I am at masking. As a Hispanic girl, a lot of my behaviours weren’t reprimanded too much. Being loud and aggressive is normal in Spanish culture, and oftentimes isn’t even interpreted as aggression the way it is in the UK. Conversely, I did terribly with the tactile nature of social interaction in Spain and among Hispanics. I didn’t want to kiss strangers or even family members on both cheeks, I didn’t like having my cheeks squeezed by old women, and I didn’t like people touching, grabbing, or shaking me. But I was unfortunately forced to do it for my own survival. I don’t know if the sentiments around disabilities have changed in Spain, but the way I remember it in the part I grew up in was that they weren’t talked about. I didn’t even know what disabilities were until I came to the UK.

In England, pretty much every aspect of my behaviour was reprimanded; my loudness, my ‘aggression’, my opinionated disposition, my lack of a filter, my inability to understand my classmates’ feelings… The list goes on and on. At a certain point, I learned to just hold in a lot of my personality until I got home. What I didn’t realise that I was actually holding in some instinctive behaviours in privacy as well, I would flinch and stop if I noticed myself stimming, my face would go red when I couldn’t verbalise properly, and I often found myself practicing facial expressions in the bathroom mirror because I was self-conscious that I wasn’t doing them ‘correctly’. I started my own personal journey so to speak about a year ago to completely unmask, alone. I still cringe when I catch my arms pulling up into ‘t-rex’ form or if I start verbally/physically stimming, but I’m slowly becoming less ashamed of myself.

Consequently, unmasking in front of someone else has been incredibly nerve-wracking. The ‘issue’ (I say issue but it’s quite the opposite) is that I’m so comfortable in my partner’s home that I unmask without even realising it. Something I’ve noticed however, is that half the time they don’t. When my fingers twist and rub against each other, I glance up nervously to see if I’m being watched. No one has even glanced at me. I stammer and mess up my sentence, or my mouth fails halfway through, and yet even then no one laughs or looks at me strangely, they just wait for me to rectify or finish the sentence. I wonder if part of me still thinks I’m under the ultra-critical gaze of my secondary school peers, expecting to be torn to shreds verbally over my quirks as I always was, but it never happens. I have to constantly remind myself that I am well liked here, and my quirks are something people are fond of now.

Overall, love as an autistic person is intense and difficult, but an experience that is so all-consuming it feels almost like you’re on some kind of drug. I’m a very logical, science-based person, but love is one of the few things that still feels remotely magical to me. It can draw me out of my cold, black and white world and into an illogical whirlpool of emotion. I rarely act on emotion alone, but love is something that certainly has the power to make me do so. It embarrasses me a lot, it makes me feel out my depth, it makes me behave in ways I normally wouldn’t, but I’ll endure those feelings any day for the reward. I still have a long way to go before I can properly express myself to a partner, but one day I’d really like to be able to show them all my projects inspired by them, and the true level of sappiness I’m capable of (lol).