#she lives in the manor with the other figments

[turbulentscrawl]

how does the illusion hall and miss nightingale work in the manor setting? you briefly mentioned them once but i don't think you ever elaborated on them?

I haven't elaborated! My thoughts about that all aren't quite as cemented as other setting details, so it hasn't come up as much, but I'll try to explain the way I see her for now.

To explain this, I need to preface a few things.

Firstly: the manor exists because of Orpheus. I'm not sure exactly how or why yet, but something in his actions created this strange, pocket dimension, and he is a core piece of its not-really-comprehensible infrastructure.

And second: I don't enjoy treating the manor like it's an actual gameshow. I don't think there's a shop, currency, or any of that. Necessities and some basic comforts are provided to survivors and hunters to keep them content enough to cooperate in the games, but there is no obvious rewards for winning (other than not feeling the pain of death again.) I enjoy the horror aspect of this all, and I think treating the setting too much like the video game takes away from that.

Now onto it: the way I see it, Nightingale is another figment of Alice that was created from Orpheus when the manor's pocket dimension formed up, similar to Memory. Nightingale, however, is far more elusive and far more eldrich than Memory, so instead of taking part in the games in any capacity, the manor uses her as an avenue for change in an otherwise stagnant pool of time. Nightingale is a muse, and a creator. She makes "skins" for the characters based on the constant stream of ideas and stories in Orpehus's unconsciousness. These skins cause (mostly small) changes in the person who wears them--they are, at their core, always the same person, but the history that comes with each alternate version of themselves emphasizes different aspects of them. This, unbeknownst to everyone else, is a way to expose this collection of cowards, assholes, and killers (sorry, but it's true) to each other. Lord knows they won't take down their emotional walls WILLINGLY and let themselves really be known.

The Illusion Hall is just her domain in the manor. It's rarely accessible, and only when she wants it to be. When it is about, it parallels the Hall of Muses in the real manor. Sort of this intimidatingly long hallway with statues and portraits of Nightingale herself. If someone enters to find her, she appears to them from one of these depictions; either speaking to them from within a frame or a living statue suddenly stepping down off of a pedestal.

[abybweisse]

Hey Aby! In anticipation of the 205 chapter, I decided to go back and re-read Mey-Rin's and Bard's for clues of what may happen next to Snake and Finny. I noticed something interesting with both arcs - they both seem to hint at what their ultimate fates will be. While Bard's arc is all about meeting with wife and son while in a coma and he practically promises to return to them, Mey-Rin is an unwitting witness to a sex act, in an uncharacteristically graphic scene for Yana. Do you think that death is ultimately on the cards for Bard and (I guess) a marriage for Mey-Rin? Or is it all contained to their arcs themselves and does not mean anything beyond completing a mission?

⚠️ long post ⚠️

Assignments as foreshadowing?

I think that if Mey-Rin gets married, it would not be foreshadowed by her seeing sex acts through a keyhole.

She joined Qīng Bāng at a very young age and worked as a sniper, but she saw a lot going on around her. Well, as much as she could see without glasses. There were drugs, alcohol, and probably prostitution in and around the opium den, as well as throughout Limehouse district. One of her early assignments as an assassin was to shoot this guy at a hotel or perhaps in his own huge manor, right? He was a rival gang leader, and she shoots him while he's naked with some unnamed woman. He might have even been right in the middle of having sex when she shoots him. She's witnessed a lot in her young life.... Getting married to anyone would be despite the things she has seen and done. Reminds me of how Katniss finally settles down and has kids in The Hunger Games, even though she's been thoroughly traumatized by her experiences. So far, at least, Mey-Rin seems to have kept her mind pretty well intact. I hope she can continue to do so.

I think we can safely say she has somehow managed to remain a virgin up to this point, too. Otherwise, Georg von Siemens' inappropriate actions towards her wouldn't have been enough to make her question whether she was still worthy of marriage. Going by "Rin" and dressing as a boy until she joins the Phantomhive household might have been partly to protect her virtue. Good thing Haku was apparently only interested in her sniper abilities.

In Baldo's case, the interaction with Joanna and his son might be an indication he will have to break whatever promises he's made to them. At least for now. I mean, his claim he can now properly cook fried eggs is an exaggeration "Sebastian" calls out even before Baldo can fully return to the living realm.

I put Seb in quotations because I'm not sure whether Sebastian has infiltrated Baldo's coma or if he's just a nagging figment of his imagination.

Then again, maybe he will soon join them. We still don't have confirmation that he and the others safely made it out of Athena Sanatorium, thanks to a cliffhanger and moving on to the next assignment, with Finny and Snake. Next time we see Baldo et alia, they might be trying to take leave of the place... when Polaris freaking shows up, mad as all hell. Even if Ronald and William stick around and actually enter the fray (since it's another bizarre doll to take down), I don't see it ending too well. Baldo does seem to have this uncanny ability to survive, though, even if everyone else around him doesn't....

Either way, I highly doubt he will ever make it to Shanghai with the others, even if the others do. And if he stays in England and somehow still survives to the end of the series, this is most likely a false promise, as well:

Mostly because he's just that terrible in the kitchen.

I still somewhat hope Mey-Rin and Baldo end up together, despite their age difference. At least she is an adult already. Also, it was a very common practice in Victorian England for older men to marry much younger women, especially if those men were widowers. Much like Katniss again, perhaps Mey-Rin would only pair well with a man who has experienced much of the same trauma. Likewise, Baldo might now have trouble settling down with some completely innocent sort of woman. Katniss and Peeta go through the deadly and maddening games together. Baldo's been altered by war and losing his wife and son. Mey-Rin has been altered by her years as an assassin for a drug dealer and gang. Mey-Rin and Baldo have both been enlisted as servants for our earl, chosen because of their abilities and previous training; now they volunteer as pawns in this deadly game of chess against their young master's brother. Perhaps their bond will be strengthened by all this... if they live to see the end of it.

The main thing the first two assignments have in common, besides their basic instructions, is that Mey-Rin and Baldo each flashback to the events directly leading up to being offered positions as our earl's servants. Mey-Rin's flashback is triggered by Jane offering her the opportunity to switch sides. Her flashback shows us why her loyalty stays with our earl and Sebastian -- with the Phantomhive household.

Baldo's is triggered by Ada admitting her guilt as a survivor during warfare; Baldo feels much the same.

And he also develops loyalty towards our earl, Sebastian, and the other servants. Just like Jane ends up aiding the infiltrators, so does Ada.

As I'm typing this up, I realize "hunger games" describes both Mey-Rin's and Baldo's lives before: Mey-Rin is once fooled into biting a boot and is regularly given moldy bread to eat... while Baldo's battlefield starvation tempts him to cannibalize his fallen comrades. Sebastian barely arrives in the nick of time to stop him from eating the arm of Terry, or whoever that poor dead dude was, if it wasn't Terry. Sebastian shows up with a picnic basket filled with afternoon tea items and possibly more. The first thing our earl does to extend any kindness to Mey-Rin is provide her with the first hot, freshly prepared meal she's had in ages, perhaps as far back as she can remember.

Back to their assignments; they are paired with people who are in our earl's network but are not his servants. But Finny and Snake (and his snakes) are both Phantomhive servants, so do we get a major flashback from Finny, from Snake, from both, or from neither one? So far, Finny is having single-panel flashbacks and even briefly stating things he recalls to Snake and the top students. The orphanage reminds Finny of the research facility in some ways, and that could segue him into a major flashback. Since Doll is there, she could trigger Snake into one. However, before the assignments, they were the two we already knew the most backstory for, and we might never learn all that much more about either one. To deal with both characters, we might just continue to get tiny snippets here and there.

But Mey-Rin has a choice to make -- choose Jane's offer or remain loyal to our earl. She remains loyal, and Jane even helps her and Ran-Mao break up the blood collection operations there before parting ways. Mey-Rin and Ran-Mao just need to get to our earl and make their report.

Baldo still has a choice to make -- stay in England and return to our earl... or go with Lau and the others to China. Like I said before, he might never get to China, even if he tries. I do expect him to ultimately end up staying behind, possibly loaded down with fresh feelings of survivor's guilt. If Ada is still around when we get back to them, she might also decide to stay back and help Baldo take down the Aurora Society.

With Finny and Snake, I don't think Finny's loyalty could ever come into doubt. His choice might come down to whether he has to fight Snake. But I don't think Finny will see much, if any, choice in the matter if it comes to that.

Snake is probably about to hear Doll's full tale about the circus members' fates. Then his choice (and the choices of his individual snakes) is to either help Doll get revenge... or attempt to destroy her and shut down the orphanage. Snake is the last to join our earl's household, so he could end up the first to leave it (I don't think Tanaka has truly left). There's also the possibility that one of his snakes, like Emily, chooses Doll and must be eliminated.

There is foreshadowing in each assignment, but most of that pertains to what ends up happening in each assignment. I don't know what long-term foreshadowing there is in the assignments, other than perhaps some things not directly related to them... like:

The chance of Jane popping up again later because she hinted that she might

The shapes of souls and "aptitudes" hinting about soul transplants

If Layla ends up being Heathfield's daughter

If Layla/Al ends up being some experiment of Undertaker's regarding soul transplants

What I do see is each servant's loyalty being put to the test, and they must make quick, fateful decisions. Whatever choices they make during their assignments, they will ultimately affect the outcome of the story. Each assignment definitely has long-reaching consequences; they are not little bubbles of existence.

I hope I answered your question thoroughly. I stayed up too late working on this -- but not finishing it -- and have been half asleep all day.

[ask-the-dif-host]

Snapshot was at work trying to organize her study. It had been a complete mess lately and it finally bugged her enough to do something about it. She was currently at her desk sorting through stacks of papers of course she didn’t notice that someone had entered as she was too busy in her sorting. (Facxted)

The Host stood calmly at the entrance to Snapshot’s study, calmly listening to her organize. He knows calling out to her won’t call her attention, but he doesn’t want to scare her. He slowly walks to the side of her desk, waving his hands so she’ll notice him.

When she looks up, he signs hello, asking if she needs help with organizing.

[purplebass]

Of Forests and Fairytales: Lucie and Jesse Analysis

It’s me, again! I’ve wanted to write this analysis for months, but never found the right inspiration until now. There are no COI spoilers. I wanted to include something we know from the two chapters riveted released, but I held off. 

Happy Reading! ✨💞

The Prologue of Chain of Gold opens with Lucie sneaking out of her house during the night and getting lost in Brocelind’s forest as she is pretending to be the princess of a fairytale.

“You will never slay me,” she said. “For I am of royal blood and will one day be queen and twice as powerful as my stepmother. And I shall cut off her head.”

In literature, the forest symbolizes many things. We see that little Lucie is too focused on pretending and reenacting a fairytale, that she loses her way. She recalls that she can’t see her house anymore. The woods are the symbol of the unknown, of the unconscious, of the unfamiliar. The fact that she can’t see her house (= familiar, safe space, etc.) is telling. Lucie is naturally curious, but she also daydreams, which often makes her lose her link to reality. It is not a surprise that Lucie is a writer.

The forest is also a metaphor of the narrative text. The reader enters an imaginary forest when they start diving into a book. And they could lose themselves in the woods as well. But usually, they are able to come out safely when they finish reading the story and “collaborate” with the author. Meaning that they will try to come out of the forest using the breadcrumbs the writer has lain on the grass. But in the meantime, they’ll lose themselves in the narrative woods.

The only person Lucie meets in the forest is Jesse. He is probably there because his mother and sister were at Blackthorn Manor at the same time Lucie’s family was there. Lucie believes him to be a faerie at first. He is the person who acts as Lucie’s “breadcrumbs”, because he walks her towards the safe edges of the forest, and she’s able to find her way back.

The forest is a symbol of the unconscious and journey. It also represents personal growth, because after we come out of a forest, we are not the same person we were when we entered. We’ve changed. Either for the better or for the worse. Lucie is still young. She is still a kid here, and she’s not mature enough to dive through the deepest and darkest sides of the forest. This is why, in the Prologue, Jesse acts as a sort of protector and guide figure and leads Lucie out of the woods. He even believes that he won’t meet her again.

Yet, he does. Their paths cross when Lucie is older and wiser, but as we see through the whole Chain of Gold, she hasn’t matured yet. She hasn’t faced REAL life yet. And in the meantime, the encounter in the forest with Jesse has influenced her writing. It’s highly possible he is the inspiration of some of her male characters. Well, the idealization of him, since we still don’t know if the Jesse we see is the “real” Jesse, or just a fairytale-istic persona that shows himself differently according to the person he talks to.

She is not ready yet to go back into the woods. She has yet to experience what real life is like. Nor is she ready to face whatever adventure she has to face in order to make one of the main characters of her novels, Jesse, turn real. Come alive. As a ghost, he could be described as a figment of her imagination. The character out of a novel. Their story so far also resembles a gothic novel.

He was all white and black in the night, like an illustration from one of her books. 

The cover of Chain of Iron features Lucie entering the woods. This may mean that the forest may have a big part in Lucie’s journey in this book. But this time, she may have to dive into the woods alone. The forest is also a place that represents death. It could be where Lucie will have to face her own demons or perhaps, where Jesse will be revived. Or where Lucie will have a taste of the tragedy that at times is real life. The fact that Jesse, a young guy, has died so young, is itself a tragedy.

We can conclude that Lucie and Jesse’s story has not only gothic elements, but also fairytale elements.

If we go back to the Prologue, Lucie is trying to reenact something from Snow White.

The protagonist of this fairytale (the original Grimm fairytale) is a black haired and fair-skinned princess whose stepmother is envious of her. For this reason, she asks a huntsman to take her into the forest and kill her, but he doesn’t. Snow White starts her adventure in the woods, until she finds the cottage of the seven dwarves.

The number seven is recurring in Chain of Gold. It’s the number of years Jesse has been dead.

There may be other aspects of Snow White concerning Lucie and Jesse.

The stepmother has a mirror to which she asks who is the fairest of them all. The mirror can’t lie, and it knows that Snow White is not dead. Mirrors are linked with honesty. They are a mirror to a person’s soul.

Lucie wonders if Jesse is honest, and she has the occasion to ask Jessamine about it after she returns from Immanuel Gast’s flat.

“Certainly not!” Jessamine looked shifty. “Ghosts are completely honest. I keep telling you, it was mice who knocked your silver mirror behind the desk and broke it.”

“It appears clear that if ghosts are liars, they are terrible liars,” said James.

As you can see, there is a mirror mentioned here. A broken mirror. I have no idea if it makes sense but a broken mirror could mean broken trust or lies. There is also the belief that a broken mirror will bring you seven years of bad luck, and ancient Romans believed that the soul regenerated every seven years. It could also mean starting anew from zero.

The evil stepmother, after finding out that Snow White hasn’t died, tries several times to kill her, but the seven dwarfs are able to save her. She is able to make Snow White fall into a coma by offering her a poisoned apple, which she eats.

The stepmother thinks that she is dead, and the seven dwarves put Snow White’s body in a glass casket (there is also a variation of the story called The Glass Casket). Jesse’s body is also placed in a glass casket. What they don’t know is that Snow White is not really dead, but in a coma-like state.

“Think of me as on the threshold of a door. I am unable to take a step outside the door, and I know I can never be allowed back in, to live again. But the door has not closed behind me.”

Jesse says this in the third chapter of Chain of Gold. Doesn’t it sound to you that he’s in what we could describe as a coma? Alive… but also close to death. If this was the case, perhaps Lucie shouldn’t have to resort to necromancy, but to a warlock who may help her to revert the state Jesse is in.

[fea-warriorheart]

Another Life

His heart pounds as he edges around the side of the barn, peeking out into the field beyond. There's no sign of his hunter, yet he's not stupid enough to think he's safe.

He's given odd looks as he sneaks across the gap between the buildings, from people and animals alike. One of the horses gives him an indignant huff as he brushes past, and he's probably lucky there's a fence between them.

He's in a bad spot. His hunter knows it better than him. He has to get to familiar ground before-

"Found you!"

Jaskier shrieks as strong arms wrap around his waist, lifting his feet off the ground. He can hear the smug grin as the boy behind him adds, "Too exposed, lark."

The hands dart down his sides, tickling him while also letting his feet touch the ground once more. Jaskier shrieks again, but there's no fear this time; laughter and mirth sound in every sound as he squirms in the stableboy's hold.

"Geralt! Stop it! I yield!"

A soft laugh comes from behind him, and the arms around him loosen, releasing him. Jaskier turns, face flushed and split with a grin as he takes in the redhead before him. Geralt's a good head taller than him, despite only being two years older. While Jaskier spends his days studying and being proper, Geralt spends his split between helping at the estate stables and learning medicinal practices under the watchful eye of his mother. He's lean from winter, as most of the village is, but there's already muscle starting to build back up on his frame with the scraps of food he's given by a sympathetic cook.

Laughter sparkles in Geralt's fern-colored eyes, a feature many might call dull compared to some of the other shades sported by humanoid races, but Jaskier was of the firm belief it fit him perfectly. Geralt was a child of nature, just like his mother, and it was fitting for such a prominent feature to reflect that.

"Julian! Get back here!"

The brunette grimaced at the sharp tone. Geralt's expression instantly smoothed into the neutral stance most of the servants took when a member of the house approached, let alone one of Jaskier's parents.

His father stalked over, scowling at him. "You're late for your lessons. I shouldn't have to come out here and drag you around. It's disgraceful."

Julian bowed his head slightly. "Yes, father. My apologies."

An iron grip latched on to his upper arm. His father sneered at Geralt as he started dragging him back towards the manor. "Get back to work, brat."

Julian didn't risk glancing back. Geralt would only get in further trouble; he knew his father already disliked the boy for being friendly with him, but kept him around because of his old friendship with Visenna. The woman had been there for Jaskier's birth, as well as his two sister's. Plus, Geralt had a way with the animals that no one could quite explain - or replicate - and it was too much trouble in his father's eyes to find and train a new boy for the job.

Geralt is one of the few good things Julian has in his life. He won't risk him by being stupid.

-

A fierce storm is raging against the windows of the kitchen. Many of the servants are fast asleep, but Jaskier paces the room, worry lines etched into his brow. Geralt is making them both a pot of tea; a messenger had arrived in the early evening, stating that Jaskier's father had been ambushed by bandits and that his location was currently unknown. Despite being reassured by his mother, sleep had not come easy to the young viscount.

Geralt rested a gentle hand on his shoulder, bringing him out of his thoughts, and offered him a steaming cup. "Sit down," he murmured. "You'll do nothing for no one wearing holes into the floorboards."

He sits with a flop, tracing a finger along the edge of the cup as he waits for it to cool a bit. Geralt sits beside him, something they're only allowed to do in moments like this; moments of solitude in a life full of company. "You know I worry."

"Yes. It's why I knew you would seek me out."

Jaskier glances at him. Geralt's coat is drying by the fire; he'd accompanied the messenger to the manor through the storm, soaking both of them through, and his mother had insisted the poor boy stay the night. He'd taken a place by the kitchen fire to stay out of the way, and had been waiting when Jaskier slipped inside.

With Geralt, Jaskier is able to be... well, Jaskier. He's able to laugh and tell stupid jokes and not care about being proper, but only with Geralt. With all others, he must be Julian Alfred Pankratz.

It's no wonder why he feels drawn to the boy.

He sighs softly, leaning against Geralt. "What if they hurt him?"

"He's a hardy man, you know. This isn't the first time he's had to fight."

"That doesn't mean I have to be happy about it."

"I know, lark." Geralt gives him a one-armed hug-squeeze around his shoulders. "He'll be alright. Probably just lost his way in the storm, is all."

Jaskier shrugs miserably, sipping at his tea. They sit in silence for a while; Geralt eventually stands to clean their cups and dry them off. He's placing them back in the cupboard when the door slams open, startling both boys and causing the fire to give a threatening flicker.

Two figures stumble inside; one is unmistakably his father, while the other has broad shoulders and wears a thick cloak, obscuring all but the chestnut beard with gray flecks peppering it. The stranger slams the door shut, bolting it against the wind, and Jaskier's father stands there for a moment, breathing heavily as he takes in the two boys.

The stranger turns, then, and Julian's heart clenches when he sees the Witcher's medallion hanging around his neck. He pulls down the hood of his cloak, golden eyes reflecting the light of the fire. His gaze is on Julian, studying him curiously.

He turns back to Julian's father. "I assume you didn't expect either of them to be here. Which would fulfill your payment."

The man tenses, then shakes his head. "No, I expected my son to be here. He always waits up when I'm late. The stable boy, though- bah. You can take him."

Julian feels his world slow to a halt. When he looks at Geralt, he feels like he's moving through pine resin. The redhead's eyes are wide with shock and fear, and his mouth opens and closes a few times, though no sound leaves him.

"Fine. I doubt I have enough rations to bring both of them with me, anyways." The Witcher turns back to them, crossing his arms. "Your name, boy."

"No!" Julian's voice starts working again, and he stands between them. "You can't take him!"

"Julian," his father hisses, storming over to him and yanking him away. "He claimed the Law of Surprise for saving my life. It must be fulfilled."

"No! He can't take Geralt! Please, father, you can't let him!" Tears burn his eyes. Geralt still isn't moving, still hasn't looked away from the Witcher.

Golden and green gazes snap to them as Julian is backhanded. The Witcher is there in an instant, gripping his father's wrist enough to make the man cry out.

"I don't take kindly to those who would abuse a child for caring for a friend," the Witcher says softly. "Touch him again and lose your hand. Your oath has been fulfilled. Leave us, now."

"Wait." A small voice sounds from the corner where Geralt stands. He's trembling, eyes darting between the Witcher and Julian. "Can I- Can I at least say goodbye?"

Something in the Witcher's face softens, and he steps back, nodding. "Do you have any family?"

"My mother, she lives in the village..."

"You can say farewell to her as well and grab some spare clothes. Make it quick."

The Witcher leans against the fireplace, and Geralt rushes over, wiping at Jaskier's tears with soothing motions. "It's alright, lark. Don't cry... It'll be okay..."

"Geralt... Please, you can't leave me..." Jaskier gripped his shirt, twisting the fabric in his grip. A gentle hand brushes through his hair.

"You know I can't just ignore this, lark... I have to go, but we'll see each other again eventually, yeah...?"

Jaskier sniffles. Geralt lifts his chin, forcing their eyes to meet. He smiles gently, and for the life of him, Jaskier can't help but feel the truth in his words. He nods, even as his bottom lip wobbles. "Yeah."

The Witcher steps in again, a hand on Geralt's shoulder. He hands the boy his coat, and with one last look back, Jaskier's best friend vanishes into the stormy night.

-

He learns in Oxenfurt how few boys survive the Witcher mutations. He does not want to believe it, but part of him mourns his friend. Geralt was strong, but verging on too old for the Trials; his body would be more likely to reject them than to adapt to them. And besides, Geralt was a farmer, a healer, not a monster hunter.

So Jaskier does his best to move on. But there are nights, often dark with storms, where he curls in on himself and wishes things had happened differently.

He graduates Oxenfurt a master of the arts and top of his class, and then he just... wanders. He plays as a bard in taverns and inns, earning enough coin to stay the night and occasionally buy some new clothes. He takes lovers, but never partners; he loves too much and yet too little, flitting from person to person as his very being rejects each and every one.

He's nineteen, playing in some backwater village. The road there had been harrowing; he had been lucky to join a group of merchants at the last town. A nest of monsters - he wasn't sure what, he hadn't paid attention - had been terrorizing most travelers in small groups for weeks. They'd even been so desperate as to put up a notice for a Witcher.

Despite all of the stories, Jaskier hasn't seen another since that night. He's beginning to wonder if they're just a figment of everyone's collective imagination; perhaps the monsters just kill themselves off or migrate elsewhere when the pickings are slim.

He's just finished a song, collecting some meager coin as the door opens. Jaskier is retreating to his table when a hand rests on his shoulder; his mind runs through anyone he might have pissed off. He hasn't been in town long enough to anger any husbands, fathers or brothers, and no one would have followed him through such a dangerous area. So truly, for the life of him, he doesn't know why-

"Lark."

His world goes still in a way that has happened only once before.

He turns slowly. He's no longer a head shorter; his eyes are about level with his nose. His skin is paler than Jaskier remembers, contrasted with dark armor. A wolf's head gleams above it, snarling at his foes, and two swords are visible on his back.

Snow white hair brushes his shoulders, tied back clumsily. Jaskier can't find the strength to breathe as he finally looks him in the eye.

Gone is the green of ferns and grass in the spring; molten gold takes their place, slitted pupils darting in minuscule movements as he searches Jaskier's face. For all the differences, he's still the same boy - still the stable boy Jaskier knew.

He's still...

Jaskier is breathless as he whispers, "Geralt."

A small smile spreads across the boy's - man's, he's twenty, twenty-one now - face. He takes Jaskier's hand in his, squeezing it gently. "I told you I'd see you again."

//An indulgent thing that I came up with out of the blue. Lost steam at the end which is why it sort of trails off, but hey, if anyone's interested in a part two.... (bold presumption, I know.)

[shijiujun]

I LOVE your chuyao fics. I was wondering if you can write something about them being soulmates with soul marks. Another prompt is chuyao being soulmates but was never able to be together for different reasons, but in this lifetime, this is their chance. Time after Time. Life after Life. Their souls yearning to be together. LOVE you for sharing your fics.

Heya! Oh my god, this took FOREVER, I think about 3 months plus, but here it is, it’s a shorter one but ooof it’s my first soulmate/soulmark/reincarnation fic!

Summary: Lu Yao dies at the grand old age of 72 seated in his rocking chair, his hand clutching onto a photo of him and Chusheng, a man who died nearly 40 years ago without even saying goodbye to him. A man who had his soul mark, but didn’t tell him.

He remembers Qiao Chusheng fully when he sees him in what seems to be their next life the moment he lays his eyes on him.

“You’re the new roommate then?” asks Chusheng, standing at the door with only a towel wrapped around his waist. “Come on in.”

Warnings: Major character deaths (temporary!!!) 

⬇⬇⬇

1965

An almost faded photo of him and Chusheng - the only one Lu Yao has - sits on the table next to a cup of steaming tea. Leaning into his rocking chair which is lined with thick fur to keep him warm in the dead of winter, Lu Yao reaches out with shaking hands to slide it over to him.

They were so young then, Chusheng in that lovely, gorgeous navy blue three-piece suit and himself in that red corduroy jacket and pants, a photo Youning took when they were not looking. Lu Yao can hardly remember what it was they were talking about that sunny afternoon, but as he closes his eyes, he thinks he can still feel the warm sunlight on his skin, the fresh scent of flowers and grass in the air as he stood right next to Chusheng.

And the smile in Chusheng's voice as he spoke to him.

One would think that at the ripe old age of 72, Lu Yao would have learnt to let things go, but the regret sits heavy in his chest — an unchanging weight that has lodged itself permanently between his heart and his ribcage, throbbing painfully with every breath he has taken in the last forty years.

Forty years, Lu Yao thinks.

Forty years since he laid eyes on the man he loved for the very last time. A man he never got to spend his life with, for which Lu Yao has regretted since.

As he aged, as the wrinkles sank deeper and sun spots emerged on his once-smooth and unblemished skin, Lu Yao can barely see his own soul mark anymore. The image of it however has been seared into his brain — a full moon right over his heart, just like the one he saw that night with Chusheng on the bridge, when they were both naive and hoping life was just that bit simpler, that time would pass just a little slower.

A full moon that was printed right over Chusheng’s heart, identical to Lu Yao’s.

Qiao Chusheng, Lu Yao blinks languidly, how dare you?

When Lu Yao finally saw it, when he finally realized that he had lost so much time he could have had with Chusheng because the man truly was his soulmate all along, Chusheng was no longer breathing.

I’m sorry, Liu Zi had said to him, his face ashen.

Lu Yao stood in the morgue, a place he had spent so much time with Chusheng in as the man watched him conduct multiple brief autopsies on their latest victims. Instead of an unknown face and body lying there this time, however, it was Chusheng.

By then, Lu Yao hadn’t seen Chusheng in three years, having fled to Paris to escape his family and a love that he thought would never be reciprocated.

He told us not to let you know, Youning said, her eyes swollen from a few hours of continuous tears, he wanted something better for you.

Well, Lu Yao thinks bitterly, Chusheng eliminated that 'better' option the moment he died, leaving him alone with regrets of all the things they never said to each other. And forty years later, he is old, dying and alone. No wife, no children, no family in sight.

If Youning didn’t force him to come live with her and her huge family a few years ago, Lu Yao might have died even sooner perhaps.

As it is, Youning and her husband are still alive. If Chusheng did not leave them so early, he would have been uncle to three lovely children and their children too. The manor is never quiet, the silence constantly punctuated with high-pitched giggles, raucous laughter and heavy footsteps. Hands, both big and small, patting or shaking at him to get his attention, asking him to tell them exciting stories of his days way back as a consulting detective.

Those days were his happiest. And after his soulmate left him, the most painful.

If only he had said something, if only he did not leave like a coward, if only Lu Yao had opened his fucking mouth and taken a leap of faith, he could have had a few more years with Chusheng, if not a lifetime.

Lu Yao has lived four, excruciating and long decades after as punishment, even though he’d thought about following after Chusheng too many times. Every glance at the soul mark on his chest makes the skin burn as his throat tightens, unable to breathe as the memory of Chusheng’s every word, his every smile and touch, assaults his senses.

The afternoon today is unnaturally lovely for this season, sunlight peeking through the dense clouds and casting a golden glow against the thick sheets of snow outside. Lu Yao is afraid of the cold and has dreaded every winter since Chusheng was buried, because the only person who loved him enough to ensure that he was always warmed up died forty years ago, taking along with him Lu Yao’s beating heart.

On this day, however, the biting winds don’t seem to bother him all that much. He left the door open earlier, and from where he’s seated, he can see the grand manor that is Youning and her soulmate’s home. Outside in the courtyard, Li Chuyu, Youning’s eldest daughter, is watching her two children and their three cousins tumble in the snow with Li Minsheng, Chuyu’s younger brother and Youning’s third child.

They grew up calling him San Tu shushu, and Lu Yao wonders what kind of an uncle Chusheng would have been. If Chusheng knew that Lu Yao spent most of his time buying expensive gifts for the children and agreeing to all their requests, including when Chuyu and her younger sister, Chuwen, begged him to bring them to a crime scene, Lu Yao knows Chusheng might have scolded him for it.

I wouldn’t have, Chusheng’s voice sounds in the back of his head.

Lu Yao smiles. Chusheng is standing right there next to him as he says that, dressed in the same navy blue suit from the photo in his hands.

“You wouldn’t have?” Lu Yao croaks before huffing in laughter, “You’re such a liar, Lao Qiao.”

How would I have had the heart to scold you, Chusheng points out, I would have scolded the children instead.

“Even I can’t bear to scold them,” Lu Yao says, sighing as he looks out again. “Minsheng reminds me of you. And the way Chuwen nags at me sometimes, it’s as if you were around when they were growing up.”

They grew up well, Chusheng agrees.

Lu Yao feels the slightest of pressure on his shoulder, but he no longer has any energy to turn and look at Chusheng.

San Tu ah, Chusheng says softly, you did well.

“Did I?” asks Lu Yao, shuddering as he takes in another breath. “I lost you.”

Stupid, and there it is, that exasperated but immensely fond tone that Lu Yao has not heard in so long, you’ll never lose me.

Lu Yao chuckles, and for the first time since he saw Chusheng’s lifeless body, that weight in his chest eases.

Much later, when little Ruoyun runs into the little hut that serves as San Tu yeye’s private study, she sees the old man asleep on his rocking chair. Her baba and gugu are there, their eyes puffy and red, and Youning nainai is there as well, seated on a stool right next to San Tu yeye.

“Nainai! I want to ask yeye about something,” Ruoyun says quietly, coming inside. “Is yeye sleeping?”

She goes to Youning when the old woman opens her arms, wondering why everyone is crying.

“Ruoyun ah,” Youning nainai says, “Your San Tu yeye went to find your Chusheng yeye.”

“Chusheng yeye? The one who has San Tu yeye’s mark?”

Clutched tight in his right hand is the photo she took so many years ago of Chusheng and Lu Yao, his fingers curled around it as he left.

===

2019

He remembers Qiao Chusheng fully when he sees him in what seems to be their next life the moment he lays his eyes on him.

“You’re the new roommate then?” asks Chusheng, standing at the door with only a towel wrapped around his waist. “Come on in.”

Lu Yao stands frozen in the doorway for a good few seconds, his eyes trained on his new roommate as everything clicks in his head, all the missing pieces sliding together perfectly in his head as images of a different looking Qiao Chusheng melds together with the one before him.

For as long as Lu Yao could remember, he has dreamt of himself and his soulmate, but differently. Snippets and snatches of moments that belonged to a different time, and when he was younger, his mother would bring him to doctors and psychologists to see what exactly was ailing him but Lu Yao continued having the dreams. He learnt instead to hide them from his family and friends.

He did wonder if he was going insane, or if there was something wrong with him, but while the dreams were frequent when he was much younger, once he entered high school, they only turned up occasionally. In university, Lu Yao could almost pretend he was normal and that everything he dreamt of and saw was simply a figment of his imagination.

A man in an old police uniform, driving an old, vintage car. The same man putting a watch on his wrist. The man in a long, black cape on one occasion, in a leather jacket on a few other occasions, and the one that surfaced frequently was him in a three-piece navy blue suit. Lu Yao never heard any sort of dialogue, but he remembers the man’s gentle eyes, full of fondness for him and the smile tugging at his lips whenever he looks at Lu Yao.

Looking at him like he loves him. The same soul mark on the man’s chest, right where Lu Yao’s is.

A full moon, like the one he and Qiao Chusheng, in their past life, was looking at that night. Lu Yao remembers that night as clearly as if it was a recurring dream.

And right here, right now, Lu Yao’s breath catches, because his new roommate’s soul mark is there for everyone to see, fresh from his shower.

It matches the soul mark on Lu Yao’s chest, and for a moment, he feels nauseous and sick.

“Hey, are you okay?” Chusheng frowns, stepping forward. “You look a little sick, are you-“

He doesn’t get to finish his sentence, because Lu Yao bends over, and empties his stomach right on the man’s doorstep.

—

When his mind is clearer and the urge to throw up has abated somewhat, Lu Yao feels like throwing himself into the river and be done with it.

His soulmate, his one and only true love, and Lu Yao just made him clean up his mess. Most people would be happy to find their soulmates, he knows, but right now, Lu Yao is petrified. His cheeks are scalding hot with embarrassment as he lies there unmoving on the couch after Chusheng helped him there.

“Lu Yao, isn’t it?” Chusheng’s voice sounds right next to him then, and Lu Yao jolts. “Man-jie said you were coming over today.”

“I’m Qiao Chusheng. Are you sure you don’t want to go to the hospital?”

Ah, Lu Yao thinks, even his name is the same.

Lu Yao suspects that he’s truly gone off the bend, because what are the fucking odds? Soulmates and soul marks are the order of the natural world, but reincarnation, prophetic dreams, fate and what not? That’s something you only see out of movies.

Shaking his head in mortification, Lu Yao croaks, “I was feeling a little under the weather from the long train ride. I’m a doctor, I’m fine.”

Then, “I’m really sorry about the door.”

“No worries. You’re a doctor at Jiahui International? That’s four streets away from here,” Chusheng smiles.

Lu Yao feels his dumb, traitorous heart leap at the sight of those curved lips.

“Yeah, this is the closest place I could find,” Lu Yao swallows. “You… What do you do?”

“I work at the precinct, it’s seven blocks away in the other direction,” Chusheng answers.

A police officer, Lu Yao thinks, just like…

Just like before.

“It’s almost time for dinner and I’ve got some ingredients in the fridge,” Chusheng says suddenly, getting to his feet. “Are you allergic to anything? I’ll do some seafood porridge and two light dishes.”

“Ah, you don’t have to go to the trouble-“

Lu Yao tries to get to his feet, but Chusheng pats at his shoulder, signalling for him to just lie down and take a good rest.

“Consider it a welcome dinner,” he winks. “I haven’t had many roommates that throw up right on the door the first time we meet.”

Lu Yao’s cheeks flame immediately and the nausea recedes momentarily. He’s not sure if he can manage without throwing up again, so he obeys and lies there, almost drifting off to the sound of Chusheng in the kitchen.

It feels as if he’s split into two - one part of him remembers another Qiao Chusheng from a long, long time ago, and the other part of him has met his own Qiao Chusheng now. Are they one and the same? If they are, it doesn’t seem as if this Qiao Chusheng suffers from the same dreams as he does, because the man didn’t even pause one bit at the sight of him earlier.

Smiling to himself a little, Lu Yao knows all he has is time. If the dreams are from a past life, a past life of love unfulfilled and soulmates who were doomed to part, then in this one, in this life…

Lu Yao will never let him go again.

He’s interrupted from his thoughts when a steaming hot bowl of porridge appears in front of him, and the scent has his stomach growling loudly.

“You’re too skinny,” Chusheng says, sitting down on the coffee table as he moves the bowl closer to Lu Yao. “Are all doctors as skinny as you are?”

“Have you seen a lot of doctors?”

Lu Yao asks, then grabs for the bowl thankfully as he sits up. His hand touches Chusheng’s unintentionally right at that moment, and Lu Yao draws in a sharp breath and jerks, as if the contact burnt him.

Chusheng is staring at him with an indescribable expression on his face.

Damn it, Lu Yao did not think so far earlier, how he would tell Qiao Chusheng that he has a matching mark on his own chest. He didn’t think the connection would be this strong either — in his dreams, he doesn’t recall this ever happening, otherwise maybe Lu Yao in the past would have gotten a clue, considering how often Qiao Chusheng touched him.

Quietly, as if entranced, Chusheng reaches out. His fingers lightly trail over the spot where Lu Yao’s soul mark should be, hidden underneath his shirt.

“… here?” he asks, eyes wide. “The same?”

Setting the bowl on the table next to Chusheng, Lu Yao unbuttons the top few buttons on his shirt, his fingers hesitant and a little clumsy. His cheeks are tinged slightly in red and even though he knows this is his soulmate, the man he's destined to spend the rest of his life with, this Qiao Chusheng is new to him.

“You didn’t say anything earlier when you saw mine,” Chusheng swallows, Lu Yao’s soul mark visible to him now.

“I was busy throwing up at your door,” reminds Lu Yao, and then because it’s a little ticklish, he grasps at Chusheng’s straying hand.

The grip brings Chusheng back to the present, but nothing can prepare Lu Yao for the wide, gorgeous smile that emerges on Chusheng’s face.

"You mean... our door," Chusheng replies cheekily.

It takes Lu Yao's breath away.

“Here, eat up, and we should… we should talk,” Chusheng says, already sounding like a naggy motherhen as he picks up the bowl again.

He watches a little reverently, so quiet as he watches Lu Yao eat, not forgetting to pick up some vegetables and meat from the two other dishes he cooked and place them in Lu Yao’s bowl whenever it looks a little empty.

Perhaps this Chusheng will never remember, Lu Yao wonders, it’s too soon to tell.

One thing is for certain — the way this Chusheng looks at him, and the way the past Qiao Chusheng looked at Lu Yao… it is exactly the same.

“What do you like to eat? I’ll do some grocery shopping later,” Chusheng suggests.

Lu Yao smiles then, remembering all the times this man bought breakfast and meals for him in a lifetime that is not his own.

“We can go together,” he says.

They have the rest of this life to figure it out.

[raywritesthings]

Not His to Change

My Writing Fandom: Arrow Characters: Oliver Queen, Laurel Lance, Robert Queen Pairing: Laurel Lance/Oliver Queen (if you really, really like bittersweet endings) Summary: Oliver gets to the afterlife once his work as the Spectre is completed and finds a surprise - and a lesson - waiting for him. Notes: Basically canon-compliant but not for Ol*city or M*rlance fans. Not really all that Lauriver either, tbh, this fic doesn’t really have an audience. Oh well. *Can be read on AO3, link is in bio*

As Oliver felt the energy leave him, he used his last remaining moments as the Spectre to construct the new world that his friends would inhabit together, a combination of two Earths. Two timelines needing to be merged. He brought back some whose lives had been cut short, softened the blows that others had suffered and crafted what he felt was the best version of reality for each of his loved ones that he could think of.

There were some things that he could not change. His father still remained buried on Lian Yu. Oliver could not think of a way for him to have become the Green Arrow without his father’s sacrifice out there in the life raft; the truth was, he was almost more scared of the man he might have ended up being without the island.

The other was Laurel. Oliver’s heart ached, but guilt twisted in his gut at the thought of callously cutting the doppelganger he had gotten to know the last few years down just for the crime of not being the ‘right’ one. The fact was, he had lost his Laurel years ago. And without her loss, the whole second wave of heroes in their city would never have been recruited. Her legacy had had that much of an effect. So he did his best to create the life he wished she had had the chance to have before it had ended; the life she deserved.

A wistful part of him wished that was a life with him, the same way he had wished it in the dream world the Dominators had created. But guilt stayed his hand again: Mia. Getting to know his daughter as an adult made her so real and alive, he couldn’t bring himself to deny her the right to existence. In the new version of Earth, he would remain with Felicity if only for her. So he would give Laurel her happy ending that the Undertaking had robbed her of instead.

Everything decided, his eyes slipped closed, and Oliver felt himself drift away from the realm of the living. Gradually, he felt awareness settle back into his body. The bone-deep exhaustion had left him, and he slowly sat up in the bed he found himself resting in.

It was his old bed, the same that he had had in the Queen Manor all those years ago. Brow furrowing in puzzlement, Oliver rose and looked through the dresser and closet, finding clothes to change into. Once changed, he ventured out of the room and down familiar hallways and stairs. He could hear the low murmur of voices coming from the kitchen, so Oliver cautiously pushed the door open, freezing in shock at the sight of the two people sitting at the kitchen island.

“—think you’ll stick around long, or back to traveling?” His father was asking.

Laurel shrugged, though as she did so, her eyes drifted to him in the doorway. “There you are, Ollie. We were starting to wonder if you were planning to spend your whole afterlife asleep.”

Her remark lacked the bite Siren would have had, her smile light and teasing instead.

“This is… we’re all here, then? There’s not a- a—” He wasn’t sure how to voice his question. Oliver couldn’t remember if being the Spectre had given him knowledge of Heaven or Hell, but he would have imagined wherever he ended up, he wouldn’t be sharing it with both Laurel and his father. They’d sat on rather opposite ends of the scale of morality, after all.

“Welcome to life after death, son,” his dad said. “Or what did that Dumbledore character call it in those books you liked?”

“The next great adventure,” Laurel supplied.

Oliver still felt a little numb, but as he drew up to his father’s chair, the older man stood and embraced him.

“It’s good to see you,” Oliver mumbled into his father’s shoulder. His real father. Not a dream, not a hallucination. Although, was it really the same thing?

He had changed the least about his father and his life, Oliver felt he could say. But even still, he had done what he could to clean up this and that, with the exception of the affair that had created Emiko. Even that he had improved with Emiko being a welcome member of the family rather than his parents hiding her from him and Thea. So was he talking to the father he knew, or just another figment of the man that wore his face? He hadn’t considered that at all, and it made his stomach twist uncomfortably.

Over his father’s shoulder, Laurel was watching him, her look both knowing and compassionate all at once. But this was a Laurel he had never really known either, as much a stranger to him as her doppelganger had once been.

His dad pulled back, keeping a hand on Oliver’s shoulder as he looked between the two of them. “Laurel asked me to let her know when you were coming to join us. There’s some things you ought to talk about, and I think she can explain it better than me.” There was a brief squeeze to his shoulder. “I know how hard you tried.”

“Tried what?”

But his dad walked out of the kitchen. Laurel slowly got up from her own chair but maintained a few feet of distance between them. “So, how was being master of the universe?”

It took Oliver a second to place the memory that question stirred; sitting on the floor of her apartment with a bowl of ice cream in his hands. He hung his head. “Definitely not what it’s cracked up to be. Let’s say I don’t miss it.”

“Not wanting that kind of power for yourself is what makes you a hero, Oliver. But… you did make some choices. Choices that weren’t yours to make.”

He licked his lips. “I couldn’t just kill your doppleganger.”

Laurel held up a hand. “I’m not talking about her. I’m talking about me and Tommy.”

He stared at her in confusion. “You loved Tommy.”

Laurel sighed. “I did in a way. But he wasn’t the love of my life. You know that better than anyone.”

Oliver shifted from one foot to the other. “I had a daughter, Laurel.”

“And I’m not saying you should have given her up, either. I am saying that I didn’t need to be forced into some kind of consolation prize marriage of convenience to make you feel better. I was happier without it.”

“How do you even know that?” He couldn’t help asking. If he had changed time, didn’t that mean everyone else forgot the old timeline? Wasn’t that how Barry said it worked?

Laurel shook her head. “Since I was dead, I got to pick which version of memories I could keep. I chose the version of the life I actually lived.”

Oliver swallowed a lump that was stubbornly trying to rise up in his throat. “Then… you really are my Laurel.”

“Mm-hm.”

He took a step closer, unable to help himself from folding her into his arms. It had been so long, and he had missed her every single day. She hugged him back.

“Everything you went through, everything you lost,” he said in her ear. “Why would you want to remember?”

“Because it created me. The best version of me I know how to be. I wasn’t going to let anyone take that away from me.” She drew back and cupped his cheek. “Not even you.”

“Only you could be that stubborn,” he said, the warmth in his tone belying his words. Laurel smirked back at him. “What happens when Tommy passes?” Even if he had brought his friend back along with so many of his loved ones, Oliver knew it couldn’t last forever. Everyone died eventually. And when his friend got to the afterlife, expecting a version of Laurel that now only existed as a fiction Oliver had invented to assuage his own conscience…

“Then he’ll find his place in the afterlife. I don’t imagine he’ll want to see me, at any rate.” Laurel left his arms completely, walking back to her chair to get a bag that she’d left hanging off the arm. “Considering he was getting ready to file for divorce before the me in that timeline was killed.”

Oliver’s eyebrows pulled together. “What?”

“From what I was told, he could see exactly what he saw in the timeline you and I remember. No matter how much power you have to wield, you can’t change who people are in their bones, Oliver. Only they can change themselves. And I wasn’t about to do that.” She finished slinging the bag over her shoulder, fixing her denim jacket so that it sat properly.

She loved him still. The lump was back, and he brought a hand up to try and wipe at the moisture starting to gather at his eyes before it could get out of control.

“If I could — if there had been a way,” he started. A way for both Laurel and Mia. God, he’d seen the way Mia had gotten on with Laurel’s doppleganger. He was sure his daughter would have found an even more supportive mentor in the Laurel he had known most of his life. The same way Thea once had.

She shook her head sadly. “Your family comes first, Ollie. We both know that. That’s why I’m not staying here. There’s a whole lot of afterlife to explore, a lot of it I didn’t see when I was alive. So you wait here for your family. It’s okay.”

It wasn’t fair, but he knew he would let her go. She was always the bigger person between the two of them, in the end. She walked past him and towards the door, and he couldn’t quite stop himself from saying, “If we’ve got the rest of eternity to spend here, my family might get sick of me after a while.” How many breaks had he and Felicity taken with their relationship, after all?

She looked back, a wan half-smile tugging at one corner of her lips as the long, blonde hair he remembered best spilled over her shoulder. “Then I guess you’ll just have to come running after me if that happens.”

He nodded. “Always.”

“Goodbye, Ollie.”

“Goodbye, Laurel.”

She let herself out of the kitchen, and he heard the front door shut moments later. Slowly, he walked to the island and took the chair she had sat in. Like most times, she had left him with much to think about.

If anyone could see fit to defy him even when he had held the power of a near-God, it was Laurel. A breathy laugh left him at the thought. She always was able to bring him back down to Earth, even when they were no longer on it. Wasn’t that a relief?

[yyrz]

my body’s missing pieces (i wish i could remember)

note: this is my contribution for @bnha-femslash-bigbang!! momojirou au where my heart broke for my girl... happy birthday momo i guess???

this also has art which was done by @kryouma, which yall can find here! bls look at their art its so good....

content warnings: implied abuse, implied suicide ideation, implied self-harm, implied drug use

ao3 link! 

k. (23)

Her hair was black.

m. (6)

When Momo opened the carefully wrapped box in front of her, she hadn’t expected to see a book.

It was bound in leather, with a large strap tightly woven across the cover. It smelled roughly of musty attics, abandoned until curious minds found their way inside. It was heavy, and it was much too big for the hands of a six-year-old girl. 

Thin fingers traced the embossed title, reading it with a sense of awareness from a child that should only be starting elementary school.

Schematics of Weapons in the 20th Century, it read.

Momo didn’t know what schematics meant. She knew what weapons were, but was lost at what schematics could mean. There was a dictionary in their home that she could use to find out what it meant, but she couldn’t get to it now.

She would never be able to.

Because it was during that night when they took her away while her parents lay sleeping on their bed in the room beside hers. She was whisked away by men in loose clothing, heads covered with black stockings.

Their hands were far too big, covering her wrists without difficulty.

They held her down as one of the men approached her prone form. She was only six, still so small. He lifted his hand and held it to her face.

She was afraid. Where were the guards that patrolled her home? The servants that littered the hallways of the manor? Did her parents not hear the men as they talked, loud enough for the neighborhood to hear? 

Pink smoke erupted from the man’s hand. Just one breathe had Momo falling into unconsciousness. A blessed nothingness took her away from the worry.

In the morning, she would hear her mother’s voice. It would be soft and unsure, and it would be oh so different from the authoritative Ririka Yaoyorozu that Momo would often listen to in the early mornings of her day.

“Sweetie, you’ll be staying with your grandfather for a while.”

“I’m sorry.”

k. (23)

Kyouka hadn’t known anything else apart from that, the first time she had dreamed of the girl. The mirror reflecting the girl’s face was cracked and Kyouka had no way of knowing what the girl fully looked like without her moving her head aside. 

The window was closed shut and there was no clock to be seen. The room was bathed in the dimming light of a lone candle, flickering to its death. Even as the girl rummaged through her drawer, pulling out a comb, Kyouka couldn’t see anything apart from her hair. She struggled to move her head to get a glimpse of the girl’s face but found that she couldn’t even move from the corner; like she’d been super-glued on the spot.

She could still see the white gown draped over the girl’s body. It was in pristine condition, likely unused until now. It hung awkwardly across the girl’s shoulders, loose and limp against her arms. 

It looked like it was too big for her. It probably was.

The room was huge. There was no other word for it. Kyouka’s bedroom could fit in it twice over, with some space allowance left for her to move. It was also empty, with only a bed and a drawer to fill up the large space.

It still felt suffocating. Lonely.

Who was this girl?

As though her thoughts had been vocalized, the girl turned towards Kyouka’s direction. Her eyes narrowed at that corner and for a long moment, only watched as dust danced along with the nonexistent breeze. Kyouka held her breathe, not because she could be spotted, but because she could see the girl now.

She was beautiful.

She was beautiful in a way that seemed sad. Her face was far too sad. Sad, sad, sad. Something in her expression made Kyouka wonder and she watched as the girl’s eyes close, heaving a heavy sigh and turning back towards the broken mirror. 

She was so beautiful that it hurt to look at her. Kyouka tried anyway. 

m. (6)

The first week was the hardest. Momo asked for her nanny, a young girl who was called Giselle. Giselle was a half, she’d been told, which explained her striking red hair.

Momo didn’t know what it meant to be a half. But she loved Giselle regardless.

When Momo got up after that night, she wanted to know where Giselle was. Giselle always seemed to be beside her whenever Momo took her naps, and Giselle’s face was the first face she’d see when she woke up. The question bobbed against her throat all morning, whenever someone came by to check on her. 

No one gave her an answer.

Days turned to weeks. Weeks turned to months. Momo hadn’t seen eye nor hair of Giselle nor of her parents. She wondered if they remembered her, left alone in that room after the men had taken her from her room the other night.

Was it the other night? Momo hadn’t counted. She wasn’t sure of much. She couldn’t trust her sense of time, not when she was six years old and she hadn’t glimpsed out of an open window in a while.

k. (23)

The dreams came and went. It wasn’t an everyday occurrence, and Kyouka was thankful enough for that. She couldn’t bear seeing the girl every night, sitting on her bed or in front of her mirror, combing through her hair as though that were all that mattered.

Sometimes, when Kyouka paid enough attention to the girl’s surroundings, she’d see books haphazardly laying across the floor. Sometimes, when Kyouka remembered what her quirk could do, she’d hear murmuring outside the corners of the girl’s room.

Sometimes, when Kyouka could move, she’d walk towards the door and knock. It never did anything. She tried to go through the door, because she was a specter in this girl’s life, wasn’t she?

It never let her through.

She concluded that she was stuck in the room with the girl.

Sometimes, when she hadn’t woken up, she’d stand there, watching the girl from behind. All she could do was watch the girl because she couldn’t even talk.

And sometimes, sometimes, when the girl looked at her, as if she could see , Kyouka would wake up. She’d fall on the floor beside her bed, limbs tangled beneath the thin blanket she purposefully wrapped herself in the night before.

m. (???)

Momo’s hair grew past her waist. No one had attempted to cut it. It was how she knew time moved on. She didn’t know how long, but she knew as she grew and as her hair grew.

One day, as she plucked dirt out of her fingernails, her grandfather came to visit.

He was a stocky, old man, with broad shoulders and a countenance no one could ignore. Momo liked him enough until he prodded her knees with his cane and told her to stand properly in front of him. She took it as his way of teaching her etiquette. 

Maybe if she voiced out her worries to her parents, they wouldn’t have left her with him. They would see how he held her upright, told her to hold her posture properly, as any lady should. She was a child and at four years old, she knew she was going to be the heir of everything.

And then her quirk manifested in the form of Creation.

It was perfect. To make anything she so desired, so long as she knew what the components of the object was. Her parents were proud! Her grandfather’s eyes widened, his smile split his cheeks into two and he knelt in front of her. Momo watched as his eyes twinkled, something ugly and disturbing in them that she hadn’t caught onto.

Maybe she should have noticed, realized it. Maybe if she weren’t four years old, and if she didn’t love him as a granddaughter should love her grandfather, she would have noticed and realized it.

He entered her room with all the nonchalance of the damned; like he was in the Yaoyorozu manor and she was in the sitting room, reading through the book he gave her the day before.

Momo’s eyes followed him as he walked, cane hitting the wooden floorboards with each step. He stopped in front of her, gaze narrowed.

The hand that flashed across her face was surprising. It hit her cheek and the force caused her to fall to the floor with a dull thud. It throbbed and Momo felt something with it. She hadn’t felt anything in a while.

“Your parents gave you away, like furniture,” she heard him sneer, “poor, sweet girl, thrown aside so that they could live.”

There was an edge to his voice that was foreign to Momo. She remembered him as a strict figure, with the cane and the frown, the sharp words and the slap of wood on the back of her knees. She also remembered kindness flaking out of his pores when she needed it, when she wanted the softness of a hand on her head, ruffling her hair to undo her ponytail.

But that was all before she was six years old; when she still slept on her bed in the Yaoyorozu manor. Maybe even before that, during the years following the manifestation of her quirk.

Her cheek stung. Red washed over it. Her grandfather’s hand touched the mark, softly, delicately, caressing it as if it were something fragile.

“Oh darling, you’ll stay with grandpa for a while. You’ll learn so much, you’ll make so much. You love grandpa, don’t you? You’d do whatever grandpa tells you?”

She didn’t answer. But then, there was nothing to say.

k. (23)

Every other night, she’d find herself inside the room with the girl. The world tilted beneath her feet as she succumbed to curiosity.

Who was she? Why am I here? Is this real?

Of course, it wasn’t real. It was a dream. 

The bruises that peeked from beneath the girl’s sleeves and the bones protruding from her hands were far too distinct to be a figment of her overworked mind. Had she been in contact with a case like hers? Had she heard anything like it?

She knew she hadn’t.

Maybe she was doing it again. Maybe the rolled-up pieces of paper tucked under her shoe boxes were unearthed by her hands in an attempt to feel. She hadn’t taken the time to throw them away like she had promised her friends, and as the days passed, she hadn’t attempted to.

Kyouka reached for her arm and pinched, hard and painful, using her nails until it pricked through her skin. A thin sheen of blood oozed from the small wound. 

No, she was still there. Her mind was still her own. There was no haze covering her thoughts that day.

So then, the question remained.

m. (???)

Momo’s eyes prickled with each second she hadn’t succumbed to sleep. She just wanted to doze off, but her brain was running all around the place. There was something in the way the bandages wrapped around her hands that felt unpleasant. Tight, just like the blanket draped across her shoulders.

Maybe a glass of water would help her. Or two. Or ten. Maybe a walk outside would tire her out until she fell on the pavement, cracking open her head.

She wanted to go out, but the padlock and chain covering her door ensured that she remained in her room without any chance of escape. Just like the windows were barred from the outside with steel plates until sunrise.

Momo settled for sleep, even if her mind wouldn’t let her. She tried to, anyway, closing her eyes as her head hit the pillow. It was soft beneath her hair. 

Nothingness would still be better than this, but even that couldn’t visit her.

When she closed her eyes, she fervently hoped that someone would take her away.

k. (23)

When Kyouka awoke to an empty room, she shivered.

Frost covered the windows of her room. The white walls adorning her bedroom felt intrusive. It peeled in places, telling her that she needed to change her wallpaper sooner rather than later. Her room looked like a white box from within.

Kyouka heard the sound of birds chirping out her window. Even with the onslaught of winter, they never failed to come by and greet her day. 

Once upon a time, she adored their sounds. Now, they weren’t as welcomed.

The headache beating harshly against her temples was in tune with the erratic drumming she could still hear around her. A hand on wood, shouting, and then silence. Someone retching, sobbing, and then quiet.

Kyouka felt sick.

Not sick enough to skip work, but still.

Kyouka sat on her bed with a heavy sigh. It dipped with her weight concentrated on the left, as her legs dangled on the side. The day was beginning to irritate her already, and she hadn’t even left her bed yet. The clock in her room rang, loud and shrill. It read at six o’clock and Kyouka bristled at the wasted hours of sleep.

The morning continued as per her routine, despite her vexed mood. She got up eventually, made her coffee, chugged the hot drink, ate nothing, and headed to work.

At work, she would still do her job, despite feeling sour and peeved at everything. She would file paperwork for the last mission she’d been part of, banter with her coworkers, make sure to take note of new missions coming in their agency. 

Someone would notice her mood, snappier than usual, and she’d drive them off with a retort of “mind your own business, asshole,” even when she didn’t need to.

Hours later, she would find herself in the presence of her state-assigned therapist. Pro-Heroes needed them because their job demanded it so. Kyouka needed one because she didn’t want a relapse of her high-school days, lazy cuts and scratches marring the underside of her arms as she dissolved into a chaotic fit.

Blurry days faded but didn’t vanish from her life. That was why she needed a therapist, apart from the myriad of reasons the government gave them.

It was a wonder she graduated at all, but here she was, a Pro-Hero.

She sat on the chair provided to her. Her skin was sticking to the leather upholstery, but she didn’t care much about it. Her therapist motioned for her to lay down, as she did to every patient that crossed her door, even if she knew Kyouka would shrug away her suggestion and remain hunched and indignant.

So her therapist was surprised (and worried) when Kyouka melted against the seat. 

“It was that dream again,” Kyouka said to the poor woman she’d been forced to see for the past few months. “The one with the black-haired girl in white.”

m. (???)

Momo couldn’t fall asleep. Her eyes were bloodshot, and her body shook each time she tried to move. The bones of her fingers stuck out as if they belonged outside the sliver of skin covering her body.

She wanted… she wanted… what did she want?

She wanted to go outside. She wanted to go outside but no one would let her. She stopped counting the days when she last had a visitor, even though she asked them what date it was. 

Books were the only thing she could focus on. She’d read everything they’d given her. Food came whenever they fancied it. She’d eaten everything they’d shoved into her mouth. Pictures and plans of items she’d never heard of were slid underneath her door. She’d expelled everything they’d asked of her. 

It was a routine. It was her routine. She hated it but she had nothing else.

She choked on a piece of plastic, once, when they left her alone with her dinner. It didn’t, it wasn’t nice, they said, but the almost suffocating feeling as she slowly turned purple was good.

Since then, no one was allowed to leave her alone. They had cameras installed inside her room. She knew she was being monitored more thoroughly now.

Momo spent an eternity between her blanket and mattress, tossing and turning. Tomorrow, tomorrow, she’d ask them if she could go outside.

k. (23)

Her therapist suggested that she write down whatever she saw.

It was hard enough to see the girl during the nights Kyouka dreamed of her, what more to remind herself of the girl’s predicament. Real or not, it was beginning to chip away at Kyouka’s sanity. 

She couldn’t imagine her dreams as reality. The girl would, should be dead with the way she was being pushed to her limit. She could see it, nights filled with eating, or creating, or reading.

A creation quirk. Kyouka had never seen one of those. Which begged the question, why was she having these dreams?

In the end, she relented with the idea. Her side table had a notebook and pen tucked within its drawer, ready for the next time she saw the girl in her dreams. She’d already written everything else that she’d told her therapist, filling half the ninety sheets of the small spiral notebook. 

Her handwriting was thin and compact. Kyouka hadn’t realized she could write so much.

m. (???)

Momo’s fingers curled into a fist. In it was a handful of hair, tangled and sticky to the touch.

She made a pair of scissors that day. The alarms blared and blazed around her as the light of creation flashed along her arm. She wasn’t allowed to make anything without supervision, but she wanted to make scissors.

The sounds continued in the background as she started to snip at her hair. It was too long now and she’d began feeling restless. The weight on her head was heavier than she imagined, and she wanted it gone.

She had wanted a lot of things. She had wanted things that wouldn’t be allowed for her to use. She had wanted to go out, she had wanted to see her parents, she had wanted to go back home.

She had wanted to go back home. The thought had lingered in her subconscious for so long. She had asked if she could, but no answer had been given. She had tried again, still nothing.

Until she stopped trying. Until she realized that maybe, maybe, maybe staying inside was what she deserved.

Furniture, her grandfather had said, gleefully, maliciously. 

Maybe she was just that.

k. (23)

“So, are you going to tell me what the fuck is up with you these days or am I going to have to wring it out of these extras?” 

Katsuki Bakugou was many things. He was the second-best ranked Pro-Hero (currently, because the rankings would change at the drop of a hat and both Midoriya and Todoroki have been pushing at him again). He was the most loudmouthed hero that came out of UA in recent years (not counting actual heroes with sound-based quirks).

He was a friend to Kyouka. A reluctant sort, only because of their friend groups, but a friend nonetheless.

He was in the same agency as Kyouka, and while he had the emotional maturity of a rampaging seven-year-old hell-bent on getting the candy cane promised to him, he was perceptive enough to notice the mood Kyouka was slowly submerging herself in. 

He was also nosy in a way that brought Kyouka back to reality. 

Her thoughts had been derailing for the past week, going back to the girl in her dreams whenever she was reminded of her. A mirror, or a book, or the color white. They triggered her into thinking about the girl. Today was no different, having punched the mirror in the women’s bathroom because she thought she saw the girl’s reflection staring back at her.

Kyouka’s hand had been bandaged and she was ordered by her chief to go home. It would’ve been a simple thing had Bakugou not stopped her on her way out.

“Piss off,” she barked, sidestepping out of his way. She wasn’t in the mood to bother with Lord Explosion Murder that day. Her knuckles hurt and blood was already seeping through the bandages.

Bakugou moved in time to block her. He was infuriatingly tall, broad shoulders and big, puffed-out chest. He also used it to his advantage against her. She knew it. He knew it.

“No, I don’t think I will.” 

“Move it,” her eyes were hard and she let out a growl. 

He smirked, as if challenging her, “make me.”

They stood still, and for a long moment, might actually start brawling. Kyouka was so close to punching the living daylights out of Bakugou that she’d felt her hand curl instinctively, waiting for it to be thrown.  

The seconds that passed were tense. Red was starting to fill her vision. Maybe if she punched Bakugou, she’d leave a trail of red on his face too.

“Fuck. Fine. Let’s get out of here,” she hissed, pushing past Bakugou once he allowed her to.

The walk to Kyouka’s apartment was a short one. They had to dodge fans and media alike once they got out of the building. Rarely did she ever get a peaceful walk home because of them. 

Once the view of her apartment building peeked over the next street, Kyouka quickened her pace. Bakugou was right on her heels, keeping his mouth in check. It was surprising that he hadn’t said a word after Kyouka relented, but he knew when to keep quiet when he had to.

Still, he wanted answers and here she was, about to give it to him.

When they finally entered Kyouka’s home, she made a beeline for her room while making Bakugou stay in the living room. 

(He wasn’t a frequent visitor to Kyouka’s apartment, but he knew when she was starting to lose it. The state of her living room told him that whatever problem she had was taking all of her brain cells hostage.)

He only had to wait a minute and a half when she came back, chucking a couple of notebooks to the wooden coffee table that they’d bought together.

“There. Read those,” she said, leaving him as she went to the kitchen.

When she came back, carrying two glasses and a pitcher of water, she saw Bakugou frowning. He was flipping through the pages every so often, eyes darting left and right as he read through the scribbling she called her handwriting. She sat opposite of him and waited, her anxiety spiking as she watched as his mouth tightened and his frown deepened.

Once he was done, he looked at her. His eyes were burning.

“What the fuck is this shit.”

“Been having dreams about some girl every other night. My therapist suggested I write down what I saw, just so she can psychoanalyze it during our next session,” she answered, pouring him a glass. 

He stared at her, ignoring the glass of water she offered. Kyouka could see the gears turning in his head. She grumbled. 

“I’m not fucking high dipshit.”

“Sure you aren’t,” his tone suggested his disbelief. “But that isn’t it fucker. You described the room we raided the other week in your diary.” Bakugou said.

Kyouka blatantly ignored the dig and blinked. “What.”

While she processed his words, Bakugou took out his phone, scrolling through it. She didn’t know what he was looking for until the phone was pushed right into her face. Someone had emailed him a dozen pictures, most of which were unfamiliar to her.

Except for the last few.

Kyouka blinked again.

It was a snapshot of the dream she had the other night. The girl was missing, but everything else was still in place. The bed was in bad shape and the cover had changed from white to dark red. The vanity stood tall, mirror broken once again. The drawers were all opened with nothing left inside. Books were scattered throughout the whole room and the shelves had been wrecked until they were sawdust soiling the floor.

But the girl wasn’t there.

That was her last dream and it had been chaotic. The girl was dragged out of her room, and while Kyouka tried, she wasn’t able to follow her. The girl thrashed around and pulled away from the men attempting to get her out, causing most of the damage in the room. They weren’t gentle, but they also weren’t outright abusive of their efforts. It was only when she’d been knocked out by a gas (similar to Midnight’s quirk, Kyouka noted) were they able to carry her peacefully.

Kyouka’s blood had boiled, but she couldn’t do anything. Some came back to take whatever they could from the drawers. She attempted to follow them but found that she still couldn’t step out of the door.

The books were left alone. Maybe they weren’t needed. Everything else was stuffed into trash bags and slung over their shoulders.

“Shouldn’t we burn this place?” One had asked his companion.

“The boss said there’s no need to,” the other replied. “It’s not like the heroes will ever find anything in here.”

They were gone after that, taking everything they could.

Remembering that dream was painful. Kyouka was a hero and yet she hadn’t been able to do anything. How could she, when she’d only dreamed it? She didn’t even think it was real, and yet here she was now, looking at a replica of her dream through a screen.

Belatedly, she only realized that she hadn’t seen Bakugou until now because he’d been called away on a raid. A villain hideout. The Yakuza, she’d been told.

She hadn’t noticed how hard she was clutching Bakugou’s phone until he yanked it away with a snarl.

“Don’t break my phone asshole. Just because—” 

“Give me the files you have on this raid,” Kyouka said. Her eyes burned through Bakugou and he scoffed.

“Don’t interrupt me. I’ll send you a copy of the report through email. Better yet, get clearance from the No. 3 to join the next raid,” he said. The grin on his face was annoying.

“Be useful Jack, looks like you aren’t high after all.”

m. (23)

Momo spent the next few days getting used to her new room. 

It was bigger than the last, furnished and clean. Her bed was twice the size of her last one, a canopy that had laced fabric draped all over it. The mattress was soft, the bedspread was white and her pillows and blankets were fluffy enough that she’d never want to leave her bed. 

She was surprised to have woken upon it. 

She had a new vanity, an unbroken mirror, and too many drawers to store things in. She had new bookshelves, already filled to the brim with books she’d have to read through later. Her new room had carpets and beneath it was polished hardwood. Her new room had windows, covered by decorative lace similar to the ones on her bed. Her new room had a chandelier strung above her head, glittering gold, and silver. Her new room had a table. Her new room had toys. 

It all looked so new. It all looked familiar.

Momo wondered where she was. She’d lived all her life within the four walls of her grandfather’s home. She’d forgotten what her room in the Yaoyorozu manor looked like after all those years in her grandfather’s care. Or, she assumed the room she’d been in previously was owned by her grandfather. 

Because he was the only one to visit her apart from the women who’d give her food and apart from the men who’d ask for her creations. So she assumed. He was the only one to touch her head and tell her that he cared. He cared enough to pinch her skin until it bled when her creations came out wrong. He cared enough to kiss her cheek when she slashed it with a blade she made. 

Was this a reward? It looked like one. The room was an upgrade to her last one. Maybe this was one of those things that showed how he cared.

She was examining her new books when the door to her room opened. Instinctively, Momo hurried to her bed. She hid beneath the blanket and closed her eyes. No one ever knocked on her door, even before. Even now, it seemed.

The voice that floated in the air was familiar. It nudged at her memories like a persistent bug.

“Momo, darling?”

Momo felt like crying. She felt a weight on her bed, shifting. She felt her blanket being removed over her body. She felt like throwing up because the face of Ririka Yaoyorozu stared at her, cheeks tear-streaked and eyes puffy.

“Oh Momo, Momo!”

The woman shrieked. Momo blinked. She was engulfed in a hug so tight, she thought her bones would snap.

k. (23)

Kyouka woke up to the sound of crying. 

It echoed in her head, insistent and demanding. Her hand automatically reached out for her little notebook, and before she even washed her face, she was already writing what she’d seen.

A new room. Bigger, cleaner, prettier.

The girl still had short hair. But it was growing again. Kyouka had seen the night she cut of most of her hair. It was distressing to think about.

There was a new woman. She was familiar. Light, blonde hair and dark eyes. Kyouka only realized a beat later who she was looking at exactly.

She was a famous figure in the hero industry, the current CEO of Yaoyorozu Industries Inc., the main supplier of most, if not all, hero gears and weapons in Japan.

Ririka Yaoyorozu. Why was she dreaming about Ririka Yaoyorozu? What was Ririka Yaoyorozu doing in her dream?

Kyouka watched as Ririka Yaoyorozu smothered the girl in her embrace. She was crying, tears that pooled beneath her eyes creating tracks on her cheeks. The girl was silent. She wasn’t crying.

“Momo, Momo, Momo—”

She kept calling the girl Momo.

m. (23)

Meeting her mother again, after so many years, was a surprise. And yet, Momo didn’t know what to feel, how to feel. Or anything, really. 

The surprise died fast. She wanted to feel furious. Absolutely feral. She wanted to feel something, anything, but nothing would come. 

Ririka Yaoyorozu continued to cry against her daughter, and Momo’s exhaustion washed over her. Where was grandfather? Was this another reward? Her body was limp in Ririka’s arms. Ririka continued to cry. She cried loudly, shrilly, unable to hold down her voice as the door to Momo’s room remained closed.

No one was coming. Momo was half-expecting her grandfather to come barging in. She was already thinking of the wooden cane against her cheeks and arms and legs. 

Ririka left her daughter after fussing over her. She’d long since stopped her wailing. Composure filled the cracks left by her tears. She kissed Momo goodbye, saying that she’d visit tomorrow. Momo let her kiss her forehead, not her cheeks. 

Momo was tired. Her mother was a handful. Maybe tomorrow, when she wakes up, her grandfather would be there to tell her what she needed to make.

k. (23)

“Her name’s Momo Yaoyorozu.” Kyouka didn’t even bother to say good morning to Bakugou when she found him at his desk, sipping his morning coffee. When Bakugou didn’t react, she continued, “I saw Ririka Yaoyorozu in my dream and she called the girl Momo. Are you—” 

“What’s this about a dream?”

The smooth voice of the No. 2 hero rang beside Kyouka. As always, Hawks had the shittiest timing. He was staring at the two UA graduates, watching the snarl on Bakugou’s lips and the twitch on Kyouka’s lips, sensing something hidden beneath them. He grinned, a hand resting on his nape like he was embarrassed for eavesdropping on whatever conversation about to start between the two.

Was he? Kyouka had the impression that he was never embarrassed.

“Kidding! I know what’s up. Follow me.” 

Hawks motioned for both of them to follow, leading the two to his office. It was at the top of the building, built like a nest. Tokoyami once said that Hawks had spread his wings and sang the song from Titanic on top of the building, but not one of Hawks’ other interns verified the claim.

That story, told their class that he was an easygoing boss most of the time.

But now, when he sat on his chair, funny Hawks had vanished. His smile evaporated and his countenance changed.

“You want to join the raid, is that it?”

Kyouka had only seen this Hawks in passing. He was never this serious, even when he needed to be. He cracked jokes, even at the expense of other ranked heroes. 

It was a jarring change, one that caught her off guard.

“I do. I think I’ll be able to help with this one. My quirk was built for stealth missions—”

“But this won’t be about stealth.”

Hawks was grinning again. He kept switching between serious and not. He took out an envelope from beneath his desk, handing it to Kyouka.

Without thanking him, Kyouka took the envelope and opened it, tearing the flap apart. It was a file, and it was only three pages long. The picture of a young girl stared into her eyes. She was smiling.

“Her name’s Momo Yaoyorozu. She was six years old when she was abducted from her home.  She’s been missing for seventeen years. Her parents were in hysterics. They had the whole country searched.” Hawks said as Kyouka read through the file. “She’s the only daughter of the Yaoyorozu family and she was possibly taken for her quirk—” 

Kyouka read the word. 

Quirk: Creation

Her heart thumped loudly against her ears. Hawks paused and Kyouka looked up to see his eyes boring into hers.

“—and then you say you dreamed of a girl named Momo and that you saw Ririka Yaoyorozu in your dream, saying the name of her daughter, who’s supposed to be missing.”

Kyouka’s hand stilled on the third page of the file. 

“The better question is, why do you have this file prepared?” Bakugou finally spoke up. It was odd for Bakugou to be the silent spectator in the conversation and Hawks couldn’t help but laugh at his straightforwardness. Instead of answering, he turned towards Kyouka.

“You’ve probably read about the last raid Blasty here was part of.” 

When Kyouka nodded, Hawks continued, “well, the Yaoyozoru family has always been a target of a lot of accounts of libel and slander by many of their competitors. They’re at the top of the food chain and they aren’t going to go down that easily. One such rumor that looks like it’s not a made-up lie is their ties to the yakuza. Now, we aren’t sure if they’re actually operating underneath this legitimate business of providing hero gear, but inside sources tell us that some of the gear, mostly weapons that they manufacture, are being sold outside of Japan.”

Bakugou was scrolling through his phone. Kyouka was wondering why Hawks wasn’t reprimanding him, before realizing that he probably already knew this. She was the odd one out— who’d been in her own mission during the time of the raid Bakugou was apart of had happened. She’d only read the aftermath through files.

Hawks hadn’t even taken a second to stop. Kyouka had to swallow the information he was telling her. Maybe Bakugou could brief her again, later.

Because all she could think about was Momo Yaoyorozu.

“Now, that wouldn’t be a bad thing. Business is booming, heroes are needed all over the world. They’re expanding their reach. But most of those are stolen. Where did they get the blueprints? You could argue that their worth is enough to supply them with an infinite amount of raw materials. But then, if you think about all of the people have gone missing over the years, it starts to make a little sense. Even scientists and inventors have gone missing. I-Island has had the unfortunate decision to stall some of their work because either the one responsible is dead or gone.”

“Yaoyorozu’s quirk is Creation.” Kyouka murmured, interrupting Hawks. “She can make anything.”

“More or less. The theory is that they’re using the heiress to make those weapons and gear and then when that’s done, they’re selling it to other countries. But not just other countries, they’re specifically selling those weapons to countries either on the brink of war or already in one. They’re profiting from war-torn countries by selling them cheap weapons. The war economy, especially in the west, is quite large right now, y’know?”

A large chunk of Kyouka’s brain was slowly melting. Exposition from Hawks was the worst. It was a serious issue, to be sure, and it was deeper than she could’ve imagined random dreams about a girl in white would’ve been. 

Bakugou sat completely still on his chair. He was looking at her. Kyouka knew that he was observing her reaction. From his actions, she could tell that he’d already known this, probably, ever since he read her notebook. She described the girl… Momo Yaoyorozu’s features in so many words, details etched on paper that he would be stupid not to realize from that point on.

And then he told Hawks, and now Hawks was telling her in no simple terms that he’s allowing her to join the next raid.

A raid at the Yaoyorozu compound, if their hunches were correct.

“I don’t know how you have a connection with the heiress, but we’re going to use it to our advantage.”

The smirk on his face looked like a promise.

m. (23)

Momo could open the curtains of her windows now. She was allowed to look outside now.

The view was beautiful. She could see a castle in the distance.

Her grandfather hadn’t visited her in a while. She wondered why but hadn't thought to ask.

Few of the men who used to take her creations dropped by. She was still drained after they came to visit. They still asked for her creations, and she still obliged, because not doing so would bring her grandfather’s wrath on her.

Mother came to visit that afternoon. She gave Momo sweets to indulge in. She probably knew about the men who arrived in the morning. 

Momo hadn’t said a word, and mother never asked her to talk. She didn’t mention the men, nor grandfather, and Momo was left to wonder if she would see the older Yaoyorozu soon.

When she slept on her bed that night, full of pastries that she’d never even tasted before, she dreamed of a girl with vivid, purple hair.

k. (23)

That night, she slept with her head full of doubts. 

The girl was real. Her name was Momo Yaoyorozu. She was beautiful.

She was cute as a child. Her picture had her smiling. Her teeth were in full display.

Kyouka hadn’t seen her smile since she started seeing Yaoyorozu in her dreams. It was a pity. Yaoyorozu had a cute smile as a child. She’d have a beautiful smile as an adult.

Did she know what she was doing? She was thinking of a girl who’d been kidnapped by her own family, or would that be appropriate to say? Imprisoned would be the term, in this case, wouldn’t it? 

Would she want to be saved?

The question lingered around Kyouka, a dense fog filling her with a sense of trepidation. Was she thinking about this too much? She’d seen what Yaoyorozu had been through. Every other night, she was a witness to her suffering. 

She’d seen Yaoyorozu as thin as bones, as pale as a ghost. She’d watched Yaoyorozu retch into a sack because she couldn’t handle making too many items in one sitting, or being stuffed to the brim with food that would’ve killed a normal person otherwise.

She wasn’t the only one. There were probably others too, in the same sort of predicament. But Kyouka only knew about Yaoyorozu. Kyouka couldn’t say that she only cared about Yaoyorozu, but the notebooks full of dreams stuffed in her drawer told her that she was invested in the life of a girl she’d never met.

Kyouka wanted to save her.

m. (23)

She woke up feeling empty, stomach grumbling as it usually did in the mornings after using her quirk. 

Momo was still unable to leave her room. Guards stood vigilant by the door of her room. There was no whispering beyond the closed door. Even when Momo knocked, no one angrily answered her.

When a woman entered to tend to her needs, Momo had instead asked for her grandfather. The woman glanced carefully at Momo, before shaking her head. She had bright red hair, cut into a short bob. The color was striking. It was familiar.

Her expression was guarded as she laid a tray of food on the table. When Momo moved to eat, the woman watched her. She watched as Momo ate using her hands even when there were utensils scattered along her sides, lips pursed in an effort to keep quiet.

The woman began to sniffle. Momo looked up to see her crying. 

She would’ve asked why, but she had been hungrier than usual, so she didn’t.

k. (23)

News about the death of the Yaoyorozu head spread like wildfire throughout social media and news outlets across the country.  

Maybe that was why she’d been taken away again. Kyouka had seen Momo Yaoyorozu ask for her grandfather, but no one had answered her questions.

“Good riddance,” she murmured, closing the news article she’d been reading. She had never met the man, but she’d seen a side of him that the media or the public hadn’t. 

m. (23)

Purple. 

A girl with a purple bob. The same girl with peculiar-looking ears. With markings on her face. With an unfazed expression. 

She was always at the center of it all.

She would be surrounded by people, although to Momo, they were faceless nobodies. She would go wash her dishes and Momo would stand behind her. She would walk to her window and talk to the birds outside and Momo would listen. She would sing and Momo would cry and feel.

She hadn’t realized dreaming would be something nice. It felt good. Like when she almost choked on a piece of plastic, or when she cut her hair. 

Momo wanted to know who the girl was, currently poring through notes that blurred between her eyes and the fingers that scrawled over them. Her body was able to move in this weird dreamscape, and she was able to walk to where the girl sat. 

A rapping on the girl’s door made Momo and the girl look towards the sound. Even though she couldn’t be touched, Momo stepped back to allow the girl to walk towards the door. The sound of her chair, as it scraped against the floor made Momo’s eyes crinkle with distaste. The vague blond that entered the room fell out of Momo’s radar as she watched the girl smile; unsure but sincere, unpracticed.

She had never seen this girl before, but Momo was oh so interested in knowing who she was.

k. (23)

Kyouka had a week to prepare. The raid on the Yaoyorozu compound was going to happen. Enough evidence had been compiled and they weren’t going to wait for another accident. 

The conference room full of heroes listened as Hawks divided their tasks. There were several others to save. There were members of the family to apprehend.

No one was to touch Ririka Yaoyorozu.

Kyouka was given the job of looking for the heiress.

“But she’s dead,” one of the older heroes said. Kyouka knew not to say anything, even as their eyes turned towards her.

Appraisal. A rookie hero looking for a ghost?

“She isn’t,” Hawks interjected with a laugh. “Guess where she’s been the past few years?”

The collective gasp around the room told everyone that they all shared the same thought. Kyouka was glad that Hawks knew what to say. 

m. (23)

She kept seeing the purple-haired girl in her dreams. It wasn’t all that difficult once she remembered her face.  

Momo lay flat on her back, staring at the canopy littered with fake stars. The neon hurt her eyes, but they were better than nothing. 

Her mother showered her with gifts every day, all to keep her in. It was more than she ever got from her grandfather. And it was likely a ploy, to get her to feel.

She closed her eyes. The girl appeared from out of nowhere. When Momo opened her eyes again, she could draw the outline of the girl’s head among the neon above her.

k. (23)

When the day of the raid arrived, Kyouka was full to the brim with a gnawing sort of want. It was the same want that tingled between the spaces of her ribs, too messy to scratch and too itchy to leave alone. She wanted to run her fingers through that want, like she would do in her room back during high school, unmindful of the thickening fog hanging above her.

All she needed to do was get to the heiress. Get to Momo Yaoyorozu. That was all there was to do.

Her quirk was helpful in that regard. She could hear whether someone was approaching her even without the use of her jacks. If she focused enough, she could tell where everyone is. If she knew what she was looking for, she could single them out.

The earpiece she’d been issued crackled against the staccato of someone’s footsteps fading out of her range. She could hear Hawks’ voice, faintly registering his order to stop it as she rounded a corner.

Kyouka didn’t stop, couldn’t, not after she heard a familiar crying. Despite the growing ire Hawks was probably experiencing as she defied his orders, Kyouka continued on her way.

The hallway that led her to an open door was devoid of people. She rushed inside, ignoring the shadows.

The chaos that she knew ran through the air felt like an intrusion to a moment. In front of Kyouka stood Momo Yaoyorozu, kneeling above the sheets that pooled the floor of her pristine room. They were white, just like last night when Kyouka saw Yaoyorozu’s world through the corner of the room, watching as Yaoyorozu flipped through the covers of her bed.

They were white, but they were also streaked with red.

She was bleeding.

Only now did she notice Yaoyorozu’s arms, dangling helplessly limp beside her.

“It’s you,” Momo Yaoyorozu said then, biting her tongue as a hiss of pain escaped her.

Her voice was shaky and soft. Kyouka had heard screams coming from her, sobbing most of the time, but not this. Her voice sounded unsure, unused, like she was testing something and held back once she found it inappropriate.

Her words buzzed around Kyouka. You, you, you— did Momo Yaoyorozu know who she was?

Kyouka rushed towards Yaoyorozu as she whimpered and the red of her sheets continued to darken. She didn’t need to think twice, ripping a piece of her sleeves and tying it around Yaoyorozu’s injured arms. Kyouka wasn’t the best at first aid but she knew enough to be useful. And useful was what she needed to be right now. 

Someone was shouting in her ear. Kyouka ignored them, going through the motions of tying and smiling and being a hero.

“It’s you,” Yaoyorozu said again, blinking as Kyouka wiped her arms clean. It was a poor job, but it was enough. 

“It’s me,” Kyouka said, taking a glance at her work. It was a poor job, but it was enough. And enough was better than nothing at all. 

Kyouka’s chest throbbed as she watched Yaoyorozu. She was in a deer in the headlights type of situation and her expression only affirmed it. Kyouka couldn’t, wouldn’t blame her for it. 

Yaoyorozu breathed in and Kyouka could see the exact moment she made up her mind about something. 

“Why are you here?” 

The question permeated the stillness of the room. Outside, the faint traces of fighting still lingered. Kyouka held her breath for a second, thinking, before allowing the pressure built in her lungs to be released in a deep exhale.

Kyouka smiled like a hero.

“I’m here to take you away.”

m. (23)

Momo shifted towards the warmth of the body that carried her out of her home. 

Tomorrow, she’ll have to face the consequences of her family’s actions. 

For tonight, she snuggled between the crook of Kyouka’s head and shoulders while dreaming of purple hair and the sun.

Maybe this was what it felt like to be free.

[twitchesandstitches]

Any headcanons for the Monster Musume girls (Kimihito's household and the MON squad + Mrs. Smith)

From the household -

Miia: Extremely attached and affectionate, she likes to curl up around her Darling in her coils, putting the squeeze on in an affectionate way that might leave his ribs just a tad bruised. As a result, her snake traits are probably constrictor-based, though based on her vibrant color, I’d like to think that she has potent venom. It likely renders humans (men, usually) incapacitated and open to her to drag away to their DOOM. She deliberately chooses not to do this, though.

Papi: She has an extremely strong nesting instinct, both literally and metaphorically; she really wants to settle down with Kimihito specifically as a long-term romance for the entirety of his life. She might also be doing her best to build up his confidence, seeing him as a bit of a project too.

Cerea: Actually dislikes breastplates that closely mold to the boobs on the basis of them being highly impractical and extremely dangerous in an actual fight, but she’s fine with wearing them in strictly ceremonial situations or non-dangerous fights, as she is very proud of her bust and doesn’t mind shoving it into everyone’s face how large she is.

Suu: She genuinely likes being as big as possible and drinks tons of liquids to grow to larger sizes, though the opportunity to be bigger and smarter doesn’t happen much for her; ideally she would like to live near a large source of water so she could be kaiju-sized all the time. Sometimes the monster family talks about having a larger manor and Suu volunteers to be the pool.

Meroune: Really loves folktales and fairy tales from all over the world, and has a keen interest in adaptations thereof. She has Opinions on both overly dark interpretation of those stories, and ones that make them a little too much on heroes just getting what they want.

Lala: Originally from Ireland, and has made little to no effort to speak Japanese without an accent. As a consequence of her not even trying to fit in like the other monster girls do, she has a very otherworldly vibe compared to the other girls and she encourages this, finding it rather fun.

Rachnera: Secretly likes sewing. Not with webs, just completely mundane sewing. Even if she tries to make it sound more intimidating or ominous than it is, such as by claiming that she’s making nasty traps to lure pesky neighbors to their DOOM, she just likes to stitch and make things like little pillows or carry packs for hypothetical babies. It’s a running gag in the house for her to make things as gifts for the others and loudly insist she never made any such thing. She has a reputation to maintain, you know.

Smith: Genuinely likes Kimihito and would be quite pleased to marry him as well, but she has way too much fun messing with him and playing weird games to be so plain as to just make it obvious. Additionally she feels that he makes an excellent case study for intermarriage and unity between monsters and humans, so even if she is getting more attached to him than she expected, she doesn’t want that to interfere with her hopes for the future.

Mon Squad -

Zombina: Kind of wants to get out of the monster squad business, since she doesn’t much like beating up other monsters even if they are being total killjoys, and it's a little too serious for her tastes. She wants instead to become a high-stakes thrillseeker, like mountain climbing or skydiving. Without a parachute. Her friends have to talk her down from the likely consequences of that.

Monako: Her pupil gets larger or smaller when she is looking at distant things. In the same way, while she has lousy depth perception, she is incredibly good at taking notice of tiny, tiny details; off the clock, she enjoys going to museums and art galleries and politely informing the curators if they have fakes erroneously displayed.

Doppel: Extremely mischievous and fond of playing tricks, she’s gone a long way to make sure that no one knows that her ‘default form’ is entirely a figment of fashion. She can make it whatever kind of form she likes, and currently enjoys passing for small and petite. In a few years, she might decide to model herself more after Tionishia or Smith, depending on her whim.

Tionishia: Sincerely in love and deep affection with Kimihito, with a slight edge of ‘i must protect this precious, darling boy’, but as yet has no desire to join the experiment and become part of the household. She’s content doing her work and preserving the peace between humanity and monsterkind. Very, VERY prone to having a protective instinct for humans because they are so tiny and cuddly, she wants to help them ALL. While many of the other girls with huge boobs are proud of their busts, she isn’t really aware of how gorgeous she is and when she accidentally bonks people with her bust, she assumes they are so blushy and dazed is because she accidentally knocked them silly.

[lovelylapins]

au august day 14

day 14: reincarnation for @auyeahaugust

woooo finally i can write in peace after a week of juggling homework and test prep and fics

Marinette hadn’t wished for much as she reached her end. A simple bouquet of flowers, her favorite melody played once more for her ears to hear, the presence of her family with her as she lay on her bed weary and weak. Everything she needed to soothe her soul, make certain she would rest with ease in her afterlife with no regrets.

And yet, even as she lay ready and in wait for her time to come, there was something else. Another wish deep within the sickly young woman, a craving she hadn’t yet satisfied. Marinette knew something in her wanted to come out, to reveal itself to everyone around her, and yet, she did nothing to achieve it. Marinette felt the passion underneath her body stir, a feeling that made her feel more alive than she had felt in the past weeks.

Suddenly, she had felt something happen. A sense of happiness, warmth that ran through her body and made Marinette feel almost as if she was floating, rising slowly up the room. She smiled softly, eyes closing.

Yet, although she knew her time had come, there was still something keeping a part of her grounded, her mind and soul elsewhere but something here. Her unfulfilled wish, Marinette supposed, her last thoughts of his smiling face and soft eyes.

Oh, how I wish to have seen you again.

He jumped off of his horse and did not hesitate before running up the walkway to her house, worry coursing through him. Adrien knew she had been sick, as she hadn’t appeared in the market selling bread as usual but hadn’t been told it was so serious until now. There was an antidote to her sickness in his hands, a bottle he stole from his father’s medicine cabinet. As he knocked on the door and rocked back and forth on his feet, he hoped there was still a chance even a small drink from the bottle could cure her.

When the door swung open, Adrien knew just by the look of her father’s face that she was gone. The sweet-hearted village girl he had met, who smelled of pastries and collected the flowers that grew near the river, and who helped Adrien hide from his father every time he ran away from the manor. The girl, who he hadn’t even gotten the chance to learn her name, yet had walked to her house dozens of times, had snuck out to the berry bushes in the forest and ate together until their lips were stained and stomachs were full. The girl who had been everything his father hadn’t wanted in a wife for Adrien, yet more than enough for the young man.

The girl he just knew he was meant for, a woman he knew could never be replicated.

-

Marinette’s been having dreams, and a lot of them.

“I’m telling you,” she starts as Alya and her walk into the coffee shop, “I swear they’re like no other dream I’ve had. They all feel so… so real!”

“Lucid dreaming does that, you know,” Alya remarks. They stand in line, inching close and closer to the cashier.

“It’s different than that. It was like I was actually living this life or something, and like, I had a purpose.”

“Are you going to share what these dreams are like?”

“I remember bits and pieces. Like, these beautiful flowers near a river. And, sometimes I’m in the forest, just walking around. Or, like last night, I was in a marketplace.”

“Doesn’t sound that interesting to me,” Alya says. She gives Marinette’s and hers usual, then hands over some euros and makes her way to where their drinks get picked up. “If anything, I’d just say you were watching too many time period dramas.”

Marinette frowns. “No, it’s not like that,” she protests, leaning on the counter. “There’s something in each of these dreams that’s all the same!”

“And that is?”

“Well, there’s this guy...” Marinette can call his face to memory just at the mere mention. Blond hair, green eyes, and a kindness around him that made her wake up warm and fuzzy.

Alya groans as she looks at the all too familiar gaze cross over Marinette’s face, bringing a hand to her own.

“Do not tell me you have a crush on someone in your dreams. Please, do not,” she says, almost begging to not hear the answer she’ll get.

Marinette doesn’t answer, although her expression on her face does.

“Mari, how is it that whenever I try to get you with someone real, you turn a blind eye, but when it’s an imaginary guy in your dreams, you suddenly fall head over heels?”

“Come on, you know it’s not like that,” Marinette says (it is). Sure, she felt happy and excited whenever she dreamt of him, and sure, he was someone who Marinette just felt like she knew, but clearly she knew it could never happen. It was just a figment of her imagination, a random stranger she probably saw once on the street and her brain decided was just the person to star in her dreams.

“Two coffees for Alya?” a voice calls out, and the two turn, finding the drinks held out for them.

“Thank you,” Marinette says as she grabs her drink. She smiles, looking up at the barista. “Hope you have a nice- “

Her words catch in her throat, the drink almost spilling over as she tightens her grip.

It’s him.

Adrien, the nametag reads. She looks at his face closer, trying to make sure her eyes aren’t playing tricks on her.

“Have… Have we met before?” he asks, staring at her as well.

“I-I think so,” she says, eyes squinted. There’s no doubt in her; he has to be that guy she’s seen so many times before. “I’m… I’m Marinette.”

Marinette, Adrien thinks. He’s felt like he’s seen her before and feels a sense of longing run through him when she tells him her name.

“Ah, I’m Adrien,” he tells.

“I know.” She gestures to his name tag, smiling at him. He reddens a bit, rubbing the back of his neck.

Alya coughs loudly, smirking at Marinette.

“I’ll be over at the table. Join me if you remember to, Mari,” Alya says. She throws a wink and walks off, leaving Marinette and Adrien alone.

She looks up at him again, a warmth she’s only felt in her dreams come over her again. It’s with a whisper of a wish running through her, something that hits her hard. It feels like something’s been fulfilled, her heart swelling the more she gazes at him.

Finally, I got to see him again.

[saintaugustinerp]

Congratulations Liz! You have been accepted for the OC role of The Disenchanted with the faceclaim Alice Pagani.  Please be sure to check out the accepted applicants checklist! Also be sure send us a link to your blog within the next twenty-four hours. Welcome to St. Augustine!

OUT OF CHARACTER

Name/alias: Liz

Age (18+): 18

Gender/Preferred pronouns: Cisgender female, she/her

Timezone: GMT+8

IN CHARACTER

Character Label: The Disenchanted

Character Name: Martina Guidi

Age (18+): 19

Gender/Pronouns: Cisgender female, she/her

Desired Faceclaim: Alice Pagani

Home Town: Boston, Massachusetts

Three Positive Traits: Adventurous, Clever, Vivacious

Three Negative Traits: Cynical, Impetuous, Spiteful

Major: Art

Year: Second

Quote: “I had learned early to assume something dark and lethal hidden at the heart of anything I loved. When I couldn’t find it, I responded, bewildered and wary, in the only way I knew how: by planting it there myself.” (Tana French, In the Woods)

Character blurb: You hear her before you see her, something bitter settling on the swell of your tongue: the sharp trill of a girl in black, spewing profanities at a boy who had knocked into her from the side. He looks near tears, small fists clenched at his sides as she leans in, taking a long drag from her cigarette before puffing out on the poor child’s face. Suddenly a man and woman wearing identical scandalized expressions comes into view, but by then the girl is nowhere to be seen. You catch her later near one of the trash bins, stomping on a cigarette with more force than was needed, and the bitter taste washes over you again; ugly and all-consuming, something so foul and distasteful you just have to get away. You don’t stick around long enough to watch her eyes light with amusement as you scuttle away, blood red lips twisted in a wolfish, knowing grin as the crowd swallows you whole.

Developed Head Canons:

For a man of religion, Pastor Guidi was suspiciously well-off. Of course, the townspeople were too fond of him to speak any ill, but if Jesus Christ walked into his home—his four-story weatherboard manor, with manicured gardens and a marble fountain—there’s no doubt He would sorely disapprove.

Martina Guidi is fifteen when the Bible weighs hollow in her hands, and not figuratively—a peek inside reveals that the pages have been glued together, carved in the middle to create a box-shaped hollow, for Ziploc bags half-filled with cocaine to be shuttled in.

It was just like the time her parents told her that Santa Claus was, in fact, not real, that he was just a figment of her childish imagination—all this after she caught them in the middle of ‘adult business,’ Mr. and Mrs. Claus costumes haphazardly thrown on the kitchen floor. As if discovering her father’s complicity in drug trade operations wasn’t bad enough, she later learns that the entire parish is in on the secret and are indeed Pastor Day’s most loyal patrons.

It starts off as a drunken mistake, a lapse in good judgement, until she does it again; over and over in the dead of the night, sex on the roof for the whole neighbourhood to hear (or see, if they’re lucky.) There’s a thrill that comes with fucking the pastor’s daughter, far from the virginal maiden she used to be, at least between the sheets. And if they were part of any proper congregation they might have been loath to partake in it, but the boys in Pastor Guidi’s church comprised the majority of males Martina had lined up at her bedroom door. All they had to do was wait their turn.

If she were to try and remember it now, Martina would find most of her childhood odd and blurred, clear only when she felt most bitter and sad. She keeps her girlhood covered and sealed, closed off in a dusty corner of her cavernous mind; tricks herself into thinking her past is easily disposable when the scars run so deep that she has become so different from who she was.

Plot Ideas:

Though they’ve never spoken, she’s seen enough of The Reveler to know them to be a common fixture at parties. So much so that she has actually dreamt of them on more than one occasion, pale and glowing beneath the moonlight, gliding over the Lucerne in shimmering white robes.

She would recognize this feeling anywhere, this familiar jump of the pulse, heart thrumming fast and wild; stomach trembling with a feeling she cannot name. She feels parched all of a sudden, knowing them to be in her proximity, knowing them to be right there.

She is certainly not the brightest student in class, nor the most talented; how she was not forced to retake her first year remains a mystery, but now Martina finds herself struggling more than ever with her academic pursuits. This is how she finds herself looking for a tutor, and having one more expense to worry about.

With her ever-growing estrangement from her parents it’s a miracle they even send her any money at all, but Martina finds herself in no position to complain about it. Still, she can’t help but wonder if The Purveyor has any room for a partnership of sorts, just so she work with a more flexible budget.

With any volatile creature comes the need for an anchor, a steady presence to break the waves of madness. Martina is bad enough as she is, coming into St. Augustine with a heavy heart and a propensity for the bacchanal—she needs someone to play adult where she is the petulant child, resisting control and yet needing it all the same.

Looking at The Mad King reminds her of the good old days, sitting in church pews and stealing glances at older church boys, sometimes a newly ordained priest. The sight of them inspires a certain beat in her blood, stokes a flame that has yet to be named.

Thought The Jester was good company once, now the mere thought of their optimism just leaves a bad taste in her mouth.

Writing Sample:

For a woman in her 40s Doctor Rasek looked especially gaunt—almost frighteningly so, as if the very life had been sucked out from her bones. Martina watched with morbid curiosity the play of light over her cheek and collarbones, striking dark beneath the fluorescent lamps overhead, as if streaked with Egyptian kohl. Her eyes looked far too swollen for their sockets, bulging and glassy with just a hint of red. Had it not been for her ability to talk she would have thought her dead; a living, breathing corpse, propped across the table like an undead doll.

She took note of the doctor’s fingers, long and bony across the cork clipboard, tracing the lines of her veins in her mind and the tendons leaping out under leather-like skin. “You have been briefed about the procedure, yes?” Doctor Rasek asked. Her voice was high, almost sing-song, almost painful to the ears. Martina nodded idly, vaguely recalling the health counsellor and her slow, droning tone, words spilling looped and lazy from her brightly painted lips. “And you are sure you wish to go through with this?”

The words ring familiar in a voice sounded just like hers. It was bittersweet, almost. She had imagined something different, her baring her teeth at the question, then a shout of No! clear as a battle cry; perhaps low and cold, No.

Instead it was silent, save for the steady hum of electricity coolness blowing from the air conditioner. She takes a sharp inhale through the nose, cold and piercing against the walls of her septum, holds the doctor’s questioning gaze with as much ease as she can muster. “Yes,” she says simply, though it was not at all.

Other:

Crave You - Flight Facilities

Only in my Dreams, Ruthless - The Marías

[umbralrosarchive]

@egosemper has summoned the Achromatic Queen

玫: To have initiated the spell near the elevator was just a fraction of foolish in contrast to how potent it could have ended up if she descended to the castle’s levels.

The repercussions were not yet identified, but it had certainly knocked the despot from her feet and into a curled position on the floor. Luminous strands of snowy locks veiling her face and encompassing her head around the marble. The instant her eyes opened, they were still eclipsed, but by the look of wonder on her lover’s face as he knelt at her side --- there was something else. Something he could detail better than she can.

Sakuya works with the living natural, and as an Ascended, dabbles and curiously turns her head to stars and other celestial objects. The undertaker; however, professes in what reapers do: Souls. Something that was fractured at different moments in time of her memory, broken up into fragments as one in the same different spirit that meandered the castle corridors. The same few that cried, muttered, and angrily yelled in some rooms. Played about with the easel and piano in the Art room. One in particular, the strongest of the apparitions, was a malevolent poltergeist.

The spirits have been distantly collected, and returned to Sakuya’s body. Something she doesn’t yet know, but can only feel. And when she watches his bewildered and wonder stricken face, she also can’t help but be bombarded by a plethora of thoughts, and a single voice comes to her ears that doesn’t hail from his nor her mouth. Somewhere she thought to be emptied and silenced a long time ago.

     He’s going to play with you until your dead, and you’re going to have to kill him before that happens.

Her head turns to all corners of the room, with not a being in sight besides him, and the shadow of a passing servant that entered the manor. Her servants can’t speak, and it was no man that entered her head. Wait. Why was she looking around? There’s no need to, because she can’t sense anyone --- And that’s when it hit her.

Her sensory has been dulled to a familiar place. Can’t extend so far as to go beyond the rose garden outside. She’s supposed to sense beyond that, beyond there, and beyond everywhere. Now...

     “I’ve dealt with this before, and I can do it again. I can logically ---” You are your own enemy. It came, it went, it took, and she fell quiet all too quickly at the abrupt voice... Except, that time, it sounded a bit too much like...

Eyes strained over the pale man’s shoulder, to see the towering pitch of hazy black standing in the shadow of a column across the ballroom, and the single red eye glowed bright in the dark. Are you going to kill him too?

     “It’s not real...” she whispers, bringing herself to a shaky stand to stare back at the hallucination. “But the sickness in my head is.”

     “You are real.” she says, bringing a hand to his shoulder, mostly to reassure herself in that moment. Suddenly plagued by the idea that he might be a figment of her mind too, and afraid that he will go away. “I know you are.”

[electricasmoon]

Ferganzolft has been watched over/ruled by the Delëfanze siblings since its founding 974 years ago.

The four are most notable by the gems embedded in their chest as no other species seems to have this feature. They haven't been doing the best in recent years with Maclemöre leaving and the untimely death of Azotolph, which leaves the sisters, who after these events arent exactly o k a y, to run things.

Delëfanze in order.

♦️: Azotolph, eldest of the four, once the grand overseer of the Diamonds District, home to the highlife of crime and gambling, is nothing more than a figment of the past as he died when Filbert turned 18. If one was willing to bet everything with Azotolph in a game of his choosing, they'd win things upon their wildest dreams and desires, of course this never happened as Azo would constantly cheat, leading to said person living a life of servitude to him.

♥️:Sonia, mostly referred to as Madame Sonia, is the second oldest of the four. Sonia is the overseer of the Hearts District, a beautiful cottage core esc shoping district where everything is perfect, or so it seems. Since her 'birth', Sonia has thrived for perfection, never satisfied with her own looks, her deals include the modification of the body, the only catch is she will take a part of you to add to her collection of 'special paints' for her 'special paintings'.

♣️: Claybell, the youngest sister of the four. She 'oversees' the Clubs District, the most advanced district as it is the only one with running electricity, it has not advanced further than the steampunk era of things. Claybell was once a clever level headed woman with dreams of advancing science and machinery, but after her husband's untimely death she grew incomprehensibly unstable. Claybell fell into an abyss of conspiracies of her own making. To this day she wanders the manor, mumbling to herself theories upon theories. Claybell offered, and still does, immortality, as long as you would listen to her. Which wouldnt seem bad until you realize you have to listen to her conspiracy theories.

♠️: Maclemöre , the youngest of the four. He once ran the Spades district, overseeing agricultural and maintenance of the outter walls. 200 years ago he was at the top of the world, he had it all, money, any man or lady he desired, power. It all changed one day when he met her, the scarlet butterfly. A woman who had come to Ferganzolft in search of a power she had left behind. Absolutely enamored by this red woman, Maclemöre simply couldn't miss the chance to offer her a 'deal', forget, forget all that once was,what you once were, become a person with no past or pain to remember, become free. Maclemöre had offered this deal many times before, a deal which many before her had taken. To his suprise, she declined. Curious Maclemöre asked why, the woman simply whispered into his ear.... After that( and other things that would make this too long) Maclemöre left his post, disregarding his Delëfanze heritage and settling for something more simpler, adopting the last name Clockmore he set out into the world to find himself, only to find the world had led him to his greatest treasure yet, his daughters. Had you asked him to make you forget now, the man would simply laugh in your face, and then tell you to kindly fuck off.

Bonus, Maclemöre and his adopted daughters.

[josephineellsworth-blog]

special delivery to ; @danielkings.

location: at the ellsworth manor on 1623 fordyce lane.

              Josephine’s return back to Saltsberg’s caused a celebration to unfold on the eve of Halloween as bodies swarmed into her childhood home, a Spotify Halloween playlist lightly blaring throughout the home as voices overpowered. This was her mother’s decision. Regardless of her condition, which she dared to inform of her friends over her crippling illness, meant Jo would have to tag along and make people believe her return was due to her phase of living in New York came to an end. She was poised on her mother saying such words toward her near and dear friends without Jo telling the truth for her cause of her return. Whatever, she knew alcohol was going to be her loyal companion for the eve. Nonetheless, the only daughter knew she needed to proceed forward on her preeminent behavior. Dressed head to toe in a head to toe assemble presenting as Audrey Hepburn’s character, Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. No one dared to carbon copy her outfit as she grew impressed in her ability to manage to throw something rather quickly. Sulking in the corner, nursing a flute of champagne, as chocolate hues wandered over patrons filling into the antique, museum room, where her parents only allowed Jo to step foot in during evenings like such. A light grip on her arm caused her hues to flicker on her mother, who was dressed up as Marie Antoinette, pulling Jo to the spotlight alongside her parents as moments later, her mom rambled in a grand speech over the blessing of everyone here and how delightful it was for Jo to return back to them. Stiffness flowed over her features, hues wandering until they fell onto a familiar sight in the crowd as her hues began to burn in an uncomfortable state. It was Daniel.

             The last she had seen of the man had been a few days after their initial hook up, visiting him after heartbreaking news of her husband’s cheating hit immediate waves. It was an unexpected decision but she didn’t care. Who was going to call her out on her lack of faithfulness in her marriage? No one. Dominic cheated first. Yet, she never once regretted the evening where things took a turn with Daniel and herself. It was the unexpected realization of her feelings for him - her being in love with him which caused her to dash or ghosting as people referred to things now. It was her worst nightmare. All because she hadn’t seen him in years and realized there was no getting out of it now. Not when she locked her hues on him throughout the entirety of her mother’s grand speech, knowing it would be easier to look away but she couldn’t. She was stuck. The eruption of clapping, cheering overflowing snapped her out from the daze of the male, hues immediately bouncing toward her parents brightened experiences, embracing their only daughter now before parting and leaving her in a state of panic. Immediately downing the rest of her champagne, she started worming through the crowd, politely apologizing toward some familiar faces, as she searched for him. All of this felt like a figment of her imagination. Perhaps, she was dreaming and she’ll wake up in sweats realizing none of this was real. Finally, the brunette found what seemed like the other as her frail hands lightly gripped onto him, or what could possibly be him, pausing the clicking off her suede heels against the marble floor before maneuvering her way to stand in front of him. “Daniel?” She sharply questioned, chocolate beating hues on the sight of his where she found herself lost in within one evening. “You’re... fuck..” falling into a soft mutter, sharp objects puncturing her sides causing Jo to pinch her features, a hand immediately resting on her side as she took a deep inhale. God, she really thought she could run away without consequences, huh?

[kaleidoscopic-adoration]

ok so here's some stuff about my self inserts :D

Cecil Honeycutt

Was born in the 60s, attended college in the 80s, and graduated with a degree they didn't want to make into a career and no living family. Rather lost for direction but not despairing, they applied for a personal assistantship at one Darkiplier Manor. Quickly, it became clear that there was more at play — possible danger, sensitive information, and maybe even the supernatural — but they were nonetheless compelled to accept when, after careful consideration, the position was offered. They've never regretted it. They seem to have stopped aging at about 25. No one's tested to see if they can still die; they're hoping they don't have to find out. Their duties have expanded; they still fill a sort of personal assistant role, but also some quasi private investigation, and function as a household manager in certain respects. They love Wilford more than light and would absolutely die for him. (Or kill the Actor for what he did to him.) They're in a poly queerplatonic relationship with Wilford and Dark (who are romantic partners). Chaotic mom energies and dresses like that stylish teacher who everyone either loved or hated. They/them.

Curly dark brown hair just past their shoulders. "Long" bangs (so like brushed to one side). Grey-blue eyes. Wears glasses. Has freckles and a beauty mark to the right of their mouth.

Fics

Auden Lorentz

A dear friend to Damien Windsythe and Mark Iplier during their college years on the northern part of the West Coast. After attending law school with Damien, they worked very hard to become the District Attorney — devoted to their work above all else. As a result, they grew quite distant with Mark, made few close friends, and never married. They met a tragic end at Mark's ill-fated party. 1879-1924, they/them

Long dark brown hair kept tied back with a ribbon essentially always. Light grey eyes. Wears glasses. Dresses pretty masc.

No fics yet.

Lex

Met the Actor when they were "cast" (that is, influenced into existence to be) his love interest in a strange, chaotic production for which the Actor played the lead, roughly halfway between WKM and "the modern day," in-universe. They became roommates until the Actor got fed up with what he thought was a farce, and informed Lex about their creation. Lex took this about as well as one could, then asserted and proved they were, in fact, not just a figment of Mark's imagination or a puppet of his influence, but a real person with free will... and then had to pick out their name. And then, fairly quickly, they fell in love. Soon after, they moved out of the apartment and now live in a construct of the manor, tucked away in a pocket dimension, together. They're happy, if highkey codependent, save Mark's unresolved traumas and the fact that they're essentially on the run from Darkiplier.

Short, almost "spiky" dark brown hair. No real/on-purpose bangs, but it's short enough that there's some spiky bits there. Emerald green eyes. Has a beauty mark to the right of their mouth. Dresses pretty over-the-top.

Fics

1920s!Lex

Lex Iplier (born Alexandria Fennemore) spent the better part of their college-age years successfully evading their parents’ attempts to convince them to marry a nice man and settle down in favor of working on their art and living hedonistically. They were contacted when a major movie studio wanted to film at a park where they had an installation; they begrudgingly needed Lex's permission, since it would be visible in the background. Though denied pay and given only a token collective acknowledgement in the credits, the glamour of their work being featured in a film combined with the offered-under-duress invitation to a cast party was far too much to resist. With the not-lie that they were there as they were an artist whose work was featured in the film, they got to shmooze, notably with Mark Iplier, the still-rising star, who was rather enchanted by them even from across the room. Lex, of course, falls fast to his charms. They exchange contact information at the party and, after a lively courtship, do eventually marry. (Needless to say, Lex still doesn't settle down.) Their other close friends include Damien, Celine, William, and the District Attorney. They/she. Born 1883.

Yeah so, they're Mark's first marriage. No WKM, no affair timeline. Mark’s parents are still alive and living in the manor, so we have our own place elsewhere.

Appearance is about the same as regular-'verse Lex, save the time period causing differences in dress.

Fics coming... not soon, admittedly lkdsfljkds

Levia Iplier, née Chesterfield

Born in 1879. Met their dear friends Damien Windsythe and Mark Iplier during their college years in the northern part of the West Coast, where they moved from the eastern US in 1898. They are very devoted to their work, and as a result grew apart from Mark for a time. However, after hearing how badly he was taking his divorce and how worried Damien was for his health, they attempted to intervene — at least for Damien's sake — and, luckily, were able (with great effort and hardship on both their and Mark's part) to help him out of that dark place. In May 1926, they were married. Later, Levia became romantic partners with Damien, as well. They're (all) very close with Celine, William, and Ben, too. They/she.

Soft, fluffy light brown hair just past their chin. Actual bangs. Light ("normal") green eyes. Wears glasses. Has freckles. Dresses a lot like Cecil, but a little more masc.

Fics coming soon!!

Credit for the Picrews!!

[littlemissnellie]

Late morning sunlight filtered through the windows of Golgotha Manor and spilled across the intricately patterned rug that adorned the floor of the living room. Adorning the crushed velvet chaise lounge though, with ebony hair hung below her soft, porcelain jawline and her scarlett lips pursed in a sort of regal boredom, was none other than Morwenna Golgotha herself. Diamonds, a trademark of her attire, sat in her ear lobes, white, reflecting the light, toying with it like an infant with a rattle. But another, much more significant one sat atop a silver band, adorning her ring finger just as she adorned her husband’s arm. Her husband’s status. Her husband’s life.

It stood proudly, this diamond. This pride was not solely possessed by the diamond though; the mere act of getting to wear such a promise, of it being nothing but hers to hold onto was enough to make her treasure it, before worth was even brought into the equation. Just like her hair, like her heavily lacquered lashes, like the patent heels that were crossed before her, this diamond was black. Jet black. The colour of the ink that spilled out of her husband’s fountain pen across papers that wore facts and figures for business ‘much too complicated for you to need to understand, my dear’. The colour of the oil that would spill into the engine of the car she would glide along fresh tarmac in if a reason for her to venture past the mouth of the driveway ever dared to present itself. It never did. Too scared, pathetically so. The mere thought festered in her mouth, tasted bitter on her tongue. This diamond, capturing the sunlight like a feral cat catches a gutter rat, was the colour of forbidden secrets shared beneath a moonless, midnight sky. Something about it was unnerving, but exhilarating.

Daydreaming was not what women of Morwenna’s age, Morwenna’s status partook in, it was for silly little girls with dreams too wild for their future to comprehend. Immature, one might say. So Morwenna was not daydreaming, merely…reminiscing, reflecting on her life. Reflecting, like the diamonds that defined her.

She sat by the window, gazing out at the world beyond the manor through the invisible, gauzy curtains that warped her view of everything outside of these cold, brick walls. She was not relaxed, she couldn’t lower herself to such things. She could afford silken blouses and precious jewels, but she couldn’t afford to let her image slip for even a second, not even in her own company. After all, one slip was all it took to come crashing down, let the immaculate persona it had taken a lifetime for her to perfect disintegrate before her polished, mahogany eyes. Posture was key, a straight back meant a straight mind, and Morwenna needed that focus to get through each, mind-numbing day. She sat like a swan on a lake, calm and serene, or seemingly so. A black swan on a satin lake, nestled amongst reeds of marble, velvet and gold, basking in the glow of success, or at least her husband’s abundance of it.

Her eyes glossed over as she watched tree branches sway in the wind, each rustle of early autumn leaves, still clinging onto their emerald hues, bringing back a fleeting image of a year that had been and gone. The longer she stared though, the further back she fell and before she could help herself the image of a man she longed to keep locked away in the past looked to be right here in the present with her. Sunlight danced on wispy cedar locks and the ashes that rose from his skin. His jawline sliced through the wind like a sword through a training dummy. His eyes cold and hard as a glacier, but clear and captivating as crystals…as diamonds.

One word, one name stayed clamped between her lips. Red, cased in the blood that she tasted in her mouth, metallic and unnatural. Unwanted. Vladislaus Straud.

She blinked repeatedly, willing his figure to be a mere figment of her nervous imagination. Her rose-tinted lenses weren’t smudged though, this was as real as the polished wood beneath her white-knuckled grip. And as if seeing her ex-fiance after all these years wasn’t unnerving enough, not an inch of his appearance had altered since the last time that they had been together. He still looked like the fresh-faced, reserved yet innocent, especially when it came to their courtship, boy that haunted her past.

Looking at him, in that moment, it felt as if she were looking at an old photograph. A snapshot of her life, a memory pressed onto paper to keep and cherish. Wild hair, tamed only by an intricate braid, cascaded over her shoulders as she pressed herself against his side, hanging on his arm and every word that left his mouth. She would gaze up at him, she could remember doing it as if she’d done it just yesterday, feigning adoration that was slowly becoming more and more genuine.

But the photo, this particular memory, as she looked on it now, was far from cherished. Edges were torn and frayed until it was almost unrecognisable as ever being something of worth or meaning. This memory, their whole past, was damaged by bad blood, bitterness and broken hearts. So what the hell was he doing on her front doorstep?

Her heels tapped against the wooden floorboards like a fork against a wine glass, preparing her to make a toast, or more fittingly, to raise a question. She had managed to get to the door before he’d had a chance to knock, which meant that she could tackle this before Victor even knew that Vlad had ever set foot on his property. If she wanted this to end civilly, this is how it had to go.

As she pulled open the large, leaden front door she knew immediately that Vlad had not spotted her at the window. She didn’t even think that he had considered the possibility of her answering the door, because as soon as he laid eyes on her in all her sheer, silken, glossy glory his expression flickered like a candle in the wind. Panic and a strange, possible joy cracked his face for a split second when he let his composure slip. For a fleeting moment she saw the Vlad that she had entertained the thought of loving all those years ago, the one with a gentle side to his usually stoic demeanour, like baked apples on a biting winter’s night. But his solemn smirk returned with an all too familiar certainty. He didn’t let go of his composure for long, never long enough.

It was Morwenna who wanted to break the silence, but Vlad’s distress beat her to it.

“M-Morwenna,” he stuttered. He was startled, she could tell, but he masked it convincingly from then on. He couldn’t let her know that she had shaken him, but she was already one step ahead and had no time for games.

“What are you doing here?” she hissed. Venomous, like a snake, slipping through Vlad’s mind as he tried to gather his thoughts amidst the tormented feelings that were resurfacing themselves with an alarmingly rapid pace.

“Well, I-” He coughed, buying himself time to calm down. “I heard the news that you were back in town-”

“How?” Morwenna’s tone was defensive, she bit down on her words like a rabid dog.

“Word gets around these days, darling.” A smirk curled at his lips. This superiority, this knowledge he could hold over her made him feel empowered, fed confidence through his coarse, cold veins like it was a drug.

“Don’t call me that.”

“I don’t have to call you anything, I just wanted to come and see how you and the family were…settling in.”

“Don’t you dare speak about my family-”

“Don’t worry yourself over little things like that, Morwenna. I’m sure that you have much bigger problems to concern yourself with.”

“The only problem right now is you being at my house, and…and looking like- like that,” Morwenna said, her own confidence faltering as Vlad’s swelled.

“It’s not a welcome surprise?” he smirked.

“There’s something you want, Vlad, there always is. Tell me what it is and be gone, you’ve put my family through enough as it is,” Morwenna snapped. Her tone was sharp, juxtaposing her beauty, like the thorns of a rose.

“Oh Morwenna, I barely even know your family-”

“That doesn’t matter, you don’t need to know them to damage-”

“Damage? Why Morwenna, I haven’t even started yet,” he chuckled. This torment was amusing to him, watching her red lips drop open and her perfectly plucked eyebrows furrow.

Anger blazed within her stomach. Her temper shattered like an expensive champagne glass, delicate and explosive. “You lay a hand on them, Vlad, and I’ll put you in your grave myself,” she snarled.

“Oh dear, I’d never dream of such a thing, especially being a father myself,” Vlad simpered. He reeked of insincerity, of lies.

“Then what are you doing here? What do you want from us?” Morwenna asked, growing tired of such insufferable company. “Money?”

He scoffed and spat out his next sentence. “No, dear. I want something much more valuable.”

Morwenna refused to reply, darkening her glare was all that that he would get.

“I came to warn you, of how things have changed around here since you left-” he continued.

“We don’t need your warnings.”

“The power has shifted, Morwenna. You don’t have the same influence you did all those years ago, and at times like this that can be a dangerous thing.”

“And your suggestion?” Morwenna said, arching an eyebrow.

“I didn’t have one-”

But as Morwenna turned to leave, seemingly done with their conversation already, Vlad caught her arm. She tried to wrench it free, but his grip tightened and he pulled her towards him. His breath tickled her cheek, cool, stale and lifeless. It made her squirm.

“-Until now,” he leered.

She swallowed and her eyelashes fluttered as she looked up at him, praying that he couldn’t sense the rising fear behind her eyes.

“I have a proposal for you, Morwenna. And this time, I hope that it will actually mean something to you,” he said bitterly. Any traces of a smile were long gone now.

“And what might that be?” she choked out.

“A rekindling of sorts-”

But before Vlad could go any further, Morwenna’s disgust overflowed and she raised her hand to slap the thought out of his twisted mind. But he was too quick and had her held fast once again.

“Never,” she spat.

“You didn’t let me finish.”

“I don’t need to. I would never go back to you after everything you said about my husband, my children…me.”

“That’s all in the past, Morwenna. We’ve grown up, changed beyond recognition, you know that, and so do I. This could work, if you want it to.”

“It will never work, Vlad. I’m happy with the life I chose, and if you ever really loved me then you would be happy for me to. Let go of all this ancient bitterness, let go of me.”

But Vlad took another step towards her, his shoes touching hers, leering in her face like a monster from a nightmare.

“It will work if you want your family to stay out of harm’s way.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” Morwenna said, choking back a gasp.

“You’re right, I wouldn’t…if you keep up your end of the deal.”

“No.”

“Come on, Morwenna. Let your heart beat for me once more and I’ll stay quiet. You and your precious family won’t hear a word from me again.”

He drove a hard bargain. His smirk smouldered on his face, knowing that his offer was burning away at her conscience with every passing second and every inch that his hand slipped down her side.

“Is that a promise?” Morwenna asked quietly.

“Of course, you have my word,” Vlad said, pausing as he let his offer brew and bubble in her mind.

“And you have mine,” Morwenna said, her words like velvet as she leaned into his touch and pressed her crimson lips to his with a startling certainty.

Her husband slaved over papers upstairs, determined to provide for his family, determined to keep them safe. But Morwenna played downstairs, toying with the emotions of a man who once toyed with hers. Their kiss was smooth as silk, forbidden, secret, unnerving yet exhilarating…anything to keep her family safe.

Her mind was made up, her decision clear, cold and hard. Rare, precious...like a diamond.