#she only really chose the name for her disguise and answers to ship as well

[takshiip]

i like to think that takka feels Really Weird when she has to do actual mom things towards tak while in disguise as, well, taks mother

[hikari-kaitou]

Capcom's Official AA Fanclub Surveys - DGS Edition

Many Western fans may be familiar with the Turnabout 4koma comics that get posted on the official AA fanclub site that Capcom runs, thanks to some lovely fans on tumblr and elsewhere who have shared their translations. What fewer people seem to know about is the character surveys.

Back in the old days, they used to hold a survey on Capcom's official AA fansite every few months where they'd write about the seasonal activities of a handful of characters and ask fans to vote for the funniest/most pleasant/strangest/etc answer.

They stopped doing them in like... 2016? 2017? The original text is lost for good as far as I can tell. Even the wayback machine couldn't help because the content was password locked and you can't get past the password wall while remaining in the archived version.

Fortunately, I saved some of my translations of them so I thought I’d share them.

Cut for length...

"February has begun, and the DGS cast is nearing the end of their journey aboard the RFS Alacrei. Which of them acted the most strangely?"

Ryuunosuke ~ Exhausted from his intensive study session, he decided to try some katana swinging practice as a change of pace and to combat his recent lack of exercise. But because he wasn't used to handling the katana, he swung it too hard and it went flying out of his hands and got stuck in the wall right next to Sherlock, who had just entered the room. Sherlock asked him, "aren't you supposed to be studying right now, Mr. Naruhodo?" and handcuffed him to his desk.

Susato- worked on developing a curriculum for Ryuunosuke. 'If we keep going at this pace, he won't be able to learn it all in time... It'll be hard on Naruhodo-sama, but we'll have to work hard through a couple of nights together.' With that thought, she created a harsh study schedule, and almost seemed to be looking forward to it for some reason.

Sherlock- Driven by excitement over the thought of returning to England after a long absence, he went up on deck to stare at the ocean. Being February, it was very cold out there and he ended up being chilled all the way to the tips of his fingers. He returned to the ship cabins and amused himself by putting his frozen hands on Ryuunosuke, who was stuck in his room studying.

Van Zieks- Upon hearing from Vortex that there was a Japanese exchange student coming to England to study law, he smashed a Lord's Bottle. He apparently also didn't care for the fact that that Japanese student wouldn't be alone, because he proceeded to shatter his chalice, too.

Hosonaga- in order to provide a respite from studying, he provided some hot chocolate. They enjoyed a pleasant tea time, marveling over how sweet and delicious the drink was until Sherlock piped up with some unnecessary trivia: 'Actually folks, chocolate has long been used in Europe as an aphrodisiac!' Everyone promptly spat it out."

"The long winter is nearly over and spring is on it's way, putting the DGS cast members in a celebratory mood. Who found the best way of enjoying spring?"

Ryuunosuke: the Yuumei University faculty members were holding a flower viewing event, and he joined the assistance committee. He exhausted himself keeping the blankets clean so the intense shower of flower petals wouldn't pile up too high on them, delivering sake and snacks, and mediating whatever pointless fights arose. To top it all off, for some reason his compensation was only a single piece of leftover candy. Talk about a sad result!

Susato- her father and the others living in his dormitory were  holding the flower viewing event, so she got up early to prepare the bentos. But her father carelessly forgot to tell her that they wanted tea cakes, so she had to go around the house and neighborhood collecting sweets. For some reason, she ended up being able to gather caramels, biscuits, candy sticks, basically everything but tea cakes, for the tea ceremony.

Sherlock- he disguised himself as a beat officer and infiltrated Scotland Yard to have some fun. There was a real beat officer napping on his feet in the spring sunshine, and while observing him, Sherlock ended up falling asleep too. Detective Gregson gave them a good scolding when he found them, but then Sherlock revealed his true identity with a "hey, it's me, folks!" "What the blazes do you think you're doing?!" Gregson shouted, his rage growing even more, and Sherlock ended up making a run for it.

Van Zieks- went to the vineyard to oversee the production of the contents of his Lord's Bottle. As he viewed the still unopened grape blossom buds, he thought about how they would someday grow up to fill his Lord's Bottle, and ended up going around to look at each one. But the farm hands couldn't stop wondering whether the bottle itself or its owner's heel might come flying at them and were quite uneasy.

Asougi: exhausted himself running around since early morning helping with the professors' flower viewing event. When it was over, he took a break, sharing his reward candy stick [the name of the candy literally translates to 1,000 year candy] with Ryuunosuke, who had also been helping out. 

"I wonder if the candy's effect is halved if you share it with someone."

"That still gives us 500 years."

They laughed and enjoyed looking at the flowers until dark. Then they parted ways with a handshake and a "see you later, best friend."

(This one was something about celebrating New Years. For some reason I didn't save the original question)

"Ryuunosuke ~ To celebrate New Years, he planned to pound mochi with everyone at the office. He somehow managed to get his hands on some mochi rice and he and Sherlock started pounding. Iris was having such fun watching them that she steamed a whole bunch more mochi rice so they could have some to share, and he and Sherlock spent the whole evening pounding mochi like crazy.

Asougi~ Because it's New Years, he went around to a bunch of shrines. When he drew his new year's fortune, he got a "horrible luck" result. "I'm not worried about it," he claimed, and headed up to the mountains early on New Years morning and work hard on a full training course of purification by water, meditation under a waterfall and wooden sword practice. It seems that he was working really hard to clear his mind of all earthly thoughts

Sherlock- Agreed to help Ryuunosuke pound mochi. As Ryuunosuke was flipping the mochi over, he carelessly dropped his badge into the bowl and Sherlock mixed it in without noticing, so they had to crack open both the hard and soft mochi to look for it. Fortunately they found it in the 4th one they checked, but apparently Sherlock got his hands and face covered in sticky white mochi in the process.

Susato- Wore a furisode and went with her father to do the first shrine visit of the year. The shrine was incredibly crowded and they had to wait in line for a long time, but she brought the Encyclopaedia of British Law and a copy of the Strand Magazine in her sleeves to secretly read as they waited so she actually ended up enjoying the wait.

Van Zieks- Ryuunosuke cheerfully gave him some mochi as a New Year’s (which at that time was celebrated at the same time as the Chinese New Year) gift, which he accepted confusedly, wondering “...Can the Japanese not even keep track of when the New Year is?” Because Ryuunosuke referred to it as a rice cake, he tried to eat it like a regular cake without softening it with heat first. It was so hard that he couldn’t imagine how it could possibly be food, and ended up misunderstanding the Japanese even more!

"Autumn has arrived, and the weather is starting to cool off, which means that everyone is becoming more active. Which character chose the most pleasant autumn activity to keep busy with?"

Iris was making bread but her hands are small and it’s difficult for her to knead the dough, so she asked for Ryuunosuke’s help. She wanted to make enough to hand out to Gina and all the other homeless children in the East End, so she made a massive amount and Ryuunosuke was stuck kneading this massive mountain of bread dough all day. Apparently he became such a expert at kneading that he could be a baker now.

Asougi was practicing with his sword, slicing autumn-colored ginko leaves as they fell from the tree. He cut so many leaves, though, that he ended up making a big mess on the ground, the number of fallen leaves now having increased, and it took him a long time to clean it all up.    

Sherlock: Ryuunosuke told him that he was making anpan (bread filled with sweet red bean paste, the bane of my Asian-dwelling existance) and asked Sherlock to help by being in charge of getting the poppy seeds they’d need to sprinkle on top, so Sherlock went out and gathered a ton of poppy seeds. In fact, he got so many of them that no one knew what to do with them all cuz they had a huge amount of leftovers. Sherlock said, “Well, they’re only the size of poppy seeds! Surely you two can deal with them somehow! Ahahaha!” and Iris scolded him.   

(I couldn’t capture it in English, but Sherlock’s line contained a pun, and a pretty stupid one at that, so that’s part of why he got scolded)

It’s grape harvesting season, so Van Zieks commutes to the winery regularly to direct the production of the contents for his “Lord’s Bottle.” He demands perfection in everything from the selection of the grapes to the way they’re squeezed, and the winery staff is terrified by the “grim reaper’s” gaze and heel swinging (i.e. the leg thing he does in court) so they grumble as they work. 

"Hearing that there’s a holiday in the West called Halloween, the people involved with the court in Japan decided to try it out themselves. Naturally Halloween is a big deal in England as well. So, which member of the DGS cast had the best celebration?"

Team Ryuunosuke and Asougi- Asougi got Naruhodo up on his shoulders and they draped a white sheet over themselves to make a ghost costume. They went out like that, but Naruhodo had such exaggerated reactions to the fear of the people who saw them and to bumping his head on tree branches that they ended up losing their balance and falling on top of each other?!   

Sherlock Holmes- went wearing a horse’s head mask. Iris used her skills to make it a fancy horse covered in stars, but the eye holes weren’t well made and he had to wander around blindly. Because of that he tripped hard over a pile of coal! He ended up getting so dirty that the stars on his costume were covered up!

Van Zieks- took inspiration from his nickname and dressed up as the grim reaper. He covered himself up with a skeleton mask and hood figuring no one would know it was him. Unfortunately he got angry when he saw Megundal (McGilded) pass by and started throwing bottles and glasses and ended up giving himself away.

"November has arrived, and autumn is nearing its end. However, the DGS cast is still keeping busy, even on their days off. Which character chose the most interesting way to spend their late autumn day?"

Ryuunosuke- Thinking that he’d better learn more about British culture if he was going to be a defense attorney in Britain, he went down to the East End with Gina for a little observation. However, because an Asian like him stood out so much, he got mobbed by the other children. On top of it all, his arm band got stolen from him and he had to send a replacement request to Yumei University on the other side of the ocean.

Asougi- He went for a meal at La Quantas. The customer at a nearby table got a persimmon for dessert and scarfed it down, saying “Mm! This is it! This sweetness makes it worthy of being called a treasure among foods!” Asougi tried to comment on this by saying, “The customer at that table sure is enjoying his pershim--gak!” but he may or may not have accidentally bitten his tongue in the process and been unable to finish his sentence.

Iris- She accepted Ryuunosuke’s request to learn more about British culture and prepared a bagpipe and kilt costume for him. “This outfit sure is breezy,” Ryuunosuke said shyly upon trying it on. With Ryuunosuke now dressed, he, Iris, and the others from their office headed over to Gregson’s place to get him to treat them to some fish and chips.   

Sherlock- He accepted Ryuunosuke’s request to learn more about British culture and cooked up some European style curry for dinner. Thanks to the fact that his secret ingredient was a large amount of Chinese herbal medicine style spice, it caused some strange side effects and Ryuunosuke, who’d eaten it, ended up passing out and falling over.

“Another taxing trial for Ryuunosuke has finished and now it’s December. As the year draws to a close, which character acts the strangest?”

Ryuunosuke- he was recruited to help with snow removal around Yumei University and the courthouse and he enthusiastically began his task with the help of a large shovel. He got a little carried away, though, and ended up accidentally burying his umbrella, which he’d left propped up against the side of the building, in the snow he’d just finished shoveling.  He had no choice but to share Asougi’s umbrella on the way home.

Asougi- On the way home, he nods silently to Ryuunosuke’s question of whether he’d finished his travel preparations and changes the subject: “...Come to think of it, it seems that tomorrow is celebrated in the West as God’s birthday.” “I’ve heard that they eat chicken as part of the traditional celebration. Wanna try it?” Ryuunosuke asks invitingly. Asougi is strongly opposed to that particular menu item, however, and they end up going out for their usual beef stew that night instead.           

Susato- in addition to her year-end travel preparations, she also was busy with straightening up the book room in her home. She managed to get the law books in order when she suddenly stumbled upon some old issues of Strand Magazine! She hurried through the rest of her cleaning, then began flipping through the magazines she’d found, trying to decide which to take with her on her trip. She accidentally lost herself in her reading and didn’t realize it until it was already the middle of the night.

Sherlock- he was in the middle of a long ship voyage when Christmas night came. His mind on his partner in a far-off country, he made a toast alone on deck, when suddenly the crew began shooting off fireworks with a cry of “Merry Christmas!” Sherlock had to dart back and forth across the deck to prevent the fireworks from hitting him and setting off the explosive chemicals he carries with him.

Main series edition

[discoscoob]

New Earth | Loki x Female Reader

Loki (Marvel) x Doctor Who

Loki is officially a member of the TARDIS family and for his first trip the Doctor sets the TARDIS controls to random and she lands on a planet called New Earth and you know what they say ‘New Earth, new you!’ 

Part One | Part Three | Chapter Index

Words: 7.0k

Warnings: Dub con kissing: reader isn’t control of her own body and Loki isn’t aware

Read on AO3

You quickly learned that the TARDIS was infinitely bigger than you had originally thought. It turned out that the control room was just the tip of the iceberg. It had a swimming pool, a library, an art gallery filled with art the Doctor had collected from across the universe and more wardrobe space than you could ever dream of, full of clothes which the Doctor had granted you unlimited access to, you would definitely be taking advantage of that. It also had the usual like living rooms, dining rooms, kitchens, bathrooms and bedrooms. The Doctor, had confessed that the TARDIS was such a size that there were rooms that even he still had yet to find, despite the fact he had been piloting this ship for over half a millennium.

 You recalled how just before all this begun, you had planned to be curled up in bed within the hour, almost 24 hours had passed since then and you had yet to sleep a wink, you also hadn’t eaten. Once all the adrenaline had finally worn off, you felt as though you could have fallen into a coma. You were grateful for the fact that the first thing the Doctor did when he returned to the TARDIS was show you all to the bedrooms, it was on the way that he had filled you with information about the TARDIS and it’s many rooms.

 Once you reached the quarters where which the bedrooms were, the Doctor stopped and reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and silently handed you, Donna and Loki each a plain plastic bottle filled with goodness knows what and all three of you stared at him speechless waiting for an explanation. 

 “Aren’t you hungry?” The Doctor asked upon realising you were all staring at him cluelessly. “This will sustain you until you wake up, then you can have a proper breakfast.” 

 “What is it?” You asked, closely inspecting the plastic bottle.

 “Blimey! How big are your pockets?” Donna commented, trying to work out how he managed to fit three bottles into his suit jacket.

 “They’re bigger on the inside,” the Doctor shrugged as if it were obvious.

 “Of course they are.” Donna muttered to herself in a ‘duh’ tone.

 “And it’s like a protein shake. Try it, it’s nice!” The Doctor answered you.

 You felt your stomach growl as it demanded nutrients and you were too tired to seek out something else to fill it with so you shrugged and twisted the cap off the bottle and took a quick sip to test how it tasted. You were pleasantly surprised to find it tasted just like a vanilla milkshake and hummed happily as you drank down some more. 

 After that, the Doctor bid the three of you goodnight and left you to pick your own bedrooms, he assured you they were all practically identical and included en suites so there was no concerns over you squabbling for the biggest room, even if the rooms were different sizes you highly doubted that you had the energy to fight over them, you had already picked the bedroom behind the door closest to you after bidding Donna and Loki goodnight. 

 Once your vanilla protein shake was all finished and you had changed into some comfortable nightwear which you had found in the wardrobe, you were ready to crawl into the bed for a well-deserved night sleep. Was it even night? You weren’t sure but you couldn’t find the energy to care as you pulled back the thick white duvet of the double bed but before you could climb in and let your tired body rest there was a knock at your door. 

 You sighed wondering who it was and left your bedside to go and answer it. 

 “Loki?” You couldn’t disguise the surprise in your tone, he was the last person you expected to see when you opened the door. You took in his appearance and noticed there was no longer any traces of ash or blood on his face, his hair was combed back and still damp meaning he had not long been out the shower, the smell of the products he used filled the air around him and you found yourself breathing deeper to take in the fresh woodsy scents along with hints of vanilla. His sweat and dirt covered clothes had been removed and replaced with a loose dark grey hoodie over a white t shirt and dark jeans, seeing the God in such a casual outfit was almost as startling as seeing him stood outside your door. Your eyes fell to his hands which were clasping the bottle of protein shake the Doctor had gave you all earlier.

 “I hope I’m not disturbing you.” Loki spoke, his voice soft, you could hardly believe he was the same man who had trapped you against a wall only seconds after meeting you barely 24 hours earlier.

 “No, not at all. I hadn’t got to bed yet.” You assured him and he nodded.

 “I just wanted to bring you this,” Loki slightly raised up the bottle in his hand, “you probably need it more than I do, I don’t require nourishments as regularly as mortals do.” He explained.

 When you hesitated to accept the drink, due to how stunned you were by the fact he was even concerning himself with thinking about your nutritional needs he continued.

 “I haven’t touched it,” he reassured you, allowing you to inspect the bottle by holding it closer to you. “The cap isn’t even broken.”

 You couldn’t help the way your heart swelled, endeared by the way he fretted over the idea that you may have worried about him tampering with the drink, when actually that hadn’t even crossed your mind you were just shocked by his kind gesture. You had to pull yourself back into the moment to save him from fretting any further and took the bottle from his hand, your fingers slightly brushed against his as you did allowing you to discover how soft his skin was.

 “Thank you, that’s very thoughtful of you.” You smiled sincerely at him and he once again diverted his eyes and clasped his now empty hands behind his back.

 “I’ll let you rest now. Goodnight,” he spoke your name and your sleep deprived mind decided that you liked the way it sounded when uttered in his gentle tone. He had already begun walking away when you replied your own goodnight and you noticed he was heading away from the bedrooms, as you softly shut your door you wondered where he was going.

 ***

 Loki had decided that there was no point in attempting to sleep when he wasn’t tired so instead he chose to head to the control room in search of the Doctor. If he was going to be staying under his roof for a while he thought it would be best to learn a bit about him, since they hadn’t really had the opportunity while in Pompeii. 

 Just as he suspected, he found the Doctor in the control room, his pinstripe suit jacket had been removed, along with his tie and they hung neatly over the railing which surrounded the circular control panel which the Doctor was leant over with his back to Loki. It appeared that the Doctor was unaware of Loki’s presence behind him as he made no effort to acknowledge him. 

 “Doesn’t this thing come with an auto pilot?” Loki casually initiated conversation as he sneaked up beside the Doctor, who looked over his shoulder at Loki when he heard his voice and straightened his back, letting out a soft chuckle.

 “Yeah, it does,” he answered as he distractedly scratched at some stubble along his jawline, while Loki continued to scroll around the console, looking at all the controls, he let his fingers dance over them but he never touched any. “But I like to stay up here and monitor it as much as I can, make sure everything’s in order, look out for any distress calls. That sort of thing.” 

 Loki nodded to demonstrate that he was listening until he stopped three quarters of the way around the console from where the Doctor stood and finally looked back up at him to find the Doctor was already watching him closely.

 “You know you don’t have to treat me like the humans.” Loki stated, as he shoved his hands into his jean pockets, the Doctor mirrored him as he put his hands in his own. “I’m much more like you than them.”

 “Force of habit, I guess.” The Doctor shrugged apologetically. “I’ve been travelling with humans for almost...” he squinted his eyes as he worked out the numbers in his head, “50 years now. This is my first time travelling with a God.”

 “I’m honoured to be your first.” Loki smiled proudly before he continued to silently wander around the control room while the Doctor returned to monitoring the console, every so often he glanced back up at Loki just to check he wasn’t up to no good, each time Loki would look right back at him and offer him an innocent smile. 

 “Forgive me if this sounds imprudent, but how old are you?” Loki asked, if he wanted to get to know the Doctor better he needed to start somewhere and this seem like a good place to start. 

 “I’m 904... I think? I don’t really keep count anymore.” The Doctor explained, as he leaned against the railing and crossed his legs and arms.

 “And how does someone who travels through all of time and space, getting themselves into situations like Pompeii and answers distress call, after distress call, make it to 904 years old? Are you immortal or just tremendously lucky?”

 “Ha, I’m neither of those things.” The Doctor chuckled ruefully to himself as he pushed himself off the railing to stroll around the console as he explained. “Instead of dying my body regenerates itself. All my cells burn up and I grow new ones. I’m still me but I become a complete different person. New face, new body, new personality. The only thing from my previous form which I do get to keep are my memories.”

 “Therefore that would make you a...?” He put his hand out with his palm facing up, offering the Doctor to finish the sentence.

 “Time lord.” 

 The Doctor hadn’t noticed the way Loki’s eyes slightly widened and how the curve of his lip fell into a straight line. A few moments passed and Loki had yet to respond, the Doctor looked up to check that he was even still in the room and found Loki staring at him with a pale, unmoving face. “Loki, are you alright?” 

 Loki remained still and silent and the Doctor straightened his back and drew his eyebrows together as he took a single step forward. “Loki?” This time his tone was cautious, it wasn’t too gentle but it wasn’t too abrupt, it danced on a line between the two.

 Noticing the Doctor come closer encouraged Loki to finally move, he took a step back and tilted his head forward to glare at the Doctor from under his brows, silently warning him to not step any closer. 

 The Doctor understood and increased the distance between them by taking a few steps backwards and raised his arms, with his palms facing towards Loki, to demonstrate that he meant him no harm.

 “I’m not going to hurt you. Just tell me what’s wrong and I can fix it.” The Doctor tried, his voice was assertive yet calm.

 “Time Lords maintained timelines within the universe and were in charge of the laws of time.” Loki recited, as he carefully watched the Doctor.

 “Yeah...” The Doctor slowly confirmed, though his pitch rose at the end of the word making it sound more like a question as his face grew with intriguing while he wondered where Loki was going with this and why he seemed so alarmed by it.

 “But they all died.” Loki continued, it was a statement not a question and the Doctor had to quickly disguise the pain that threatened to show on his face.

 “Yeah,” the Doctors voice slightly wavered and he cleared his throat. “I’m the only one left.” 

 “With the Lords of Time gone there was no one left to continue their work.” The Doctor remained silent and listened, as he wondered where Loki got all this knowledge from. “Until the TVA was founded. They honour and continue the work of the Time Lords. My question is, where does that leave you, Doctor?”

 Now it was the Doctors turn to fall speechless, he had followed everything Loki said up until he mentioned the TVA. There was an organisation who honoured Time Lords and continued their work, maintaining timelines and enforcing the laws of time? The Doctor wondered how he never knew about this, he believed he was the only person in the universe continuing the work of the Time Lords. 

 “The TVA?” The Doctor faintly questioned, his brows tense as he glanced at the ground.

 “The Time Variant Authority.” Loki clarified, closely reading the Doctors reaction to try and find any hint of dishonesty. 

 “Is that who you’re running from?” The Doctor asked Loki, but he remained silent, uncertain of how much he could trust the Time Lord. 

 “I’m not with them. I had no idea they even existed.” The Doctor told him honestly, looking him right in the eye with his palm resting between his two hearts. “Whatever trouble you’re in, I might be able to help. If the TVA honour my species–“

 “No.” Loki quickly rejected the Doctors offer before he could even form a proper plan. 

 “They might listen to me–“ The Doctor tried to persist.

 “No!” Loki repeated louder, “I got away from them, haven’t I? I am already free. It would be foolish to go back and try to reason with them.” 

 “A life on the run is hardly freedom.” The Doctor argued.

 Loki disagreed. Even before the TVA, Loki had never truly known what freedom felt like. Growing up a Prince on Asgard his entire life had been planned out for him, all he had to do was perform the script that had already been written but Loki had no interest in the character which he had been given. All the rules and regulations he had to follow without question made him hungry to take control and live by his own rules but in doing so he fell under the control of Thanos and as a result he was forever confined to one role, one character: the villain. 

 In an effort to escape he merely moved from one cage to another. Then he was captured by the TVA and his figurative restraints turned literal but it felt no different, confirming that he had been right all along about feeling ensnared in the life which had been chosen for him. 

 What the Doctor failed to realise was that, the very first time Loki believed he felt what others described as freedom was when you had put your hand on his shoulder and reassured him he was safe and he realised that you truly had no idea who he was. You held no preconceived notions about him, there was no one you expected him to be. 

 For once Loki had the opportunity to discover who he truly was without the influence of other people’s ideas of him, which he had accepted would never change no matter how much he tried so he gave up trying and became what people saw him as but, you, you saw him as a stranger.

 The prospect of meeting someone who didn’t already know who he was was rare in Loki’s life, it seemed everyone had their own images of who he was, which made it hard for him decipher which parts actually belonged to him and which parts others had attached to him from their own imaginations. 

 Then you offered him the opportunity to stay and Loki felt as though he had finally managed to tear up the script which had been written for him and take the pen in his own hand and for the very first time in his life he had the power to decide who he wanted to be and if that’s what freedom felt like then Loki decided that he was going to cherish it for as long as possible.

 ***

 The sound of bird song and the feeling of sun light warming your face gently pulled you from your sleep. You squinted your eyes as they adjusted to the sunlight and once you could take in your surroundings you paused, forgetting where you were for a moment until the events of yesterday started playing back in your mind. 

 You were in your bedroom on the TARDIS, however you were certain that window hadn’t been there last night. You rose from the bed and walked towards it, the view showed you a clear blue sky and a vast meadow surrounded by healthy green trees while flocks of birds passed by above. It was a beautiful sight to wake up to, however that didn’t lessen your confusion over it. 

 Now freshly showered and changed into some new clothes which you found provided in the wardrobe, you were walking through the corridors of the TARDIS, letting your nose lead the way as it followed the scent of a hearty breakfast being cooked nearby. The two protein shakes had sustained you over night but now you were ready for that proper breakfast the Doctor had promised and from the smells that travelled down the corridors and lured you to the kitchen, it seemed like it wasn’t going to disappoint. 

 Once you turned through the archway which lead to the spacious kitchen which also included a dining area, you were greeted by the sight of Loki and the Doctor quietly bickering, they hadn’t yet noticed your presence so you quietly watched them as you leant against the archway.

 “You burnt the toast again.” The Doctor sighed, taking the toast and throwing it into the bin which you noticed already had a pile of burnt toast slices in it. 

 “I didn’t burn the toast, the toaster burnt the toast.” Loki argued. “I don’t know why you dragged me in here to help you cook for the humans anyway.”

 “Did you have anything better to do?” The Doctor asked as he popped some more bread slices into the toaster.

 “No.” Loki admitted honestly. 

 “Then you can pour the fresh orange juice into the serving jug. Everything’s almost ready, they’ll be here soon.” The Doctor instructed Loki, who sighed but still turned to go to the fridge but he paused halfway when he finally noticed you standing under the archway and he said your name with surprise.

 “Good morning, Loki.” You greeted him kindly as you moved into the kitchen. 

 “Oh,” the Doctor said your name after he heard you greet Loki. “Take a seat, it’s almost done.” 

 You sat yourself down on one of the chairs at the large oak wood dining table and observed Loki and the Doctor in the kitchen.

 You noticed Loki had changed out of the casual clothes he was wearing last night when he knocked on your door to offer you his protein shake. He was now smartly dressed in a dark fitted suit, with an olive green waist coat paired with a crocodile green tie which was secured to his white dress shirt with a gold clip. It was the finest you had seen him dress, he looked out of place as he stood in the kitchen pouring juice into a jug.

 The Doctor was dressed in pretty much the same outfit he wore yesterday, you wondered to yourself if it was the exact same suit or if he just owned multiple pairs.

 “Doctor.” You spoke the Time Lords name to get his attention.

 “Yeah?” He glanced up at you from where he was buttering some toast.

 “This morning I woke up to a window in my room that wasn’t there last night.” You told him, hoping he could offer you some insight.

 “It’s an artificial window,” he explained, “I turn on the feature when I’m travelling with humans, since the TARDIS has no windows some can find it quite claustrophobic but I can turn off the feature if you don’t like it.” 

 “No, no. I like it,” you quickly told him. “It’s nice, thank you.”

 The Doctor gave you a small smile to acknowledge your thanks.

 “No one talk to me. I need coffee.” The unmistakable sound of your auntie drew all three pairs of eyes in the room to Donna as she shuffled into the kitchen, she was dressed in a fluffy white dressing gown and slippers and her red hair was pulled up into a messy bun.

 “Coffee pot is there, help yourself.” The Doctor pointed to the counter where there stood a pot of black coffee.

 “Thanks.” Donna mumbled through a yawn.

 Your attention was drawn to Loki when he placed two full plates, filled with a variety of breakfast foods down onto the table.

 “You look nice today.” You told him and heat rose to your cheeks when Loki’s eyes met yours and his lips curled up at the edges.

 “I’m glad we agree.” Loki stood straight and tugged on his blazer where it hugged him snuggly around his waist. “It took me forever to find something decent in the Doctors closets.”

 The Doctor fetched over the rest of the plates and took a seat on the opposite side of the table to you, Donna sat beside him cradling her mug of coffee and Loki moved around the table to take a seat beside you, the same foresty and vanilla scent filled the air around him. 

 “I could get used to this.” Donna commented as she started scooping food from the buffet in the centre of the table onto her empty plate.

 “Don’t, I just haven’t eaten in a while, thought it was about time.” The Doctor warned her around a mouth full of bacon.

 “What’s the plan for today, Doctor?” You asked as you picked up a hash brown.

 “I was thinking I could set the controls to random and see where it takes us.” The Doctor offered. “A mystery tour! We could end up on any planet, anywhere, anywhen, in the whole, wide universe.” 

 “You mean, we could end up on an alien planet?!” Donna gasped, and it was hard to tell whether she was excited or terrified.

 “Time and space travel, consequently, yeah, I think our chances of landing on an alien planet are relatively high.” Loki sarcastically replied, while he picked at a croissant.

 “Can we leave him behind?” Donna directly asked the Doctor.

 “Hey, play nice you two.” The Doctor ordered them like a fed up father.

 ***

 “Earth?” Donna whined. “All that just to end up back on earth? And it’s pissing it down.” 

 You had all eagerly piled out the TARDIS to see what awaited you on the other side of the double doors, the last thing any of you expected was to end up in a rundown alleyway on earth during a rainstorm.

 “No, no.” The Doctor smiled, the only one out of all four of you who still looked enthusiastic while you, Loki and Donna all glared at him while the rain poured down on you. “This is New Earth!”

 “I don’t care if it’s brand, spanking New Earth, it’s cold and it’s wet and we’re surrounded by rubbish!” Donna complained, as she wrapped her arms around her torso to protect herself from the elements.

 “I think I just saw a rat.” Loki added.

Donna let out a ear piercing screech as she leaped into the air in fright.

 “Come on! Where’s your sense of adventure?” The Doctor tried to hype you all up.

 “Doctor, a cold and wet, rat infested alleyway isn’t exactly what I would call my idea of an adventure.” You told him, and his smile dropped when he looked at all three of you and saw your miserable faces.

 “Fine,” he begrudgingly caved in with a sigh. “Get back in the TARDIS, I’ll take us somewhere else.”

 You all simultaneously breathed a sigh of relief and began following the Doctor back into his ship one after another, with you following behind last but before you could step foot through the doors you felt an arm grab you around your waist and pull you backwards. You felt a sudden falling sensation, as if the arm had dragged you straight off a cliff edge. From what you could see it looked as though you were falling through a kaleidoscope. All this barely lasted two seconds, as all of a sudden you once again felt the solid ground beneath your feet. Your heart was hammering in your chest like a woodpeckers beak against a tree, as you patted down your body just to make sure everything arrived with you since you were pretty certain you had just teleported. 

 With wide eyes you looked around the dimly lit basement which had paint chipping off its walls and was filled with an unsettling  scent of chemicals. In the background you could hear the sound of a party coming through speakers, you discovered it was coming from a projection on one of the walls. The footage showed a beautiful blonde woman dressed in a stunning silver dress which was accessorised with expensive jewellery, all attention was on her as she elegantly glided around the room while handsome men dressed in tuxedos fawned over her.

 “Mistress! I brought you a pure-blood human.” You heard a timid voice, you immediately looked towards the direction it came from to find a small man with patterns on his pale face, hunched over like an elderly person and dressed in white scrubs.

 “Don’t be frightened, my child.” You jumped, startled by a second voice, this one feminine and aristocratic, it sounded almost identical to the one that belonged to the elegant woman in the projected footage. For a moment you didn’t realise where it came from but then you noticed the sheet of skin with a face attached to it. The skin was tethered to a metal frame like a trampoline and you gasped in horror at the sight.

 “Well done, Chip. You have delivered me a truly fine specimen.” The talking piece of skin praised the cowering man, who you assumed was her servant. 

 “Come closer, my child. Let me get a proper look at you.” She tried to tempt you towards her but you weren’t an idiot.

 “I think I’ll just stay right here, thanks.” You refused, going as far to take a few steps backwards.

 “Suit yourself.” The skin smiled to herself before her eyes shifted from you to the projection. “I remember that night, that was the last time anyone told me I was beautiful.” 

 You watched the footage as a man kissed the back of her hand and you heard him call her Cassandra.

 “After that, it all became such hard work.” Cassandra continued. “But I’ve not been idle. Tucked away down here I finally developed a solution to all my problems.” 

“And what’s that?” You were afraid to ask.

 “Chip, activate the psychograft!” Cassandra ordered her humble servant.

 Instantly your arms were immobile as an electric force bound them to a barrier which you hadn’t realised you had stepped into, no matter how hard you tried to pull free, your arms wouldn’t budge.

 “Cassandra, what are you doing?” You gasped mid-sentence as a circle of light surrounded you.

 “Moving on! New life, new body, new me!” Cassandra cheered and a gold essence evaporated from her skin and travelled through the air towards you. 

 Your chest tightened as you realised what was about to happen as the sparkling gold cloud reached you, it sank into your chest through your skin and flesh, once it was all inside you the force restraining you vanished and your limp body collapsed to the floor. Your head smacked against a loose pipe as gravity pulled you into it’s hard embrace.

 ***

 You had been right behind Loki when you were taken, which mean he had heard you yelp in shock when you felt the arm wrapped around your waist which made him turn to see what prompted such a reaction, only to watch you vanish into thin air right before his eyes.

 He called your name, in the tone of a question, into the now empty alleyway which was useless since you were already gone but it caught the attention of Donna.

 “What’s wrong?” She turned to Loki after hearing the confusion in his tone when he spoke your name.

 That’s when the Doctor looked up from the ships console, his own brows furrowed with concern as he looked between Donna and Loki.

 The Doctor realised you were the only one who wasn’t present and asked where you were, though his question was more of a statement to bring attention to your lack of presence.

 “Someone grabbed her and then they vanished.” Loki explained. 

 “What... what do you mean ‘vanished?’” Donna looked at Loki in disbelief, not trusting the mischievous God, she rushed back towards the doors and stepped back out into the rain shouting your name into the alleyway, her voice reverberated off of the walls.

 “It must have been a short range teleport, like a vortex manipulator.” The Doctor concluded. “Nasty and cheap.” He added in a barely coherent mumble. 

 He was already rushing around the console tempering with all sorts of switches in a seemingly random order. “If I can hone in on its signal, maybe I can follow its last route.”

 “Got it!” He announced only a few moments later. 

 “Donna!” The Doctor yelled towards the double doors of the TARDIS.

 “What is it, do you know where they went?” Donna came running back into the TARDIS, freshly wet from the rain.

 “I found the signal which was left behind by the teleportation device they used, I set the TARDIS controls to follow its last route. Hold on.” With that the Doctor pulled down the leaver and everyone knew to hold on tight during this part as tremors shook the whole TARDIS. 

 Loki and the Doctor held onto opposite sides of the console while Donna clung to the railing beside the doors. It didn’t take long for the tremors to subside as a wheezing sound filled the control room signalling that the TARDIS was landing. Once the ship fell silent Donna rushed out the doors without hesitation, ignoring the Doctor as he called her name and ran after her.

 Donna cried your name as soon as she saw you collapsed on the floor, then she noticed the creature with patterns on his face crouched over you.

 “Get away!” Donna yelled at Chip as she rushed to your side, she fell to her knees beside you and harshly pushed the creature away and he fell on his back before he quickly scurried away to cower in a corner as the Doctor came running out the TARDIS, followed by Loki. 

 Donna made room for the Doctor as he knelt beside her and scanned his sonic screwdriver over your body, while Donna stroked your hair, her eyes began filling with tears.

 “She’s okay.” The Doctor reassured Donna as he studied his screwdriver, Donna let out a sob of relief and wrapped your limp hand between both of hers and held it against her heart. 

 “Loki, take her back into the TARDIS. I’m going to take a look around here.” The Doctor instructed, while he glanced around the dull basement. 

 The Doctor moved, allowing Loki to take his place, Donna moved slightly to give him enough room to scoop you into your arms.

 “Be careful.” Donna told him, Loki’s brows pulled together, ready to snap at the woman, he was already helping, when he didn’t have to, she didn’t have to make him sound incompetent while he did so but as he turned to Donna ready to unleash his pent up frustration, he saw her eyes weren’t focused critically on him but they were filled with concern over you as they were trained on you unconscious form and Loki realised that she wasn’t nagging him, she was only worried about you. The tension left his brows and his eyes softened as he gave Donna a small nod and secured his hold on you. 

 Donna held the TARDIS door open and Loki carried you through, once they were both in the control room Loki continued walking towards the corridors which lead deeper into the ship.

 “Where are you going?” Donna fret, expecting him to have put you down on the floor of the control room.

 “I’m taking her to her room, her bed will be more comfortable than the floor.” Loki explained without stopping, he recalled how uncomfortable it was when he awoke on the floor of the control room, despite the fact you tried to offer him some comfort by resting his head in your lap. 

 It had sent an unfamiliar feeling through his chest that you had concerned yourself over his comfort. He could count the amount of people on one hand who would ever willingly rest his head in their lap and those people were Thor and his mother, everyone else either simply wouldn’t care or would be far too afraid of him to ever allow themselves to get that close.

 Since you had concerned yourself with his comfort and he was aware of how uncomfortable the TARDIS floor was, he thought it was only fair that he, too, saw to it that you were comfortable. 

 He was never one for concerning himself over other people’s needs, likely due to the fact he always felt as though no one ever cared about his but as soon as he felt cared about by you, he found himself considering your needs, whether it was intentional or not. 

 When the Doctor had handed the three of you protein shakes he knew immediately that he had no use for it, so he took it back to his room and dumped it on the bed as he went to shower with the intention of leaving it untouched. As he showered, no matter how much he tried to think about anything else, he kept thinking about the way he heard your stomach growl when you were stood next to him in the corridor and how he had something which could diminish your hunger, that he had no use for, so the logical thing to do was to give it to you, since you clearly needed it. 

 Just because it was the logical thing to do didn’t mean Loki was going to do it, at least that’s what he told himself, but as he started to get dressed in some comfortable clothes he found in the wardrobe, his eyes kept glancing over at the discarded bottle on the bed. 

 In the end he concluded that since he was planning to talk to the Doctor, meaning he would inevitably pass by your room on the way, he would knock on your door and leave the bottle on the floor for you to find while he quickly made himself scarce. 

 Of course things didn’t go to plan and he found himself still stood at your door once you opened it.

 Once he made it to your bedroom he gently placed you on your bed, over the top of your duvet, making sure your pillow was under your head and then stepped away to let Donna sit beside you.

 Loki paused halfway between the bed and the door, wondering if he should stay or go, he nervously fidgeted with his fingers. You had stayed with him when he was unconscious but you already had Donna, she was your auntie, you didn’t need him he decided so he turned on his heel and stepped towards the door.

 “You don’t have to go.” Donna offered, when she heard his footsteps, he looked at her from over his shoulder. 

 Loki considered this for a moment before he finally walked over to an armchair in your room and sat on it with his legs spread and his elbows resting on his knees. 

 “Moisturise me.” Donna and Loki sat up when they heard you mumble and you began to come around.

 “Moisturise? Moister... oh water? You want water?” Donna tried to work out what you meant.

 “Moisturise me.” You repeated, still half unconscious.

 “I’ll get you some water, don’t worry. I’ll be right back.” Donna promised you as she stood up and rushed out the room, leaving you alone with Loki.

 When your eyes finally pushed themselves open, they only saw a plain white ceiling which was far too clean to belong to the basement, which is the last place you remember being, so you came to the conclusion that someone had moved you. You wanted to sit up but when you tried to command your body to move, it wouldn’t, you begun to panic wondering if you had become paralysed but then you sat up without even trying, it was like an invisible force moved your body for you. Immediately you felt a pressure build in your skill, like your brain was being compressed. 

 You heard Loki’s voice say your name and the invisible force allowed you to see him as he stood from the armchair. You were in your bedroom, on the TARDIS, relief filled you as you looked at Loki’s familiar face and you wanted to smile and run over to him and tell him what happened but instead your body remained sat on the bed.

 “Yes... that’s who I am.” Cassandra replied to him, using your voice but you could hear yourself, you didn’t sound right you spoke with a upper-class accent that didn’t belong to you.

 “And you’re a tall, handsome stranger.” Cassandra dragged your eyes down Loki’s body with no concern about being subtle and if you were in control of your own body your cheeks would’ve been burning hot by now.

 “I’m not a stranger, you know who I am.” Loki responded with a confused tilt of his head.

 “Tell me again.” Cassandra prompted him, she made your voice low and breathy as she pressed your palms against your mattress and leaned your body towards the man who stood at the edge of your bed while she innocently looked up at him from under your lashes.

 “Loki of Asgard, God of Mischief.” Loki couldn’t resist answering, his own voice growing deeper as he believed his title appealed to you and that’s why you wanted to hear him say it.

 “A God?” Cassandra gasped as she made you move onto all fours and slowly begin crawling to the edge of the bed until you were knelt right before the God.

 “That’s right.” Loki answered breathily, his eyes never leaving you as Cassandra moved your hands to grasp Loki by the lapels of his jacket and pulled him closer, he moved without protest.

 “Does that make you immortal?” Cassandra whispered, your lips almost brushing his from how close your faces were and she continued to peer at him from under your lashes while he looked down at you with hooded eyes which kept glancing towards your lips, Cassandra lifted them into a smirk.

 “It does.” Loki answered, his voice so deep it was practically a growl and Cassandra made you moan as she suddenly forced you to tighten your fists around Loki’s lapels and pull him down until his lips smacked with yours. Cassandra moved your arms from Loki’s lapels to around his shoulders and made your fingers dig into his long, dark hair grasping a strong hold so his head wouldn’t move away from yours. 

 You heard Loki let out a deep moan and his hands grasped your hips and pulled them flush with his own. As Cassandra made you continue kissing him you felt the unbearable pressure in your head begin to disappear.

 You hadn’t noticed that the door to your bedroom had opened until you heard the sound of a glass smash.

 “What the hell?!” Donna cried, immediately Loki let go of your hips and without his strong hold supporting you, you felt your whole body go weak as you collapsed back onto the bed but you noticed as you fell back you moved your own arm to brace your fall. Experimentally you waved your other arm around in front of your face to confirm you were once again in control of your own movements.

 Then reality hit you as you realised what Donna had just walked in on but before you could even begin to try and explain you heard loud footsteps echoing through the corridor as they ran towards your bedroom.

 “Donna!” You could hear the Doctor shouting, before you saw him run through the open door of your bedroom.

 “Cassandra, get out–“ The Doctor yelled towards you his face full of fury but his foot slipped on the water from the glass Donna had dropped and he went flying to the floor.

 “Doctor?!” Donna gasped and rushed to help him up as he groaned in pain from the impact.

 “Donna, that’s not your niece!” The Doctor warned Donna. 

 “What do you mean? Of course, she is.” Donna argued with the Doctor, who was finally back on both feet.

 “She’s been possessed by Cassandra.” The Doctor explained, looking Donna straight in the eye as he held his hands on both her shoulders to convey how serious he was. “She’s the last surviving human and she refuses to die, she’s trying to use your nieces body as a vessel.”

 “I’m me again!” You tried to explain.

 “Get out of her now, Cassandra!” The Doctor ordered.

 “She already has,” you attempted to explain again. “She left me after she made me kiss Loki.”

 All eyes in the room fell on the God who was checking himself out in the floor length mirror beside your wardrobe. When he realised the room had fell silent and felt everyone’s attention on him, he turned and looked at you all with a smirk and then his eyes landed on the Doctor.

 “Hello, Doctor.” Cassandra greeted the Time Lord flirtatiously, through Loki. “Long time no see, and it looks like we both got new faces.” 

[fanficflaneuse]

Princess Charming And The Gentleman in Distress

Index

A/N: I wrote this for my beautiful friend @the-hufflefluffwriter​ who loves Lucissa and helped me explore this ship. I loved writing this and I hope you like it as well <3

Lucius x Narcissa 

Word count: 1530 

Summary: Narcissa asks Lucius on a date. 

Ever since he had gotten to Hogwarts, Lucius Malfoy walked about the school grounds like a dandy. He was handsome and intelligent, qualities he knew he possessed and was not afraid to flaunt them in and out of class. He kept mostly to himself and talked to a very selected few. This rubbed most students the wrong way, as they assumed the was just another stuck up, entitled pureblood.

Which he was, to an extent.

Lucius was raised to be the perfect heir of a long line of (mostly) pure blooded wizards and witches, after all. He behaved with the propriety and decorum he was expected to, but that was not the reason why he wouldn’t engage with most people.

In reality, he knew he wasn’t half as charming as he imagined himself to be. He could get really dorky about things he was passionate about, like potion making or reading. He was an expert in lots of random things. He knew the events of the XVI century’s witch hunts and Anne Boleyn’s biography by heart. He loved animals, especially peacocks and learned every fact about them. He was kind-hearted, sensitive and open to new ideas, characteristics his father scorned.

Through the years, Lucius had curated an image of perfection he wasn’t willing to lose. And he wasn’t going to let anyone use his true colours against him like his father did.

So, as he walked to the prefects’ carriage, his shiny new badge pinned to his robes, he procured to maintain his composure. Nobody could’ve guessed how proud and excited he was about his new position. His mask of poise fell for a minute when he saw who the other Slytherin prefect was.

Narcissa Black was probably the most popular girl in their year. She was beautiful and dignified, with the aristocratic flair that accompanied her last name. She was also brilliant and had a way with people that made her the centre of attention wherever she went. She was a beater and the star of the Slytherin quidditch team. Narcissa laughed and the world stopped to listen. She was everything Lucius tried to convey and wasn’t.

They had never talked to each other. Narcissa had a lot of suitors, but the only two boys she really talked to apart from her teammates were Rodolphus and Rabastan Lestrange, who dated her older sisters.

As he sat next to her, one single thought crossed his mind: Salazar, this is going to be very, very awkward.

…

“So, are you really thinking about filling your manor with albino peacocks?” she asked, laughter in her voice.

“Of course! They are beautiful, noble creatures. Once I’m the owner, I’ll have them everywhere,” he answered humorously and yet dead serious.

“What a joy to whoever marries you, Malfoy.”

As the months went by, Narcissa and Lucius struck up a very particular friendship. Little by little, he opened up to her. She was endeared by every arbitrary piece of knowledge he had to share with her. She loved how he listened intently to whatever she had to say and he’d ask real questions without ever being nosy. Narcissa found someone who understood her insecurities, someone who not only valued her wittiness but always had a perfect comeback for her. They were overly dramatic together, balancing the etiquette demanded by their families with playfulness.

Their nightly rounds suddenly became the highlight of their weeks. Every day, Lucius would try to find more creative ways to flirt. As the friendship grew, so did his attraction for Narcissa and he was dying to ask her out.

“That could be you, you know?” he said smugly.

Narcissa looked at him, an eyebrow raised. She knew Lucius liked her; he wasn’t subtle at all. And she liked him back, but she knew better than to show him that. Her sisters had taught her well.

“Oh, I know that approach too well, Malfoy. My mother warned me about guys like you.” She crossed her arms playfully.

“Oh, really? So, she warned you about handsome, intelligent and absolutely talented guys like me?” he shot back.

Narcissa laughed, a full-blown laugh that left her breathless. Lucius felt satisfied.

“No, you fool. She told me about those men, too eager to get a proper lady for a wife and a line of mistresses and bastards on the side,” she said dramatically.

It was Lucius’ turn to look at her as though she had gone mad. “And I am one of those?”

“Definitely.”

“Cissa, I can count with one hand the amount of people I talk to. If anything, you are the one who might be searching for a proper gentleman for a husband and a line of lovers on the side,” he countered.

“Not going to lie, I definitely like that idea. The swap of gender roles sounds refreshing,” she beamed back.

He shook his head as a smile played on his lips. “You’re going to be the death of me, Narcissa Black.”

Narcissa smiled. They were already walking back to the Slytherin common room. She knew everything her sisters had told her about not showing too much interest. Andromeda was particularly adamant about this; she had shown the slightest bit of interest for Rabastan and he acted smug for months before asking her out. But she wondered how long she’d have to wait before Lucius made a move. Narcissa didn’t know many more nights of playful banter she could take. Patience wasn’t her forte, as much as her father told her it was the most important quality to cultivate.

Her heart was beating fast on her chest when they arrived to their common room. She decided to get over with it already.

“Cissa.”

“Take me to Hogsmeade next weekend,” she blurted out. Her tone was demanding, not allowing the least beat of doubt to show on her features.

Lucius nodded slowly, not able to disguise his surprise at her bravery.

…

Lucius offered his arm to Narcissa, who linked it with hers. They were very close to each other, enough for her to notice how her date was shivering. It was snowing as they walk to Hogsmeade. Narcissa took the necessary precautions when she chose her garments for the day. She looked beautiful, as always, but she was also properly dressed for the weather. Lucius, on the other hand, had sacrificed comfort for style and now he was freezing to the bone and pretending like everything was fine.

Narcissa could tell he couldn’t wait to arrive at Madam Puddifoot’s and get his hands on steaming cup of tea. She decided it was her moment to act gallantly; she had asked him out, after all. She took off her green scarf and put it around his neck. Once again, Lucius was taken aback by her attitude, but he couldn’t deny the scarf made a big difference.

They smiled at each other sweetly, but she knew she couldn’t let this opportunity pass. She was loving the whole “princess charming and gentleman in distress” situation.

“You know, Malfoy? I love seeing you in my clothes.”

Lucius’ face was already too red from the cold for Narcissa to notice the blush, so he decided to play along with her. “You’ve seen nothing, Black. I’d look fabulous in one of your skirts.”

She giggled. “That confidence makes me think it wouldn’t be the first time you wear someone’s skirt.”

“It would be,” he said, “I’m just so handsome I can pull anything off.”

Narcissa rolled her eyes playfully.

“Your confidence, on the other hand, makes me think it isn’t the first time a guy uses your clothes,” he retaliated.

“Oh, it’s definitely not the first time,” she said offhandedly, noticing how Lucius’ confident smile vanished from his beautiful face. “My cousin Sirius looks so pretty in my dresses. You have no idea!”

Lucius snorted. He pushed the door to Madam Puddifoot’s. A tinkle announced their arrival. The place was tacky and over the top, with ribbons and frills in every possible pastel colour. It was, anyhow, classier than the Three Broomsticks and Lucius had wanted to take her on the very best date possible.

As they sat down, Lucius inched forward and whispered something that could’ve probably scandalized any other proper lady he knew: “You’d look great in my clothes, Black.”

“Oh, Malfoy,” she retorted, her smile hinting an incredibly witty response, “you’ll have to go to hell and back before I wear your clothes.”

…

Lucius woke up to an empty bed. He sat up, scanning the room in search of his wife. He noticed sounds coming from the bathroom and laid back, waiting for Mrs. Malfoy to emerge. Narcissa came back to their bed wearing Lucius’ robe. He smiled at the sight and open his arms for her. She gladly complied and snuggled to her husband.

“You know, Cissa?” whispered Lucius, never missing the chance to mess with his wife.

“Yes?”

“Going to hell and back wasn’t half as bad as I thought it would be,” he teased.

Narcissa filled the room with the wholehearted chortles only reserved for her husband and Lucius couldn’t feel any happier.

[dawnrider]

And a Howl's Moving Castle retelling that's a mashup of the book and the animated film with a twist emerges from the bowels of the vault...

The main floor of the castle was silent aside from the occasional pop of wood from the hearth as nearly silent footsteps made their way toward the door.  A spider dropped from an eave and swung precariously from its invisible strand of silk, a tiny acrobat dancing in the breeze that always seemed to slip in through the cracks.  “Is this really the life you intend to lead?”  Howl frowned at the fire demon snapping and crackling at him from the ashes piled high in the fireplace.  He had been on his way out when his friend’s words halted him mid-step.  “You can’t keep living like this, Howl.  There’s a reason your heart is here and not in your chest and you’ll never get it back if you can’t find someone to…”

    “What is it you think I’m doing, Calcifer?” he responded in a deadly voice the demon recognized all too well.  The wizard watched the flames out of the corner of his eye, catching the flickering that indicated the mouthy fire was thinking hard.  He knew why it was he was concerned but he couldn’t help feeling frustrated with his companion.  He was the one doing all the work it took to get the curse lifted.  Calcifer just moved the castle about most days.  “I’m looking,” he finished in a softer though still angry tone.

    Calcifer looked more than a little skeptical.  “No.  You’re playing.  Don’t think I don’t know about all the girls you’re messing with.  You’ve never once tried to stick with one for longer than a week.  How do you think you’re going to find one capable of…”

    Howl interrupted him sharply.  “I haven’t found the right one yet,” he hissed, whipping his head around and taking a few more steps in the direction of the door.  He didn’t have to take this from the fire demon, he had better things to be doing, more important things.  The sound of tiny footsteps on the stairs stalled him yet again and he felt Markl’s wide gaze on his back.  “Markl, look after Calcifer while I’m gone and don’t let anyone in today.”  His apprentice nodded, quietly assenting when he realized his master couldn’t necessarily see him.  “Work on your disguise spell and that wind salt we looked at yesterday.”  His instructions given, the blonde wizard left the castle without looking back.  ‘The nerve!  Calcifer knows I’m trying.’  His look must have been intense because several people in the streets avoided him.  Though they may have recognized him and chose to stay out of his way on principle alone.  Howl continued to grumble silently to himself, walking the streets of Market Chipping in deep contemplation.  It was known that there were many pretty women in this town and he planned to explore the wide variety of faces that might hold the key to his salvation.

    With that thought in mind he remembered to keep his head up, looking about him in order to search the sea of people around him for just such a face.  There were many good looking women but most of them were hanging on the arm of some finely dressed dandy or a sharp looking soldier, laughing and blushing as he said something undoubtedly stupid, which both seemed to consider very witty.  Howl wasn’t particularly impressed.  He wasn’t looking for an insipid girl who simply found him charming because he was good looking or because he was the dreaded Wizard Howl.  Granted his ego tended to enjoy the company of such women, but he knew, deep down, that they would never be capable of lifting his curse.  He’d run into so many of the type already that he knew which to avoid.  A detour down an alleyway took him into the area more dotted with taverns than shops, dingy and smelling of stale beer.  Howl knew it was more than a little unlikely that he would find the kind of girl he was looking for in this part of town but found himself drawn forward anyway.  The sound of voices caught his attention, quickening his steps when the delicate tremor of a young woman’s voice told him the brutish tones that responded were making her uncomfortable.  ‘Time to play hero,’ Howl thought as a particularly devilish smirk lit his mouth.

    Just as he had suspected, a young lady seemed to be cowering as two soldiers of the king’s army hovered over her.  Their intonation told the eavesdropping man that they were attempting to flirt with her but the scent of alcohol made it clear that they had no intention of being polite about it.  ‘Honestly, so early in the afternoon…’ he thought scornfully.  Howl moved in closer, hearing the girl tell them that she was not lost at all and only wanted to get where she was going undisturbed.  “There you are my dear, I’ve been looking all over for you,” Howl stated gently as he slipped his arm over her slight shoulders.  Stiffening under the wizard’s touch, the young woman stared slightly wide-eyed at the soldiers in front of her, both of whom were glaring wholeheartedly at the blonde man now keeping them from their prize.  He steered her past the two men and carefully strolled with the girl under his arm.  “I don’t mean to frighten you,” he told her when she remained completely tense in his hold, “it’s only that you seemed to be in a spot of trouble back there.”

    The young woman nodded faintly.  “T-thank you,” she whispered shyly.  “Are you…”  She stopped mid-question, obviously afraid to ask what she already seemed to know the answer to.  Howl had to refrain from scowling.  Already she recognized him and now he couldn’t expect her to react to him without her prejudice or admiration in the way.  “Thank you for your help, sir.  I can make my way on my own,” she said instead.  The blonde wizard nearly stumbled in surprise.  Nothing about him being the Horrible Wizard Howl?  Or something about how she’d heard he was so handsome?  Part of him disappointed, and another part of him intrigued by the prospect, Howl released her and slowly turned to face her.  There was nothing particularly special about her though she did have the kind of eyes that men tended to sail ships for… or something to that effect.  Long reddish brown hair was tucked back into a long plait, a frumpy hat sitting low over her brow, as though she were trying to hide from the world.  Her self-confidence was obviously low and Howl figured she probably had very pretty friends or sisters.  For a brief moment he thought about perhaps using the girl to meet said pretty friends or sisters then decided that would be more cruel than even his vanity would allow.

    “Allow me to at least walk you to wherever it is you’re going.  I would hate to hear that something awful had happened to you in my absence.”  Offering her his arm and capturing her hand in the crook of it before she had the chance to protest, the wizard moved them in the direction of the market and on toward the bakery where she murmured that her sister worked.  In the brighter atmosphere of the busier streets, the young woman seemed to curl even farther in on herself, tilting her head down.  “Ah my manners!  I have not yet asked you your name.”

    “Sophie, Sophie Hatter.”  She looked startled that she’d even responded, glancing fearfully at him out of the corner of her wide brown eyes.  Howl still wasn’t sure if she was afraid of him or just afraid of people in general.  After several minutes of asking her about herself and what she did for a living he decided it was more than likely a fear of people on the whole rather than of him in particular.  More than once she pressed closer in to his side as someone else passed too closely.  Howl found the action both endearing and amusing.  “This is it,” her soft voice said, pulling him from his study of her behavior.  “Thank you for your help…”

    “Jenkins, Howell Jenkins.”  The blonde man froze mid bow as he realized he’d actually given her his real full name.  He didn’t think he’d introduced himself to anyone, let alone a girl, on first meeting since he was in university.  Markl didn’t even know his real name!  “It was my pleasure my dear Ms. Hatter.  I hope that I will meet you out and about again sometime,” he said to cover his own discomfiture.  Howl decided he needed to severely analyze himself.  What on earth was wrong with him?  ‘Really, giving out my name when I’ve only just met the girl?  And she isn’t even all that pretty.’  Sophie curtsied shyly, a blush adding color to her cheeks and a tiny smile on her lips.  ‘Alright, perhaps she is a little pretty,’ he conceded silently, swooping away from the bakery and the young woman in a distinct huff.  Having no intention of going anywhere near the girl again, the wizard stomped down the street in as dignified a manner as he knew how.

[minervahopebeyond]

Blood Daffodils.

Omg! This took so much work but I’m so happy to show you this chapter. I really hope you like it💕 Tell me what you thought in the comments!! I love reading them ✨

Ps. I’ve checked but sorry if you find any errors in this one.

Chapter 5: The wedding. (Part 1/3)

The fact that Granger had Obliviated her own parents and sent them off to Australia just confirmed that she was a Slytherin in disguised. Because, yes, it took a lot of bravery but the use of unregulated memory charms was prohibited for a reason.

It was an immoral act, stealing someone’s memories, it even was a last resort for the aurors... Draco thought that, in the last years, the ministry had taken too much liberty in obliviating the muggles to secure the statue of secrecy. If the stupid thing was so fragile then, clearly, there was something wrong with it, the solution wasn’t erasing muggles memories once or twice a month.

Even if Draco didn’t agree with the use of the spell, well, he understood Hermione deeply. If he could have obliviated his mother and shipped her off to Australia he would have.

This girl probably was the most cunning person he knew. How could something as random as blood had gotten in the way of  her being a Slytherin? Salazar should have been proud of Granger, wearing his house colors, and gaining points in classes, of the way that her mind worked; so focused on something until she gets it, the end justified the means.

Yes, Draco understood Hermione, and she understood him. She never questioned the bargain, never even asked about it... That was because she knew. Granger knew that if she loved someone as deep as he loved Potter, that she would had made the same choice. Because it wasn’t for selfless reasons, it was what he wanted, for Harry to be happy. The end justified the means, so Draco made something really illegal to get what he wanted, probably immoral too. Who cared, James was alive and Sirius was happy and Potter smiled almost every day. Who the fuck cared about the rules?

When Hermione told him everything, the first night that she moved to the Potter’s mansion, Draco didn’t say a thing. He didn’t looked at her with pity, she didn’t need that, he just said:

“Smart choice. They are safe, for real. That’s what matters.” Then he looked at her, lifting his chin a bit, challenging her. “No tears?”

Her brown eyes stared back, determined.

“None. I just want to win this war.”

Draco smirked and nodded.

“Sounds like a plan.”

————————

The minute he entered the burrow, he thought that <cite>it made sense</cite>. Ron was everything in that place, the walls, the smell of Molly’s cooking, the feeling of family that he found himself overwhelmed with.

The wedding wasn’t until sundown, Potter, Granger and him were there first thing in the morning. Ron has asked Draco to join them early the prior night, at Potter’s seventeen birthday. Which hadn’t been a birthday per se, because it was just them with Sirius and Mr Potter, but at least Draco got to bake him a cake even though Harry kept saying that he didn’t need anything.

“So what do you think, Ferret? Too common for you?”

Draco just kept looking around until the watch caught his eye. So useful... so warming. His father would have thought that it was unnecessary and untasteful which meant, pretty much, that the blond boy loved it.

“I think that it’s very you.” He responded smiling at him, the other boy narrowed his eyes.

“Because it smells...?” He asked, hesitant, waiting for the punch line. Draco just shook his head.

“No, weasel. Warm, cozy and kind.”

Weasley returned his smile and ruffled his blond hair playfully.

“Aww, Look at Malfoy being a big softy.”

He tried to free himself from Weasley grab but the redhead just kept on messing with his hair.

“Who is a cute little ferret?” He asked and pinched Draco’s left cheek before letting him go.

“I bloody hate you.”

“Not true, I’m your favorite Gryffindor.”

He was about to respond, when Potter made his way out of the kitchen, excusing himself, saying that he was going to greet the rest of the Weasley family; moody tone in his voice. Draco heard Hermione sighing.

"If he gets in one of those moods today, it's your turn Ronald."

"Do you want a tour?" Weasley said, ignoring Granger entirely as he started to guide him upstairs.

"Ron! Did you hear me?"

And the answer was probably yes, but Weasley was spectacularly good at playing dumb in their little Gryffindor Trio, he just kept on climbing up the stairs.

The magic around the house was incredible, the burrow wasn't an ancestral house like Grimmauld or the manor, for what Ron had told him, the Weasleys had build it up from scratch and, through the years, they added rooms as children were added to the family.

The thing that was important about living in ancestral houses was that they had souls, they connected to their owners, giving them what they needed and sharing their magic with them... It was unbelievable that, even without all that, Draco could breath in the magic that stirred through the air at the burrow.

After the blond boy had his fair share of mocking Ron for the ridiculous Chudley Cannons flag that was hung up in his room, they went downstairs to ask Mrs and Mr Weasley if they needed help preparing everything... Draco kind of hated that whenever he was honestly happy and having a good time, something seemed to ruin that. In this case, it was Potter and the she-weasel snogging in the middle of the kitchen.

 He felt frozen, he knew he needed to move but his feet seemed to be glued to the floor. The flowers were starting to choke him, just like it happened after the match, that one time when he coughed up the entire daffodil. Theodore wasn't here to save him this time, though.

To think that he actually believed that he stood a chance because of what happened last week, so fucking pathetic. He forced himself to turn around and go back to Ron's room as quick as he could. Potter was too busy shoving his tongue down Ginevra's throat to notice.

He opened the door and closed it behind him, casting a muffliato around the room before he started to force to cough. That fucking yellow flower was stuck there, he couldn't get it out. He felt his eyes burning, the tears starting to escape from his eyes... It was impossible to know if they were from the pain he was experiencing or from the very vivid image of Harry kissing her. Ginevra's hands mixing in that messy hair that he loved so much, the one that, not so many nights ago, tickled his chin as Potter rested his head on Draco's chest.

‘HE CHOSE HER AGAIN. HE CHOSE HER AGAIN. HE CHOSE HER AGAIN.'

'Yes, I'm fucking aware. You are the ones who gave me hope, you useless daffodils.'.

It wasn't coming out, it was awful. His face was getting red from the suffocation. He inhaled as deeply as he could, the air barely passed through the flower, that was stuck in his chest, to get to his lungs. Draco forced to cough out that same air. A small movement, something went up a little. ‘Fucking finally, get the fuck out'. He didn't know how long he'd been in there but the door opened as he coughed up frantically...

He had forgotten to lock the bloody door, how much worse could that day get, honestly. He lifted his gaze, fearing that,maybe, it was Potter (or hoping that it was him with his worried eyes)...

Blue widened eyes were looking at him. Weasley. He didn't know if it was worse than Potter or not. He couldn't focus on that right now. The flower. He needed the daffodil out of his windpipe. Draco forced more coughs out, blood was the first thing that came out... dripping on the wooden floor. How much longer, Merlin... Why was it hurting so much more than last time? 'Because you dared to hope. Learn your fucking lesson, Draco’

At last, when his windpipe and his throat felt like they were on fire, an entire daffodil laid before him. It's gorgeous petals were stained with his own blood, yellow and red clashing together. It was in that moment that he thought that, if the flower were a little more golden, it could be easily be a poetic representation of Potter's house.

"Holy shit, it's Harry."

Oh no.

Weasley had panic in his eyes, already taking steps back, reaching out for the bloody knob. Draco was quicker, though, he raised his wand and casted a locking spell.

"Don't you fucking dare, weasel."

He turned around, wild eyes on his face. The redhead knelt on the floor in front of him and pointed to the crime scene that laid between them.

"Are you bloody insane?? Look at this, Draco just cleaned his mouth with the back of his hand, he could see as everything fell into place in the boy's head. "Of course it's Harry, you didn't even kiss Nott until we won the cup. You disappeared. You coughed when I told you about Harry and Ginny-" Ron's rant was interrupted by his choughing. "Fuck, ferret. You need to tell him, he deserves to know."

Draco shook his head vehemently.

"No. If he rejects me, what you just saw, would only be the beggining of it. Granger agrees, you wouldn't want to upset the Mrs, would you Ronald?"

"Hermione knows? And she hasn't told Harry?" He asked in an indignant tone. " No. I can't, Draco."

Fuck, he used his name. Weasley was going to throw everything away, wasn't he? Draco took a deep breath, it still burned but at least he could actually breath now.

He casted his bloody Patronus, as flashy as it was, he needed Granger here now.

"Find Hermione, tell her that its bloody urgent. We are in Ron's room and she is the only one allowed in." The lion offered a nod before running off to find the girl.

"Unlock the door, Malfoy."

"I don't think so, Weasley."

"THIS IS INSANE! YOU ARE DYING AND THE SOLUTION IS RIGHT DOWN THE STAIRS."

"Are you stupid? He has to <cite>love me back</cite>. He was just snogging his redhead princess in the middle of the fucking kitchen. Why can't he do this things in private, for Salazar's sake? I was perfectly capable of not kissing Theodore in public." He hissed, the scene replaying in his mind. He needed to stop thinking."I miss Theo so much, fuck."

Ron was looking at him, worried eyes on his face.

"This explains so much...” The redhead passed his hands over his face. “Did he know?"

"Theodore?" The boy nodded. "He has known since we were like twelve... Not that I've ever told him, but yes, he knew... That was kind of the reason why we fought when I ran away, after the department of mysteries, he knew that I had done it for him...”

Suddenly, the door was opening. Draco knew that Granger would unlock it with ease. The blond boy vanished the daffodil off the floor, trying to hide away any kind of evidence. Just in case.

The girl entered quickly and closed the door behind her.

“What happened? I was with Harry when I heard your message.” She hissed. “I had to make up an excuse! He thinks that we are talking about his birthday present.” Draco rolled his eyes.

“See, Weasley? Now we have to get Potty a present. This is entirely your fault.”

Ron ignored him as he turned to face Hermione.

“You knew it was Harry? This is really bad Mione. He will hate you for keeping this from him. I’m not going to be a part of it.” Then he turned to Draco. “Eventually, that door will open and I’m going to tell him, don’t think I won’t.”

“I know, weasel. That was kind of the point of calling her here.” He gestured in Ron’s general direction as he continued. “Work your magic, Granger. I’m not good with those spells.”

The redhead widened his eyes as he tightened the grip of his wand. He wouldn’t attack Hermione, not in a million years. The girl, on the other hand, was looking at Draco as if his request were the most illogical thing she had heard.

“I’m not obliviating him!! Ronald, you can’t tell Harry. I don’t care if he hates us, he was just telling me about his kiss with Ginny, he needs time”.

“Are you kidding me?? MALFOY DOESN’T HAVE TIME. Maybe, if we tell him, he would at least try to date him!” And then, he seemed to remember something because he turned to Draco looking furious. “Harry was your impossible thing to get? I TOLD YOU SINCE LAST SUMMER THAT HE LIKES BOYS TOO, YOU HALF-WITTED EXCUSE OF A SLYTHERIN! Cunning my arse!” His wild eyes blinked repeatedly. “Oh for the love of Godric, you fell off your broom because of him, didn’t you?? You are lucky that you already have a terminal disease because I could literally kick your arse right now.”

“Come at me Weasley, I’m not telling him shit and your two options are staying silent or going back to be the good (horribly mistaken) friend that you were, like, twenty minutes ago.”

Ron glared at him. Tense silence stretched between them. He closed his blue eyes before sighing.

“If you get worse the deal is off. You scared me today, ferret. I can live without seeing you like that ever again.”

“Fine.”

“Good.”

“Then it’s settled.”

“I guess so.”

“One attempt, Ronald, and I swear-“

“I’m really trusting that you are making the right call in all of this, Mione.”

“I am.”

“She is.”

“We‘ll see.”

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

An Animorphs AU, just because.  The idea hit me and I rolled with it.

The black hole looms on every side, swallowing the horizon.  Elfangor presses cold-numb fingertips against the Time Matrix.  Loren’s floating beside him, the thing inside Alloran watching them both with terrible intent.  He thinks get me out of here.  Thinks I want to go home.  His last thought, before consciousness closes away from him in a black void, is of his family.  His scoop.  A wish flower.  A hologram.  Hope.

A being like nothing Elfangor has ever imagined sees the andalite aristh.  It sees inside his mind.

And it laughs.

Elfangor comes awake on the med table of an andalite fighter.  Not what he had expected, or intended.  There’s no sign of the humans, or of Alloran.  Instead, three andalite warriors stand over him.

«Vitals are normal.  Heartbeats are synchronized, but elevated,» the female warrior says.  She has a kit of medical supplies slung over her shoulder, and she’s watching Elfangor with the kind of naked curiosity that directs all four of her eyes his way.

«Thank you,» the captain says.  «That’ll be all for now.  I’ll let you know if anything changes.»

There’s no doubt that he’s the captain.  Nor that the other male warrior is the Tactical Officer.  It’s clear from the way that the medic salutes with her tail blade as she walks out the door, and from the slight tilt that the T.O. gives in return.

That’s all Elfangor knows.  How he got here... Where here is...

«Please identify yourself,» the T.O. says.  The use of please doesn’t disguise the sharpness of his tone.

«Aristh Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul,» Elfangor says.  «Formerly of the StarSword, although my most recent posting was aboard the Jahar.  Sir, where are the aliens who were with me?»

The captain and the T.O. exchange a glance, just a single stalk eye each.  «What was the nature of this mission, P— Aristh Elfangor?» the T.O. asks.

There’s something they’re not telling him.  It’s obvious there’s an entire conversation happening in thought-speak right now, one to which he is not privy.

«We found two aliens that had been kidnapped by skrit na,» Elfangor says, because he can’t exactly refuse an officer’s direct request.  «Arbron — my fellow aristh — and I were supposed to help Prince Alloran return the aliens to their home planet.»

«Then the Time Matrix was on Earth when you found it?» the captain asks.

Elfangor freezes.  He didn’t mention the name of the planet the aliens had come from, and he definitely didn’t mention the Time Matrix.

Several other details hit all at once.  The captain — if he even is a captain — looks barely older than Elfangor himself.  The T.O.’s posture is too close, too casual, and the captain is allowing it.  Neither one of them has introduced himself yet.

Elfangor has been trusting the captain automatically so far because — he loathes admitting it — because the captain has the same accent as Elfangor’s hometown and the same cowlick in his fur as Elfangor’s own mother, and Elfangor is so desperately homesick that he seized upon these hints of familiarity without ever thinking about why.

«Just answer the question,» the T.O. says.  The captain places a gentle hand on the T.O.’s arm.

«Sir. I...»  Elfangor rolls to stand, taking several steps away.  He salutes with his tail blade by way of apology, and then quickly drops it in submission.  His hearts are pounding.  He could be anywhere.  Anywhere.  «The humans who were with me...»

«They’re both safe on Earth,» the captain says.  «As is Alloran.»

Elfangor’s main eyes shut in shame.  «Sir.  There’s something you should know about Prince Alloran.»

Again, the captain and the T.O. exchange a glance, definitely whispering to each other in thought-speak.  «Yes?» the captain says at last.

«I failed my prince,» Elfangor says, opening his eyes, «and I failed my entire people.  Alloran has been infested by a yeerk called Esplin nine-four-six-six.»

«Oh, good,» the captain says.  «We were hoping you’d say that.»

Elfangor has jumped back, clear across the room and crouched with his tail blade snapping at the ready, faster than conscious thought.  He’d thought that Alloran’s paranoid mutterings about traitor andalites were just that, but now—

«Hey, hey, sorry, there’s no need for that.»  The captain holds up both hands in placation, a strangely humanlike gesture.  «It’s cool, Elfangor, it’s all cool.»  Now he even sounds like a human.  «I only meant that we’re glad you told us.  It means we can trust you.»

The captain takes a step forward.  Elfangor tenses to strike, and he stops moving.

«When I said Alloran’s safe, I meant that he’s no longer a controller,» the captain says.  «The yeerk inside him has been neutralized.»

«Who are you?» Elfangor demands, not lowering his tail.  «How do you know all this?»

Again, the captain and T.O. look at each other.

«Stop doing that!» Elfangor snaps, too overwhelmed to care about etiquette anymore.

«We were just deciding whether it would distress you less, or more, if we were to answer your question,» the T.O. says.  «And also debating the merits of calling Prince Estrid back in here so that she can sedate you for your own well-being.»

«Menderash is telling the truth,» the captain says.  «You taught me everything I know about tail-fighting, and half the Academy besides.  So if you chose to fight your way out of here, I doubt either one of us would be able to stop you.»

«What...»  Elfangor feels his tail lower slightly from sheer confusion.  «What...»

«You’re on board the Dome ship Intrepid,» the captain says.  «Twenty-three standard years have passed since the mission you just described.  Our Tactical Officer is Prince Menderash-Postill-Fastill.  My name is Prince Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill.»

Menderash leaves them alone.  Before he does, he presses the palm of his hand very briefly against Aximili’s cheek, an andalite kiss between lovers.  Elfangor gets his third or fourth shock of the past five minutes.  Normally a warrior, even the significant other of a captain, wouldn’t dare to show affection so openly.

Aximili registers him staring, of course, and tenses.

«You’re... not like other captains,» Elfangor comments awkwardly.

That gets Aximili to smile, eyes crinkling in a way that strengthens the resemblance to their mother.  «I served under two war-princes, both of whom taught me well.  One was considered wildly unconventional by andalite standards.»  He tilts a stalk at Elfangor.  «The other one wasn’t an andalite at all.»

Elfangor blinks.  «Things really have changed while I was gone.»

«Not that much, it would seem.  Prince Jake is...»  Ax makes a see-saw gesture with one hand, still strangely human in his mannerisms.  «The War Council does not officially recognize his position.  Any warrior who has ever seen him lead tends to hold a different opinion.  Alloran himself risked a challenge against a superior officer on Prince Jake’s behalf.»

«Alloran.»  Elfangor’s head is going to fall clean off if things get any more confusing.  «Challenged an officer.  For an alien.»

«In a way, it’s all your fault.»  Aximili’s smile turns fond.  «You’re the one who gave Prince Jake — and four other humans — the ability to morph.»

«I... why?»

«The yeerks were on Earth,» Aximili says simply.

And yes, that really does explain it all.

«The Electorate officials were angry at first,» he continues.  «But you did so much good for the war effort, it wasn’t long before they were putting up statues and naming Dome ships in your honor.»

Elfangor laughs, but stops abruptly.  «I’m dead, then.»  They don’t name Dome ships after living warriors.

Aximili goes still, realizing his error too late.  «Not before ensuring victory over the yeerks,» he says at last.  «You died honorably, doing battle to your last—»

A shudder wracks Elfangor’s body.  Of course there’s no escaping the war.  Of course not.  Of course they’ll make him fight and keep fighting, down to the very last heartbeat.  No end point.  No reprieve.  No other way.  Just a killer.  Just a tail blade and a trigger finger, and nothing in between.

Even after death, they wouldn’t let him be.  Named their war machines after him.  Taught their children to kill and die in his name.

«Elfangor...?»

«I’d like to be alone, if that’s all right,» he says.

Aximili nods.  He salutes briefly — one war-prince to another, this time — and leaves.

The next time they talk, there are a million questions.  Elfangor doesn’t know how he got here, or why he showed up without the Time Matrix.  Aximili can’t explain anything Elfangor saw before losing consciousness, but he does have more firsthand experience with time travel than Elfangor himself.  Haltingly, in fits and tangents, Aximili does his best to catch Elfangor up on everything that has happened in the years he missed.  Some of it makes no sense — Elfangor was a nothlit, and then he wasn’t — and some of it, like Arbron’s rebellion against the Yeerk Empire, fits perfectly.

Aximili gives Elfangor the free run of the Intrepid, and finds him a spare room to get him out of the med bay.  Warriors salute as they pass and call him “Prince Elfangor,” or “sir.”  The official story as recorded in the ship’s log is that he’s a castaway aristh rescued from a damaged fighter.  But the other warriors figured out Elfangor’s identity the moment he appeared unconscious in the middle of their dome, and now gossip follows him everywhere: he’s a war-prince.  A relic.  Most importantly: he’s Aximili’s little brother.  Yeah, the Aximili.

«Am I a prince?» he asks Menderash once, in a moment of weakness.

Menderash has been teaching Elfangor how to pilot.  Ten years ago, Menderash learned how to pilot by watching Elfangor.  They both try not to think about this too hard.

«Why would you ever think that you are not?» Menderash says, and then, «Eyes, Prince Elfangor.»

Elfangor sighs.  He has once again allowed his eyes to drift away from their proper position — one on the altitude, one on the engine lights, two on the viewscreen — to look down at his hands on the controls.  «I barely have any flight experience, for one,» he says.  «And the person who killed all those yeerks, won all those battles... He’s not me.  Not yet, and now not ever.  I think not, anyway.»

Menderash considers.  «You’re asking if our experiences make us who we are, or if we are born the way we will always be.»

«Um, yes.»

«I have no idea,» he says immediately, «but if you don’t stop accelerating into every takeoff like you’re being chased, then I will throw you out of the airlock.»

Elfangor flushes.  «Are you this mean to Aximili?»

«You mean when we’re alone together?»

And now Elfangor is flushing even more, half-hoping the floor will open and swallow him.

Menderash laughs.  «If I am, then I suppose you’ll have to throw me out of the airlock.»

«I’m a powerful war-prince, I guess.»  Elfangor dares to glance over at him.  «So you had better treat him right.»

«Eyes, Prince Elfangor.»  Menderash is still smiling, though.  «I’ll be sure to keep that in mind.»

There are a lot of long conversations with various authorities.  The Andalite War Council’s official opinion is that Elfangor might be the real deal but that they still refuse to acknowledge his existence, and will consider anyone attempting to use Elfangor’s identity an act of treason.  The Electorate defers to the War Council’s insistence on Elfangor’s death, but the representative they get on the phone asks for Elfangor’s autograph anyway.  The Galactic Union of Sentient Species has entirely too much interest in time travel, and also in pretending that time travel doesn’t exist and therefore Elfangor doesn’t exist.

«What are they so afraid of?» Elfangor asks Aximili, after their seventh or eighth attempt at contacting a real authority meets a dead end.  «I swore I wouldn’t tell anyone about the Time Matrix, and I mean it.  If I just said it was a sario rip from the Jahar’s engine exploding, no one would ever have to know.»

Aximili looks Elfangor over, clearly deciding how to explain something he worries Elfangor is too young to understand.  «I believe they’re most afraid of you being yourself,» he says at last.

«What?»

«You are a person,» Aximili says.  «You love human rock music.  You have more tells than a ten-day aristh when you tail-fight, and nevertheless manage to win every fight in spite of, or perhaps because of, your unconventional technique.  You almost whacked your own stalks on a low branch yesterday while feeding in the dome.  You fell in love with a human.  You snore.»  He looks out the viewscreen, sighing.  «Elfangor... War-Prince Elfangor... is a legend.  A Dome ship.  An inspiration.  A statue in our shipyard.  Prince Elfangor isn’t clumsy, or nerdy, or anything.  Because he’s not really a person at all.»

Elfangor digests that for several minutes, staring out at the stars.  He thinks he’s a little afraid of this legend.  That he’s afraid of the implications, if the legend really was just a guy like him.

Elfangor doesn’t ask what are you going to do with me.  Doesn’t tell Aximili I want to go home.  Aximili knows, and he can’t do anything about it.  He has an entire ship to run, and almost a hundred warriors to look out for.  Babysitting an aristh is no job for a captain, especially not one on perhaps the most dangerous mission left to the entire Andalite Navy.  They’re hunting an entire ship’s worth of morph-capable controllers, dodging norshk pirates, skirting the hairy edge of kelbrid space.  The other warriors on the ship, even Aximili, seem to consider the whole thing a grand adventure, and everyone seems to expect that Elfangor will want a piece of the action.  Elfangor wants to be done with the war.  It already killed him once, destroyed his life a dozen times; he wants nothing to do with chasing the last of its ragged edges.

Almost a week later, Aximili drops a call invite to Elfangor’s quarters.  It’s a z-space comm link between the Intrepid and a distant planet.

Elfangor feels a chill of unease when the link lights up.  One holo shows Aximili, but the other shows a male human with dirty-blond hair and soft grey eyes.

He doesn’t need the identifier at the bottom of the screen.  He knows who Tobias is, and Tobias knows him.  They stare at each other, at a loss.

«Why don’t you explain what you were telling me,» Ax says at last, breaking the moment.

“Oh yeah, funny story.”  Tobias shifts, shoulders hunching.  Birdlike.  “Prince Elfangor’s still legally dead.  But Alan Fangor, Yale graduate, former Microsoft programmer, resident of the state of California?  We looked into it, and that guy’s still got a Social Security number, a bank account, and a slightly-expired driver’s license.  He owes some back taxes, but we could handle that.”

Elfangor looks at him and Aximili both.  «You’re suggesting...?»

“Only if you want to,” Tobias says quickly.  “And only for as long as you want.  And obviously there’s no reason you would want to.  It was just a suggestion.”

I want, Elfangor thinks, to be anywhere — anywhere at all — that isn’t a sunsforsaken battleship.

He looks at Aximili.  «How far are we from Earth?»

In the shuttle on the way down to the planet, Elfangor thinks he can see some of his own bad influence.  Aximili’s piloting technique is atrocious — he looks at the controls, ignores warning parameters, uses incorrect commands — and yet the inter-atmosphere transition and eventual landing are some of the smoothest Elfangor has ever experienced.  Aximili is talented, even more so for being halfway self-taught.

There are over a dozen humans standing on the landing pad when the ship sets down in the courtyard of the military base, but two step forward from the crowd.  Up close, Tobias looks to be about Elfangor’s own age in human years.  The woman beside him is familiar and yet not, wearing the middle-aged version of Loren’s features.  Elfangor feels his knees lock, and almost stumbles in the doorway.  He’s not sure he can do this.

“Ax-Man!” Tobias says.  “Only gonna be gone for six of our months, huh?”  He spreads strong human arms.  “You haven’t forgotten what an Earth month is, have you?”

Aximili steps past Elfangor, rushing to perform a human embrace with Tobias that involves briefly squeezing their arms around each other.  «You are at greater risk of such an error than I am, my friend.  You know perfectly well that the delay was unavoidable.»

“We’ll overlook it this time.”  Tobias smiles.  “Anyway, welcome to Zone 91, a place that you have definitely never been before under any circumstances.”

«Of course not.»  Aximili is smiling as well.  «Entering Zone 91 without the proper human authorization would have been illegal, and also ill-advised.»

Shorms, Elfangor thinks, watching them.  He’s surprised by a pang of envy.  They’re so clearly family to each other, his son and his brother, and he’s only just met them both.

Loren’s watching them both from across the way.  The longing on her face, he realizes, is just the same.

There’s paperwork.  A surprising amount.  The human authorities are apparently willing to tolerate his existence on Earth, but only after a frustrating amount of documentation. Tobias opts out of all of it, simply disappearing into the sky above during a moment of distraction.

It’s strange, doubly so, when Elfangor remembers that Tobias is demorphing rather than simply morphing to become a bird.  He’s heard what everyone says about nothlits on the homeworld — and he’d believed it, too.  Believed that Arbron was better off dead than taxxon.  And yet Arbron had outlived him by over five years.  Had done more to end the war than Elfangor himself had ever accomplished.

And Tobias is... Not what he’d expected, once he’d gotten over the triple surprise of you have a son — he’s an alien — he’s a nothlit.  Tobias acts as ambassador between the hork-bajir and human authorities.  Tobias has lives in two worlds — three?  Four?  He has a house in a human city, and a meadow out in the wilds.  He becomes an identical copy of Aximili and they race each other across the desert outside, arriving wild and breathless as children while Elfangor and Loren take the far more sedate ride back to civilization in the Army transport Jeep.

For the first time — or maybe the second — Elfangor thinks he can see the appeal in giving up andalite shape forever.

Tobias becomes human again once they’re dropped off, morphing with the same breathtaking speed that Aximili demonstrates.  He leads them through the downtown of a city that has skrit na hawking exotic wares on street corners, gedds shouldering through its crowds, hork-bajir hopping between the roofs of skyscrapers, andalite tourists clustered outside an establishment called Krispy Kreme.  Elfangor looks in all directions at once like a tourist himself, startled that such a place could exist.

“Alientown, California,” Loren comments, when she sees him looking.  “Not its real name, but that’s what everyone calls it.”

«We don’t have anything like this.  Anywhere in the galaxy,» Elfangor says.  «Not where — when — I come from.»

“Blame the Animorphs,” she says, raising her eyebrows at where Tobias and Ax push ahead.  “Although I guess Alloran was pretty instrumental in negotiating the treaties as well.”

Elfangor shakes his head.  He’s never going to stop being surprised, he’s concluded.  He’ll just have to get used to a state of perpetual shock, because this is his life now.  Or he’d like it to be.

When they reach the house, Tobias barely have time to pull the front door open before two different quadrupedal aliens rush outside.  Loren laughs as the larger one rears back and starts licking her face.  Tobias dives to catch the smaller one, scooping it into his arms.  “Dude, Dude, we’ve talked about this,” Tobias croons, cradling the creature.  “You eat birds, birds eat you, it’s a bad deal all around if you don’t stay inside.  You’re an invasive species, bud.  And also really easy to spot from overhead.”

“Down, Champ.”  Loren gently shoves the other animal back onto all four paws.  “You know, I had to have an entire mostly-civil conversation with my skeevy sister’s even skeevier ex to get you that cat,” she tells Tobias.  “And this is how you repay me, by teaching my dog bad manners.”

“He’s retired.”  Tobias buries his chin in the cat’s fur.  “Bad manners and lapsed training are his prerogative.”

“Sorry,” Loren tells Elfangor, shooing both him and the dog inside.  “It’s not normally this...”  She shrugs.  “Chaotic?”

“Since when?” a different human asks, as they step inside.  She’s female, if Elfangor reads her hair and clothing correctly, and moves around using a wheeled apparatus with a small motor.

“This is Kelly,” Loren says.  “And Erica —”  A different human waves from the next room over — “And Elena’s visiting her boyfriend last I heard, but she’ll be back soon, and she also has a dog.”

“I’m with Kelly on this one,” Tobias says.  “Never not chaotic.”  He smiles at Elfangor, still holding the furry cat-thing.  “We didn’t mean to start a collection of stray Animorphs and veteran pets, honestly.”

Loren brings Elfangor through to a room that has screened windows on three sides opening onto their backyard, most of the human furniture pushed to one side.  “The room’s yours for as long as you want,” she tells him.  “We put Ax out here, but he’s away a lot, so it’s yours.  Everyone else tends to go in and out, so I’m afraid there’s not much quiet, but...”  She shrugs.  “Welcome.”

He’s a long way away from the scoop where he grew up.  He’s half-forgotten already what he’d wished for, shaking palms pressed against the most powerful machine in the known galaxy.  He’s in a strange house, a strange city, surrounded by aliens.

«Thank you,» he says, and, «If it’s all right with you, I’d like to stay.»

[sweetiepie08]

Rebel Z (Chapter 2)

Invader Zim fanfic

While analyzing Zim’s PAK for weaknesses, Tak discovers strange coding that sends her on a search for answers. The clues lead her to uncover a conspiracy that governs all of Irken society. When the truth sends her on the run, she has no choice but to return to the one place the Tallest would never willingly go: Urth.

Meanwhile, Dib has noticed odd changes in Zim’s behavior. Has the invader simply grown bored of his mission over the last few years, or is there something more interesting going on?

People who asked to be tagged: @incorrect-invader-zim , @messinwitheddie, @reblogstupids, @cate-r-gunn

If anyone else would like to be added to the tag list please let me know.

Chapter 1. Chapter 2. Chapter 3. Chapter 4. Chapter 5. Chapter 6.  Chapter 7. Chapter 8.  Chapter 9.  Chapter 10.

[-]

Fabulosa lay just outside of Irkan-controlled space. The planet served as the epicenter of the intergalactic fashion and textiles industry. Its natural vegetation could be spun into a wide variety of luxurious fabrics and the Fabulians learned long ago how to craft the finest garments in the known universe. This made Fabulain clothing highly sought-after and the citizens very wealthy. Naturally, it became a prime target for Irkan conquest.

They tired cycles ago but it stood as a rare marked failure on the Irkan military’s record. The Fabulains knew where their worth lay. When the Armada surrounded them, they threatened to burn their own fields and destroy the secrets of how to cultivate the fiber-producing plants… unless a deal could be struck. And so, the Fabulains and the Irkens signed a treaty which began a mutually-beneficial trade agreement.

Fashion and fibers didn’t interest Tak in the slightest. She was more concerned with what the planet could offer an Irkan on the run. It was outside of Irkan territory, but close enough that the civilization would be familiar. Its technology was advanced, it offered a variety of job opportunities, and the trade agreement allowed for a steady supply of Irkan snacks. It was the perfect place for a deserter to hide.

As she entered the planet’s atmosphere, Tak switched her holo-projector to her Vortian disguise. Lately, she used it more than any other. Irkens, she found, were not well liked by the rest of the universe and, if she was going to survive out here, she needed to build trust. She spent years accruing favors for seedy lifeforms and cashed most of them in when creating her PAK reading software. Skoodge’s favor she had no specific plans for but thought it would be good to keep in her back pocket just in case. It was about to come in handy.

She parked her ship in a public hanger for a massive shopping center and instructed MiMi to wait in there. She then headed straight for the store where her target worked. Sickeningly sweet Fabulain pop music assaulted her antenna the second she walked in the door. The peppy tones from high-pitched singers grated her with their manufactured joy. It was true, Irkens enjoyed sugar, but not like this.

“Hi, welcome to Glitz N’Nat,” a familiar voice chirped beside her.

She turned to see an unusually portly Vortian employee smiling at her.

“My name is Shickil. Is there anything I can help…” his eyes scanned her up and down, “you…” a look of recognition came to his face, “with…?”

“Yes actually,” she said, reaching into a rack. The Vortian gulped. “Do you have any more of these in the back?” She pulled out a random garment. It happened to be a glaringly bright green number with orange feathers framing the neckline. It would figure she’d pull out the ugliest thing in the store.

“There’s a whole bunch right there,” he said, pointing to the rack.

“But not in my size.”

“Actually, that one looks like it would fit.”

She glanced at the garment in his hand. Damn it. It might fit. Her eye twitched. “Maybe you could use some help checking.” She grabbed the employee’s arm and dragged him to the back of the store.

“Hey Tiff,” he called to his Fabulain coworker.

The female specimen flipped her white hair and looked up from the cash register. Her black eyes followed them as they made their way to the storage room.

“I’m going to help this customer in the back real quick, okay?” the Voritan finished.

Tiff giggled and waved a bubblegum pink hand at them. “Okay, have fun with your girlfriend.”

Tak’s insides clenched and she scowled at the Fabulain. Where did that lollipop-head get off mocking her? She had enough on her plate without lower lifeforms ridiculing her about her nonexistent mating practices. Then again, it was better than the time that Urth monkey child implied she was Zim’s mate of all people.

She tossed the Vortian into the storage room and threw the universe’s ugliest dress aside. Once she had the door closed and locked, the two of them disabled their disguises. “What’s this about, Tak?” Skoodge asked, sounding defeated already.

“First of all, why’d that brainless retail drone out there call me your girlfriend?” she demanded, jabbing her thumb at the door.

“Hey, Tiff’s nice,” Skoodge argued. Odd, he never had a backbone before. “Anyway, last time you were here, they asked me who you were and I panicked. Plus, the girls keep trying to set me up with other Vortians and I needed a way to get them off my back.”

“The girls?”

“Yeah, my coworkers.” His face lit up. “Tiff, Brandy, Cheryl, Dionne… Cheryl actually invited me to her baby shower next week. I’m not sure what that entails, but I’m real excited to go.” His eager clasped hands and giant grin attested to his sincerity.

Tak’s eyes narrowed and a sly smile grew on her lips. Skoodge seemed very happy here indeed and it wouldn’t hurt to remind him who was responsible for that happiness. “Seems you’ve cultivated quite the social life here.”

“Yeah, the girls are great! They’re nice to me, we go out all the time, we have a weekly brunch date, and they don’t shoot you out of the airlock if you mess up.”

“Sounds perfect for you,” she agreed. “Of course, you only have this life thanks to the holo-clocking device I made for you.

Skoodge’s excitement quickly drained and he looked down at the device on his wrist. “Please tell me you’re not going to take it away.”

“No, of course not,” she said, putting on her gratingly sweet voice and patting him on the arm. “You can continue to stay here and live your happy little life, but you’ll recall, you promised me a favor when I gave it to you.”

He relaxed slightly. “Okay, what is it?”

“I need to have a look at your PAK.”

He gasped and his hands flew to his back. “What? My PAK? Why?”

“Listen,” she said, all sweetness dropped from her voice, “You know how Zim always seems to come out of every situation relatively unscathed, no matter how destructive?”

“Uh-huh…”

“Well, I wanted to know his secret, so I created a software that I could use to analyze his PAK for answers.”

Skoodge pulled back in shock. “You tampered with his PAK?”

“Analyzed.”

“I can’t believe you tampered with another Irkan’s PAK,” he went on, wringing his hands. “That’s a capital offence.”

“I didn’t tamper I analyzed,” she countered through gritted teeth. “There’s a big difference.”

“Is there?”

“There is. I didn’t change a thing about Zim. I only looked to see if there was anything off about him.”

“And?”

“Defective, obviously, but that’s not the weird part. While I was looking, I saw things that were… strange to say the least, things I didn’t know the PAK influenced. I analyzed my own PAK and saw the same things. I need to see yours to confirm.”

“Why mine?”

“Zim and I are both encoded with menial-level jobs,” she explained, “but you’re still encoded as an invader. I need to see if that encoding makes a difference.”

Skoodge bit his bottom lip and looked away. “I don’t know. I’m not really comfortable letting an admitted tamperer access my PAK.”

“Analyzed,” she corrected again with a hiss. Damn it, how many times? “And don’t forget, you owe me. Think you’d have this lovely, insipid little life without me? Think you’d get that invite to that baby shower as Irkan Invader Skoodge?”

His eyes dropped to the floor. “Fine, I’ll let you analyze my PAK, but you better promise not to change anything.”

“I promise, now come with me. I’ll run the program from my ship. It’s not as powerful as Zim’s base, but I chose some key elements to look at for comparison.”

“We can go out the back, just give me a minute,” Skoodge said, reactivating his disguise. “I need to ask Tiff to cover for me.”

Tak reactivated hers as well and Skoodge went back out onto the shop’s floor. She watched as he talked with his coworker. The two parted with a laugh. “And watch out for flying shoes,” Tiff called as he walked away.

“I will,” Skoodge laughed.

Tak raised an eyelid. “Flying shoes?”

“It’s just an inside joke,” Skoodge replied, the pride in his voice betraying the fact that he’d never been on the inside of any joke before.

Oh and you have? It was true, she never spent much time socializing in her training days. There were more important things to worry about. She was a little busy making herself the best of the best. And what a lot of good that did you, right? Whatever, it was Zim’s fault she never took her rightful place in the Irkan military. If it weren’t for Zim, all that hard work would have paid off. Would it, Defective?

“Can we get this over with, please?” Tak growled. The sooner she figured out what was going on with the PAKs, the sooner she could get back to crushing Zim.

She led Skoodge to her ship in the parking hanger. Once inside, she activated the opaque tinting of the windows, deactivated her disguise, and fired up her computer. “Okay, all I’m going to do is plug into your PAK and read your stats. Got it?”

Skoodge deactivate his disguise as well. “Okay…” he said, still sounding apprehensive.

Tak rolled her eyes and plugged in his PAK. Once in, she saw Skoodge’s ID page come up on her screen.

Name: Skoodge

Age: 16.6

Occupation: Invader

Assignment: Pending

“Hmm…” Her eyes lingered on the “assignment” line. “They never reassigned you after Blorch?”

Skoodge sighed and looked at the ground. “No…”

That was interesting. Typically, after an invader completed their mission, they’d either be assigned to a new planet after a period of rest or rewarded with a cushy retirement. Given Skoodge’s youth, he should have been sent out again. She didn’t need to look further than the expanse of space above his head to guess why he wasn’t.

She pressed on. Unfortunately, her ship’s computer wasn’t powerful enough to run a full error check, but it could take a look at his personality drive. More specifically, she wanted to see the PAK installations and the Irkan traits.

Pak Installations

·        Perseverance: 20/20

·        Loyalty: 5/15

·        Penchant for Destruction: 10/15

·        Susceptibility to Propaganda: 5/15

So, Skoodge’s stats were also out of balance, not quite as bad as Zim’s (or mine), but was this enough to mark him as defective? She swiped over to his Irkan traits.

Irkan Traits

·        Creativity: 10/10

·        Personal ambition: 5/5

·        Need for companionship: 523/0

·        Need for affection: 443/0

·        Sense of individuality: 231/0

·        Individual survival instinct: 4803/10

That confirmed it. Another defective. Interesting. As an invader, his ideal levels may be higher than most, but they still didn’t match up with his actual levels. What were the odds that all three PAKs were defective? Could it be possible that most, if not all PAKs were defective to some degree? No, she couldn’t generalize yet. She only analyzed a small sample size and all three PAKs belonged to Irkans living outside normal society. It was much more likely that defectives tended to live outside the norm and were therefore easier for her to contact. If she wanted definitive answers, she’d need more information, but she couldn’t just go find more Irkens and start analyzing their PAKs. At the very least it’d raise suspicion. At worst, they’d assume treason was afoot. She needed to find another way.

“So? What’d you see?”

Oh right, Skoodge. She nearly forgot he was there. “Well, it looks like you’re defective.”

“What? No!” He jumped toward the screen. “How can this be?”

“My ship isn’t powerful enough for a full diagnostic, but your levels are out of balance,” she explained. “From what I can tell, that’s a sure sign of defectiveness.”

“But I conquered Blorch,” he went on. His hysterical voice was grating on her nerves. “I was the first to complete my mission in Operation Impending Doom 2. How can I-”

“Calm down. At least you’re not as defective as Zim and-” She stopped herself quick. “Anyway, I’m starting to wonder what being a defective really means.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, look at some of this stuff,” she said, gesturing toward the screen. “A functioning PAK will block natural Irkan assets.”

“Not really, I’ve still got some ambition, some creativity…”

“Because you’re an invader. It changes with encoding. A PAK with a low-class encoding has most of these set to 0. It doesn’t make sense. If we are the superior race, why block what makes us superior?”

“Well, I guess an invader would need certain traits to do our jobs…”

“But why just invaders?” she argued. “Why not allow all Irkens access to their natural traits?”

He thought for a moment. “You checked your PAK, right?”

“Yes…”

“So, what did yours say?”

Her lips tightened into a scowl. “We’re getting off the subject. Here, look at your stats,” she said, turning his attention back to the numbers on the screen. “Your survival instinct is much higher than it’s meant to be. That probably kept you alive on Blorch. And your need for companionship drives your desire to socialize. Thanks to that defect, you’ve got your little group of friends here. Would you trade them for a fully functioning PAK?”

“No!” he gasped, looking more devastated than he did when she told him he was defective.

“That’s my point. If defects can bring positive results, are they really defects?”

“Yeah, I guess that makes sense,” he agreed.

There’s something else wrong here, but what? Skoodge, by all accounts should be a war hero. He conquered his planet in less than 0.1 cycles; a record time as far as invasions went. And yet, he was a defective. Did his defects give him the advantage? If that were the case, perhaps her defects helped her rise to the top of her training class. It would make sense. Her supposed defects included having “too much” ambition and “too much” perseverance. Those are the traits that pushed her to excellence.  Surely, they could not be mistakes.

“What about Zim?”

Skoodge’s question broke her from her musings. “What about him?”

“You said he’s defective. If you think defects aren’t that bad…”

“He’s still a walking catastrophe!” she snapped. “I never said all defects were a good thing, just in some cases.”

This did raise an interesting point. Zim, also a defective, without a doubt brought disaster with his every move. Maybe the concept of a defective wasn’t the problem, but how it was measured. Perhaps there was even an issue with the encoding process all together.

She needed to research this future, but she had no idea how. Knowledge on PAK programing was off limits to all but those encoded as PAK maintenance specialists. Even if this information was widely available, she couldn’t show her face in Irkan-controlled space any time soon. Abandoning her post was essentially self-imposed exile. If she didn’t return with a victory that would impress the Tallest, she couldn’t go back at all.

Perhaps solving this mystery could earn her enough glory to pardon her desertion charges and raise her to a rank more worthy of her skills. She could start by researching the history of the PAK, but how?

“So, uh, what’d you go all quiet for?” Skoodge asked, breaking her thoughts once again.

“I was just thinking, where, outside of Irkan territory, I could I go to research PAKs?”

“You could try Refirencee,” Skoodge suggested.

“Where?”

“It’s an info-database planet near Meekrob,” he explained. “They gather the histories and knowledge of all known planets and compile them in one place.”

“Sounds like an obvious target for conquest.”

“Yeah, but it’s under Meekrobian protection, so the plan was to wait until Tenn took Meekrob, then take all the data in the spoils.”

“Hmm…” It was a start at least, though it was suicide for any Irkan to get anywhere near Meekrob these days. Her Vortion disguise and ship should give her enough cover to pass through without suspicion. It worked well enough so far. “Do you know the coordinates for this planet?”

“No, but your ship could have it’s coordinates in its data base. This is a Vortian vessel, after all. The Meekrob only hide the planet from Irkens. Everyone else is free to use it.”

Excellent, a better lead than she expected. “I think we’re done here, Skoodge,” she said, disconnecting his PAK. This favor paid off in spades. “Go, enjoy your baby shower.”

“Thanks.” They reactivated their disguises and Skoodge hopped out of the ship. “And, uh, if you’re ever around, feel free to say hi.”

Tak looked up, the invitation catching her off-guard. “Oh, uh, sure…”

“Bye,” Skoodge gave a little wave and headed back to his job. MiMi returned with a wave of her own.

Tak turned back to her computer. After a quick check for the closest fueling station, she ran a search for the Refirencee coordinates. The search was a success. A holographic diagram of the planet shown from the computer’s projectors.

“Well, MiMi,” she said, smiling at the projection, “it’s time we got some answers.”

[migleefulmoments]

Cassie: "Nonnie, I do get where you're coming from. I think C just realizes D is worth it and I do believe, in my heart of hearts, it won't always be this way." If your bf is choosing to live a fake life and expects you to just go along with it for X number of years, he is not worth it. I don't care if he is Darren Criss or any other attractive famous man, no person on Earth is worth the heartache that ccChris has probably been through whilst watching his "hubby" constantly choose fame over him.

Cassie’s answer really blew me away. She’s has chugged down all of Abby’s Kool-Aid and she’s fully buying into Abby’s juvenile ideas about relationships, sacrificing for love, and the power of love. THE 5 have clearly read Twilight one too many times! Everything they know about love, they learned from Bella and Edward who taught them with the idea that love is all-consuming, that there is no sacrifice that is too much as long as he loves you, and that in the end, happily ever will save the day. 

You’re right, there are a lot of scenarios where love is not enough and you have to walk away for your own mental or emotional well being. Sometimes it is an abusive partner making bad ccchoices and sometimes it is a wonderful partner whose future no longer looks like yours. One of my favorite Youtubers just announced she split with her husband 2 years ago and kept it a secret- even wearing her rings in the first half of this video! They broke up simply because they reached a point where they realized there was a fundamental difference in what they each wanted in life and the relationship couldn’t go forward (she wouldn’t say what that was). My husband’s cousin got divorced after her husband realized he wanted to be a dad and she wasn’t interested in children. Another YouTuber I watch called off their engagement after they realized she wanted a picket fence on a cul-de-sac and he wanted to a cave in the middle of nowhere (he was dead serious).  Their goals were incompatible and asking one to compromise wasn’t fair or healthy. ccDarren chose fame over ccChris and their relationship. ccDarren is unwilling to risk his position in Hollywood in order to openly love ccChris. He is so caught up in being THE actor, musician, and executive producer Darren Criss, that he married a woman he despises and spends all his time with her. She enjoys the lifestyle his fame has provided for him while ccChris has to hide in the rafters and scurry around ccDarren’s life completely unseen. ccDarren is incapable -or unwilling -to rid himself of his toxic team whose main goal is to “ccruin him” and by extension, ccChris. I don’t believe that the same man who gave this interview would choose to stay in a relationship where his feelings and needs always come second to ccDarren’s career.  Spending 1:00 am-7:00 am spooning the night away is hardly compensation for having to keep their relationship hidden and standing by while his lover lives his life with another person. Scurring in the dark and in disguise certainly isn’t enough to keep a relationship alive and healthy for 10 years.

(My comments are in italics below)

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Anonymous asked: I love Cc, but I just can’t imagine C agreeing with all this and if he did, my heart still hurts for him.

cassie1022 answered: Nonnie, you’re more than entitled to your opinion. I, respectfully, disagree. C is not a victim in all of this. He made a conscious and willing decision to stand with D. He’s just as culpable in all of this as D is and he’s tried to show that on more than one occasion. I’m not heartbroken for C and I don’t think he would want us to be. At the end of the day, he has a love most people only dream about. Many people perceive C as being the more fragile of the two, and I think that’s a grave mistake. C’s the glue that holds them together. He’s always had to fend for himself and the world wasn’t always kind to him. D grew up in this seemingly perfect little world where he trusted everyone and thought people were mostly good and that’s part of why he’s in this situation. (Cassie et. al believe that love makes it all ok and that ccChris chose to stay so making him as culpable as ccDarren. It’s an interesting theory- basically, she’s saying that anyone who is an abusive relationship is culpable for the abuse because they chose to stay in the relationship. This is a dangerous and harmful belief because it ignores all of the barriers that keep people in abusive relationships- lack of money, lack of a safe place to go, fearing for their lives if they leave, low self-esteem from the abuse-to name just a few. I realize that Cassie is just turning ccChris staying in an abusive relationship into ccconfirmation bias, but she’s speaking to a lot of young people who don’t understand that and are learning that they should always stay because love makes everything ok.  “At the end of the day, he has a love most people only dream about.” Besides the fact that that kind of love exists in fanfiction and Twilight, I am gobsmacked that a middle-aged adult would imagine she knows this about Chris Colfer’s love life. The most Chris has ever said about his love life is to say tell a young fan that his dedication was to his boyfriend, to acknowledge to Andy Cohen that he had a boyfriend, and to acknowledge to Sandra Bernhart that Will was his boyfriend. Oh, and he said several times that he was not in a relationship with Darren. To believe he has a “love that most people only dream about” she would have to fabricate every detail single details she thinks she knows.  That is not the behavior of a healthy adult.   Big strong ccChris who went through hell and came out so strong that nothing touches him now. He’s the “glue that holds them together” and the “Captain of the ship” even though he’s literally being ignored while ccDarren lives a very full life with Mia by his side. Poor widdle, innocent ccDarren who grew up wealthy and since wealthy people live perfect lives and everyone around them is kind, he never learned who to trust. Gag)  

flowersintheattic254 You only have to watch the impact theory interview to see what drives C. C is strong and he stands up for those who are marginalized. C is tough and stronger than people give home credit for and he’s loyal too. (See the video and my transcript below. Notice that Chris never mentions his love life in any of the statements that Flowers believes are 100% about his relationships) 

notes-from-nowhere:

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I agree with @flowersintheattic254. This is such a good interview

Anonymous asked: I guess it makes sense that C’s the rock. I guess it’s just me thinking that since C’s out and proud, he deserves the same from his partner. But as you said, D was too trusting and I guess C is his strength, keeping him from giving up on everything shitty he’s going through. (Such a good little minion, repeating everything she’s groomed to believe) 

Cassie: Nonnie, I do get where you’re coming from. I think C just realizes D is worth it and I do believe, in my heart of hearts, it won’t always be this way.

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I listened to Chris’s interview and he was asked about ambition:

Chris: ... I was really good at playing that character (Kurt).  People really do think I was playing myself and although we were experiencing very very similar things, I was very different from that character.  I was much more cynical than that character.

Tom: In fact, I am glad you brought that up. I heard in an interview someone asked you if you were a character in Game of Thrones and you said ‘I want to say that I would be the Mother of Dragons but I think I am actually Cersei’. 

Chris: I‘m sorry but she is a woman who knows what she wants and she goes out and she gets it. Her methods-her strategy- is a little questionable but I just love any woman with a drive. I remember when I was in my senior year of high school I was chosen to put on my own show. It’s called the senior show.  Every year one senior in the drama class got selected to basically put on whatever they want and usually they would put on an SNL-type variety sketch kind of show, but I was like “Nope I’m writing a musical” and I gender-reversed Sweeny Todd and called it Shirley Todd so I could be Mrs. Lovett so I was Mr. Lovett.  Because we were all seniors, no one wanted to do it and I ended up blackmailing all of them to be in it.  It was a great show. 

Tom: Walk me through how that drive and ambition has manifested in your life. Is that something you value in yourself? Is that something that you’re skeptical of in yourself because when you answer that question- and I fully understand that was a little tongue-in-cheek, but when you say “I fear that I’m actually Cersei” is there part of you that is very cognizant that there is a line that you can cross with drive and ambition or...

Chris: Oh I think so, I think that ambition is so much a part of who I am-maybe to a fault- but I’ve never got to the point where I was so ambitions that I was causing harm. I think growing up, ambition and hope and goals and dreams was literally all that I had. My family didn’t have money and I wasn’t good looking and I wasn’t athletic, I could act and I could sing, I could write but there aren’t many areas for you to do that when you are a young person- at least when I was a young person they weren’t. So I think my ambition sort of just became my imaginary friend. It was a survival tool, it wasn’t narcissism, it was survival. 

Tom: In that, I can be somewhere else, I can be bigger than this, I can go places was that the sort of your savor mechanism?

Chris: Yeah, I think it was  Making a treasure map to a life that was better than what the life I was in currently. That is what it was for me.  Hence, why I also identify so much with fantasy and superheroes and Greek mythology and literature it was all part of ...yeah, I always use fictitious people as my examples of getting somewhere.

---------

Chris: To go back to what you said about bullying, I’m in a weird place right now because I played a bullied kid on national television, you know for 20 million people a week watched me get pushed into lockers and thrown on floors and called “a faggot” called “queer”... all these negative things and I experienced all that myself in real life.  I really let people know that was one of the reasons why people connected to my performance because it was coming from such a real place and I let people know i was bullied horribly when I was a kid. I was bullied so horribly in middle school that my mom pulled me out of school and homeschooled me because the harassment got so severe.  But I’m at his weird place right now that I feel like I’m so not a victim anymore ...that I kind of- maybe it’s my ego- I don’t know, but I get tired of being associated with someone who is bullied because I don’t allow that to happen anymore. At all! I’m proud of where I’m at now because the minute I see someone who tries to take advantage of me or isn’t kind... I have the option to walk away now- which I didn't when I was a kid. But I feel like I have to stop talking about it because I’ve told millions and millions of kids around the world that it is something you get to leave behind.  Because of my circumstances, I don’t get to leave it behind because I’m always asked about it and it’s a good thing to talk about because it’s still going on but as a certain point, I feel like I’m doing the kids who look up to me a disservice when I keep talking about it becuase it does-maybe for them-  seem like it doesn’t leave me. Does that make sense?

Tom: If this was the last words that you speak on the subject of being bullied what would you say that was your process to close that chapter.. to feel good about yourself.  I’m definitely putting words in your mouth, being born in some way where that is not who you are anymore? 

Chris: It is really about just knowing that you get to move on from it. That is the thing... adolescence is the toughest time in your life because you have no freedom but you have all this responsibility. You are expected to make adult decision but you don’t get the benefits of being an adult and you’re literally trapped in an environment- high school- unless you are homeschooled. You have no control of who you are around and probably the lesson or the bridge that I crossed in my life that has given me the most relief is knowing that I don’t have to be in any environment that I do not want to be in. I think that would be the message that I would give to kids who are being bullied. But also the world is full of assholes. Bullies, they do go away at a certain point, but there will always be people in your life that you don’t like, that are mean and rude and when you do go through a period of harassment- especially when you are young- you do learn how to overcome that and how to maybe have inner peace but you can’t ever control the world around you but you do learn a lot of good communications skills. I think. 

Chris makes it very clear that he is NOT Kurt

Chris identifies with a character who knows what she wants and goes out and gets it. That is very different from ccChris who is sitting back and accepting that he is not a priority for 10 years and counting. 

Ambition and drive are very important to Chris- ccChris is allowing Darren to drive the relationship.  Darren is getting everything he wants while Chris continues to make all of the sacrifices.  

Chris is adamant that he will not be bullied every again and that he will wake away from anyone taking advantage of him. The cc fandom heard this and saw it as confirmation bias because he is still in a ccrelationship with ccDarren aka he doesn’t see the relationship as being abusive or that he’s being taken advantage of therefore ccChris just confirmed CrissCofler is real and that ccChris is in control. 

The final paragraph is once again confirmation bias- Chris no longer has to be in an environment he doesn’t want to be in- hence he’s happy with ccDarren. By saying that people are still assholes, he confirmed that Ryan Murphy, Mia and Darren’s team are all assholes but he’s in control now and it doesn’t let them ruin his life.. 

[chaos-of-the-abyss]

Who are your least favorite to favorite sons of Fëanor?

Ask 2: What do you think about the sons of Fëanor, each individually, and overall? Did you take away anything from their stories? Personally I learned a lot while reading about them and I was wondering if anyone else experienced the same thing.

Okay, as you probably guessed, I’ll be answering both these asks in the same post, since the answers to each one tie pretty closely into each other.

7. Amrod

I don’t dislike Amrod at all, but we just…don’t know much about him, so my feelings toward him are mostly indifference. The only thing I might be interested in knowing is his thoughts about his father’s actions, his brothers’ actions, and his own.

6. Amras

It’s almost a tie with Amrod, frankly. The only reason I’m placing Amras above him in this list is because, in The Shibboleth of Fëanor, Amras, horrified by the Kinslaying at Alqualondë defies his father and tried to go back:

“In the morning the host was mustered, but of Fëanor’s seven sons only six were to be found. Then Ambarussa went pale with fear. ‘Did you not then rouse Ambarussa my brother (whom you called Ambarto)?’ he said. 'He would not come ashore to sleep (he said) in discomfort.’ But it is thought (and no doubt Fëanor had guessed this also) that it was in the mind of Ambarto to sail his ship back [?afterwards] and rejoin Nerdanel; for he had been much [?shocked] by the deed of his father. ‘That ship I destroyed first,’ said Fëanor (hiding his own dismay). 'Then rightly you gave the name to the youngest of your children,’ said Ambarussa, 'And Umbarto "the Fated” was its true form. Fell and fey are you become.’ And after that no one dared to speak again to Fëanor of this matter.“

It appears that Fëanor didn’t mean to kill his son, but Amras died anyway. In any case, I find Amras’ righteousness and willingness to stand up for his beliefs impressive. Even after seeing what his father could do, he defied him because he couldn’t bring himself to follow Fëanor after he committed something so atrocious. Given Fëanor’s character, I’d say that’s pretty damn courageous.

5. Caranthir

Caranthir is (somewhat) interesting to me for a few reasons. For one thing, he seems to have taken after Fëanor the most in terms of temper, being noted as the “harshest” and “quickest to anger” among the Fëanorians. It makes me wonder what kind of relationship he had with his father, because Fëanor was hotheaded as well. I would not want to be in the room if those two had dissenting opinions.

Another reason why Caranthir interests me (somewhat) is that he was married. Literally nothing is known about his wife, but I’m curious to know how they parted when he left Aman to follow his father and his brothers to retrieve the Silmarils. I can’t imagine they parted on amicable terms.

The third reason Caranthir is fascinating is his relationship with Haleth. What did he think of her personally? Was he impressed at her independence or offended that his offer was refused? How did she (and her people) affect his opinion of humans?

I also wonder what were his thoughts about the Kinslayings and what he thought about as he was dying. (Morbid of me, I know.)

4. Curufin

Curufin I also find interesting for pretty much the same reasons as Caranthir, although the “harshest and quickest to anger” is replaced by “Fëanor’s favorite” (favoritism is not good for your children, Curufinwë Fëanáro!), “much like him in appearance, temperament, and skill”. I actually can’t imagine being Fëanor’s favorite child would have had a good impact on anyone. Fëanor was a perfectionist, and I feel like he wouldn’t accept anything less than the absolute best from his favorite son, and that he didn’t hold back when expressing disappointment either.

Like I said for Caranthir, his relationship with his wife is also a point of interest. How did they meet and fall in love? What kind of household did they run (and raise Celebrimbor in)? How did their relationship deteriorate over the years? How was their parting?

What was he thinking about as he was dying? Was he regretting his actions? Or did he feel that they were all justified? Was he remembering his wife and his son? And speaking of his son, what was his relationship with Celebrimbor like? And how did Curufin’s actions affect their relationship?

And of course, his relationship with Celegorm. The House of Fëanor has always struck me as quite a dysfunctional one, what with Fëanor and Nerdanel slowly growing apart. Why did Curufin bond with Celegorm the most, out of all his brothers? Was it circumstance? Did they share a common interest? They didn’t strike me as being too similar when I read about them. Or maybe they complemented each other well?

One thing that adds nuance to Curufin is that he balanced love for his son and his wife (probably - hopefully), duty and love for his father and brothers, and his close companionship with Celegorm with the fact that, as @martaaa1506 and I were discussing before, he’s a class-A asshole. Not only did he (and Celegorm) trick Luthien into believing they would help her and then kidnap her instead, he also attempted to kill her after his plans failed. Chill. You’d think the poor girl deliberately ran over his puppy with a car or something, when in fact the only affront Luthien dealt him was obtaining a Silmaril and not, like, handing it over to him or something of the sort.

Personally, what makes Curufin so fascinating for me is that I believe by the point of the events of Beren and Luthien, he’d become the worst version of himself. He was on a downwards spiral since a certain point and by that time, he was wholly obsessed with his oath and willing to do anything to obtain the Silmarils. He was even willing to harm people who didn’t simply surrender them to him (as in Luthien’s case) - that’s how consumed with his oath he’d become, and that’s how far he’d fallen.

3. Celegorm

Celegorm fascinates me for almost the exact same reasons as Curufin, given that they were together so often. Of course, Celegorm wasn’t married, but I’ve always been quite engrossed in his friendships with Oromë, Aredhel, and Huan. With the first, I can’t help imagining the falling out that their companionship would have had, since Celegorm decided to follow his father and brothers into exile.

With the second - it’s just so fascinating, imo. They were close friends and cousins, despite the fact that their fathers had a relationship full of animosity. I can’t imagine that Fëanor was happy with his son’s companionship with his half-brother’s daughter. And he was the one Aredhel sought after she left Gondolin; more evidence of just how strong their friendship was. She left her brother and went to him first. He also later helped Aredhel escape Eöl. It’s pretty clear to me that Celegorm cared a lot about her, and I can’t help thinking he must have been so enraged and grieved when he heard that she died - at the hands of her own husband, no less.

And of course, his relationship with Huan. Huan was one of Celegorm’s oldest companions, and they probably knew each other very well. Huan seemed to be pretty loyal to Celegorm, considering that he followed him into exile despite being a hound given to Celegorm by the Valar. I always wonder how Celegorm must have felt when Huan assisted Luthien over him. Did he blame everything solely on his hound? Or did it make him self-reflect and wonder how far he’d fallen? Tolkien says that the “love between them [Celegorm and Huan] was less than before” after that incident, but that can be interpreted in so many different ways. Obviously, their relationship took a blow, but was it just from mistrust, anger, and resentment?

Speaking of Luthien, am I the only one who always pities Celegorm every time I read about her casting off her disguise and him falling head-over-heels for her? (Though whether he actually did or not is debatable.) He fell hopelessly in love with a woman who’s already in love with a human man; that’s some tough luck right there. It also makes me curious; was it just her beauty? I doubt it.

[As I mentioned in Curufin’s section, their brotherly dynamics fascinate me as well.]

All these things aside, Celegorm, like Curufin, was an asshole. Love Luthien or not, it doesn’t change the fact that he deceived and kidnapped her and intended to force her to marry him. (It was also a politically driven move to secure Doriath, but still.) Like Curufin, I think Celegorm was, by that point, the worst version of what he could have been, fulfilled. He was at the height of his negative potential, so to speak.

Also, I don’t know if this is just me, but I think Celegorm would have been really heartbroken to hear that Huan died defending Beren, someone he hates. This is his companion that’s been with him for thousands of years, who not only abandons him but dies for the sake of this human man. A lot of resentment towards Huan, and a lot more hatred towards Beren, I think, would have been caused by that. Personally, I feel Celegorm had a deep-seated personal grudge against Beren and Luthien’s line because of all that transpired between himself and Huan on account of Beren and Luthien. Plus, if he really was in love with Luthien (a fucked up love, I must admit), it must have stung to hear that she chose mortality, again for the sake of Beren. Ouch.

2. Maedhros

I know, I know, I can hear the surprise. Maedhros is second, and not first? (Most people love Maedhros the most, and Maglor second, though it’s quite a close case in some.) Admittedly, Maglor won by a very narrow margin. I’ll explain my reasons in his section.

Ah, Maedhros… how can I express why I love him so much? As @arya-durin-51 put it so perfectly, Maedhros is a stellar mix of both duty, love, and personal morals, acting on all of them at varying points in his life. He runs a perfect balance between doing his duty, acting out of personal love for those in his family, and a general sense of righteousness. Here are a few (emphasis on few) examples:

Maedhros followed Fëanor because he loved his father, but also had a duty towards him as his oldest son. It was this mix of duty and love that prompted him to continue following Fëanor even after his father’s actions at Alqualondë, yet he wasn’t wholly controlled by those traits, either, as shown when he expected the ships to be sent back for Fingolfin’s people and was angered by and refused to take part in the burning of the ships, motivated by personal morality and love for Fingon.

Maedhros attempted to negotiate with and trick Morgoth, a risky move (tht resulted in his capture and torture), because he felt it was his duty; he swore the Oath, because he felt it was right; he had to take this opportunity or the deaths his father caused, and his father’s own death, might be for nothing, and because he loved his kin and didn’t want them to be damned; if he could take this risk and reclaim a Silmaril, they would be closer to accomplishing their oath and less likely to suffer the “everlasting darkness” that they mentioned should they fail to reclaim the Silmarils.

Maedhros surrendered his kingship to Fingolfin because of his personal morality: he felt that his house wronged Fingolfin’s, and that he owed Fingon a debt for rescuing him from Thangorodrim. He stood by these despite the fact that his decision was met with dislike from his brothers.

Maedhros argued against Maglor’s idea to ask for the two Silmarils peacefully again because of duty, love, personal honor, and fear. He felt that he’d done too much to be forgiven, and that trying the peaceful way would prevent him from fulfilling his oath (duty), and thus, render the deaths he caused pointless (personal honor), and damn him and his brothers to the Void (love and fear).

I could go on and on, but you get the idea. The notion that love is the very opposite of duty… well, Maedhros says hi.

Also, Maedhros seems to be the leader among the House of Fëanor after his father’s death, naturally, since he is the oldest and the elves of Aman seem patriarchal to me. All the brothers did their own thing, but I do think there’s a recurring occurrance of them gathering around Maedhros’ banner at times.

We should also consider his adoption of Elrond and Elros. I’ve never doubted that Maedhros loved those kids and that they did love him back, but was that really all? [This will be more expanded on in Maglor’s part.]

I’ve always been partial to angst-riddled characters as well, and Maedhros definitely has a good amount of angst under his belt. He was tortured at the hands of Morgoth and Sauron for thirty years. That’s longer than I’ve been alive. It could have utterly broken him and turned him into just a husk, but even after enduring that, he still marches against Morgoth; again, because of duty, because of love, and because of personal honor.

And of course, we have his suicide. Thinking about Maedhros’ state of mind when he jumped into that chasm makes my heart break every time. I can’t imagine how he must have felt: he’s in terrible pain because of the Silmaril, but he can’t bear to let go of it because he’s done so many things to reclaim it, and if he lets it go now, literally all of that would be pointless. Innocents would have died for nothing. His little brothers would have died for nothing. And speaking of his brothers, I imagine Maedhros was absolutely torn with guilt when it comes to them. He was the eldest, the (in my opinion) unspoken leader, but he was one of the two last survivors. I always thought he believed he failed to protect them. Then there’s the guilt over all of his actions. Maedhros regretted many of the things he committed because of his Oath. Taking all of those factors into consideration… scarily, it’s not at all difficult to understand Maedhros’ decision.

All in all, he’s just such a tragically complex, heart-wrenching character that I can’t not love him with all my heart.

1. Maglor

As made obvious through the process of elimination, if nothing else, Maglor is my favorite out of the Fëanorians. I think it has something to do with his surviving the entirety of the First Age’s events (perhaps he committed suicide later, though).

First, there’s the fact that he was married, which is clearly always a point of fascination for me when it comes to the sons of Fëanor. Same deal; how did they meet, how did they fall in love, and how did they fall apart?

Like Maedhros, Maglor was motivated by duty, love, and honor. He followed Fëanor for the sake of his love for his father and his duty towards the head of his family. He committed his (frankly quite terrible) actions to reclaim the Silmarils out of love for his family, not wanting them to be subjected to the aforementioned “eternal darkness” of the Oath, and a sense of personal morality, feeling that if he didn’t, everyone who fell victim to his pursuit of the Silmarils would have suffered for nothing.

I also imagine that Maglor felt a lot of guilt for the fall of Maglor’s Gap. Since he was the second eldest son of Fëanor, I’m pretty sure that he was in charge of the district, but it was lain waste to by Glaurung. One can assume that being attacked by a dragon led to many, many deaths and a lot of gruesome violence, which I think Maglor, as the governor(?) of sorts of Maglor’s Gap, must have felt some kind of responsibility for.

What mainly draws me towards Maglor is the fact that he, out of the seven brothers, was described to be the most like Nerdanel, inheriting her “gentle temperament”. Nerdanel, as we know, was extremely affected by Fëanor’s individual actions, to the point of desparating from him when it became too much for her to bear. Because of that I think Maglor, out of the seven brothers, thought the most about his crimes, which led to the most regret. That doesn’t mean he was a wimp, just that he felt his guilt the most strongly out of the seven. Not that the other brothers didn’t feel the same guilt; more that Maglor allowed his actions and consequentially, his remorse, to affect him the most.

[Applies to Maedhros as well.] His relationship with Elrond and Elros is so fascinating, in my opinion. (Along with the fact that it also proves Maglor had a fatherly side, which I love.) I imagine he first adopted them out of guilt and pity, and later came to love them as if they were his own sons. As stated, “love grew between them”, but their dynamic strikes me as more complicated. Elrond and Elros still did witness the remaining sons of Fëanor attack their home and massacre many of its inhabitants. If it were me, I don’t think I could easily forgive that, even if Maedhros and Maglor were nothing but kind and loving to me. Yet despite this glaring knot in their relationship, Maedhros and Maglor raised those twins really, really well. Just look at the kind of people Elrond and Elros grew up to be. I’m curious; how did they fix such a serious issue? Did they just ignore it? Did they explain their actions to Elrond and Elros and earn forgiveness?

And thinking about how Maglor (and Maedhros) must have felt to let Elrond and Elros go… I cry every time.

Then we come to post-Morgoth’s defeat, where Maedhros and Maglor steal the Silmarils from Eönwë’s camp. Maglor actually argued that they should try to reclaim them peacefully, which, given all the shit that’s happened to so many people because of the Fëanorians, is a pretty huge risk. The Valar (and Eönwë) have good reason not to accept any offers of peace from him and Maedhros, and the result of such a refusal would probably be the capture of Maedhros and Maglor. So why the argument that they should attempt a negotiation? I can imagine so many heartrending motivations behind this, honestly. I think it was a combination of these factors:

Maglor was just exhausted of all the violence and all the bloodshed; he felt that he had committed too many sins and he was sick of it. Like I said, given Maglor’s “gentle temperament”, I believe he felt the weight of his actions more strongly than his brothers because he allowed himself to.

Maglor felt that violence would lead to worse things. He left his home, his wife, and his mother, and has killed many, many people, and still doesn’t have anything good to show for it. The only effects are: he’s left a trail of victims in his wake, his younger brothers are all dead, and one of the Silmarils, which he participated in two separate Kinslayins to obtain, is out of his reach.

Maglor longed for redemption and forgiveness. I mean, who wouldn’t? Again, given his personality, I think his sins affected him the most emotionally and mentally out of all of his brothers because he let them get to him. At that point, he was disgusted with himself and everything he’d done, and hoping that if he could make it up somehow. And plus, even if he did fulfill his oath, what’s left for him? He’d surely remain banned from Valinor because of everything he did. I think Maglor was pretty desperately hoping to make amends.

In the end, though, Maglor was swayed by Maedhros’ caution that the sons of Fëanor wouldn’t be forgiven. Much like Maedhros, he was influenced by duty, love, personal honor, and fear. He was terrified that if the peaceful way didn’t work (a very valid concern on both Maedhros and Maglor’s parts, because frankly, it’s difficult to earn forgiveness after everything they’ve done) he would be failing to fulfill his oath (duty), and thus, make the deaths he caused pointless (personal honor), and damn him and his brothers to the Void (love and fear). These concerns in Maglor overpowered the desires and concerns listed above, and he agreed with Maedhros to steal the Silmarils. I like that. I like that some things in Maglor were overshadowed by others.

And we have Maglor’s fate to consider. (I won’t talk about his death here, since he’s not confirmed to be dead.) Maglor, unable to bear the pain of the Silmaril that he held, threw it into the sea, and afterwards, wandered the shores for eternity, lamenting. Personally, I believe the “pain of the Silmaril” was more than just the physical pain of it burning Maglor’s hands, but the emotional and psychological pain it brought him to look at something that he abandoned his home, his mother, and his wife for, something that he caused so much death and bloodshed for, something that his younger brothers died trying to obtain. Maglor was just done with Silmarils and done with the Oath; he didn’t want to think about it or have anything to do with it anymore, and just threw it into the ocean. Some part of me wonders if he also regretted it afterwards, thinking that what he did rendered all the deaths (the deaths of those he killed as well as the deaths of his brothers) pointless.

By this time, I think Maglor was fully and utterly consumed with despair and regret. He can’t return to Valinor and face the Valar his mother, or his wife, because of all the crimes he committed. He can’t even face his brothers, because, in the end, he gave up the Silmaril. All-in-all, Maglor believed that he was irredeemable and that there was nothing in the world left for him. And his story ends on this depressing, depressing note. Some fans think he committed suicide, and given his state of mind by the end, it’s heartbreaking to say that it’s not impossible; perhaps Maglor decided that even the “everlasting darkness” was better than living at that point.

Maglor’s character arc ends in utter tragedy for him, and I love that I’m such a sadomasochist. He’s such a morally grey character and so complex, but there is absolutely no happy ending for him. Maglor’s story closes on a fate so bleak that you’d think it belongs to some kind of absolutely, completely, despicable villain. Arguably, that’s the fate of all the sons of Fëanor, but personally I think Maglor’s ending is the most disheartening of the brothers’ endings. I already adored him before, and the fact that his development ends at his very lowest, most despair-inducing state sealed the coffin for me, so to speak.

I first read The Silmarillion when I was 13, and it had a gigantic impact on my perception of being morally grey. The seven sons of Fëanor have done awful, awful things. I’m especially horrified at the fact that they attacked a refugee camp (the Havens of Sirion) and killed most of its inhabitants - refugees. They deserve to answer for and take responsibility for their actions, but that most certainly doesn’t make them non-sympathetic, one-dimensional, or complete villains.

If there’s anything I can say Professor Tolkien has taught me with these beautiful, nuanced characters, it’s these two things:

1. Don’t throw away your morals for your goals. Over the course of reaching for their goal of reclaiming the Silmarils, the Fëanorians abandoned so much of their personal morality. Celegorm, Caranthir, Curufin, Amrod, and Amras paid the price through death. Maedhros and Maglor reached a point that even the Silmarils, the objects that they were so determined to obtain, rejected them, and they had to stomach all of their guilt and grief on top of all that, living to see the repercussions of their actions. Achieving your goals is good, but remain yourself. Don’t let those goals consume you.

2. Fear can be much more powerful motivator than hatred. I personally think that while overall, the seven brothers might have been driven by hatred for Morgoth at first, in the end it was something much more primal that became a motivation that they all shared: fear. They were all terrified, in my opinion, of what awaited them should they fail to fulfill their oath. Maedhros and Maglor, in particular, might have also been driven by guilt and desire for redemption - at least, these traits were more prevalently displayed in them than in their younger brothers - but fear was a motivation that all seven of them shared.

Sorry for the extremely long reply, lol. I wasn’t at all intending to make it this lengthy, but my Tolkien nerd side just came out. Plus, I’ve been wanting to explore my feelings toward the sons of Fëanor in depth for a while now, and these two questions gave me the perfect opportunity.

[rheaitis]

@medhasree asked for a DVD Commentary for the last scene of pravilabhate. Under a cut because it’s sizeable.

So I know, I know Arjuna is Yudhishtira’s heir at this point, but this worked better for me so whatevs.

On the fifteenth day of the Yadavas’ visit, Emperor Yudhisthira holds court in Hastinapuri in awful splendour, and with Prince Parikshit in his lap.

“As clear a declaration as any,” Lakshmana murmurs. “Has a day been fixed for the coronation?”

“On Brihaspati’s day,” Yuyutsu murmurs back. “Did you doubt this would happen?”

I am also very curious about this, and I suppose Yaudheya is only quasi-canonical? But anyway, I wanted to emphasise the fact that even Yuyutsu--who knows more than the others--doesn’t actually know why the Pandavas are doing what they’re doing.

Yuyutsu himself is unsure of the way of it, of whether Princess Devika’s son too perished in battle childless, that Yudhisthira has to turn to his brother’s grandson. There were many dead in Kurukshetra, but surely the wailing would have been great for Yaudheya. King Shivi has sons and grandsons enough to be in no need of an heir from his daughter.

Except I agree with Lakshmana about this, and it feels like the best explanation for Parikshit, that he’s there because he’s the Yadava candidate.

“No,” Lakshmana says. “What the Yadavas set their minds to, they achieve, though the greatest archers of the Kurus stand in their way. Who now lives that knows it as well as I?”

“He would have pursued you until his death, but that your father feared the anger of Prince Balabhadra.”

“I blame neither him nor my father; I regret only that Prince Balabhadra’s neutrality did not come upon him earlier, that I might have had a husband my father or I chose.”

“Princess,” he reprimands, and when she nods, adds, “and you must learn not to call Karna a Kuru when listening ears are about.”

I have SO MANY FEELINGS about the ways in which Karna fits into Lakshmana’s family, because he’s the protector who failed her (but so did her father) and he’s almost her father (but he’s not) and he’s one of her favourite uncles (but he’s low-caste) and how all of that is secondary to her determination to uphold his reputation even if she has to lie about it, and to not give way to the posthumous Pandava claiming of Karna.

Lakshmana laughs a brief peal of merriment that mingles better with the general gaiety than her wonted solemnity. “But he was not the best of the Padavas; that we know only too well. I am enough a Kaurava woman to lie if I must, to honour a man my father loved as he did my mother.”

“And you, Princess?”

“When I think of arms around me, I see only my husband; how fortunate, Uncle, that it is a true answer as well as the dutiful one.”

“Lakshmana.”

We’re all in agreement that Samba’s a nightmare, right? Cause Samba’s a nightmare.

“I do not care to be in further danger, in the home of the Yadavas, with my husband who…” Fifteen days she’s been in her home again and this is the first Yuyutsu sees Lakshmana break, lose her composure; perhaps she has wept in her mother’s arms or in Dushala’s. “If he were such a one as his father, I could have forged happiness with my husband; with such as he is, I seek only safety.”

“You know of your mother’s hopes,” he essays when she has turned again to look at Parikshita babbling joyfully on.

Lakshmana has been married for eight years and each of those years has been hell, because she can also see how good the other Yadava wives have it, by and large.

“I know my husband, and I know the love his father bears him, and the love my uncles bear my father-in-law. I know what such love does to the hopes of women. Do not speak to me of hopes, Uncle, let me have what I can of peace.”

This is just supposed to be cute; there are references to other stories in it but mostly it’s a nice moment of Pandava-Yadava amity while the Kauravas are fucked up. So there’s Arjuna/Subhadra/Draupadi clustered together; Bhima and Nakula offering characteristic favours; Satyajit unaware of the tulabharam episode as a Yadava in-joke.

On the day after Parikshit’s coronation as Crown Prince of Hastinapuri and Indraprastha, Yudhisthira grants boons to those who seek them, in his great-nephew’s name. Parikshit himself sits on his grandmother’s lap, Panchali and Partha flanking him and distracting him with sweets. The boons asked are of a nature to rouse waves of laughter, and make the little prince dance in Princess Subhadra’s gentle grip, delighted to be at the centre of so much attention. Bhima asks for permission to cook a feast in Parikshit’s name, Nakula to give milch cows to villagers in need, Princess Prabhavati to dedicate a temple to Lord Indra, long neglected among the Yadavas, and Prince Bhanu a school for worthy young men of the merchant castes. Even formidable Satyajit, King of Panchal with his score of dead brothers and nephews, asks to donate Parikshit’s weight in gold to the consecration of Khandavaprastha as sacred ground, a request that sends a howl of laughter rising from among the Yadavas, aimed perplexingly at Princess Satyabhama.

I love Bhanumati, just in case you couldn’t tell. I also love how Yuyutsu and Dushala, who started the story hostile and still don’t precisely like each other, click close in that ride-or-die sibling way.

Into the dying echoes of laughter steps Princess Bhanumati, robed austerely in white and bedecked with pearls, like a wave of the Ganga crashing ashore. In her wake comes Dushala, like a raft towed by a swan-ship, and takes Yuyutsu’s proffered hand, the seat empty next to his. Now they are three, when Yuyutsu had thought to be the only Kaurava at court, their father unwilling and Lakshmana absent and the other Princesses uninterested. Even Bhanumati has come to court only once before since he’s returned, and that to coax her daughter into speech.

“You should have told me,” he murmurs to Dushala, as Prince Balabhadra pledges to teach Parikshit as he taught his father and great-uncle, and then glances askance at the widow of his most famous pupil.

“We only found out this morning ourselves,” Dushala whispers back, “but it is true enough. Have you seen Vrishaketu?”

Yuyutsu gestures to Partha, leaning forward to chuck his grandson under the chin and then back to clasp the hand of his nephew, still smiling. “There is an awful symmetry to it.”

He’s theirs, and while Yuyutsu adores Yudhishtira and Dushala is trying to reconcile herself to the new shape of her life, they’re not entirely happy about Karna’s last son with the Pandavas. Vrishali definitely absolutely hates it.

Dushala sighs. “He’ll be safe enough, whatever happens now. His mother was worrying.”

Bhanumati is just. really good at this sort of theatre.

Balabhadra takes his seat; Bhanumati steps out in front of the throne, and sinks to her knees in front of it, her hands clasped and head lowered, a suspicion of tears on her face. Panchali turns in her seat to dart a speaking glance at Sahadeva, and is answered with a minute shake of the head.

“I have a boon to ask of you, Majesty, but a boon in truth, and no favour in disguise. My time for granting favours has fled, and now I may only ask.”

“Ask,” Yudhisthira says, “and we will judge how it is to be granted.”

This is a very... measured show of both deference and vulnerability? idk.

“I would have you intercede with your Yadava kin, Majesty.”

“The Yadavas are before your eyes,” Balabhadra calls. “What need have you of intercession, if you crave of us a boon that is just?”

“My lord is gracious,” Bhanumati says, and bows again.

They know the crap Lakshmana goes through, IJS.

“If it is to do with Lakshmana,” Pradyumna essays, “we think of her as a sister.”

Prince Bhanu nods assent, and Princess Satyabhama adds, “She has been a daughter to me these eight years; I must know what worries her mother.”

“It is a balm to my heart that my daughter has found other mothers, and siblings, especially now that her own are dead, yet I fear in speaking out I might deprive her of such shelter as she has, and remain unable to provide her with any other.”

Sahadeva KNOWS. Sahadeva knows everything, because he cannibalised his father at approx ten years old.

“Speak,” Sahadeva says, “and let not your courage fail you.”

“It touches upon the honour of my lord Krishna,” Bhanumati answers, “is it strange that fear grips my heart?”

Running joke of everyone insulting Krishna, including his family because that will never stop being hilarious to me.

His wives laugh, and Princess Rukmini says, “I promise you we have heard every possible insult to his high honour. Do not keep us waiting.”

“The day before Prince Parikshit’s coronation, Princess Prabhavati received a letter from Dwaraka, and shared its contents with my daughter, who has since taken to her bed, turning a deaf ear to any attempts to rouse her. I have heard since that you will soon return to Dwaraka and would beg the favour of keeping Lakshmana with me while she grieves.”

I... don’t know what I think about Jambavati, actually? I hate doing the bad son = bad mother thing, and I consciously stayed away from that here, but certainly of Krishna’s three Mahabharata wives, Satyabhama likes Lakshmana most and Jambavati least.

“What does your daughter grieve, that she must heal here among the Kurus?” Princess Jambavati leans forward in her seat, her face a grim mask. “We have given her time enough to grieve her father.”

“Who can know how long grief lives in the heart? My mother died a dozen years ago and still on dewy mornings I hear her voice in birdsong and I weep,” Bhanumati parries. “But Lakshmana grieves not the loss of her father’s life, but her husband’s love.”

Pradyumna also knows, but that’s because his wife got the letter and then woke him up at the crack of dawn to figure out how to deal with this.

It is possible to see when Prince Pradyumna pales, how closely he resembles his mother, their faces set together as they whisper.

So. uh. A lot of people abduct princesses (or get abducted by them) canonically. (Satyaki’s ancestor abducts Devaki for Vasudeva, e.g.) So Samba’s abduction of Lakshmana isn’t entirely beyond the pale, especially since Balarama endorsed it, but it’s not something the rest of them approve of, Satyaki least of all. Samba is Krishna’s dark mirror.

“He once did great deeds to gain her,” Satyaki drawls, “has he now forsaken her, when she needs him most?”

This is canonical-ish, btw. Samba’s a nightmare.

“That his heart strays to another while she is grief-struck is loss any woman may have to bear, and if it was only that I would not beg to keep her with me. The women of the Yadavas are as brave as they are beautiful, and my daughter, however lovely she may have been when Prince Samba’s eyes first rested on her, cannot compare, as no mortal woman may with an apsara. But that he trifles with one of Lord Krishna’s wives causes her grief from which I cannot shake her in so little time, nor can I hope for her health if in Dwaraka, when the very news of his love has so shaken her.”

Yup, the queen is a predator, it’s fabulous.

Jambavati growls, a low noise that travels spines and climbs blood. “Have you any proof of this?”

“Only what Princess Prabhavati told Lakshmana and Lakshmana told me; for truth you must ask the princess. I beg you, let me keep my daughter with me, that she might heal from her grief among those whose greatest care is for her.”

A lot of the story is to do with dealing with being middle-aged and growing into your parents without necessarily either repeating their mistakes or slipping back into the routines of your youth. idk if that came through? But this is one of those moments of mis/recognition for Yuyutsu.

She stays on her knees with hands folded together and eyes lowered, as Pradyumna and Prabhavati murmur confirmation to Princess Rukmini, the picture of serene determination. Here is one, Yuyutsu thinks of a sudden, who is a pupil, not of Shakuni but of Queen Gandhari, and makes of unflinching truth her greatest weapon.

This is the second sentence I wrote for this story. It was always going to be about surviving war and how contingent the fate of women is on the whims of their menfolk. The work was in trying to get them from the opening sentence to this.

The whispers thronging the hall stifle and still, and Dushala’s grip on his hand grows painful, and finally Krishna rises, and raises Bhanumati to her feet, and puts his lotus-pink palm on her forehead, and says, “Tathastu.”

[idiopath-fic-smile]

Fic: The Curious Case of L’Ami

Fandom: Les Mis/Starship Iris crossover

Pairing: Enjolras/Grantaire

Summary: Some say L’Ami is a legend, a figment of a void-addled imagination, like that former gambling boat turned ghost ship, or the giant astral squids floating in The Deep.

Notes: Commission for Brynn. (Prompt: Enjolras, Grantaire, and any other amis that strike your fancy in the Starship Iris universe.)

Fic: 

Officially, Adrien Enjolras and his fellow conspirators are dead, killed in an accidental explosion during the failed student protests of 2180. No bodies were ever recovered from the site, but there are eyewitnesses, death certificates, security camera footage which places Enjolras and the others at the scene moments before the fatal detonation.

Unofficially, though--Mathieu Combeferre was always top of the class when it came to hacking video feeds, and it’s true that during his brief stint at the school’s drama department, Sebastien Courfeyrac demonstrated an almost disturbing flair for pyrotechnics.

Beyond that, well, people have a knack for seeing what they expect to see.

Enjolras hates being called a pirate, so naturally, Grantaire does it as much he can.

“What we do is not piracy,” Enjolras insists at dinner that evening. They’re down to only protein tablets again, but Bossuet insists on nightly crew meals anyway, citing some half-remembered psychology paper on the importance of group cohesion. “They were out for gold--”

“--and glory,” Bahorel cuts in.

“And other, non-gold forms of wealth,” Prouvaire offers from the corner, where he’s sharpening knives. “Jewels. Silver. Tobacco.”

“Really, this piracy thing is sounding better and better all the time,” Grantaire declares. “And we haven’t even gone into the clothes yet. Those long swoopy coats? Those hats? They don’t even make saboteur hats.”

“Not yet, they don’t,” says Joly, a needle and thread in his hands and a troubling gleam in his eyes.

Some say L’Ami is a legend, a figment of a void-addled imagination, like that former gambling boat turned ghost ship, or the giant astral squids floating in The Deep.

Others claim to have seen it firsthand. These people are, for the most part, lying.

Feuilly and Musichetta worked for many hours in Joly’s lab to create a series of light wave-neutralizing panels which, when applied to the outside of the ship, render it close to invisible in flight. Scanners are a little harder to fool, but it’s not impossible to scatter a signal, and anyway, Combeferre didn’t get his reputation for nothing.

When the Regime’s local radio fails, when a supply line breaks down, when a piece of unjammable IGR tech becomes hopelessly jammed, when satellites plummet from the sky like shooting stars, a low-level lackey will sometimes blame the crew of L’Ami. Sometimes, this person will be correct.

The thing is, sometimes they’re wrong. Sometimes, the resistance comes from much closer to home: orders not carried out, protocol ignored, a devastating weapon left to suffer a mysterious number of production setbacks. When a simple functionary of the Regime acts out of conscience, allows the gears of the machinery to grind close to breaking, even for a moment, L’Ami is there to take the blame. That’s half the reason it exists.

Grantaire calls it The Good Ship Plausible Deniability, but that’s just Grantaire.

Éponine has a job for them. This is not unusual; Éponine is the one with the most contacts on the ground. Scouring the ‘net is one thing, but she’s the one who picks up on the whispers, the thoughts nobody dares commit to keyboards or transcribers.

A prominent politician on New Jupiter has been working with the mafia since before Neuzo.

“The Estonians?” asks Bahorel; “The Sicilians?”

“More small-time than that,” Éponine tells him. “They call themselves the Jondrettes.”

Cosette turns from her pilot’s chair to frown at Éponine. The two share several seconds of complex eye contact, the kind with multiple layers of meaning, and then Cosette reaches up and squeezes Éponine’s shoulder, supportive.

“We go back a ways,” Éponine explains to the others. “But it’s fine. Won’t be an issue.”

“Are you sure,” says Enjolras.

Éponine smiles wolfishly. “I think Bossuet would say it’ll be good for my sense of closure.”

The mission is complicated. Wiretapping mob lines from the air is a no-go; criminals have the best encryption on the market. Planting a bug in-person means infiltrating either the Jondrettes’ headquarters, or the offices of a minor chancellor.

“Chancellor’ll have less security,” Bahorel points out. “Fewer armed guards--”

“But we’ll need a better cover story,” Éponine finishes. “High clearance. You know what that means.”

Enjolras does.

Grantaire shows up to the briefing wearing thick black eyeliner. “It’s my form of protest,” he explains. “I will rock this look until you at least give me a small plank to walk people off.”

Enjolras, who has consumed more piratical factoids than he’d really care to admit, says absently, “They didn’t even do that” before he’s thought better of it.

“Aha!” Grantaire shouts. “So by not allowing me a plank, you admit we’re pirates!”

“In other news,” Courfeyrac interjects brightly, “the briefing!”

To pull off this latest mission, the crew will need at least two sets of convincing ident cards, badges, and scannable contact lenses to create the illusion of a bodyguard and a mid-level aide. (Bahorel and Courfeyrac, respectively. Éponine is out due to the chance she could be recognized by one of Jondrette’s thugs. It remains to be seen if the Chancellor is brazen enough to invite known criminals directly to his office, but it’s not beyond the realm of possibility.)

“Simple,” says Grantaire. “Child’s play. A grievous waste of my talents. I could be counterfeiting money on a tropical planet, sipping absurdly conceptual cocktails on a hover-beach, and here I am instead--” “And why is that, exactly?” Enjolras fires back. Grantaire just shrugs one easy shoulder, eyes shockingly blue against all that black. It reminds Enjolras of the way Earth stands out in photos taken from space.

“Who’s got the attention span to stay put?” Grantaire replies. “If anyone needs me, I’ll be in my quarters.” He reaches the door, spins, and adds with a grin, “mateys.”

The irritating thing about Grantaire--and there are many, but the chief one among Enjolras’s concerns--is that it is almost impossible to get a straight answer out of him.

Grantaire of a dozen years ago would never so casually take orders, would certainly never then turn around and perform the tasks required. Maybe he just prefers fucking shit up over trying to rally the people. But then again, the work Grantaire does--falsifying records, forging credentials, crafting careful replicas of retinas--is not just an act of creation but an act of incredible precision.

Everyone aboard L’Ami has made sacrifices. Everyone left behind people, places, the chance for anything resembling a steady life. They are all legally dead, after all. Most did it from a place of deep conviction, the same conviction that once drove them to pledge their lives to the cause back on Corinth.

Grantaire was not one of them then. The only change between those days and the day Grantaire chose to run with them was the total failure of the student uprisings.

Why this, why now? Certainly, Enjolras has other things to think about. They’ll need more rations soon, and both Cosette and Feuilly have been after him about some new engine part that should be able to up their speed by something like fifteen percent. Combeferre is only a year’s worth of work away from being able to implant a virus inside the Regime’s intra-government mail system. Courfeyrac’s disguises get more promising every day. And if nothing else, there’s an endless expanse of stars out the window, endless thoughts to have about the scope of the universe and the promise of a brighter dawn.

Most of the time, this is more than enough to keep his mind occupied.

Most of the time.

Enjolras is waiting by the comms when word comes that the plan’s gone south. Fifteen minutes after Courfeyrac successfully managed to slip into the Chancellor’s office and plant the bug inside of his desk, Bahorel was spotted and recognized by a freelance guard.

“How,” says Cosette, calm tone belying her white knuckles on the dashboard.

“Not sure.” Courfeyrac’s voice comes in a whisper; from the sounds of it, he’s ducked behind a corner. “I know he was on the amateur boxing circuit, back in the day--”

The name on Bahorel’s ident card won’t match up with the name he went by then. It’s a matter of time until the small talk branches off into questions and they are discovered.

Enjolras has to fix this. It was his call to send Courfeyrac and Bahorel, his call that put them in danger. He paces the cockpit.

“I’m going in after them,” he announces.

“No,” says a voice from the doorway. Grantaire is standing there, shoulders tense, still wearing that ridiculous eyeliner. “We don’t have the numbers for a confrontation.” His voice is quiet, devoid of irony or sarcasm. Somehow, that’s the strangest part of the whole scene.

“I’ll keep it covert,” Enjolras says. “I’ll pretend to be Bahorel’s superior--we’ve still got that spare IGR uniform, right?”

“We do, but we’d still need a new ID for you,” Combeferre replies. “It’s the same problem.”

“The guard’s less likely to check the credentials of a superior, you know that,” Enjolras snaps. Every second they debate is a second Courfeyrac and Bahorel lose.

“Let someone else do it,” Grantaire adds, grave. “We’ve got four or five working aliases between us--”

“Nobody with the clearance to extract them,” says Enjolras. He sighs, rakes his fingers through his hair. “How fast can you make a new ID, Grantaire.”

Grantaire shakes his head. “Not fast enough.” “Then I’ll have to go without.”

“Please don’t do this, Captain.” Grantaire swallows, stares unblinking at Enjolras. “We can’t lose you.”

Later, Enjolras thinks. Later he will pause to examine this moment, the way Grantaire’s voice cracks on ‘you,’ the way his own throat aches in sympathy. Later, because there will be time, because this plan will work.

“Cosette, get ready to make a fast exit,” says Enjolras, already peeling off his captain’s vest. “Tell Feuilly to stoke the engines. Bahorel, keep stalling. Courfeyrac, make your way back to the ship as discreetly as you can. And Grantaire? Have a little faith.”

Grantaire’s choking, hysterical laughter follows him out of the cockpit.

The sun is bright and surreal in his eyes after so many days shipside. Enjolras strides forward, trying to make his speed look commanding and not desperate.

“You there!” he shouts at Bahorel and the guard. “You’re not paid to stand around chatting!”

“Sorry, sir!” Bahorel barks.

“Sorry, sir!” the guard echoes.

“Report back to your stations immediately!” says Enjolras.

“Yes, sir!” Bahorel jogs off, and Enjolras’s heart lightens.

The guard blinks back at him.

The best way to stem critical thinking and divert suspicion is to play into strong emotions. Fear works well. Enjolras launches into a lengthy, furious lecture on the importance of professionalism, of duty and obedience and manning your goddamn post.

“Sir,” says the guard slowly, “I was on break…”

An actual official of the IGR would know this. An actual official of the IGR would be able to access the roster.

“Meadows dismissed me at 09:00,” the guard continues, “Senior Officer…?” One hand is on his radio. There are people everywhere, no way to stop him without making a scene. Enjolras prays that Courfeyrac and Bahorel are already back on the ship.

“Sir!” someone is yelling from behind him. “Sir!” Enjolras spins around. Grantaire is running towards them at full speed. He’s wearing Feuilly’s mechanic coveralls with Musichetta’s leather gloves, to hide the knuckle tattoos, and a pair of goggles jammed over his dark curls to cover the eye makeup. “Sir!” Grantaire calls, “beg pardon, but you left this in the transport!”

In his outstretched hand is a pristine new ID card, emblazoned with the words Major General Hugo.

The guard looks a little pale.

“Would you like to continue to question me,” asks Enjolras, deadly calm.

“No, sir!” The guard executes a sloppy salute and turns on his heel.

Grantaire is doubled over, breathing raggedly. He must have sprinted the whole way. Feuilly has a slighter build; the mechanic suit strains at the shoulders and biceps.

“Thank you,” says Enjolras, as dispassionately as he can, mindful of the crush of people on all sides.

“No...tip...necessary,” Grantaire manages between pants. “Just...glad...to be...of service.”

Once they are safely back in space again, the mood on the ship is messy and ebullient. They may be down to protein tabs, but it turns out there’s still wine.

Bahorel is cheerfully regaling everyone with the story, including a spirited impression of Enjolras as a tyrannical senior officer. Enjolras half-expects Grantaire to be in the thick of the festivities, but he is absent from the mess hall. Nor is he in the cockpit or the engine room or the training room.

Enjolras finds him, finally, in the hydroponics lab.

“Thank you,” he says, and Grantaire jumps.

“You already said,” Grantaire replies with a crooked smile. There is a measure of truth in that smile, but something else, too. Enjolras allows himself to remember that argument in the cockpit, and it’s as though that glimpse of the slipping mask has granted him a better sense of it now.

“I mean it,” Enjolras pushes. “You risked your life, and I appreciate it.”

He’s not sure what he expects, but it’s not laughter. “God,” says Grantaire, bitter and amused, “don’t. Please don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Act like this represents magnificent sacrifice on my part. I acted with extreme selfishness.”

Enjolras frowns. “I don’t follow.”

“Do you really?” Grantaire’s voice is climbing. “Come on, Enjolras, I refuse to believe you’re this obtuse. You must know.”

It’s beyond confusing. “Know what?” Enjolras repeats. “If you’re going to talk in riddles, at least make it rhyme.”

“Well, fuck,” says Grantaire, and an edge of that hysterical laughter is back. “Fuck, what rhymes with, ‘I’ve been desperately in love with you since I very first heard you preaching fire and brimstone and freedom on the quad?’ It’s a little, it’s a little tough to make that scan, but Jesus Christ, give me a second--”

There is a long pause as every neuron in Enjolras’s brain swivels, reconfigures, sputters back into life. Several things suddenly make more sense. Several things also make less sense, but he’ll have time to sort that out.

They’re alive. They have time.

“Grantaire,” he says, hears himself say, “will you go out with me?”

There is a much longer pause. “...say again?” mumbles Grantaire.

“Grantaire, will you please take off those stupid goggles and go out with me?”

“Wow, uh.” The goggles land on the floor, and Enjolras watches those blue eyes widen.

Enjolras fits his hand to the side of Grantaire’s face because he can, because they’re both still breathing and the skin of Grantaire’s jaw is warm and rough with stubble. When Enjolras presses their mouths together, Grantaire’s lips are soft, almost hesitant until something inside him seems to snap and then they are kissing with abandon as the hydroponic system softly mists the air around them.

Presently, Grantaire pulls away. “Are you sure, I mean, are you one hundred percent sure this isn’t just gratitude at how I totally saved your ass?”

���I’m sure,” says Enjolras. “Although, I do think you deserve a reward for that.”

“Yeah?” says Grantaire.

Enjolras takes a deep breath, carefully schools his face. “Shiver me timbers,” he says, totally deadpan, before reaching out to reel Grantaire back in.

Grantaire’s grin is brighter than a supernova.

[popsicle-writing]

Doki Doki Pretty Cure: Robots in Disguise Chapter 3

It's been a long day on Earth or rather Oogai Town. Ever since the Autobots arrived on Earth, they have been tracking down some escaped prison ship of the Alchemor until they meet with these human girls who has the ability to transform into the legendary warriors, Pretty Cure and called themselves; Doki Doki Pretty Cure and they have been creating a close bond together. Mana and Bumblebee received some quests from Optimus Prime to join forces together and they did. They finally able to meet up each other face to face. With the Pretty Cure's help, they are able to take down their first prisoner; Underbite...except for Grimlock which he is actually in probation. Together, they will work together as a team to re-capture all of these fugitives! Their adventures are about to begin here!

Chapter 3: Strongarm's and Sideswipe's trust! Cure Diamond and Cure Sword vs Steeljaw!

-Location: Oogai Town, Yotsuba's Mansion- Mana and Rikka were walking in the backyard, chatting with each other. "What a tiring day!" Mana began, stretching her body. "It's been a long since we fought that Decepticon yesterday as Pretty Cure, my fighting power is feeling pumped up!" Her friend nodded. "That's right! Ever since the Autobots arrived here and fight alongside us, our Pretty Cure's spirit is increasing!" Their fairy partners then float towards them. "With a lot of trust and teamwork, Pretty Cure power will become more powerful-sharu!" Sharuru hollered. Raquel nods in agreement. "We're unstoppable-quel!" The girl smiled and giggled. Then, Mana just looked at the sky and she wondered...will she ever meet Optimus again? She began to have this same as Bumblebee like before. "Mana, are you okay-sharu?" her fairy partner tries to snapped her to reality. "Eh?" the girl then looked back at them. "No, I'm fine!" she smiled. "If you say so..." Rikka stated in concern before they heard a familiar voice. "Ow! Sideswipe you're supposed to catch me!" yep, that's Strongarm's voice. "That's the whole point of 'trust exercises'!" They looked and the cadet and Sideswipe were doing these 'trust exercise'. Strongarm looked the red bot who doesn't look happy. "Ugh, now my comm unit is busted." "Oh, sorry. Maybe when it was my turn, you shouldn't have let me fall." he spoke up, sarcastically. "Three. Times. In. A. Row!" "That's because you weren't falling correctly!" she argues. The girls spoke up interrupted their conversation. "Um...what are you two doing?" Rikka asked the two bots. "Oh, we're just doing some 'trust exercises'." Strongarm pointed out. Mana blinked her eyes. "Trust exercises?" The cadet pointed out. "It's an exercise where we learn how to trust each other." she then looked at Sideswipe and gave him a death glare. "Which somebot doesn't know how to do it properly." The red bot scoffed. "Well, why don't you demonstrate how to fall the right way, your dictatorship." Strongarm growled and began to hit him but Sideswipe hit her back and they continuously hitting each other like a bunch of kids. "These two really doesn't get along very well, aren't they-sharu?" Sharuru sighed. "Hey, knock it off!" Bumblebee's voice can be heard. "These exercises are important!" They looked with their eyes/optics widened as Grimlock was carrying Bumblebee like a bride. "Yeah, why can't you guys take anything seriously?" the green bot spoke out with a grin. The yellow bot then looked at him and sighed. The two bots tries to contain their laughter while the two girls giggled. Grim then put Bumblebee down. "If we're gonna work together to recapture all the escaped Decepticons, we have to trust each other." "I do trust Sideswipe..." the cadet spoke up with a smug on her face. "...to mess up." Sideswipe frowns at her as they began to fight each other. "Hey, calm down!" Rikka tries to stop them. "Fighting and arguing each other won't solve anything-quel!" but they weren't listening and continued to fight. Bumblebee then sighed. "This is why I can't have nice things..." "I feel you, Bumblebee..." Mana stated, awkwardly. Then, Bumblebee received a call from the com-link. He picke up the call. "Fixit to everyone." Fixit's voice spoke up, getting everyone's attention. "Go ahead, Fixit." "Can you circle back at the garage? There's something I need to show you." Bumblebee nodded. "On our way." he then looked at the others. "Let's see if we can all make it there in one peace." He transformed into his vehicle mode before letting Mana in and drove off. "Don't feel bad." the green Dinobot spoke up. "It's not that easy to be a model teammate like me." The two bots rolled their optics as they transform into their vehicle mode (with Sideswipe letting Rikka in) and drove off. Grimlock was confused at first but without hesitating, he transform into his Dinobot mode and followed them. Not for long, they arrived at the garage. Everything is stacked up like Fixit's supplies and some containment pods for the escaped fugitives. In the garage, there were Alice and Fixit but Makoto is not with them. "Where's Makoto?" Strongarm asked the girl. "Oh, she just practicing her singing." Alice replied with a soft smile. "Wow. She can sing?" the red bot spoke with a fake surprise tone in his voice. "That's cool." The cadet grunts and rolled her optics. Rikka just sighed in disappointment at Sideswipe's attitude. Fixit then spoke up, grabbing everyone's attention. "Search instruments have located a cluster of fugitive signals near here and appears there might be intact stasis pods as well." "Some easy capture devices would be nice." Bumblebee muttered under his breath. Then, they heard a voice from the monitor. It wasn't a robot or rather a Cybertronian's voice. It sounded like a human's voice. "Mayday! Mayday!" "Oh, we're intercepting an Earth based radio signal." Fixit pointed out. He turn on the monitor and as they expected, it's a human who appears to be in the middle of the sea. "This is a captain of oil tanker off coast of Oogai Town. We are under attack by what appears to be a shark, but is bigger than any I've ever seen and it looks to be made of metal!" "Could it be...?" Rikka began. "Decepticons." Strongarm pointed out. The human continued, "My crew has evacuated on the life boats. Please, send assistance immediately!" with that, the monitor shut off. "The Alchemor's prisoner manifest lists of Sharkticon aboard." the Orange Minic-Con stated, opening his Alchemor's database. "There's a Decepticon called Sharkticons-lance?" Lance questioned, curiously. "Sharkticons, Insecticons, Skunkticons, you named it!" he continued. Bumblebee then clears his throat to get his attention. "Oh right! Here's your capture device, sir." he tossed the weapon at him. "It will work this time." "Are you sure?" Bumblebee raises his eyebrow. "Not really." he chuckled, nervously. The yellow bot rolled his optics before turning to Alice. Do you have a boat that Grimlock and I can tow to the water?" he asked. "Yes we have one." she replied with a nod. Strongarm couldn't believe her own optics. "You and the Dinobot?" "Grimlock proved to me earlier today that he can be trusted in a field situation that requires teamwork." he pointed out. "But you're not going alone only two of you." Mana began. Alice continued. "We'll come with you, in case you need some our help." The yellow bot nodded at them before turning to the two bots. "You two with your partners will check out those fugitives signals. Together." "Yeah, work on that teamwork!" the green bot spoke up before following Bumblebee. "Are you sure you two going to be alright?" Rikka asked her two friends. Mana smiled. "Don't worry, Rikka. We have an Autobots partners on our side." "If anything happens, we'll be ready as a Pretty Cure." Alice finished. The blue haired girl paused for a bit before spoke up with a smile. "Alright but be careful out there." the two nodded in promises as they walks away to follow their Autobot guardians. Rikka sighed once more. Fixit spoke up. "The stasis pods are grid 4023 sector 7650." he then turned to the two bots. "Oh, and bring me back something, will you? Like a rock or a soil sample or-" However, Sideswipe ignored him as he transformed into his vehicle mode and opened the door for Rikka. "Get in." "Where to exactly-quel?" Raquel asked him. "Anywhere. Just get in." he replied. Rikka tries to argue with him but she just stay quiet and went inside. With that, Sideswipe drove off. "Hey! We were supposed to-" too late, he already left the mansion. She sighed in frustration, as she looked at Fixit. "Where's Makoto?" "Oh, she's inside, cadet Strongarm." he replied. "Like miss Alice said, she is singing and she has the most beautiful noise-choice-voice I've ever heard!" The cadet nodded and she look around outside the mansion because she is too big to fit inside the mansion, so she tried to search for her through the window until she heard a voice. Strongarm followed the voice and saw her through an opened window, singing her song called "Songbird". Fixit was right! Her voice...so soothing and beautiful just like a voice of an angel. Makoto then finished her singing. "You have the most beautiful voice!" the cadet complimented her. The girl look outside the window and saw her. "Oh, it's you, Strongarm." she spoke up. "Thank you." she then walked to the window. "Where do you learn to sing like that?" her Autobot guardian questioned. "From my hometown, actually." Makoto answered. "Hometown? Isn't this place already your hometown?" The girl shooked her head. "No, actually. My hometown is actually Trump Kingdom." The cadet raised her eyebrow. "Trump...Kingdom?" "It's a long story. You see that's where I was born and raised. That place was full of generosity people until..." her voice dropped. "...the Selfish army arises..." Selfish army? The cadet listened more to her story. "I was chose to become a Pretty Cure and tries to save my hometown. So, I sent here to Earth and began my life as a singer. When I first met Mana, I don't trust them yet as I was chose to be alone..." Strongarm's optics widened. She was chose to fight alone just like her?! And she didn't trust her teammates just like she didn't trust Sideswipe at first! "And it all changes when Mana told me who important it is to trust each other." she smiled at her memories. "That's...the most inspiring story I've ever heard." the cadet admitted, receiving a look from her human partner. "Really?" Strongarm nodded until she paused for a bit before spoke up. "Anyway, the others went on the missions and Sideswipe decided to drive off with Rikka. So, do you want to come?" The girl paused for a bit and then nods. "Alright." the cadet then transforms into her vehicle mode and let her partner in and drove off. -Location: The middle of the forest- Sideswipe keeps on driving through the woods until Rikka spoke up. "Sideswipe, you shouldn't just leave the place like that." she blurted out. He scoffed. "Come on. It's not like you wanting to hear what Mini-Con have to said." "It's not that. It's just...you're supposed to be a team player and learn to trust each other. Especially Strongarm!" Sideswipe groaned. "What? You trust her too, don't you?" The girl stayed quiet before spoke up. "Actually, I don't. Just like how I don't trust Makoto..." The vehicle stopped his track and let her out. He transform into his robot and began to questioned her. "What do you mean? You were okay with each other yesterday." "That was a long time ago before I met Makoto. It's kinda a long story..." "...I'm listening." Rikka sighed and began her story. "You know that Makoto is a singer and Mana admired her so much?" she asked, receiving a confused "yes" from him but Rikka continued anyway. "After Makoto joined our team, Mana has become so close to her that I...feel extremely jealous of her." "Jealous? Why would you feel like that?" "Mana and I were friends ever since we were little. I was pretty shy at first but after I met Mana, she was my very first best friend. She always listened to me, help me and care for me...until Makoto came along. I was afraid that she'll take away Mana from me." Huh. That sounds so familiar to Sideswipe... "But then I realized..." the girl continued. "...that jealousy wasn't the answer. I shouldn't give up our friendship with Mana or Makoto. So, I ended up becoming friends with her and I began to trust her." That sounds like...him and Strongarm! "There you two are!" a familiar voice spoke out and they saw Strongarm and Makoto walking towards them. Sideswipe sighed. "You're never gonna treat me equal, aren't you?" he bluntly asked the cadet. Strongarm glared at him. "And you're never gonna take me seriously, are you?" she crossed her arms. Oh dear... "There they go again-quel." Raquel sighed. "Ugh, I'll com you when I find something!" Sideswipe then transformed into his vehicle mode and opened the door to let Rikka in. The girl look at the cadet and Makoto for a second before sighing and went in. With that, he drove off. "Wait! We can't split up!" Makoto reminded them but they already left...again. "Again-davi?" Dabyi wondered in annoyance. Strongarm tried to com him. "Sideswipe? Sideswipe!" but her com unit is busted. "Ugh, stupid com unit! Come on, let's follow them!" she transformed before letting Makoto in and drove off. -Location: Oogai Town, in the Middle of the Sea- Bumblebee, Grimlock, Heart and Rosetta were in the middle of the sea, were being attacked by the fugitive under the water. The fugitive banged its head on the ship, almost making them lose their balance. Grimlock look under the water and saw a shadowy figure of it. "Excuse me!" he then jumped out from the ship. "Grimlock, wait!" Rosetta tries to stop him but it was too late. He transformed into his Dinobot mode and began to pound the Sharkticon but only to be carried away by him. "This isn't teamwork!" the yellow bot reminded him. He then pulled out his weapon and tries to test if it's working. He about to lose his balance again when the Sharkticon hit the ship and his weapon lose its grip from him. "Rosetta, are you okay?" Heart asked her teammate. "I'm fine." she nodded. They then see Grimlock being sunk into the water by the Sharkticon. "Grim!" Rosetta yelled in worried. Bumblebee then tries to grab the weapon but only to be stopped with the Sharkticon transformed into his robot mode and landed on the ground. The girls readied their fighting stance. However, the Con was a bit bigger than them even Bumblebee. "Kinda wish I was a bigger bot..." he muttered. -Location: Oogai Town, middle of the woods- Strongarm keeps on driving to search for Sideswipe. Makoto just look outside the window until she saw something. "Strongarm, stop!" she alerted, making her guardian stopped. The girl then went outside her as the cadet transformed. They gasped as they witnessed something. They saw some containment pods! And they all looks rusted. "What happened here-davi?" Dabyi asked in shocked. The girl shrugged. "No clue." Suddenly, they heard a twig snap as Strongarm bring out her weapon while Dabyi transformed to the transformation device. "Stay behind me." the cadet told her partner. They followed the noises as the trees clearing up and up ahead they saw another bot...but with a tail. Strongarm gestures Makoto stay hidden behind the tree and so she did. The view of the bot appears to be a wolf. "Prepare for freedom, brother." the bot spoke up with a very soothing voice as he raised his claws to strike the pod. "Claws in the air!" the cadet from behind him orders, pointing her weapon at him. He turned around and saw Strongarm. However, without raising his arms...or claws, he just casually walked up to her. "Hello, sister." he spoke again. "Did you fall out from the sky too? I'm so glad we found each other." Sister? What is he going on about? "Decepticon fugitive! By ordering from Cybertronian code section 305, you are hereby-" the cadet tries to orders him but was cut off. "Of course. You're confused." he somehow told her. "I wasn't a prisoner on that ship. I was a guard." A guard? "Fixit never said anything about a guard being on the Alchemor." Strongarm pointed out at him, confusedly. "Fixit, yes..." he pretend to remember the Orange Mini-Con's name. "Well, he wouldn't have known. I was in stasis also. My pod programmed to wake in case of a riot." Makoto just watched them behind the tree and she gasped quietly as she saw a Decepticon logo but with some scratches on it. He has a Decepticon logo but why was it scratched? "And why would you have the Decepticon logos?" Strongarm questioned him. "You've been well trained, asking excellent questions." he chuckles. "Something tells me, he's up to something-davi..." Dabyi whispered to the girl. "The logo meant to confuse the others-" he stopped his sentence before try to attack the cadet but she dodge immediately. Strongarm tries to use her com-link. "This is Strongarm! I am under attack!" she then tries to use her leg to kick her but only to be stopped by the Con's blocking it. "My postion is-!" He then swing her around and slamming her to the ground before throwing her to the rock, knocking her out. The Con then walked up to her. "Strongarm!" Makoto gasped. He heard her voice and but as soon he turned around in alert, he saw nothing. The girl is still hiding behind the tree, didn't make any moves or noises. "That Decepticon looks fierce with claws-davi." Dabyi spoke up with a low voice at her. "We should head back and call for back up-davi." The girl nodded in agreement as she began to creep away without making any noises. -Location: Oogai Town, Yotsuba Mansion- Sideswipe and Rikka has come back from the patrol. Rikka climbed out from him as her guardian transformed back to his robot mode. "Ah, you're back!" Fixit exclaimed. "Listen, I have a very serious news to-" Rikka then look around. "Strongarm and Makoto aren't back yet, are they?" "I'm pretty sure they're fine." the red bot spoke up, not caring of what happens to them. But Rikka looked at him and glared. "Sideswipe!" the girl tries to argue with him but Fixit cut off. "Actually, cadet Strongarm called in and sound like she was in rubble-trouble! But it was too hard to hear and I figured that her comm unit is malfunctioning and I can't track her." the orange Mini-Con explained. "Wait, Makoto was with Strongarm!" the girl then gasped. "That means..." "They're both in trouble-quel!" Raquel alerted. Rikka then glared at him. "I told you to trust Strongarm but you weren't listening!" Sideswipe paused for a bit, realizing his mistake. Maybe Rikka was right about trusting Strongarm. What if she get hurts? All of this is his fault. "Scrap..." "I'll notified Bumblebee immediately!" Fixit pointed out. But the red bot denied the offers. "No! We'll handle it!" -Location: Oogai Town, in the Middle of the Sea- Bumblebee and the Sharkticon were still fighting with each other. "You have forced me to walk on two legs. How dare you?!" the Sharkticon then charged at him but Rosetta appeared in front of him just in time and create her Rosetta Wall. The Sharkticon collided with the wall, only to bounce him back where he came from. Heart then leaped up in the air, grabbing his left arm and flings him to the ground. "Thanks, you two!" Bumblebee thanked them. The girls smiled. "That's why we trusted you, Bumblebee." Heart winked at him. The Sharkticon then stand back up to his feet. The girls reunited by Bumblebee's side with their fighting stance on. "Listen here, Sharkticon." the yellow bot pointed his gun at him. "My name is Hammerstrike. Cybertron most feared pirate." There's a pirate on Cybertron? "And soon the ruler of all in this planet sees!" Bumblebee rolled his optics. "Yeah...okay, whatever. Surrender now or these brave warriors and my Dinobot partner will taking a beating then surrender." Hammerstrike then throws a bunch of boxes at them but Rosetta created her Rosetta Wall again to block them. But one of the boxes hit Bumblebee's hands, making him lose the grip of his gun as well. "Scrap..." "Surrender the light's of you." the Con laughed. "I will never been fend in the gorgeous depth again!" he then tries to claw him but Heart stopped him. "Unhand me, you foul creature!" he then tries to claw her face instead. "Don't be...selfish!" she then used her leg to kick him back. Rosetta then looked at the water in worried. "Anytime now, Grimlock." he was still underwater. Hammerstrike then charge at Heart, making her fall back but Bumblebee catches her in time. "Are you alright?" the Cure nodded in replied. The Sharkticon then jumped out from the boat and began to transform into his shark mode. "He's getting away-sharu!" but the fugitive run away. "We almost had him-lance..." Lance spoke out in disappointment. Rosetta looked at him. "It's alright, Lance. We'll get him next time." With that, Bumblebee com-link Grimlock to see if he can get to shore. -Location: Oogai Town, Yotsuba's Mansion- Bumblebee has arrived back to their base. "Where's everyone? Rikka and Makoto?" Mana asked. "Oh, that. Well..." Fixit chuckles nervously. "Well...?" Alice waited for him to response. "Cadet Strongarm, Sideswipe and their partners are out for their alignment-assignment!" not wanting to bring up the subject, he then saw Grimlock was all soaking wet. "What just happened?" "It's a...long story." Alice reassured him. "Fixit, where are the others?" the lieutenant asked him in a very serious tone. "Well..." the Mini-Con chuckles nervously again. -Location: Somewhere around the woods- Sideswipe was strolling around a small building which happens to be an abandoned cabin. Inside, Rikka was crossing her arms with an angry expression. The red bot sighed. "Rikka, don't take this so seriously..." The girl didn't responds as Sideswipe stopped his track and spoke up again. "Look, I'm sorry. You were right about to trust Strongarm. It was all my fault that I abandoned her...and your friend..." He had a sad tone in his voice. Rikka looked at him. Was he feeling guilty now...? "Sideswipe..." "I get it. If you're mad at me, go ahead and yelled at me." "I'm not mad at you, Sideswipe. You're my guardian, my teammate, my friend." she pointed out. "Friends aren't supposed to mad at each other. And I'm sorry for lashing my anger at you either. I was just so worried about my friends that I ended up worrying you instead..." "Heh. No worries." he chuckles. "From now on, we're in the real team right?" receiving a nod from her. "Hey, look-quel!" Raquel grabbed their attention. They look and saw Makoto was running towards them. "Makoto?!" Rikka then climbed out from the car. "Makoto?! What's going on?! Where's Strongarm?!" Makoto tries gasped for air. "She's got beat up by a Con!" "A Con?! Where is she now?" Sideswipe asked. "Right there-davi!" Dabyi pointed where she and Makoto came from. "Alright, climb up!" he then opened the doors for the girls climbed in and drives off. Not for long, they arrived at the same place where Makoto and Dabyi came from. "There they are-davi." she whispered. They saw Strongarm being chained up by the same wolf like Decepticon. "I don't trust him. He looks cool." the red bot blurted out. "Kinda reminds me of someone..." "What do we now-quel?" Raquel asked in worried and concern. "If I was a half criminal Strongarm think I am, I just walked away." he replied bluntly. Rikka sighed. "Sideswipe, this is not the time to-" she paused her sentence. "I have an idea! Follow me!". The others followed her. "But giving you a second chance isn't up to me." Strongarm told him. "I'm just a cadet. My surperior officer would have to be the one to-" "I would love to meet your squadron. How many of you are there? Where are your base?" the Con questioned. "We're just over-" she paused for a second. "Wait, how do we know this isn't a trick?" "I see you've found a couple of Autobots." a mysterious...yet a similar voice can be heard from behind. The two look and saw a bot coming from the tree. Strongarm take a closer look at the bot and she realized it's Sideswipe! He has a glow Decepticon logo on his chest. "Can I get in on a little payback?" The Con looked at him and smirks. "Greeting, brother. I'm Steeljaw." So, this wolf Con named is Steeljaw. "And you are?" "Oh, I'm...Grim...bee!" Sideswipe stutters. Really? Grimbee? A combination name of Grimlock and Bumblebee? "I'm glad you are free, Grimbee." the Con, who is now revealed to be named Steeljaw, offered him to join him. "Step into the light and join me." Sideswipe then look at his logo. "But uh, what happened to your mark then, brother...?" "I destroyed it and its tracking mechanism." he explained. Aha, that explain everything. "The Autobots mustn't capture me before I can prove to them I've reformed. I want to live here now, peacefully. As I'm sure you do too." Strongarm then saw Rikka and Makoto were sneaking towards her. "Makoto, Rikka, what are you doing? Get out!" the cadet whispered to them. Makoto shook her head. "I'm not leaving you, Strongarm." The two then tries to unchained her but not until Steeljaw heard the noise behind him and turned around. "We've been spotted-davi!" Dabyi alerted. The Con growled. "What are you? Besides strange?" "Look who's talking-quel!" Raquel yelled at him. "Don't go near them, brother!" Sideswipe warned him. Steeljaw scoffed. "Treachery. How like you...Autobots." "If you want the Autobots so much, you'll have to get through us first!" Rikka and Makoto then hold out their transformation devices. "Pretty Cure, Love Link!" the girls then 'draw' the letters L-O-V-E on the screen. The middle flashes three times and trigger the transformation. It first show Rikka with the hair ornaments appeared and the light trigger her body, creating the dress. Makoto's transformation also the same but instead of her dress shows up first, her arm warmers show and then her dress. The yellow light created Rikka's shoes while Makoto's Lovely Commune is shown on her pelvis. Rikka then spin around before landing on the ground and introduced herself. "The Light of Wisdom! Cure Diamond!" Makoto also does the same. "The Blade of Courage! Cure Sword!" The Con stepped back in shocked and surprised. "With the blade of courage, I, Cure Sword, will cut off your careerism with the sword of love!" Sword hollered. Using her hand, Sword slashed the chain on Strongarm, making them break with ease. The cadet was freed from the chain. "What?!" the Con optics widened in anger. "Sideswipe!" Diamond called out. The red bot then wiped off his fake Decepticon logo from his chest as he leaped up while Steeljaw growls and leaped up as well but Sideswipe dodge his attack and landed on the ground. The Con growled more and charged at him but only to be kick in the stomach by Strongarm, making him flying and then Diamond and Sword charge at him and grabbed each of his arms and flung him to the tree. He got slams into a tree. However, it about to fall on Diamond and Sword. Strongarm then transform into her vehicle form and scooped both of them in before the tree fall. "Thanks, Strongarm." Sword thanked her. "No problem." she replied. Sideswipe then walked towards them. Diamond noticed that the Con has disappeared. "He's gone..." "I have a bad feeling we're gonna see that Con again." the red bot pointed out. The cadet nods. "I hope so." she reassured. "But from now on, let's head back." Sword suggests. -Location: Oogai Town, Yotsuba Mansion- The two vehicles made it back to the base. Mana, Alice and Fixit greeted them. "You're back!" Mana then went to hugged her friends. "We were so worry about you." "We're fine, Mana." Rikka told her. "Why wouldn't they be okay?" Bumblebee spoke up with Grimlock, holding a barrel. Inside that barrel was Hammerstrike. They somehow managed to capture him. "Sideswipe and I were having a communication difficulty earlier, Lieutenant. Nothing serious." the cadet explained. "Anything to report?" the yellow bot asked. "Well, we found some open pod, sir." Strongarm replied. "And a Decepticon." Rikka added. "He said his name is Steeljaw." Makoto continued. Sideswipe spoke up. "Says he wanted to live peacefully on this with like minded Decepticons, but he got unpeaceful with us real quick." "Sounds like a very selfish ways to do it." Alice commented. Grimlock walked over with a barrel. "Can't wait to meet him. I'll go put this one away, and I'll do it gently." then, Hammerstrike muttered something very angrily inside the barrel but Grimlock punch the barrel to make him quiet. "If he's lying about going straight, we could be looking at a Decepticon army trying to take over this planet." Strongarm continued. Bumblebee nods. "It's all the more reason to wrap these fugitives up fast. I'll have Fixit prep a report on Steeljaw's list." he then continued to walk away. "Good intel, newbies. Apparently, I can send you into the field together." Strongarm then looked down at Rikka and Makoto. "Thanks, you two. You really saved my spark out there." she smiled. "You're welcome." Makoto smiled back at her. Sideswipe groans. "What?! I put my gears on the line for you too, you know!" he began to walked away. "Sideswipe..." Rikka sighed, still disappointed on his attitude. The red bot waved his hand. "Fine! You're never gonna-" he then slipped on the mud and almost fall down. But Strongarm catches him in time. "Thanks." she gave him a smug look. "And don't get too cocky." she then let him go and walked away. "Now, do you trust her?" his human partner asked him. The red bot looked at her before spoke up. "Yeah, I think I trust her. A bit." he let out a soft smile. The girls then giggled at each other as the sun is about to set. It was indeed a tiring day for them.

END OF CHAPTER 3

[spiritusxvitaearchive]

Ship: The Drug I Love Word Count: 1603 Warnings: None Summary: Nitro; a demon who has been watching over AJ for many years finally has a chance to make his presence known. They were fated from the start to meet, though their future was unwritten, a simple touch of their hands seems to put things into perspective, even if AJ is skeptical of his claims. Notes: Nitro’s perspective under the cut~

The thing about relationships is they never really worked out for me, no matter how much effort I put into it, I always seemed to end up with my heart broken. I've never been the type of person to give up; sure I have my moments as any other person does, but I always manage to rationalize why I need to keep moving forward. Broken hearts are painful, but I always believed that they never lasted forever. A broken heart can be fixed, can't it?

I found myself questioning my own beliefs, never realizing that I was sinking into the darkness that I was not well acquainted. Relationships came and went, a lot of the time they felt right but the further down our path travelled, I found that each one was not what I was seeking. It was the ending of my last relationship that I came to the conclusion I didn't need to try; you don't find love, love finds you when it's the right time.

For years I remained single, I found myself interested in other's, but nothing ever came of it, I suppose that's my fault. Little did I know, there was something, or rather someone preventing me from finding happiness, for we were bound together in a way I never thought imaginable.

He was a demon, and I was a human, but that didn't matter, we were meant to be. On a fateful fall night, we met, and that's when my world changed.

The breeze was calm and gentle, brushing strands of blue hair against my cheek as I found myself by the river's edge. My feet were dangling over the edge, the soles of my shoes barely touching the surface of the rushing water. I don't remember what exactly brought me to this spot; perhaps it was that little voice screaming inside of me, or maybe it was the view as I passed on my way home from a long day at work. The landscape before me was a breathtaking sight, even as the smoke from my cigarette clouded my vision. I was always a sucker for a clear midnight blue sky and the glimmering stars that spanned across the sky as far as the eye could see; finished off perfectly with the full moon somehow in the center.

I often found myself in these situations, all alone in an unpopulated part of town, a place where I could collect my thoughts without interruption; this place was no different, or so I thought. It was the crunching sound of fallen leaves beneath someone's feet, the clearing of their throat that startled me. I was lucky that I didn't slip from where I was sitting into the likely shallow and murky waters below. Instead, I had found myself sitting perfectly still, almost afraid to look behind me until whoever was there began to speak to me.

"Excuse me," he hummed, almost too softly to the point nobody would even hear him.

His voice was deep and oddly alluring, especially considering he's a stranger, but it's that polite way he spoke that had me turning my head. I had never seen anyone like him before, strangely tall, dark and handsome, not to mention well dressed. He barely looked human at all.

I had heard rumours that demons existed in our world, disguised as humans to not draw attention to themselves, but also that some walked through civilization in their pure form. This demon was one of those who didn't care if people saw his true identity.

I haven't even found the power to issue a response; my body seemed to move all on its own, no thinking involved until I was standing on my feet facing this strange demon who approached me. Indeed, he must have thought me rude for staring, but I was oddly in awe. It felt as though my voice was trapped in my throat, more so when he looked me over nodding to himself.

"Blue hair, hazel eyes, musical note pendant, silver ring engraved with stars. I recognized your aura, but I couldn't be sure if it were you until I saw your face and those essential accessories."

If my voice was stuck before, it wasn't now; I was creeped out and at the same time, curious about his words. The only way to feed my curiosity was to speak.

"Do I know you?"

He smiled at me, teeth showing as his red eyes seemed to flicker in the light of the moon. I watched him, saw his hand move up to pull the top hat from his head before he bowed.

"You don't know me per say, but I know you, I've known about you for many moons, though I was unsure of when we would first meet. Call it dumb luck that I managed to find you without even looking."

His words are seemingly ominous, but at this point, I'm intrigued. It's the moment I open my mouth to say something that he cut's me off as he introduces himself.

"My name is Nitro," he says, smiling as he raises his head.

"Nitro? Look, I don't mean to be rude, but you're creeping me out. You come out of nowhere and start talking to me as if I'm supposed to know you as if you know me."

I'm ready to walk past him and go home; this is too much for me, but his laughter, it stops me from moving. One eyebrow raised, I'm becoming more annoyed, asking myself if I want to leave or if my curiosity is that much stronger. It's my curiosity.

"I understand this is not an ideal way to make an introduction and you don't owe me anything. You can walk away, but I ask you, please indulge me for just a moment, Miss..."

It's Nitro's politeness that has me caving in, muttering something under my breath as a sigh escapes me.

"AJ, my name is AJ."

"Lovely," he smiled, "it's a pleasure to at last know your name, my dear."

I cannot just blurt out to her why and how I found her, not when she was suspicious of me to start. Through an endless sea of people lost to their vices, unaware of their surroundings, I searched for AJ. It felt as though it took an eternity to find her, but here we are, face to face; I thought this day would never come.

Her expression seems void of any emotion, but when I mention at last knowing her name, I see the corners of her mouth nearly quirking up into a smile. She's trying so hard to fight it, but I hold my hand out to her. I don't make any other moves, I stand still, not even blinking until I feel the warmth of hand seeping through the fabric of my gloves. I can see it in her eyes, the realization that this was meant to happen as her fingers close around my hand.

"You said your name was Nitro?"

My heart skipped a beat, the softness of her voice like a whisper on the wind, only for me to hear. I don't feel like I'm rendered speechless, but I'm content with remaining silent a moment longer before confirming the answer to her inquiry. She didn't let go of my hand.

"I did. I'm sure none of this makes sense to you, but this was fate, our meeting in this particular spot on this specific night."

She doesn't seem surprised by my words anymore, and she's moved closer, her gaze lifting to meet mine. I feel she is contemplating what she wants to say, but before I can ask, her voice breaks that silence between us.

"You're the reason love never found me. The reason that things fell apart time and time again. Was it with malicious intent?"

"You're correct on both, but to answer your question, no, it was never with malicious intent, in fact, those relationships, they were meant to fail. I'll say this now; I'm not asking you to believe me just like that, everything will make sense in time."

"It's funny, I shouldn't believe you, but I-I do. I mean, it's going to take time to come to terms with you, with this. But just by having my hand in yours, I feel this warmth in my chest that I can't quite explain."

I laugh as I did before, the hand at my side coming up to adjust my monocle that's slid down my nose slightly. It's then that I bring my hand down to clasp tightly around hers that is holding my other hand.

"I'm not saying it's love, AJ. Things like that don't just happen, even when two people are destined to meet, but it's something we need to explore together. What do you say, will you trust me?"

I can see the way her cheeks have darkened in colour, that smile she tried so hard to fight finally showing as she nods and keeps her gaze on mine.

"I'll trust you, but you better not be screwing with me. I feel something between us, and I'm not saying it's love either."

"I'm asking for friendship, AJ, let's see where it goes." I hum thoughtfully, "that aside, let me walk you home? It's late."

"The least you could do is buy me dinner first."

"In due time, my dear."

"I'm just teasing; I'd like if you'd walk me home. Give us a chance to talk more, and you can explain to me why here of all places is why you chose to make your introduction, Mr. Nitro."

"Gladly."