#so yes he does end up launching up a tree to get Out Of The Way when they burst thru the bushes

[teatitty]

Dandelion runs into Lambert while he's tracking a pack of wargs and grumbling about how they never show up when you actually want them to, stupid dogs, won't even be lured by jerky and Dandelion thinks it over for a moment, goes, "I apologise in advance for your hearing" and lets out the shrillest, loudest whistle Lambert's ever heard that rattles his whole fucking skull

But it does succeed in finally drawing out the wargs. They are still dogs, after all

[7s3ven]

ONE THING LEADS TO ANOTHER. neteyam x fem! metkayina! r

IN WHICH… Y/N and Neteyam’s walls suddenly come crashing down one night after a heart to heart conversation.

( requested )

Notes: mentions of sex (not written out, though), throwing up (morning/pregnancy sickness), small panic attack, a little angst, fluff ending

—

Neteyam was thankful for the Metkayina allowing his family into their home but he missed his own. He missed the trees and the forest and his friends. The forest was all he had known. He was supposed to be the next clan leader, it was a job he had been preparing for since his birth. But it was all ripped away from him when he and his family were forced to leave. Now, he had nothing. No status, no promises of greatness, and almost no friends. Lo’ak didn’t count because he had to see his idiotic brother every day.

The night was quiet and cool as Neteyam slowly stepped over Lo’ak, who was sound asleep on the floor of the hut. Neteyam rolled his eyes at his brother, who was always sleeping in odd places.

He had been sneaking out regularly, trying to get away from his crushing responsibilities. Neteyam always sat in the same spot on the beach yet when he arrived, he found it was already taken. He recognised the Metkayina as Y/N, Tsireya and Aonung’s older sister and the future Tsahik. Kiri was better friends with her than Neteyam was. Nevertheless, he slowly walked up behind her.

“Out here all alone?” He questioned, crouching down. Their shoulders brushed as Y/N turned her head to glance at him. Her narrowed eyes softened at the sight of him.

“Oh, it is only you.” She murmured.

“Sorry. Did I startle you?”

Neteyam heard Y/N quietly laugh. “A little. What are you doing out so late?” She tilted her head, looking up at Neteyam. He sat down, shrugging.

“No reason.” He replied, “I just needed some peace and quiet.”

Y/N nodded in understanding. “I am doing the same. As mean as it might sound, I had to get away from my family for a little bit. Aonung’s snores are always so loud too.”

A small smirk crept across Neteyam’s lips. “You should hear Lo’ak. Sometimes, he’s snores so loud that it wakes my dad up.”

“How is your family settling in, Neteyam?” Y/N inquired, leaning back to stare up at the starry sky. Neteyam held back a sigh.

“We are trying our best.” He uttered, “But it is not easy. We are used to trees… not sand and water.”

Y/N hummed. “Do you miss the forest?” She mentally scolded herself for asking such a question. Of course he did. He would not be talking about it if he did not.

“Yes. And as much as I try to enjoy all this, I will always prefer the forest.” Neteyam abruptly shook his head to rid himself of such thoughts. “But I cannot complain. We are lucky to be here.”

Y/N looked Neteyam up and down, observing his body language. Slowly, she reached out a hand, placing it on Neteyam’s. “You can complain to me.” She gently told him. “I will not judge. I will only listen.”

It seemed Neteyam had been waiting for this exact words. He launched into describing his home with a smile on his face. He told Y/N of the banshees, the mountains, and the trees that stretched across the land for endless miles. It all sounded very foreign yet fascinating to Y/N.

“My parents would not want me to complain. Lo’ak, Kiri, and Tuk are allowed to miss the forest but not me.” Neteyam fidgeting with his fingers, a constant reminder that he would never be viewed as true Na’vi.

“Do they expect you to be perfect?” Y/N spoke up, her voice a soft whisper over the sound of the waves crashing against the sandy shore. Silently, Neteyam nodded.

“I am the golden child. I should not be saying such nonsense… but I miss my old life. Here, I get in trouble for every little thing Lo’ak does. I know as the oldest sibling, it is my job to look out for them, but it is growing tiresome.” Neteyam looked at Y/N, who was listening intensively, “Do you ever feel that way… about your siblings?”

“Yes. Aonung is always getting into mischief and I am given the job of picking up his slack. I am the future Tsahik yet with all the scolding I receive from my parents because of Aonung, it makes me feel like a failure.” Y/N aimlessly picked at the small shells nestled in the grains of sand as she spoke. “I love Tsireya and Aonung… but I cannot always be there to protect them. And that scares me.”

Neteyam nodded. He was closer now, barely an inch away from Y/N. She would have pushed him away if he was any other boy. But it was Neteyam, sweet Neteyam who was trying his best to gain his father’s approval and protect his family. She made no move to shove him.

“I feel that something terrible is approaching… and I am scared that I can no longer shield my siblings.” Y/N kept speaking as Neteyam drew soft circles in the palm of her hand to comfort her.

“I understand.” He muttered, locking gazes with Y/N. They held eye contact and for the first time in years, Y/N felt truly seen.

The feeling of finally being understood without judgement clouded Y/N’s mind as her back hit the soft sand and she returned Neteyam’s kiss.

The days after their sudden incident were a jumbled blur. Y/N had been feeling moody as of lately and it all made sense when she threw up the food she had eaten just minutes ago. Y/N shook as she wrapped her arms around herself in disbelief.

She was frozen in fear, barely able to register that Tsireya was calling out her name. “Y/N! I’ve been looking for you. Would you like to swim with Aonung and I and the Sully kids?” Tsireya brightly beamed, having no idea of the panic plaguing Y/N’s thoughts.

“I am alright, Tsireya. Thank you for offering. I do not feel good.” Y/N willed Tsireya to disappear so that she could figure out her situation.

“Oh… of course. I will tell Neteyam you cannot make it. I hope you feel better soon, sister.”

The mention of Neteyam’s name almost made Y/N spin around and throw up again. It was partly his fault she had gotten into this mess. Why did he have to be so kind and understanding?

Y/N quietly groaned in frustration as Tsireya walked away. She lay on her back, staring up at the brightly lit sky. Her thoughts weren’t giving her a break to think clearly. Obviously, she could not confide in her parents. She would not be surprised if they threatened to throw her out. Tsireya could not keep a secret for long and Aonung… well, Y/N would never willingly tell him. He would use every chance he got to remind her.

And Y/N dreaded telling Neteyam. He was already having a hard time fitting in, he did not need the trouble of this either. If word of this spread, his family would be outcasted even more than they were already.

She aimlessly wandered the beach, thinking to herself. The pressure of gaining her parents’ approval was becoming all too much.

As expected, Neteyam and Y/N avoided each other. Neteyam thought it was best to leave her alone and give her space to think, which was something he desperately needed as well.

Y/N was feeding her ilu when Tsireya and Aonung approached her. “Sister.” The latter uttered, folding his arms over his chest, “We need to talk.”

Y/N merely sent him a confused glance. “About what?” She questioned.

“Why are you avoiding us?” Tsireya got straight to the point. She huffed. “You never want to swim with us… and you are hardly around. You do not even eat with us. Why?”

Y/N looked away, petting her ilu. “I am busy.” She lied through her teeth. “Mother is encouraging me to oversee the affairs of the village and it is more tiresome than I expected.”

Tsireya faltered, suddenly feeling bad for accusing her older sister. Aonung, on the other hand, was not so easily fooled. He had always been annoyingly good at reading people. But neither of Y/N’s siblings asked any more questions. They simply accepted her answer and left her to tend to her ilu.

A few quiet minutes passed before the wood beneath Y/N creaked. She looked over her shoulder, almost jumping at the sight of Neteyam.

“Sorry.” He muttered. “Just came to check up on my ilu. She’s been more hungry lately.” He sent her a sheepish smile, hurrying over to the creature. Y/N tried not to pay him any attention as she kicked her legs in the water, the cool droplets splashing against her body.

“So… how are you?” Neteyam spoke up. There was an awkward pause. It took Y/N a moment to register his words.

“I am good.” She responded. Neteyam took her short answer as an attempt to ice him out, which he did not blame her for. In reality, though, Y/N was trying to stop herself from exposing her secret. She knew if she kept talking to Neteyam, then his sweet voice would coerce her into revealing everything.

“Right… I’ll see you later, I guess.” Neteyam walked off, rubbing the back of his neck. Y/N tried not to show her hurt at how quickly he left, seeming like he wanted nothing to do with her.

Her ilu nudged its head against Y/N’s thigh, cooing. Y/N sighed as she pet it once more. “What am I going to do?” She murmured. Time was running out and she still had no idea what she was going to do.

She clasped her hands over her belly, sighing as she lowered her head. She rarely ate with her family now, doing everything she could to avoid them. Her siblings and even her parents were bound to become more suspicious; Tsireya was already questioning it and Aonung did not believe any of her lies.

Y/N was a strong girl, both physically and mentally, but she could not handle this. Having to keep such a large secret from her parents and her siblings, whom were her world, and Neteyam was eating at her.

Her attempts to distance the eldest Sully boy from her were becoming harder but the secret could not be revealed. She knew Neteyam would ultimately talk. It was up to her to ensure his family would not be isolated any further.

Y/N’s heartbeat spiked and despite her underwater training, she could not slow it. She placed a hand over her chest, gasping for air. “Shit.” She murmured out a word she had heard Neteyam say, which only sent her further into a spiral.

It was becoming increasingly harder to clear her mind and she suddenly felt uncomfortable in her own skin. Her thoughts exploded into a flurry of negativity.

Her father would be so disappointed in her careless behaviour. And her mother… Y/N almost threw up at the mere thought of Ronal’s look. She would be livid that her perfect daughter, her daughter who consistently kept Aonung out of trouble, her daughter who was the future Tsahik, had engaged in such acts with a forest boy.

She clawed at her skin, trying to rid herself of such thoughts that caused more harm than good. Y/N leaned forward to comfort herself but she ended up diving right into the water purely by mistake. She thought of just staying under the glistening water. It brought her comfort. There was no one talking to her while she was on the verge of a breakdown. It was peaceful.

A hand suddenly grabbed onto her forearm, heaving her up. Y/N spat out a mouthful of water, coughing in surprise. “Aonung!” She exclaimed, slapping her brother’s shoulder. Though, it probably did not hurt him as much as she wanted it to. Aonung was a few months younger than Y/N but had much more muscles.

“Why are you lying in the water?” Aonung questioned as he pulled her back onto the dock. “It is not like you to be so distant. What is the matter?”

To others, particularly the Sully boys, Aonung was mean and a bully and an outright nuisance to be around. But to Y/N, he was sweet. He was Y/N’s sweet little brother who used to come crying to her when he scraped his knee.

“It is none of your concern. I am fine. I am simply stressed.” Y/N reassured him. Unfortunately, her soft words did not have the impact they had on Tsireya.

Aonung narrowed his eyes like he always did when he could tell Y/N was lying. “You are not telling the truth. You can tell me. I will not tell mother or father or even Tsireya. It will be our little secret.”

Y/N stared at her brother then at her shaking hands which had not stopped trembling since she found out she was pregnant. “I am with a child.” She suddenly blurted out.”

Aonung was silent. He opened his mouth to say something but the pair heard a gasp behind them. Y/N quickly looked behind her, partly relieved that it was only Tsireya. She had been holding a bowl of fruits, which were now rolling around in the floor.

“I am sorry.” She immediately apologised, covering her mouth with her hands. “I did not mean to eavesdrop. I just wanted to bring you some fruit so you would feel better.” She quickly crouched down to pick everything up. “Is it true… are you really?”

Tsireya sat on the other side of Y/N. Aonung swiftly reached over, grasping a piece of fruit despite Y/N’s look. She had always told him not to eat anything from the floor.

“Yes.” She hesitated.

“Damn, who knocked you up?” Aonung carelessly asked. Tsireya clicked his tongue, her long tail slapping him.

“Do not, Aonung.” She warned. “We will not tell anyone, Y/N. Do not pressure yourself into telling us the dad. We will let you take your time.”

“It’s Neteyam.” Y/N blurted out. She could not contain it anymore. Beside her, she heard Aonung choke. Y/N promptly slapped his back.

“Neteyam?!” Aonung exclaimed but Tsireya and Y/N both hushed him. “Mother and Father will not be happy.”

Y/N sent him a glare, “I am aware.” She muttered.

“Wait, this is good. This will top anything else I do. Father will be like, ‘Aonung, why did you slap Lo’ak?’ And then I’ll just reply with ‘well, remember when Y/N got pregnant?’” Aonung faced his sisters only to be met with their unimpressed faces.

“Aonung, take this seriously.” Tsireya hissed, resting her hands on Y/N’s shoulders. “Whatever you do, Y/N, we will be here to support you.”

Neteyam was not doing any better. The last few days had felt like a constant test on his patience. His father was always ordering him around and Lo’ak was getting on his nerve.

The last straw was when Jake had decided to scold Neteyam for Lo’ak’s actions. Neteyam had returned from the docks, still wondering as to why Y/N was suddenly acting so cold. He tried to forget that night, to move past it, but it was easier said than done. Y/N seemed to be everywhere Neteyam was.

The oldest Sully boy walked into their hut, exhausted and fully prepared to collapse. However, when he saw Jake standing in front of Lo’ak, his father’s arms crossed sternly over his chest, Neteyam almost groaned. Neytiri and Kiri were inside as well, exchanging worried glances. Tuk was nowhere to be seen, most likely playing with her newfound friends.

“Neteyam.” Jake said. Neteyam dragged himself to stand beside Lo’ak, his back straightening.

“Yes, sir?” Neteyam murmured, wanting to get this over and done with so he could tend to his own thoughts.

“Your brother got into another fight today.” Jake uttered. “Where were you? You’re supposed to keep an eye on him.”

“I was busy, sir.”

“Why weren’t you with your brother? Sully’s have to stick together.“

Neteyam, who had been trying to hold down his bubbling anger, suddenly snapped. “I wasn’t with my brother because it’s not my job to keep him in check.” It was the first time Neteyam had ever talked back. His ears flattened down, an action he didn’t usually do but had started doing because of Y/N. “What Lo’ak does with his spare time should be none of my concern. It is not my fault he fights every day.”

“Yeah, but you’re the older brother. It’s your responsibility to look out for him.” Jake poked Neteyam’s chest, causing everything to come crashing down. Neteyam, who had been trying so hard to hide his fury at how unfairly he was being treated, broke.

“It is none of my responsibility! I can’t be everywhere with Lo’ak, babysitting him! You forced me away from my home, from the forest in which I grow up in. I know nothing here! I am simply too busy trying to fit in to watch over Lo’ak! He is not the only one who needs comfort. I am still a teenager! Have you ever asked how I feel?!” Neteyam didn’t waste a heartbeat in spinning around, storming off. His swishing tail hit a bowl, causing it to fall. It did not break but Neteyam wouldn’t have cared anyway.

Neteyam left his parents and his siblings in shock at his outburst. He always took the blame for Lo’ak, what had changed?

Kiri quickly followed after Neteyam. Lo’ak, with a small nod from Jake, followed.

“Ma Jake,” Neytiri reached out for her mate, “What is wrong with Neteyam? He has been acting strange lately.” Jake held her hand, staring at the spot where Neteyam had been standing moments ago.

Jake wasn’t stupid. He saw how Neteyam’s gaze always found its way to stare at the Chief’s oldest daughter. He had been 16 once upon a time; it did not take long for Jake to form a suspicion.

“Neteyam!” Kiri grabbed her brother’s wrist, forcing him to turn around. “What is the matter with you? You have been acting so moody lately.” She pouted.

“Nothing!” Neteyam harshly insisted. “I am not acting moody.” Lo’ak caught up with his older brother but remained silent, knowing Neteyam’s anger was a result of his recklessness.

“My idiot brother, why must you be so stubborn?” Kiri groaned, “You are like Y/N sometimes, so hardheaded and annoyingly independent.”

Her name set Neteyam’s face alight. A dark blush spread across his cheeks. “She is the problem.” He finally admitted. “Y/N is.”

“Did she reject you or something?” Lo’ak voiced, arching an eyebrow.

Neteyam wished she did. This situation would have been much easier. “No… Y/N and I, we…” Neteyam trailed off, suddenly embarrassed.

Kiri got the hint. She slapped his shoulder. “You did not!” She hissed. “She is the Chief’s daughter!” Lo’ak stood beside Kiri, ever so clueless.

“What? What did they do? He didn’t even finish his sentence. You guys are acting like they”- Lo’ak paused, “Oh. I get it now.”

“It was an impulsive decision.” Neteyam uttered as he resumed walking.

“One that will get you killed.” Kiri added. “You are lucky she is not betrothed yet. Have you talked to her?”

“Briefly. She does not wish to speak to me.” Neteyam was met with another slap from Kiri.

“Idiot! She must be lonely. You must speak to her so that you can resolve this!”

Neteyam groaned, walking faster in hopes his siblings would leave him alone. “She avoids me.” He said to Kiri. “I told you, she doesn’t want to see me.”

“Then try harder to talk to her! Y/N is as stubborn as you. Do you not see the pattern?!” Kiri yanked Neteyam back, “You must tell Father and Mother.”

Neteyam scoffed. “I have caused enough trouble already. I will do no such thing.”

“You are foolish. If Tonowari and Ronal find out, Father will be able to calm them. If you do not tell, then at least speak to Y/N.”

Neteyam exasperatedly sighed. “Fine. I will talk to her. Happy?” He wandered off, leaving Kiri and Lo’ak behind. He knew where to find Y/N. During her spare time, she was always at the docks, playing with her ilu or swimming.

“Do you not ever move from this spot?” Neteyam spoke as he halted behind Y/N, who was sitting where he suspected. He saw her back tense up.

“No. I have moved. To eat. I came back.” Y/N was careful with her responses. One stumble and she’d end up spilling everything.

“Kiri says I should talk to you.” Neteyam muttered as he sat beside her, dipping his feet into the water. Y/N turned to face him, staring with wide eyes.

“You told Kiri?”

“And Lo’ak.” Neteyam’s reply did not ease her panic. “But I suspect you told Tsireya and Aonung.”

Y/N nodded. “I cannot hide anything from them for long.” In truth, Y/N had returned to the docks to mentally prepare herself for telling her mother. She could hide the sudden pregnancy but her body could not. It would start to show.

“How are you feeling?” Neteyam questioned.

“Stupid.”

Neteyam lowly chuckled, staring down at his hands. “Kiri is advising me to tell Mother and Father. But I do not want to do it without your permission.” Y/N almost melted at how sweet and considerate Neteyam was.

“I do not mind.” She muttered, “As long as they do not spread the word.” It was not Neteyam who would get the harsher punishment anyway. As the daughter of the clan leaders, Y/N had a standard to uphold. She had failed after managing to balance it for so long.

After a much needed talk, Neteyam and Y/N parted ways. The latter slowly walked into the medical hut where she found her mother grinding leaves. “Mother.” Y/N said, hands clasped in front of her. Ronal hummed, too busy with her task at hand. “I have something rather important to tell you.”

“What is it, child? Could it not wait until after dinner?”

“I am pregnant.” Y/N quickly said, half heartedly hoping she had spoken too fast for her mother to understand her. Ronal paused. The leaves she had been holding previously fluttered the floor.

“You are pregnant… by who?” Ronal was trying to keep calm.

Y/N hesitated for a moment, her head lowered. “Neteyam.” She whispered.

Ronal hissed in anger. “You allowed this?! When he is not your mate?!”

“I did not mean to, mother.” Y/N insisted, stepping forward.

Ronal thought for a second. “We must find you a mate.” She announced after what felt like an hour.

“But what about Neteyam?” Y/N frowned, “He is the father! Does he not deserve to know?”

“He is not Metkayina.” Ronal almost sneered, “If word of this gets out, it will create a scandal. Your father and I will find you a suitable mate.” Her mother turned to walk away but Y/N desperately grabbed onto her arm.

“No… please… mother, do not make me do this! I want him to be the father! I do not want any other idiotic boy!”

Ronal softly caressed Y/N’s face as small tears dripped down her cheeks. She finally allowed herself to cry after holding everything in. “I am sorry, my child, but it is for the best.”

Y/N abruptly straightened her back. “No.” She firmly refused, surprising Ronal. “I have been the perfect daughter for you and Father. Do I not receive a reward in return?”

“You have a baby without a mate. I could hardly call that a reward.”

“Why will you not allow me to decide? You say it is for the best but do you really want to live the rest of your life knowing I am miserable? Will you put me through that just to keep your reputation? Is your reputation among the clan more important than your own daughter’s happiness?!” Y/N had not inherited Tsireya’s gentleness nor Aonung’s ego. She had inherited her mother’s temper.

“Listen to me, child, they will leave sooner or later. They will not stay here, no matter how much Neteyam will claim he loves you.”

“Then I will pay the price. Let me do this, mother. I have already suffered enough. I cannot do it again.”

Ronal narrowed her eyes. “Come.” She beckoned her daughter out of the hut. Y/N did not ask where Ronal was leading her; she simply followed behind.

Ronal’s sudden appearance in the Sully Family’s hut caused them to quiet down. Neteyam shared a look with Y/N, confused.

“It seems my daughter has found herself… involved with your eldest son.” Ronal spoke, sending Y/N a subtle glare. Y/N chewed the inside of her cheek. “This is not the Metkayina way but unfortunately, she is pregnant.”

Chaos broke out. Jake spat out a mouthful of water while Neytiri coughed to hide the fact that she had almost choked in shock. Lo’ak muffled his loud laughs as a look of horror crossed Neteyam’s face. Kiri quietly clicked her tongue, staring at her eldest brother.

“For some unknown reason, my daughter wishes for Neteyam to be the father. I will allow this if your son proves to me that he will be able to provide for Y/N. She is the future Tsahik and I will allow only the best for her. That is all.” Ronal walked away, expecting Y/N to follow.

“You knocked up the Chief’s daughter?” Jake said as soon as the two Metkayina women were gone. Lo’ak could finally freely laugh while Neteyam shoved him.

“Shut up.” He muttered, standing to run after Y/N.

[blondeboyfriend]

𝐈'𝐌 𝐒𝐓𝐔𝐂𝐊 𝐈𝐍 𝐀 𝐓𝐑𝐄𝐄 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐈 𝐂𝐀𝐍'𝐓 𝐆𝐄𝐓 𝐃𝐎𝐖𝐍 (𝟏𝟖+)

𝐌𝐈𝐍𝐎𝐑𝐒 𝐃𝐍𝐈

[ PAIRING ] Erwin Smith x f!reader [ AUTHOR'S NOTE ] Soooo this is an oldie from 2021. I only did some light editing so if this fic has an amateur hour feel... that's because it does. [ SYNOPSIS ] A solo training session goes to shit when you get stuck in a tree. [ WORD COUNT ] 1.6k [ CONTENT ] PWP in the purest sense, stuckage, dubcon, y/n gets her ass ate, Erwin kisses you post-ass eating, dumbification (Erwin), knife play, size kink, creampie, I don't even know how this whole situation would work physically so just enjoy the ride.

“Shit!”

Launching yourself into a tree was never on your list of things you were desperate to experience. That list was reserved for things like outdrinking Moblit, slaying 100 titans unassisted, and planting a big wet kiss on your comrade Erwin. Nowhere on this hypothetical list was such a sad spectacle.

At least you were training, it's not like you were outside the walls where this would be a deadly issue. No, this was just woefully embarrassing.

“Damn.”

You tugged at your equipment and came to the crippling realization that you were totally stuck.

“You gotta be kidding me,” you muttered. “This is great. I love this for me.”

Shimmying around didn’t help and using the tree as leverage and kicking yourself backwards just slammed you back into the tree. Blood dripped from your nose as you tried to rub the pain away.

At least you were upright.

“Come on, come the fuck on,” you whined, bouncing up and down.

You were hovering just above the ground, it wouldn’t be that bad of a drop. Sure you’d bruise your ass and walk around funny for a day or two, but it beat swinging around in a tree hoping someone would come by and rescue you.

You continued to bounce but it was no use. Your harness might as well have been one with the tree.

“So… This is it. This is how I die.”

Your legs dangled in the air. You tried one last time to break the branch by bouncing, but nothing came of it.

“Everything okay over there?”

You perked up at the sound of a deep, silky voice in the distance. Erwin crested over the hill, your predicament on full display.

“Hi,” you said, waving pathetically. “I’m, uh, just hanging.”

“I can see that,” he said, making his way over to you. “Dare I ask how this happened?”

“I was training too vigorously obviously.”

He gave you a warm laugh. “I can see that. I’m sure the Commander will be proud.”

You held your hands to your cheeks with mock surprise.

“You think so?!”

Erwin smiled and patted your leg. He was eye level with your crotch. Something in his expression was unsettling. You were never great at reading Erwin, but this was a look you were completely unfamiliar with.

“I’m certain,” he said, letting his hand linger on your thigh.

You jerked your leg out of reach but you ended up swinging back towards him despite this. Erwin grabbed you by the ankle.

“You gonna help me or what? I’m getting hungry.”

You tacked on a nervous laugh and nudged him with your knee.

“I’ll help you, but there will be a price,” he said coyly.

You gulped. You just knew he was going to ask for access to your secret coffee rations.

“I keep it under my bed!” you blurted out.

Erwin raised an eyebrow and frowned. “What are you talking about?”

As you went to speak he interrupted you.

“I’ve seen the way you look at me,” he purred. “You’re not very good at hiding your feelings.”

You wriggled around, but Erwin gripped your hips holding you in place.

“Whatever. Yes, I have a crush on you. Big deal. So does everyone else.”

He chuckled. “I’m not nearly as popular as you think I am, but I appreciate that you hold me in such high regard.”

“Don’t give me that fake humble shit. Just wait and help me. We can talk about my repayment later.”

“I can’t wait.”

You gulped again. While it was true you had a sick crush on Erwin you weren’t exactly comfortable with his actions. You desperately wanted to feel the ground beneath your feet. You weren’t a fucking bird just because you had the wings of freedom on your uniform.

“Erwin, please.”

“I already told you I can’t wait.”

“Erwin. Seriously. Come on.”

“We’re through talking about this.”

Erwin took out a small utility knife and carefully slit a hole in your pants.

“Wait!”

He smirked and said calmly, “Don’t be scared.”

“You have a very sharp blade near my—”

“Hush, I know what I’m doing. Don’t you trust me?”

He spun you around so that your ass was facing him. His hands wandered down the inside of your thighs, lightly pinching the flesh. He pried apart the slit he made in your pants and ripped the hole open. As his knuckles grazed your folds you let out a quiet moan.

Your underwear were ripped apart with ease. You thought about how awkward it was going to be walking back to the barracks. There was no way you could slyly hide the gaping hole in your pants. You shook your head, trying to force the thoughts from your mind. After all, you had always wanted something like this to happen. So many nights you spent fingering yourself pretending it was Erwin’s rough hands delving into you. So many nights you moaned his name, praying no one could hear how debauched you sounded.

“Be gentle.”

“I’ll certainly try, but I can make no promises,” he said, spanking your ass with his weighty hand.

You felt Erwin’s hot breath against your cunt. He gripped your hips and pulled your ass close to his face and buried it in between your cheeks. His tongue prodded your hole.

“Whoa! Hey!”

Erwin hummed in response, you could tell he thought this was all rather hilarious.

“What would you do if someone caught us?”

“Cry. Scream. Beg for help or a piece of bread. I’m so hungry,” you whined.

“And you think I’m not?”

He continued to eat your ass, using his rough calloused hands to spread your cheeks. His nose drifted along your crack as his tongue worked its way around your hole.

“Fu—fuck. That feels so good,” you choked out.

Your hand trailed down to your crotch and you rubbed at your clit. You were overcome with pleasure. Even the potential of getting caught drove you wild. If someone were to see you like this you could have bragging rights. I mean it’s not like many people had their ass eaten by Erwin.

Erwin moaned as he undid his pants, pulling out his fully erect cock. Little pearls of precum dribbled from the tip. He stroked his cock furiously as he drove his tongue into your ass.

“Ah, shit. Erwin, f—fuck.”

Coherent thoughts were out of the question. You were thankful Erwin had his face buried in your ass so he couldn’t probe you with questions. He looked like a talker.

“Enjoying yourself?” he asked, voice dripping with ardor.

He spun you around, giving you a full view of his raging erection.

“Y—yes,” you said through gritted teeth.

You could taste your orgasm, see it over the horizon. Your hand continued to encircle your clit, picking up the pace as Erwin choked his cock with his fist. He was blushing like crazy. You had never seen Erwin look so boyish. He was practically coming apart at the seams. His flaxen hair, usually so perfect, was a mess and hung in his face. There was a level of power you felt that was pure ecstasy. You never imagined you could make your comrade feel quite like this.

“You seem to be having a good time,” you said, applying more pressure to your clit.

“Did you think I wouldn’t? Do you realize how badly I’ve wanted to do something like this with you?”

“Seriously?” you said, driving your fingers into your wet cunt.

Erwin nodded and grabbed the knife he had chucked on the ground. He swung it upwards and nicked the part of your gear that was snagged on the tree branch. He caught you with his free arm. He laid you on the ground, your body in the shadow of his.

“May I?” he asked, stroking his cock.

A quiet “mhm” was all you could get out.

He slid himself inside you and thrusted away. Your cunt welcomed his thick cock; you clenched around his length. Erwin’s name lilted off your lips.

“Keep saying my name,” he grunted, his rough thumb now gliding along your clit.

You were happy to oblige.

Erwin drove his cock further inside you, cupping your face with his free hand. He looked into your eyes; there was nothing going on in that big brain of his. He was positively fucked out as his balls slapped up against your taint.

“Er—Erwin, fuck, I’m so close.”

He pounded his cock into you; you felt as though he’d split you in two. He stroked your lip with his thumb and kissed you. His tongue dived into your mouth, rolling against yours. He moaned through the kiss as he pumped you full of his cum, slamming his cock into your cervix.

Breaking the kiss he said, “Are you gonna cum like a good girl?”

You gazed up at him starry-eyed and nodded quickly. He pressed his lips against your neck and started to suck. You wrapped your arms around him and clung to him as your orgasm crescendoed. Nothing could beat this feeling, not even killing every titan outside the walls single-handedly could compare.

You tried to catch your breath and Erwin pulled his cock out of you. He marveled at his cum leaking from your puffy, throbbing cunt. He looked so proud.

“Did you enjoy that?” he asked sheepishly.

You smiled and nodded with a level of enthusiasm you never gifted anyone.

“Yes… Maybe next time I can not be stuck in a tree…”

Erwin laughed and ran his fingers through his hair.

“Of course,” he said, panting. “Anything for you.”

He kissed your forehead and helped you up. He whipped off his cape and wrapped it around you, hiding the giant rip in your pants.

“Are you still hungry? I really do owe you dinner.”

You’d never seen your comrade like this. You were used to prim and proper Erwin who begrudgingly laughed at your dick jokes, not this embarrassed young man who was enamored with you.

“I would love that. I need bread. And maybe a nap.”

[ramblingoak]

The Cardinal’s Bride, Chapter 5: Copia

~ A Romantic Adventure in the Old West: After being forced into a marriage with Mr. Saltarian by your father you are sent west to his estate in Nevada.  Along the way you end up meeting one of the cowboys you have always fantasized about... ~

~~ Please visit The Outlaw Brides Masterpost to catch up and read more stories from this world ~~

Thank you to @tasty-ribz for the wanted poster!  Lots of other amazing people have done fanart of Cowboy Copia so please go check it out: @meowsaidmissy (1 / 2), @snail-shell2335  here, @vahvco here, @ghulehgwen here, @rabidghoul here, @nocterish here, @enjoy-my-swearing​ here, @blacktie-whitenoise (1 /2) and from valkyrieinpink on twitter.  Also a huge thank you to @kissingghouls for aggressively holding my hand and letting me scream at her about cowboys.

Cardinal Copia x Female Reader: alternative universe, slow burn romance, gun violence, blood, NSFW, 18+ only MDNI, 8,200 words for this one

Aether hated being left behind.

He hated this situation especially because of who was with Copia and his friends.  The second he saw Mary he knew something stupid was going to happen.  Stupid shit followed Mary around like a shadow.  The fact that Copia was just going along with what everyone knew was a trap pissed him off to no end.  Then there was the fact that Copia left him at camp to fucking babysit.

Babysitting Sunshine was like trying to pet a feral cat.

“Sunshine, what are you doing?”

She had been digging through the saddlebags they were using the stolen stagecoach horses to carry.  All he got for an answer was a grunt so he grabbed a small rock and threw it at her.  That earned him a hiss, but otherwise she remained quiet and continued making a mess.

“Hey, we might have to make a quick retreat here.  What are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing?”

Aether groaned and threw another rock.  

“It looks like you’re making a mess.”

“Your cooking shit is still everywhere so maybe take your own advice.”

“Yes, well I’m picking up my cooking shit, you’re dumping clothes everywhere.”  He reached down for another rock but this one she caught and launched back at him, barely missing his head.  “Damn it, Sunshine, I’m ju–.”

“Don’t worry Dad, I'll pick it up.  I’m looking for some clothes.”

“We don’t have time for you to play dress up.”

“They’re not for me.”

Aether glanced over to the tree line where Copia’s ‘Principessa’ was waiting.  She looked nervous, she’d been looking nervous all morning ever since her and Copia came back with Mary.  He hadn’t been able to tell if it was all because of Mary or if something had happened between her and Copia.  Judging by the looks they had been exchanging he was pretty sure it was a bit of both.  He sighed and looked back at Sunshine.

“Well we definitely don’t have time for her to play dress up.”

“Stop worrying, it won’t take long.  We’ve got to get her out of that dress.”

Aether raised an eyebrow and looked back over at the Princess.  Her dress had definitely seen better days, but so had everyone else’s clothes.

“Another week in that thing isn’t gonna kill her.”

“Yeah well, the smell might kill me so she’s changing.  Plus this will make it easier for her to walk and ride.”

“We all smell, Sunshine.  Get over it.”

Unsurprisingly, she ignored him and started holding some shirts up to look them over.  Aether wasn’t trying to be an asshole towards the girl, but he also didn’t want her getting too comfortable.  In one more week they’d be back at The Ministry and they could hopefully arrange for the switch for the ransom money.  The end of this was so close and he didn’t want to deal with having to chase her around again.

“You’re just making it easier for her to run away.”  Sunshine just laughed at him and shook her head.  Aether watched as she finally set aside a shirt and a pair of pants before shoving everything back into the bags.

“I’m sorry, have you seen the way Copia and her have been looking at each other?  She isn’t going to run away again.”  Aether walked closer as she shook the clothes out.  He wasn’t sure whose pants she had grabbed but that looked like one of Swiss’s shirts.

“Of course I’ve seen it and I’ve tried to talk to Copia about it but he won’t listen.”  He crossed his arms when Sunshine just rolled her eyes at him.  “What?”

“Good luck getting Copia to back off, I knew he was doomed as soon as I saw her picture in the paper.”  She turned to head the Princess’s way, but Aether reached out and grabbed her arm, backing off with his hands up when she turned to growl at him.

“Look, I don’t know what you’re up to, but you need to just leave it alone.  Leave them alone and don’t encourage anything.”  Goddammit he was getting really tired of her rolling her eyes at him.

“That’s the problem with you guys, none of you have a romantic bone in your body.”  She took a step towards him and jabbed her finger into his chest, he saw the shirt drop out of her hands and sighed.  That was definitely Swiss’s.  “All I’m doing is giving her a little hand with things, ok?  Besides, if we get ambushed here or wherever it’ll be easier if she’s not tripping over that goddamn dress.”

“Fine.  Fine, but that’s it Sunshine.  Get her dressed and then let her be.”  

“Of course, Dad.”  Satan’s dick, Sunshine drove him crazy.  “It’s just a change of clothes, man.  Maybe a few self defense lessons.”  Sunshine grunted as she leaned down to grab the shirt and started to shake it out.  

Aether groaned and shook his head, but decided not to say anything.  He didn’t know why he’d even wasted his time talking to her.  Sunshine could be as stubborn as Copia some days.  He eyed the shirt in her hands before speaking again.

“You know what seeing her in Swiss’s shirt is going to do to him, don’t you?”  Sunshine just cackled and turned to start walking towards the Princess.  Aether kneeled down to pick up the bags and started for the horses when he glanced back over at the girls.  Something in Sunshine’s hand glinted in the sun and he watched as she handed it over to the girl.  Unholy hell.

“Sunshine, stop giving her knives!” 

The only response he got was Sunshine’s middle finger as they disappeared into the trees so the Princess could change.  Groaning, he started for the horses again to get them ready.  It was possible Copia and the others would be gone most of the day, but he wanted to be prepared in case they showed up sooner.  Who knew how many of Saltarian’s men were waiting in that town.  He was confident in everyone’s abilities, whether it was with a gun or something hand to hand, but still.  A trap was a trap and Mary was an asshole.  

Despite being worried of their need to possibly leave quickly he took his time.  The stagecoach horses weren’t really cut out for anything more than lugging stuff around, but he brushed them out and took care of them just the same as their other ones.  They’d be able to sell them for a decent sum whenever they made it back to town.  He took a moment to look them over before deciding on one for the Princess to ride.  Although he had a sinking suspicion Copia would find an excuse to have her ride with him again.

He had known what would happen as soon as he’d seen her picture in the paper too.

Aether paused when he heard the hoofbeats.  A steady pounding coming from behind him, across the field.  Lucifer, please.  He took a deep breath and turned, hoping to see Copia and the others.  Unfortunately the rider in the lead was dressed in all black so there was no mistake it was Mary.  There were two other riders flanking him and as they got closer Aether’s heart sank when he didn’t recognize them.  

He closed his eyes briefly, saying a quick prayer for his friends before glancing over to where the girls had disappeared into the trees.  At least they hadn’t come out yet, it would give him some backup with Sunshine and he knew she’d tell the Princess to stay there where it would be relatively safe.  He adjusted his gun belt and started walking through camp, passed the dying fire and stopping right at the edge.  

By now he knew Sunshine had to have heard the horses and hopefully she was watching and ready.  She hadn’t taken her rifle with her so she’d have to get close to help him.  He would need to create enough of a distraction to give her that chance without being spotted.  Copia left him here for a reason, he knew Aether would fight like hell to keep everyone with him safe.  His friend had trusted him with his Princess for a reason and he wasn’t going to let Mary take her without a fight.

~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~

You couldn’t remember the last time you’d worn pants.

When Sunshine had suggested a change of clothes you were ecstatic.  Your poor dress looked nothing like it did when you had stepped into the stagecoach at the start of your journey.  After days of horse riding and sleeping in the dirt it was more brown than blue and white.  Falling into the creek the other day certainly hadn’t helped either.

What was worse was the smell, although it didn’t seem like it bothered any of your companions.  It shouldn’t anyway, they smelled far worse after days on the road.  You figured it was just one of the things people got used to if they spent lots of time out of the city.  Everyone kept mentioning heading to a casino and while you weren’t exactly sure what to expect, Sunshine had promised you there were baths.

You’d never wanted to take a bath so badly in your life.

Anytime someone brought up the casino, The Ministry as it was called, you would get nervous.  It wasn’t really the thought of the casino itself, but what it meant for you.  The Cardinal had said a few times now that once they reached it they would be waiting there to hear from Saltarian.   At that point you assumed they’d arrange the exchange of you for the ransom money and that would be it.  

What happened after that you had tried not to think about too much.  You didn’t want to think about being near Saltarian at all.  In just a few days he’d gone from being some unknown business associate of your father’s to a cold-blooded murderer.  You had no idea what he was like beyond that.  How would he treat you?  Would he be angry you had been kidnapped?  Would you end up locked away in a room until the wedding?

The wedding itself was just one more thing you didn’t want to think about.  While The Cardinal had mentioned the general plan a few times you really had no idea what it actually entailed.  Were you going to be stuck in between flying bullets from both sides?  Or what if The Cardinal and his Ghouls burned the church down?  That would certainly be poetic justice considering what Saltarian had done to them, but what about you?

As the fear started to make your chest clench you tried to take a few deep breaths and calm down. The Cardinal had promised to protect you.  You knew deep down you shouldn’t trust him, trust the outlaw that had kidnapped you, but again your thoughts drifted back to how things had changed between you.  There was something there now, something that made your heart speed up for a different reason.

You shook your head, you shouldn’t be thinking about something like that.  He was probably just trying to keep you happy and prevent you from running away again.  Mary had mentioned another woman and there were probably more besides that.  Why would he choose some silly city girl like you?  You groaned and smoothed your hands down the pants before reaching down to pick up the shirt, turning your head when you heard Sunshine come through the trees.

“How’s it going, kid?”  You smiled softly at her nickname for you, no one here seemed to want to use your actual name.  Even ‘Principessa’ had grown on you a bit, although you’d never tell The Cardinal that.  “Oh hey, those fit great.”

“The shirt’s a little big.”  You held out your arms to show her how far the ends hung off your hands, but she just tsked and walked close to start rolling them up.

“Eh it’ll work just fine, you look great!”  Sunshine finished with the other sleeve and then took a step back and grinned.  “You fit right in now!”

“I’m not sure everyone would agree with you there.” You snorted and fiddled with the shirt for a moment.

“The only opinions that matter are mine and Co–, eh The Cardinal’s and I can guarantee you he’ll approve.”  She winked and you looked down to hide your blush.  Well, you weren’t going to lie and say you didn’t want his approval.  But it was a silly thing to want considering the circumstances.  

“I just…I’m sorry.  I don’t even know what to think, my mind is all over the place.”  You sniffed and turned a bit, trying to hide the tears welling up in your eyes.  Oh now you were really being a silly city girl.  You felt Sunshine’s hand on your arm and looked back at her despite your tears.

“Listen, I’ve known The Cardinal a long time, ok?  I haven’t seen him ac–,”  Sunshine abruptly froze and turned her head back towards camp.  You started to ask what was wrong but she squeezed your arm so you kept quiet.  You stayed frozen as she turned and crept towards the tree line.  It was then that you could hear whatever must’ve stopped her speech, heavy horse hooves getting closer to camp.

She waved her hand towards you, motioning you to get down so you dropped to your knees, resting them on your dress for a moment before slowly moving towards her.  As you got closer you were able to see Aether standing at the edge of camp. You held your breath as you turned to see what he was looking at, hoping it was The Cardinal and the rest of the Ghouls.  Instead all you saw was Mary and two men you didn’t recognize.  They had pulled up right in front of Aether and you could see them talking to each other, but you didn’t understand what they were saying.

“Sunshine, wh–,”  But she shushed you, her eyes not leaving the men as they spoke.  Their voices were becoming louder and your heart started hammering in your chest.  Where was the Cardinal?  Aether reached a hand out to point behind Mary, but the man just shook their head.  Everyone's voices got louder as the conversation became more heated and Sunshine tensed up even more next to you.

“Fucking Mary, I knew that asshole was gonna try something.”  She shook her head and started to say something else when the other two men moved around Aether to surround him.  Mary nudged their horse closer to him right when one of the men drew their gun and cocked it.  Aether turned at the sound, drawing their own gun but Mary abruptly kicked out and caught him in the face.  

“Shit!”

Your hands flew to your face as Aether dropped to the ground, Mary leaping off their horse right after.  When Mary got close Aether slammed his foot into their knee, bringing them down as well.  One of the men jumped off their horse but Aether held out his gun and you gasped into your hands when the shot rang out.  The man’s body dropped swiftly but before Aether could focus on the other man Mary was up and on the Ghoul, slamming a fist into Aether’s face. 

Sunshine cursed under her breath and then turned and grabbed you by your shoulders.

“Stay here.  If Mary or the other two head this way you run, ok?”  You wanted to say something, but she stood up and grinned down at you, before taking off towards camp.  Mary and the other man weren’t looking your way, Mary still busy fighting with Aether.  The other one had gotten off their horse and was checking on his wounded companion.  

You had thought she would have just run up to them shooting, but Aether abruptly spun Mary and was able to overtake them.  The horses startled and started moving away from the chaos in between them.  When the man looked up from what you assumed at this point was his dead companion their eyes immediately latched on Sunshine.  The Ghoulette was quicker than him, getting a shot off before he could aim at her.

He jerked to the side and he went down right on top of the body of his companion.  You couldn’t decide what to watch at this point.  Sunshine seemed calm as she advanced on the man she had shot, but at the same time Aether and Mary were cursing and growling at each other.  You couldn’t even tell who was winning as they rolled around in the dirt.

Where was The Cardinal?  He wasn’t…he couldn’t be dead.  There was no way he and the other Ghouls were dead.  You took a shuddering breath and tried to fight the tears.  Crying wouldn’t do you any good right now, or at all.  Sunshine said you needed to run if anyone headed your way so you needed to pay attention.  You lowered your head for a moment to try and collect yourself, but when another shot rang out you yelped and looked back towards the fighting.

Mary had seemed to get the better of Aether and they had their gun pointed at Sunshine.  You couldn’t tell if their bullet had hit her or not, but she was down.  Mary slowly got off of Aether, giving him one last punch in the gut before limping towards the Ghoulette.  Your eyes stayed on Aether though, silently begging him to get up but he remained motionless where he was.

You looked back towards the other end of the field, still hoping you’d see The Cardinal ride out of the woods on Brizio but there was no one.  Aether was down, possibly dead and Sunshine might be next.  You pushed yourself onto your feet, your hands shaking as they rested against a tree trunk.  Mary was standing over Sunshine now with their back to you pulling their gloves off and shoving them into their coat.  When you looked back you narrowed your eyes, watching as Mary leaned back over Sunshine with a gun in their hand.

You couldn’t let anymore of The Cardinal’s people die.

Sunshine had told you to run away, but where were you supposed to go?  Your chances were probably better with Mary than on your own with no supplies in the middle of nowhere.  You started looking at the ground around you, hoping to find a branch or anything you could use against Mary.  The knives Sunshine had given you were still in your dress and you didn’t have time to dig around for them.

Mary’s laughter rang out from camp, apparently Sunshine was awake you could see Mary kick her hand away from his leg.  They were mocking her!  You growled and grabbed a branch that was about as long as your arm and stalked out of the woods.  Mary’s back was still to you, Aether hadn’t moved and neither had Saltarian’s men.  When you looked back at Mary and Sunshine, Mary had cocked their gun and was pointing it down at your friend.  An angry scream built up in your chest and you ran at them swinging the branch.

The noise startled Mary and they whipped around to face you, but it was too late.  You had swung the branch back and slammed it down as hard as you could, knocking it against Mary’s shoulder.  They cried out and stumbled out of the way, landing on their knees nearby.  You immediately knelt down to check on Sunshine but her eyes were closed, a large bruise forming on her cheek.  Before you could try to wake her Mary’s hands were on your shoulders and they were yanking you up to your feet.

“Man, he really did a number on you, huh?”  You tried twisting away from them, but their grip on your shirt was too strong.  “Quit fucking struggling, Sweet Cheeks.  Your fun little vacation is over.  Time to go back to reality.”

“Fuck you!”  You kicked out behind you, but you missed connecting with anything.  They grunted and wrapped an arm around your waist and then slid the other over your mouth.

“Man no wonder he liked you, the spunky ones always get hi–fucking shit!”  You clamped your teeth down on Mary’s fingers as hard as you could, tasting blood.  They cursed again and shoved you down onto the ground next to the smoldering fire, your hands landing on Aether’s cooking pots he hadn’t put away yet.

You spit Mary’s blood onto the ground and took a few deep breaths.  All you wanted to do was cry, your mind becoming overwhelmed with the idea of The Cardinal being dead.  Mary finally quieted down and you heard his footfalls come up behind you, the spurs on his boots jingling softly.

“I don’t know what kind of fairytale The Cardinal was weaving into your head, but the reality is you meant nothing to him.”

You turned to glare at him, staying on the ground, ashamed of the tears gathering in your eyes.  

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”  Mary snorted and shook their head.

“No, Sweet Cheeks, I do know what I’m talking about.  But it doesn’t matter now anyway.  He’s dead and so are his annoying sidekicks.” 

“I don’t believe you.”

“Well I don’t give a fuck what you believe, all I need you to do is get up and get ready to go.”

“Don’t touch me!”  You kicked out when Mary tried to grab you, connecting with their ankle.  Mary stumbled back growling, glaring down at you.

“What’s it gonna take for you to accept it, huh?  Do you want me to drag his body back here for you to cry over like some war widow?”

“He’ll come back for me!”  The tears were flowing freely now and your heart was clenching in your chest.  You couldn’t believe it, you didn’t want to believe it.  Mary crouched down in front of you and you tried to take a calming breath.

“Alright, fine.  I’ll play along, what if he did come back?  What did you think was gonna happen?”

“I don’t…we were going to hide out until Saltarian paid the ransom.”

“Then what?  He’d come swooping in like some hero and rescue you from your horrible new husband?”  Your eyes dropped to the ground and Mary snorted before continuing, “Sweet Cheeks, did it ever occur to you he was blowing smoke up your ass to get you to cooperate?  Hell, to get under your dress too.”

You clenched your hands into fists, your nails digging into your skin at the implication of his last words.  The Cardinal had done nothing to pressure you into…into that.  He’d certainly been attentive to you, touching and holding you more than you think you’d ever been since you were a child.  You found yourself shaking your head again, he hadn’t done anything you didn’t like.  If anything his touches had left you wanting more.

“He told me his plan and he said he’d protect me.  That he’d keep me safe.”

“Oh, he’ll keep you safe alright, as long as it’s useful for him to keep you around.”  Mary brought his bloody hand to your chin and lifted your face up so your eyes met.  They smiled, but it was cruel and mocking and all you wanted to do was wipe it off their face.  “Sweet Cheeks, I’ve known The Cardinal for a long time, nothing will get between him and his revenge.  Not even some pretty young virgin like you.”

You jerked your chin out of his hand, narrowing your eyes as they laughed at you.

“He promised that he’d protect me.”

“Copia’s made promises to girls much prettier than you, so good luck holding him to anything.”  Copia?  Was that…was that his name?  Mary must have picked up on your confusion because they started laughing again.  “You see!  You didn’t even know his name!  Not much of a love story is it?”

You felt the fight leaving you as Mary’s words started to sink in.  Maybe they were right, maybe this was all an act by The Cardinal.  By Copia.  An act to help keep you in line and make it easier to drag you to the casino.  Mary was still chuckling, but you tried to block the sound out.  

“This is all an act, Sweet Cheeks.  If you get between him and Saltarian he’s going to take the shot and he’ll walk over your body to get his revenge.”

No.  It wasn’t an act.  Mary was right, you were inexperienced, but you weren’t an idiot.  Copia had listened to you when you told him you weren’t there by choice, his behavior after that had changed.  He had opened up to you that night by the fire, he had trusted you enough to share his past.  You closed your eyes and imagined his arms around you while you rode around on Brizio.

You saw his face leaning closer when he was about to kiss you.

“Fucking wake up!”  Mary’s raised voice startled you back to the present and you reached up to wipe the tears off your cheeks.  “You don’t mean anything to him except the means to an end.  And if your end is part of it, trust me, he won’t lose any sleep over your death.”

“Fuck you and fuck Mr. Saltarian.”  You reached your hand behind you and grasped the handle of one of the cooking pans.  You weren’t going to listen to any more of this.

“Sorry, Sweet Cheeks, you’re not my ty–”  The sound of the pan hitting Mary’s head echoed around the campsite and you held it in the air for a moment, watching as blood started trickling down Mary’s forehead.  Their eyes rolled back and they slumped over, laying there completely still while you stayed frozen with the pan in the air.

After a moment you dropped it to the ground and exhaled slowly.  You looked around the campsite at the carnage, a bunch of bodies still laying around and not moving.  The horses had started to mill around, munching on the grass.  You pushed yourself off the ground and stood up, your hands were starting to shake and for a moment you felt like crying again.  A sound behind you stopped you though and your breath caught as you slowly turned around to see what it was.

The Cardinal, Cardinal Copia, was riding out of the trees and racing towards you.

Before you even registered yourself moving you were running away from the camp towards him.  As he got closer you got a better look at him, his dirty leather jacket was missing along with his hat.  You could see one side of his face was matted with blood and you almost cried out at the sight.  You heard him shout for you and you stumbled in your desperation to get to him.   

“Principessa!” 

Copia pulled up on the reins but didn’t even wait for Brizio to stop, leaping over the side and running the rest of the way towards you.  He caught you as you practically threw yourself at him. You knew you’d probably be embarrassed at your display later, but right now you didn’t care.  You didn’t care about anything except the feel of his arms around you.  You buried your face in his shirt, a deep red button up that was marked with sweat and some blood. 

“Hey, hey,” His hands cupped your face, pulling it away from his chest while you attempted to hide your tears.  When your eyes met he smiled and you felt like crying even more seeing the wound on his face. “I’m ok, I’m here. We’re all ok.” 

Your hand came up to grip his shirt but he caught it in one of his own, squeezing it gently and holding it over his heart.  Like he knew you needed the extra reassurance despite him standing in front of you. His other hand stayed on your cheek, the thumb stroking across your skin back and forth. It helped calm you and you took a shaky breath before trying to speak. 

“Mary’s here.  They came back with two men and attacked Aether and Sunshine.  I, I don’t kno–”  Your voice cracked and he shushed you, holding your head against his chest for a moment.  You felt his own head rest against the top of yours briefly and you swore you felt the ghost of his lips on your hair before he pulled away.

“Stay behind me.”  He kept your hand in his as he walked towards camp, his other hand pulling his gun out of its holster.

“Mary said you were dead.  That you were all dead.”  It almost felt like a dream now, you found yourself squeezing his hand and you couldn’t help but smile when he squeezed back.

“We’re all a bit banged up, but the only ones that are dead are Saltarian’s men.”  He let go of your hand when he reached the first body and nudged the man over onto his back before he knelt down next to him.  You watched as he checked their pulse, then took the man’s hat and covered his face.  

The next body had the same result and you breathed a sigh of relief.  Copia went over to Mary next, giving them a much harder kick to roll them over.  While he knelt down to check Mary you went over to Sunshine and knelt down next to her, taking her wrist to check her pulse.  When you felt it beat steadily against your fingers you reached up to brush some of her hair back.

The bruise on her cheek had gotten bigger, but the worst thing you saw was the blood staining the sleeve of her coat.  You jumped when you felt Copia’s hand on your shoulder and he helped you pull her jacket off, eliciting a few groans from her as the sleeve slid down her arm.  Copia checked the wound for a moment and then pulled off the bandana she wore around her neck, tying it around her arm.

“It’s just a graze, Principessa.  She’ll be fine.”  Sunshine groaned and you watched as her eyes blinked open, squinting into the sun.  

“Fuck you, Boss.”  Copia chuckled and touched her shoulder gently.  The Ghoulette turned towards you and gave you a quick grin before groaning and bringing a hand up to rub her cheek.  “Is Mary still alive?  If so, can I kill them?” 

“Mary’s alive.  For now.”  You watched as Copia got up and started to move over to Aether before pausing.  He looked back to Sunshine for a moment and then back at you with an eyebrow raised.  “Who hit Mary?”

You bit your lip and glanced down to where the cooking pan was still laying in the dirt.  Copia reached down and picked it up, turning it over to look at the huge dent Mary’s head had left.  He looked back to you and started laughing, shaking his head as he tossed the pan back on the ground.  

“Well done, Principessa.”

When you glanced over at Mary you saw that Copia had tied their hands behind their back.  Blood had covered their face, but you couldn’t bring yourself to feel bad.  You’d hit them again if you had to.  You breathed a sigh of relief knowing that Aether and Sunshine were ok.  Copia was helping Aether stand up and they grasped each other’s elbows briefly before they came over to you and Sunshine.

“We need to pack up and head back to the town.”  Copia reached down and you slid your hand into his, letting him pull you up.  Your eyes drifted to his wound again and you winced.  He tilted his head to catch your eyes and smiled at you.  “I’ll be ok, it looks worse than it is.”

You nodded, biting your lip to fight the tears that wanted to come once more.  His face softened and he pulled you away towards where Brizio had wandered to, the horse always staying close to his master.  

“I’m sorry, I was just scared.  I thought you might not be coming back.”  Copia cupped your cheeks again and you blinked your tears away so you could see his face clearly.

“Didn’t I promise to protect you?”  You bit your lip and nodded, forcing all the nasty words Mary said out of your mind.  Words that weren’t true.  “I may be an outlaw, Principessa, but I keep my promises.”

“I believe you, Copia.”  Your body froze when his name slipped out and you were waiting for him to be upset that you knew it now, but he just smiled.  His hands dropped from your cheeks and took your own, bringing one up to his lips so he could kiss the back of it like he had done before.

“I figured Mary would let it slip.  I guess you know all my secrets now.”  You couldn’t help but smirk, pleased that he wasn’t upset about it.  Happy that you knew his real name now and that you could use it.  You looked down at his hands for a moment before he spoke again.  “Well, maybe not all my secrets.”

When you glanced up at his face he winked at you and you rolled your eyes.

“Okie dokie, let’s get going.”

~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~

Cleaning up camp didn’t take very long.  While Aether and Copia dragged the bodies into the woods you and Sunshine got things packed up.  Mary had woken up eventually, but Copia shoved a rag into their mouth to keep them quiet.  You couldn’t help but glare at them every time you walked by, but Mary just glared right back.

Asshole.

They threw Mary over their own horse and tied them down, you could hear them swearing through their gag but other than that you didn’t bother giving them any attention.  Sunshine wandered up to you with her hands behind her back and a smile on her face.  When she pulled them out she had the knives you had left with your dress in the woods.

“You did pretty good with a frying pan, but I’d still keep these handy, kid.”  You laughed and took them back, but you were unsure where to stash them now.  Sunshine started to say something, but Copia came up and interrupted her.

“Allow me.”  Sunshine snorted and held her hands up while she wandered off towards Aether.  When you looked back at Copia he had an odd look on his face so you raised your eyebrow at him.  “We’ll need to teach you how to use these soon.”

“A knife doesn’t seem difficult to use, just stick them with the sharp end, right?”  Copia laughed, ducking his head while he shuffled them in his hands.  He stepped close and took the smallest one, slipping it into the pocket of your pants.  You held your breath at his proximity, biting down on your lip when he used a finger to pull the waistband out so he could clip one of them to the belt Sunshine had given you. 

“I think we’ll need to let you practice with a gun too.”

“Oh Copia, I don’t kno–”

“No, today proves that despite my promise you still need to be able to defend yourself.”  He knelt down and lifted your pant leg up, tucking the final knife into your boot.  You could feel its leather case rest against your ankle, but it wasn’t uncomfortable.  If anything it was a comfort to have it, to have all of them close by just in case.  

Copia stood up and looked you up and down for a moment.  He cocked his head while he looked at the shirt you had on and you reached up to adjust it a bit self-consciously.  Your lace chemise you had worn under the dress showed sometimes and you had already seen Copia notice it once or twice.  He wouldn’t stop staring so you huffed and crossed your arms.

“What?”

“Principessa, whose shirt is that?”

~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~

Once you got to the town there was a nice reunion with everyone.  Even Mountain had come up and lifted you in a huge bear hug.  As you walked through the town your mood sobered a bit though, it was obvious quite the battle had taken place.  You could see that in the tired faces of the Ghouls as well although it was clear they had taken the time to clean up a bit and bandage what needed to be bandaged.

Now with night having fallen you were all gathered around another campfire, this time near the outskirts of the town.  Mary had been tied to an overturned wagon a ways away.  The blood still caked on their face and the rag still shoved into their mouth.  You almost asked if someone should clean them up or give them some water but you decided, for the moment at least, you didn’t care.

What you did care about was making sure Copia, Aether and Sunshine got cleaned up.  Dewdrop had been surprisingly helpful, finding a few somewhat clean sheets in one of the houses and then going off to get some water.  He didn’t say anything to you, but it felt like his attitude towards you had changed a bit.  You’d have to apologize at some point for biting him.

Rain had taken up the task of cleaning up Aether’s face while Dew worked on Sunshine.  He seemed like the only one willing to put up with her hissing and cursing while the bullet graze on her arm got sewn up.  You had attempted to watch, but it was a little too much for you so you turned and set your attention on your own patient.

Copia had found his hat and had it back on his head, so you tipped it up a bit to get at the gash above his eyebrow.  It wasn’t as deep as you thought it would be so you were relieved when he said it wouldn’t need stitches.  That was probably a good thing because he was surprisingly twitchy whenever you brought the wet rag to wipe around the wound.  When he kept wincing you shushed him, earning you a very impressive glare.

“I thought cowboys were supposed to be tough.”  He snorted and reached up for his hat, taking it off and setting it on the ground next to him. 

“Cleaning them up is usually worse than getting them.”  You smiled as he made another face when you pressed the rag against the cut again, gently dabbing at the blood.  

“I’m almost afraid to ask what’s the worst you’ve ever been injured.”

He tilted his head up and squinted his eyes, like he was thinking back on what you were sure were the countless injuries he’d received over the years.  When he reached up for your hand you gave him a wary look as he brought it to rest on top of his left thigh, right in the middle.  You glanced back up at his face when he spoke.

“Took a knife here a few years ago.”  You made an ‘oh’ sound and looked back down at where his bare hand was settled over yours.  There were a few scars on the back of it and it made you think of how many scars he probably had covering his body.  Unfortunately that thought made your cheeks flame and you hoped the firelight dancing across your skin hid it from him.

You tried to tug your hand away from his so you could get back to cleaning his cut, but he wouldn’t let go.  Instead he lifted it up so he could study it in the light and then narrowed his eyes at something near your thumb.  There was a very small burn mark there, barely noticeable to you but his keen eyes had honed in on it immediately. 

“Oh, I was trying to make myself some tea.”  Your eyes narrowed as a bark of laughter left him and you jerked your hand away.  “I was a child!  I’m sorry I don’t have any wounds from knife fights to brag about.”

“It was barely a fight, Principessa.”  He was still laughing, like it was a fond memory rather than a painful one.  You looked back up to him with an eyebrow raised and he pointed towards town to where Mary was tied up. 

“Wait, Mary stabbed you?”  Copia nodded his head and smiled when you shook yours in disbelief.  

“Eh, I’ve done worse to them over the years.”  You snorted and wrung the rag out again, glancing back up at his face to make sure the cut wasn’t starting to bleed again.  Another blush started to grow on your cheeks when you saw his eyes on you.  “Still wasn’t the worst wound I’ve gotten.”

You frowned when he took your hand again and watched warily as he pulled it up to his chest.  His hand settled yours right over his heart and you held your breath when you felt it beat strongly against your palm.  Copia didn’t say anything for a moment and you looked back up at his face expectantly.

“A lovely girl in Denver.”  He was biting his lip and you raised your eyebrow as you waited for the rest of the story.  “She broke my heart.”

His laughter covered your groan and when you yanked your hand away he grabbed at it again bringing it up to his lips to place a quick kiss on the back.  Your cheeks were going to be permanently red at this point, it seemed like his only goal anymore was to make you blush. 

“You did good, Principessa.  I’m impressed.”  It was impossible to hide your pleased smile so you just let it grow on your face.  You startled a bit when a shadow fell over you and let out a little sound when something plopped onto your head.  The Cardinal had placed his hat on you, although it was too big and fell nearly to your eyes, obscuring your vision.  Before you could move it one of his hands came up and tilted it back and you were met with a smile so dazzling you had to look away.  “We’ll make a cowboy out of you yet.”

“I’m not sure I’ll ever be cut out to be a cowboy.”  You bit your lip as you adjusted the hat a bit more.  When you risked a glance at him his eyes held yours briefly before he winked and you had to look away again.  The moment was quickly ruined when he knocked his hat down to cover your eyes and you growled but as you reached up to fix it you felt his breath on your ear and you froze.

“We’ll see about that.”

~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~

In the morning they relocated Mary inside one of the buildings so they weren’t baking under the sun.  You stayed back and helped pack up again, not wanting to hear any more poisonous words from Mary.  Everyone seemed to be in better spirits this morning and it made you happy.  Even Dewdrop was in a good mood, but you think that had something to do with whatever he and Swiss had found in one of the buildings.  You had been about to ask them what it was but Copia and Aether had wandered out of the building they put Mary in so you waited in the street as they walked up.

“Are they going to be ok if you leave them here?”  Copia raised an eyebrow at your question and you rolled your eyes.  “I just don’t like the sound of them, or anyone, starving to death.”

“Mary will be fine.  There’s a town nearby, some more of Saltarian’s men are waiting there.”  You froze at that news, but Copia gave you a reassuring smile and rested a hand on your shoulder.  “It’s a few days' ride away, Principessa.  We’re safe.  Mary will even be safe.  When Mary doesn’t show up with you they’ll send some men out here to see what happened.”

“Do you think Saltarian will hurt Mary?  For not bringing me back.  For not killing you.”

“Mary is an idiot, but they’re still useful.  Saltarian won’t waste the energy killing them.”  Copia had remained at your side, his hand sliding down your arm to rest on your elbow.  “We should get going, Rain said there was a storm brewing in the mountains.”

He squeezed your elbow and gave you a gentle tug so you’d follow him.  You looked out to the mountain ridge and bit your lip.  You didn’t see any signs of storm clouds gathering, but you trusted Rain to know what they were doing.  Oh, you hated storms!  Missouri would get such awful ones in the spring and summer and you were always a nervous wreck during them.  

“What will we do?”  Copia stopped next to the horse you would be riding and peered down at you, seemingly a little confused over your question.  “In the storm, how will we avoid it?”

“We usually don’t, Principessa.”  His face softened as he looked at you, seemingly picking up on your nervousness.  “But we can’t stay around here.  It’s not safe, not with Saltarian’s men so close.”

“I know, I’m sorry.  I just, well you’ll poke fun, but I’m scared of storms.”  You felt your cheeks heat a little bit at your admission and you glanced quickly at his face, expecting to see that smirk of his.  All you saw though was compassion, his features still soft as his eyes traced your face.

“How many times will I need to remind you that I’ll protect you, eh?”  His voice was stern but you could see the teasing glint in his eye.  You smiled and nodded, the rest of your insecurities from Mary’s words fading away.  He put a hand at the small of your back and nudged you closer to the horse, “Time to go.”

Copia helped you up much like he had done before, kneeling down and letting you put your foot in his hands to help lift you up onto the horse.  It was much easier to do so now in the pants and while you still missed your dress, you were happy to feel more at home on a horse.  Copia busied himself with adjusting some straps on the saddle before bringing his hands to your foot.

"Do you want to know the best thing about being rid of that stronzino, Principessa?"  You raised an eyebrow and looked down at him expectantly, watching as he finished tucking your foot into the stirrup.  

“What’s that?”  Copia’s hand moved to your ankle, holding it in a loose grip.  His eyes remained focused there, flexing his fingers around it a few times.  The warmth from his hand was starting to seep into your skin through your pants and you couldn’t help but think about how good it felt.  You were focused on his hand so much his voice startled you when he spoke again. 

"With Mary gone there won't be anyone to interrupt us."

“Interrupt us?  From wha–”  Your voice cut off when his hand started moving from your ankle.  It slid slowly up your leg, your cheeks starting to heat as it continued higher, only stopping when it reached your knee.  He brought his other hand up to rest at your waist and you sucked in a breath, feeling caged in by him.  It wasn’t anywhere close to an unpleasant feeling, but you still nudged your knee against his hand, trying to get him to answer.   “Copia, what do you mean?”

He remained silent, but his eyes began to travel from where his hand rested on your knee, trailing up your thigh and higher.  You could feel goosebumps sprouting over your skin as you watched his mismatched gaze take you in.  Copia bit his lip momentarily when they rested at where his hand was on your waist before they continued further.  It wasn’t until he was looking at your lips that they stopped again and the memory of when he had looked at them like that before popped into your head.  Of when he had almost kissed you.  

Oh.

You watched as a smile broke out onto his face, his eyes finally meeting yours.  He took a few seconds to watch your reaction, your mouth had fallen open a little but no sounds were coming out.  His smile just got wider as he watched the realization dawn on your face, both of his hands squeezing the flesh underneath them.

“We’ll have to find some time for that, eh?”  With that Copia winked and gave you a final squeeze before he turned to make his way over to his Ghouls.

Oh.

Go to Chapter 6: The Newlywed Game

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[lildrabbles]

Chapter 6: The Lair

2007! Raphael x Female! Reader

Summary: After returning to the lair in the sewers his family learns where Raph has been this whole time.

Warnings: The usual, swearing

A/N: Sorry this took so long! The chapters to come are probably gonna take some time as well, since school is starting. I also got my first request, so keep an eye out for that in the near future!

Raph didn't know why he was surprised when he got back home. He thought he would just be able to sneak in like nothing happened, but of course that didn't happen. As soon as Raph stepped in, he got bombarded by a hug, getting knocked over in the process as the bag fell onto the ground. 

"Dude?! Where were you?! We were worried sick!!” Mikey clinged onto him.

Raph winched in pain. "Mikey, get the hell offa me! That hurts!" He shoved Mikey off of him and picked the bag back up, straightening himself.

"What happened to your chest?" Donnie questioned, leaning over to look at it.

Raph scoffed, brushing him off. "I'm fine."

"Are you sure? It looks like it's bleeding through a bit so it must've been pretty bad -"

"I said I'm fine! Jesus.." Raph rolled his eyes.

"Ooo what's in the bag!" Mikey launched forward to grab at it but Raph lifted it up above his head.

"None of your business, twerp!" Raph growled.

Somehow Donnie had appeared behind him, and had snatched the bag. He reached his hand in and pulled out the piece of paper. "Dude, is this a phone number?" He raised a brow.

Raph snatched the paper back. "No!"

"Whos number is it?!" Mikey snatched the paper out of his hand and read it aloud. "Bro it has a smiley face on it!!" He cackled. "Raphie has a girlfriend, Raphie has a -"

Raphael lunged at him, causing them both to fall to the ground. He managed to put him in a headlock while Mikey begged for mercy before Splinter came through to witness the scene.

"What is the meaning of this?" He demanded.

Raph immediately let go and got up. "S-sensei, I-"

"Raphael! Where were you? You made us worried sick!" He was beside him in a flash before smacking him across the head.

"Ow! What the hell was that for?!" Raph protested, but only received a harsher smack.

"What have I said about swearing? Anyway, that's not what's important at the moment. Where were you?"

"I-I... well.." Raph didn't want to tell the truth.

Splinter raised his hand to threaten to hit him again. 

"Ok ok! I, uh... may have gotten hurt and this girl took me in and helped me.." He muttered.

"I told ya he had a girlfriend!" Mikey cheered, before Donnie smacked him across the head.

"You mean she saw you? She knows what you are?" Splinter asked with a frown.

"W-well yeah but-" Raph stuttered.

Splinter sighed, looking away while he stroked his beard, deep in thought. After some consideration, he looked back at his son. "Bring her here." 

Raph's eyes widened. "Wait, what?"

"You heard me. Bring her down here, through the sewers. Make sure she doesn't have any trackers on her phone and make sure you aren't followed."

Donnie tried to interject. "But Sensei, isn't that dangerous? I mean, what if she tells someone where she's going-"

Splinter raised his hand to silence him. "If she does, we will deal with it. I want to know if we can trust her."

"I don't want her to meet THOSE twits!" Raphael protested, pointing at his brothers. "Hey!" Mikey pouted.

"Enough!" Splinter groaned, rubbing his temple. "You boys are giving me a headache!"

Raph sighed. "Do I really have to, Sensei?"

"YES, Raphael, end of discussion." Splinter then turned around and left the room.

Mikey then appears out of nowhere and elbowed Raph in the side playfully. "Sooooo, who's the girl~"

He shoved Mikey off of him and grumbled. "I ain't tellin ya."

"Um, Raph, isn't it best to tell him now rather than Mikey demanding her name when she's actually here?" Donnie suggested,

Raph scoffed. "Fine. Her name is Y/N."

"That's a pretty name," Mikey then sang, "Raphie and Y/N sittin in a tree - "

He didn't get to finish before Raph launched at him once again.

Donnie managed to grab him before any punches were thrown. "Ok ok guys, Sensei was already upset enough, we don't need him to be mad. And Mikey, you know not to irritate him, especially when its about his girlfriend!"

He then received a smack across the head from Raph.

He picked up the bag and brought it to the kitchen counter while Donnie glared at him for hitting him, but he quickly got over it once he saw his brother unpacking the mysterious bag. Mikey and Don sat on the other side of the table watching him take out all the goods.

"Did Y/N give you all these?" Mikey asked slyly.

Raph shot him a dirty look. "Yes, shitface, she did." "Bro, no need to get, like, emotional about it." Mikey said overdramatically.

Raph was about to pummel him before winching from the pain in his chest. It was still not fully healed.

"Raph, what happened?" Donnie asked with a worried frown.

"Tch, I'm... fine," He said, he was starting to get dizzy. His knees started to wobble before Donnie quickly stood up and grabbed him. 

"Come on, I think you need some more rest." He led him towards the couch. Mikey stole an Oreo before joining them in the living room area.

"Sooo, is this Y/N hot?" Mikey snickered as he leaned against the couch.

"Shut up, Mikey," Raph growled as he laid down.

"It's better to ask in a more polite way, like ask if she's pretty," Donnie said.

"Oh, right! Raph, is Y/N pretty-" Mikey was cut off when Raph had thrown a pillow at his head.

"Fck off and lemme get some sleep, will ya?!"

"Ok ok! Jeez, someone's awfully cranky." Mikey and Don started to head to their rooms for the night, while Raph sighed and got in a more comfortable position.

His honest opinion? 

Yeah, she is both of those things.

But he would never say that aloud.

[noteclan]

Noteclan Moon 2!

so uh. Here's that aforementioned written piece. I think this is probably the best place to put it given that I want the end of the post to be about the end of the update:

It's still early in the day when Oatdawn and Beechdream set out in search of herbs, padding down the mountain into the forest of the valley.

Birds chirp and flutter in the trees. Iron-mud-red squirrels dash through the leaf litter after each other, oblivious to the cats trodding steadily along nearby. This forest is probably the liveliest place in several kilometres, other than maybe the shore of the lake. It’d be lovely, if not for the fact that all the animal smells are making it hard to find herbs.

At least if they can’t find anything it’s not a long walk back to the cave, something she wouldn’t be able to say if she was by the lake. Oatdawn dreads things fairly often, and one of them is the walk back up the mountain if xe must get herbs from all the way down there someday.

She glances to Beechdream for a second. He went there just recently to get xir a fish. He doesn’t even like fish.

..This walk is rather lovely, actually.

The scent of a mouse hits Oatdawn’s nose. Yet another animal distraction, yet another small creature she wants to pause and watch. But her duties as a medic must come first, as always.

You could use the bile against ticks, her mind chimes, tempting her, though she knows..

She doesn’t realize xe’s stopped until Beechdream does as well, his head tilted in silent question.

Oatdawn flicks her tail to point to the source of the smell, and seconds later there’s a skittering in the leaves in that spot. She watches, amused(surely this twinge in her heart is that), as Beechdream lowers himself to a hunting crouch. 

He fumbles the catch, which is probably for the best, though Oatdawn does struggle to believe that when xe catches a sharp bitterness in his eyes.

“When did you get so into hunting?” She asks, tone light enough to ease the edge in Beechdream’s eyes as he looks at xir. “I still remember- you used to hate it, didn’t you? And now you’re fishing and going after mice and challenging eagles, always out- when’d that happen?”

Beechdream stares at the ground for a second. “I got tired of not being able to.” He glances up to Oatdawn after a second, sees xir’s curiosity. “Like- skill wise? And from my job back home. I’m sick of being cooped in.”

“You did.." Oh, she wishes xir memory was better. "Camp security, yeah?”

Beechdream nods.

“You still went out to get brambles and stuff, though. Was that not enough?”

He shrugs. “No? I’m glad your plants are for you, but. Not for me.”

Oatdawn stills, considering. Xir eyes drift to where the mouse had been.

(That twinge in her heart, as xe watched Beechdream smoothly stalk along the forest floor, his movements precise and certain. Was that admiration or jealousy?)

Well. Even if she wanted to hunt, she doesn’t know-

“How do you.” She swallows, face hot. “how do you hunt?”

Any distance that’d been clinging in Beechdream’s eyes fades. “You-? Of course, you’re a medic. Ok, uhm-”

He launches into a very - dare xe say adorably - flustered explanation of a hunter’s crouch, glancing back at Oatdawn far too often(“I keep thinking- that clearly you know this so it’ll be rude to explain,” “snrk-, It’s not, I promise,”) for it to be a smooth process.

She does learn, though. And soon the mission of collecting herbs is forgotten, as Xe hunts for the first time. It takes a couple of tries but soon Oatdawn has a mouse clamped tight in her jaws and triumph settled nicely into that aching spot in xir chest.

She’s well familiar with having to talk around things, and lifts xir paw to set the mouse down on it to say “Thank you.”

Beechdream grins, and the two of them bask in the moment.

before Ochrewillow glances over his head.

“Oh. That’s rosemary.”

“..So it is, yes.”

Oatdawn stares for a second. “I should probably harvest some sprigs from that.”

So xe should probably give Beechdream the mouse.

Passing it to him is easy. It means that he stands there, apparently too busy holding it to help gather rosemary, but that’s fine. This is fine. He should get the credit for it anyway, he’s the warrior.

When she’s gathered as much as xe can easily hold in her mouth, Oatdawn turns to face him again. Beechdream pads closer, takes the mouse from his mouth with a paw and- sets it on her head?

“What? You’ve got good balance.” He says, grinning, and pads past her to start breaking twigs off of the rosemary bush. “Just- this size good?” He asks, holding a piece up.

Oatdawn goes to nod, then pauses, humming a m-hm instead.

this is really happening.

She really shouldn’t bring this back, Spirestar wouldn’t- Heronstar would. He would approve. They’re breaking out of the specialties now, aren’t they? Defenders and medics can hunt. Fighters can learn to build barriers. The kits are growing up without having to pick that strict a role, without a war.

Right.

She just did her first, and hopefully far from last, hunt.

and now we resume our regularly scheduled comicing, with a Veilbreak and Rainpaw patrol!

ah yes. neon orange. a sure sign that Plot lurks the area.

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For anyone who skipped the written scene, Sílexclan wasn't the only name dropped; Oatdawn also thinks of a cat named Spirestar.

I don't plan on doing the huge written pieces often, but I had a lot of fun exploring it. One thing I've Not been having a lot of fun with is keeping these damned lineless cats from blending into the background. if anyone has any tips they'd be much appreciated

I'm still like. Hoping to eventually start updating more frequently. The reason this took so long is in large part because I started college partway through making it. So far I'm relatively low on homework though so here's hoping

So yeah! Hope you all enjoyed and that you have a lovely day!

[ladylooch]

How does Connor convince lucie to have another baby ? Because we know baby two happen.

We know Winnie Wood will come some day, yes!

As far as Connor convincing Lucie, it really isn't that. It is Lucie is ready to. Connor will always make comments about wanting to get her pregnant again and getting all breeding kink/horny with her 🤭 But Lucie has to pull the plug.

It is the end of Christmas. Stella is passed out in her room, finally. The rest of the Hischiers and Woods have disappeared to their hotel rooms or house rentals. Connor and Lucie sit in the gentle light of their Christmas tree, drinking a glass of whiskey straight as a night cap.

"The tree turned out so amazing this year." Connor compliments Lucie.

"Thank you, babe." She murmurs, admiring her work. Mack helped her decorate when she was here for Thanksgiving. Lucie enjoyed looking at it this year, remembering how much fun her and Mack had while Stella critiqued every ornament position.

"Her feedback is brutal." Mack had muttered, adjusting an ornament for the 6th time.

"Mack and I had fun." Lucie trails her eyes down the tree to a little box still stuffed in, hiding within the ornaments. "You do have one more present though."

"I do!?" Connor's eyes glint mischievously. Lucie stands. Connor gives her butt a slap as she hikes her leggings back up her hips. Lucie smirks. Hopefully he will be doing more of that later.

She grabs the small, gold box, walking it back to her husband. Connor sets his glass on the end table, then works the top off the present. Lucie observes the confusion pass over his face. Nestled in the white fluff is Lucie's empty pack of birth control pills. Connor turns, looking at his wife.

"If we start tonight, maybe this is our last Christmas as a family of three." Connor startles, mouth dropping open.

"Baby! Don't play."

"I'm not playing." She whispers. Connor launches across the couch at her. The box and empty pill pack go flying as he brings Lucie into his body. "Put a baby in me." She mumbles into their tongue filled kiss.

"Fuck. I'm gonna cum in my pants if you keep that up."

"Can't have that." Lucie chuckles, then kisses him again. "Thank you for being patient. I know you've wanted this for awhile."

"It's your timeline." Connor assures. "You could change your mind tomorrow and it would still be okay."

"Well, I was kinda hoping it would be too late by tomorrow." Connor chuckles, then rakes his gaze over her gorgeous face and down her body.

"I'll see what I can do."

[olliewritesometimes]

OC story between my girlfriend & me🥩🤍

- I made this very very VERY late, sorry in advance 👅

- Orsova is my girlfriends character and Rumi is mine

(yes I stole the name Rumi from apotheosis, but it’s not her name anymore so it doesn’t matter anyway💥)

- Orsova is a vampire & Rumi is a cannibal fyi🫶

================================

⚠️⚠️TW!!⚠️⚠️

- Blood

- eating live animals

- dead animals

- vague mention of bodily fluid & guts

- cannibal (?)

- vampire (?)

- mlm gay people!!!!😟⁉️

================================

Blood Lovers🤍🥩

Orsova was out on an empty stomach. The people around him were staring. As if they knew what was happening to him. The beast within him growling and hissing for blood.. for flesh. His features slowly becoming more beastly. But instead of charging for a human he runs in the forest. Falling to crawl like a wild beast. Sprinting as trees rushing by him. Leaving his tracks in the mud. Little animals hide away to small to replenish his vampire self. He gets to a clearing. Tall grass and beautiful flowers.. paradise for the local animals. But a stalking ground for our vampire. (tee-hee😝)

he crouches behind a log. watching the deer. Unnoticing of him. Eating grass to continue the circle of life. He stalks closer. The deer looks up. Pausing his breathing to focus. So does Orsova. Knowing the tactics of his enemy. Orsova drools with anticipation. The deer goes back to eating just as he launches himself towards his pray. Catching it easily by the throat. His teeth pushing into it like eating a juicy steak. Scattering the other deer around him. The deer tries to kick and fight back before bucking one last time and laying helplessly as his blood is drained away becoming one with the earth once more. The beast within still hungry. You stare at the moon. 5hrs till the sun comes out. The field he always hunt in now empty by this outburst. His mouth dripping with blood. His teeth pinging from the force he bit with. Continueing the night hunting for new prey, for Rumi.

Hours pass like seconds.

Somehow ending up back at the old apartment him & Rumi are staying at. Convered in blood but dried now.. the sun is rising slowly. The heat pinging on the back of his neck. Dragging a little to-go box.. walking up the stairs to the apartment. His worn out shoes drag up the concrete. Exhausted from the hunting last night. Stepping onto the last step before knocking on their apartment door. A man he recognizes open even with his drooping eyes. His purple hair tied up into a bun as if waiting for your arrival. “love, you had me worried sick!” He says sighing grabbing Orsova’s arm and leading him in. he tuts his lips “you could’ve been seen, it’s nearly day!” Stealing the box and placing it on the counter. Feeling it slosh back and forth within it. Meat crashing into the sides at each step. Norsova barely replies. Rumi notices this while taking his vampire to their room. Closing the blinds as they enter and getting him cleaned up. Climbing onto the counter looking at his white hair dyed red from the blood and carnage from the animals that were slaughtered. “I appreciate the gesture but,, please my love.. I don’t need to see ash on my doorstep.. (he pauses) though.. you do look very..” he leans into Orsova. Chin almost resting on his shoulder. “…handsome.. my bloody vampire, you have made such a mess.” he talks with a smile dragging out his words with his French accent.

“my beautiful bloody boyfriend.”

is the last thing Orsova remembers him saying before a long kiss on his neck and being taken back to the bedroom. His clothes getting exchanged for new ones. The warmth of them rather than the cold blood on him. A warm blanket on top of him and his lover. A warm human, next to him. continuing to whisper into his ear his sweetness dragging through the voice.

Our vampire barely remembers this before fading out for the day until the next night where this happens all again. 🤍🥩

- I’m aware this is bad this was just for fun and I’m eepy now so I’m probably gonna crash :D🤎

[ghostchems]

IT’S @tasty-ribz’s BIRTHDAY!!!

go wish them happy birthday RIGHT NOW! they post the funniest most angsty dang art and we love them for it.

in honor of them i am working on a little thing and here’s a snippet of it.

is it a stand-alone fic? maybe. is it an update? could be. who knows! maybe ribz does 😏

***

“Jeff! Shut the fuck up!” Shauna elbows him in the ribs. He laughs and shrugs her off, placing one hand on her shoulder and giving her a strong push. She falls off the tree stump where they were sitting on onto the wet leaves. “Dickhead!”

“Can you guys relax?” Colin huffs from the other side of the fire. They do not relax, instead Shauna launches herself into Jeff’s lap and starts to tickle his sides. “I’m trying to tell a spooky story!!” Colin whines in protest then angrily throws his marshmallow on a stick into the flames. Jeff forcefully removes Shauna from his lap and sits her down beside him.

“Fine, man. Relax” He shrugs and shoves his hands into his sweatshirt pocket. “Tell your story and quick so we can get back to having fun.” Shauna giggles behind him while Colin gives an exasperated sigh.

“There’s supposedly creatures that roam these woods. People go missing all the time. They tried to build houses just outside the woods but the structures would end up rotted out as soon as they were put up.” Colin sounds almost uninterested, his gaze drifting to look at the darkness behind them. “Legend says that witches inhabit these woods… the creatures are their pets and they abduct people and use their bones for the brews.”

“Psh. Boring.” Jeff throws a stick into the fire.

“It’s not witches, though. You know that old building right at the edge of the woods?”

“The Satanic Church?” Shauna asks.

“The… I mean yes, but it’s not… it’s not actually a satanic church is it?” Colin is *thrown off*.

“No, that’s true.”

“What? No way.

“Yeah. It is a Satanic Church or something but they’re nice, ya know. They, like, donate food to the homeless and stuff. They’re good people.” Shauna kicks a few leaves at her feet.

“Oh.” Colin sinks into his folding chair. “Well never mind then.” He crosses his arms and sits in silence.

This is a bummer of a camping trip for all of them it seems. They don’t last much longer, with Shauna and Jeff retiring early to the tent while Colin stays in his chair to watch the fire go out and having to listen to the two of them screw around. He’s not particularly happy with being the third wheel but this time alone makes it all the worth it. He starts to doze off as the night drags on, the fire taking its time… or is something keeping it alight? No, no… that’s Colin’s creeped out brain talking. It’s definitely because they put an ungodly amount of lighter fluid onto the firewood.

A twig snaps in the distance that makes Colin’s hair stand on end. His surroundings are pitch black except for the fire. Wide awake now but he’s sure it’s nothing. That is… until he hears more rustling that only grows closer and closer with each passing second.

“Hello?”

Dead silence.

Colin sinks further into his camping chair and returns his gaze to the fire. A few peaceful moments pass.

And then he sees it. A pair of glowing eyes from the darkness right by the tent.

[dreamriordanverseunboxings]

Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief LEGO set ideas

Our new family tradition is building a LEGO Christmas Village together, so naturally my brain went - Percy Jackson LEGO sets. These are slightly easier to pop out than my dream unboxings, so I'm going to add a couple of these while I work on my annotations.

Fight Scenes

I love the connectivity of some themed LEGO sets, so I'm going to lean into that a little too much.  PJO culminates in a battle on Mount Olympus at the top of the Empire State building.  So I think each battle set should stack to be a floor on a giant Empire State Building (some can combine, think 4 floor tiles wide)

Book 1 gives us a bunch of fun fights.  Spoilers for book 1 and maybe for the series?

Nancy Bobofit and the fountain/Fight with Mrs. Dodds/Fury

Percy in Yancy clothes

Mr Brunner/Chiron in chair (he should have a red umbrella and a book)

Grover in hidden leg form?

Mrs Dodds/Fury (I'm not sure if this is a doable transformation or just two separate minifigs, my lack of LEGO knowledge fails me here)

Nancy Bobofit

Split this - fountain outside on one side, then stairs and a wall to room decorated with big marble frieze of greek gods for the Fury fight.

the fountain should have "grabby" water or moving tentacles of water somehow, the inside should have some sort of moving component - maybe the fury flying with her wings on clear posts

4 tiles wide for the set, 2 for each mini location

Fight with the minotaur 

Sally Jackson, Percy, Grover with satyr feet.  Percy should definitely have a bag with blue candy or cookies in it and his sword

Minotaur with removable horns

The car should be in this, able to be broken by lightning bolt, somehow incorporate the lightning bolt

Thalia's tree, several other trees for Percy to jump off of! Falling tree limbs could be cool.

this could probably be done in 3 tiles.  4th tile for that floor of the building could be the Fruit Stand with the Fates, old ladies in rocking chairs.  Is it a battle? no.  Is it eerie and comes back at the very end?  yes.

Bus fight with the furies - this to me feels like it could jump out of my Empire State Building dream to something separate that is mainly focused on the large bus.  Percy, Annabeth, Grover, 3 furies, a bus driver and 2 random people, luggage, Annabeth's cap.  I'm not going to give it a tile size because it isn't going in my Empire State Building.

Auntie M's and the fight with Medusa

This one is getting a full 4 tiles/entire floor.  all sorts of statues, a place to eat, a place to take a group "picture", the flying shoes, the reflective shield, a way to make Grover fly, INVISIBLE ANNABETH/clear minifig Annabeth.

St Louis Arch with Echidna and Chimera

The little kid who saw the monster has to be a minifig.  And the guide.  Probably no Annabeth or Grover here.  

Plus if the wall of windows can spin or break or something to launch Percy out of it. I really want this to be a full floor/4 tiles, but also that the back half of one of the tiles is an elevator tile that WORKS and can be rigged to create an elevator that goes through to other floors, because elevators show up in other areas too.  one of the tiles on each build would also have to be removable or not feature a bunch of items on it to make this possible... but it would be quite the feature, let's be real.

Waterland Tunnel of Love ride

obviously, the trap feature, the webbing covering it, the boat and then a ramp and a tunnel leading to a jump.  Grover being able to fly again (this feature comes up a lot).  The scarf, the cameras and creepy Cupids, the screen.

Our main three are now decked out in Waterland merch

Lotus Hotel

2 tiles, bright Vegas colors, lots of flowers and games.  Some lights or slides or something should happen here.  LEGO does some really cool "retro" mini builds of their historical sets that would be fun to incorporate here.  Also historical games and minifigs

Crusty's Water Bed Palace

lots of weird beds.  2 tiles.  Crusty and the main 3.  maybe some beds that can flip to have skeletons.  Idk, this one is less fun.

Fight with Ares on the beach.

Full 4 tiles, a giant wave for Percy to ride on, Ares's motorcycle, the helm of darkness, the master bolt, police and exploding police cars.

I skipped a lot there to get to the end battle, I know... but wait, there's more.

The Underworld

Obviously the Underworld is kinda its own thing, but has some parallels to Mount Olympus.  One might even say it is like... the basement of Mount Olympus.  We see more of the Underworld in other parts of the series, but here we do get some epic introductions. The color of the bricks should shift to reflect the underworldliness.

DOA Recordings and the barge/river

This deserves to be two levels and I'm going to make it two levels in this plan here, but I'm going to say that it is only 3 tiles wide.  One tile is an elevator tile that goes down to the river underworld area on the second level.  

Entrance to the Underworld - airport security level and Cerberus

another 3 tile wide - lines and security minifigs.  Could probably get away with just Annabeth, and then Cerberus. Obviously need to add the EZ death lane too.

Cannon launcher for the ball Annabeth throws to Cerberus.

Hades' throne room

the imprisoned Sally Jackson, Hades, the backpack and the masterbolt and the pearls - some sort of lifting/rising feature would be cool here. The three in their pearl bubbles would look really cool

this would be 3 tiles and could attach to...

The chasm to Tartarus

a small set with just one tile in width, but 2 levels high.  The chasm has a trap door feature that would actually swallow a minifig.

Just Grover and the shoes?  His face should show terror.

I really wanted to include the garden of Persephone, but I want that to be special much later in Nico's story.

Camp Half-Blood.

The Big House has some sectional qualities to it.  Percy wakes up in the infirmary, they play pinochle with Dionysus and Chiron on the porch, and there is the attic and the Oracle.  Later on the counselors have a meeting space and Chiron's room is mentioned.

The forest would also have its own theme to it.  There are a lot of battles and skirmishes that take place within it, the entrance to the labyrinth, etc.  Percy's first capture the flag game and the fight with the the black Hellhound near the river would be a great set.  And of course... the claiming of Percy by Poseidon.  All could be part of the same set or broken up.

As far as the rest of camp goes - the bathroom fight with Clarisse could be a cool smaller set with all the toilets exploding.

And finally - the cabins!  I really like how they have LEGO builds where a book folds out to a playscape, and I think there is a lot of opportunity there to mix in different parts of the books and of the camp training with the living situation of the campers with minifigs to match the characters of each.  So a Hermes cabin with plenty of space for an abundance of demigods, with spots to stow smuggled items and the Poseidon cabin with an ocean theme, and possibly having training items to pull out like the lava climbing wall or archery range (from Apollo or Artemis, obviously)

Anyways, that's where I am currently at with my LEGO dreaming. Looking back at this I want to amend my "4 tiles" thought for the size of each floor to a 6 tile thought. I think I have some LEGO building software on my ancient laptop, I might play around with that a bit. OH... or 6 tiles and it FOLDS. Now I want to decorate the outside with stickers of what is happening throughout the books.

[yolowritter]

A perspective on Gideon Ofnir part 2

Follow up post to this ramble about Gideon. I stand by what I said last time. Gideon Ofnir is a tired old man who is clearly losing hope in the Tarnished, and the Two Fingers that are meant to guide them. Again, he is completely right in the regard that all current Tarnished staying at the Roundtable Hold are just waiting for a miraculous savior to sweep in and take the throne, and none of them embark on the journey themselves. Rogier has even lost Grace, possibly because of abandoning this goal, even if the exact mechanics of "gaining" and "losing" Grace are complicated. Alas, not the point. Gideon quite literally has only Nepheli that he can trust in, and he does in fact send her after Godrick the Grafted, the weakest of the Shardbearers. Make no mistake, this in itself is a show that he's done taking risks, or perhaps is following the mission half-heartedly by now. Nepheli is very clearly an accomplished warrior, since she managed to get inside Stormveil Castle and slay a Banished Knight inside of a cramped room (anybody who has fought them in tight spaces knows it's not easy). She is his strongest piece on the board, and Gideon sends her for the Shardbearers' weakest. There is a clear reason why none of the people present at the Radahn Festival are acting for or on behalf of Gideon. Blaidd is there for Ranni. Alexander is there to prove his own worth in battle, nevermind that he isn't Tarnished to begin with. Okina is possibly there on behalf of Mohg, since he already had the Rivers of Blood, which we know lore-wise he got after submitting to the Lord of Blood. Lionel is already dead and under Fia's control by this point, as we find his body in Leyndell, and Therolina is a puppet acting on Seluvis' orders. He even gives the Tarnished her ashes as part of his quest. Tragoth is following his own interests and travels the Lands Between to help his fellows, without ever going to Leyndell except to assist the Tarnished in defeating the Draconic Tree Sentinel (assuming he's summoned to help). Gideon literally has no more capable warriors at his side, no possible hope of ever defeating someone like Radahn.

That's why he sends Nepheli for Godrick, who is the weakest in all aspects. He's the only Demigod Gideon thinks even she has any chance of actually defeating. (Side note that the Radahn Festival must have already happened hundreds of times, due to the relevant Jerren dialogue, so even that is a failed strategy until the Tarnished shows up.) And what happens when the Tarnished returns to the Roundtable with Godrick's Great Rune? With or without Nepheli at their side, Gideon happly welcomes them, sounding proud to call the Tarnished a true member of the Hold. The player character becomes his new hope, that just maybe, if he keeps us on the straight and narrow, we might just end this Age of Fracture and stagnation.

Right after this, Gideon immediately launches into a whole discussion about the other Demigods. Those whose locations he knows of at least, and the list of targets that the Tarnished can hit. He's impressed by the fact that a Shardbearer has finally fallen and immediately urges this newcomer to keep going, offering knowledge and explicitly warning them to stay far away from the Capital until they've collected at least two Great Runes, and are strong enough to challenge Morgott. And yes, I know that the barrier at Leyndell's gate is an in-universe story beat possibly erected after Vyke got jailed, but that's not relevant to Gideon. Of course he has his own agenda, everyone in the Roundtable does apart from Roderika. Hewg is hopelessly smithing away and wants to be freed, Rogier is investigating Death, Fia wants to get as much vigor out of capable champions as possible, and D to hunt down the Undead.

Gideon is perplexed by mysteries. He admits that he can never know everything, and yet relentlessly tries to increase and expand his knowledge regardless. He does do this behind the Tarnished's back by taking magic from the Demigods they defeat, but consider for a moment that Gideon has no reason to trust the Tarnished with something so important just yet. Before Leyndell, the newcomer is a hope, yes, but one just as liable to fail as all the rest. Gideon is expanding his pocketbook of spells in case he ever needs them, and because why not? He's clearly got the power to wield all this magic, and the Two Fingers even deemed him worthy enough to learn Lord Divine Fortification, an incantion built to negate holy damage. Why would he recieve this knowledge if not for the Fingers intending him to challenge Radagon at some point?

And even in the cases where Gideon has the Tarnished do his dirty work, it's never a demand or a threat. He's passive, content to watch, and aside from Ensha (who explicitly acts on his own), has no intention to attack us so long as we don't end up being a threat to him. Don't stab me, I don't stab you. Pretty simple stuff. Gideon searches for knowledge, and while the whose fiasco with the village of albinaurics is absolutely unethical and cruel of him to do, it only serves to point out that he considers finding Miquella (and therefore possibly understanding one of the people that perplex him) more important than the lives of people who lore-wise are "widely considered impure and graceless". It's obviously wrong, but Gideon values a way out of this stagnation more than anything. Again, the Tarnished is never forced to find Latenna, not to mention that if they do while also eventually going to Ordina, a whole new generation of Albinaurics can be born. Gideon simply considers the Tarnished as a comrade of sorts, hence why they are trusted with Latenna's possible location. Hence why he then shares his secret thoughts about Mohg and Malenia. Gideon only wanted the Tarnished to prove they were worth it, and they have. Alright, I'm going to stop here and continue in a third and final post talking about why I think Gideon betrays and battles the Tarnished in the Ashen Capital. There is no 100% clear answer, but again these posts are just my two cents. See you all soon!

[lunarsands]

Empires SMP Fanfic: Thou, O Kings, Fair Be You All Pt 1

Afterlife SMP and Empires SMP S1 and S2 crossover super combo!!! (again noted here to save the title field, but Empires SMP S2 inspired the idea so I’m filing it under Empires)

Characters: MythicalSausage, Scott Smajor, Sausage Supreme, along with MythicalSausage, and MythicalSausage, featuring MythicalSausage, as well as MythicalSausage, plus MythicalSausage

Relationships: MythicalSausage/Scott Smajor

Tags: action, a bit of fluff WARNINGS: Violence, Injury, Death (of the villain), body horror

Summary: The Tyrant King arrives in Sanctuary, and another battle for the safety of the future begins. Sausage vows to stand his ground and do everything he can, which includes calling for aid from some very familiar faces...

Takes place after: Along the Roads to Sanctuary, Hellbent, The Future Foretold, and Who’s The Unfairest Of Us All, and includes characters from Night of the Winter Stars.

(Also available on Ao3!)

[A/N: @cynthrey and I took one look at Sausage’s Empires SMP S2 season finale and heard the question: how many AUs can you fit into one fic? Us: Yes

If it wasn’t obvious by the character list, there are multiple versions of MythicalSausage in this, so get ready for a lot of epithets in order to tell them apart! Full guide available in the end notes, although it does contain a spoiler!| Look, if CC!Sausage himself is going to keep handing me openings for a fic idea, I'm gonna run with it! XD]

---

Part One

 Afterlife, DFY Variant

The vision gripped Sausage the Seraph like none before – save for one, and this time the dire feeling that came with it was as strong as that one had been. He was in Sanctuary again, and an evil presence was riling all of his instincts. He put out his hand and summoned his flaming sword, then sought for the source of the presence.

He didn’t stop to think why it was that sword, and not the broadsword he had wielded while he had lived the life of Sausage of Sanctuary. It seemed like some time had passed since he was last there, but the streets were still familiar. He hurried along. The terrible aura wasn’t moving away. The fear that he hadn’t done enough to ensure this world’s future sat in the pit of his stomach.

He heard a call that compelled him to move faster; it wasn’t Pearl’s voice, but it tugged at his very soul. With a beat of his wings he launched up over the rooftops. He could find it faster this way…

The call that compelled him was in the same direction. Perhaps it was the version of him that he had shared a body with, and that’s why there was such a strong connection, much like with Pearl. Perhaps the danger was just that great, and had given the other him the power to summon an angel. He swooped around a tall tree and scanned the street below.

He pulled up short and hovered in the air. A miasma of sickly yellow that gave off an air of envious greed blocked part of the road, while the pale blue sphere of the soul belonging to his double in this world floated on one side.

On the other side were three other soul orbs: one was red with ropes of yellow filigree around it; another was black as pitch with only faint traces of yellow at the edges; and the third constantly vacillated between ten different colors, but seemed to have a blue center. Sausage rubbed his eyes. Why was he seeing souls instead of the actual figures? And why was there a cloud instead of a soul where the apparent enemy was?

Well, it was still the enemy, he was certain. Maybe there just needed to be a little holy fire to burn it away and reveal the target. He pulled in his wings and dived downward, sword leading. Maybe this is what he had been needed for. He could aid Sanctuary one more time.

As his sword cut through the middle of the miasma, he turned his head to smile at the three others, intending to give a nod in thanks for them also coming to help. He ended up gasping instead.

The center of all of them was also pale blue – and in the shape of sunrays.

.

“Sausage! Wake up!”

…That was Scott’s voice. “Huh? Hm – wha? What do you mean, wake up? I don’t—”

“You fell asleep!” The starborne was staring down at him, violet eyes wide. “We were talking, and then you practically keeled over! What happened??”

Sausage tried to get his bearings. Scott was holding onto him, but he was also seated on the ground and leaning against the wall of the farmhouse beside the garden. “Asleep? I don’t sleep…” He tried to puzzle it out. “Why would I…” He suddenly grabbed Scott’s arm. “Sleep! Dream! That was a— dream vision! I was back in Sanctuary! There’s – There’s something evil there! They needed me! The… other mes needed me!”

“The other… you?”

“There was more than one!”

“Okay, that was definitely just a dream, then, because how would more than only the one who belongs there even be there? That would have to break some rules, wouldn’t it?”

“No, no, I think it was just that bad.” Sausage stared at the ground in worry.

“But… what are we supposed to do about it? If it was real and you were needed, wouldn’t that higher deity person put you there again?” Scott squeezed the seraph’s arm, not keen on the idea of Sausage being whisked away to another world yet again.

“I don’t know, but… I saw all of their souls. They were different, like – well, remember that time I pulled Myth’s soul out? Like that, but they were all the exact same at the core.” He pointed to the center of his chest with his thumb. “Like mine.”

“Do you want to go ask Pearl?” Scott asked reluctantly. He helped the seraph get back on his feet.

“Maybe,” Sausage said, his tone a bit numb. “I’m not sure if I really want to know how many other versions of me she knows of…”

“Better we find out from her about what might be going on, than some deity we’ve never heard of before.”

~*~

Mythland, Champions Variant

“Papa! Falling asleep in the middle of the day is for babies!”

Lord Sausage of Mythland lifted his head to see a pair of indigo eyes gazing at him. Despite the teasing tone, there was something akin to concern within the young elven face.  “I guess I got tired from all the running around, Liana. You kids have more energy than me.” He reached out with his prosthetic right hand to lightly pat her on the head.

“Yeah, well, I only seen Mariposa fall asleep that fast before. But somebody’s always holding her, so she doesn’t land in the bushes!”

That was when Sausage realized he was seated amongst some now slightly-mangled flowering hedges. The metal of his right arm had prevented a scratch from one of the branches that was now close to his face as he shifted to start getting up. “I think… you might have a point. Let’s go find Dad so he can take over playing and I’ll lay down in the crib – I mean, my bed.” He smiled as she giggled at his joke.

However, as he watched her skip ahead of him into the castle, he frowned in thought. Something strange had just happened, but he couldn’t put a finger on it…

He still had a troubled look when he absently followed Liana into the dining room, where Scott was attempting to feed Mariposa at least one spoonful of mashed carrots as the human infant sat in her highchair. The elf turned with a weary expression. “Perfect timing. Maybe you can get little miss fussy over here to eat something? She didn’t want a bottle so I thought maybe something different would work.”

“I can try, but…” Sausage lowered his voice as he stepped close to begin reaching for the spoon. “I’ve got something that might be a little more worrying…” Then he turned to smile at their other daughter. “Liana, could you go see if you can find one of your big brothers? Mariposa always cooperates for them.”

“Okay! Cop’erate, Mariposa! You need to eat and get big so you can play with us!” Liana waved a finger at the baby, then skipped out of the room.

Sausage waited half a second, then set the spoon down in the small bowl. Mariposa babbled and made grabby hands at it as if she intended to feed herself. Knowing that would only end in a mess, Sausage lifted her out of the highchair and gently cradled her – out of reach of the bowl. She emitted a giggle and patted her hands against his beard instead.

He smiled down at her and kissed her little fingers, then sighed. “Something just happened in the garden. Liana claims I fell asleep, but I don’t think it was that I actually dozed off. One second we were playing catch, then the next I was sitting in the hedges. I think I might have blacked out for just that second… but I don’t know what would have caused it.”

The dread that filled Scott’s face made Sausage regret his wording. The elf put both hands on his prosthetic arm. Sausage quickly shook his head. “Nothing like that, don’t worry. I’m pretty sure that is something I would recognize. This was… I don’t know. Maybe I was meant to have a dream vision right that second? But I wasn’t asleep long enough.”

“So, do you think you should go lay down, and see if a dream comes to you? I would prefer we put mystical portends behind us…” Scott looked at Mariposa, the other unspoken worry now showing on his face.

“Well, maybe. It still could be nothing. I haven’t touched any magic in all this time, I mean aside from—” He nodded toward his prosthetic. “But, like, that thing has never acted up before, so I doubt it’s that.”

“Or maybe it was?” Scott suggested. “Honestly, I would feel better if it was just a little fluke of a magic surge. Take it off for a while, and have a nap, and see if you feel anything strange later.”

“All right, I’ll try it.” Sausage gave a small smile, then held Mariposa up and tickled her with his beard before peppering her with tiny kisses. She squealed and giggled again. “Not so fussy now, are you? You just wanted kisses from Papa, didn’t you? But you should be nice to Dad and eat for him, okay?” He lowered her back into the highchair, where she promptly slapped a hand down into the bowl and sent mashed carrots flying everywhere.

Her two adoptive parents could only laughed helplessly.

~*~

Afterlife, x10 Variant

“Get back here, vampire! I’ll see you brought to justice yet!” Sausage the Gravital bounded after Scott, knowing he had enough gravi in reserve to keep up, even if the vampire could leap higher.

“Keep talking, superhero. I’ll keep proving you wrong,” came the amused response. Red eyes glanced back at him, a smirk on the pale face. Scott angled toward the top of a tree and leapt again – then his eyes flashed.

Sausage uttered a frustrated noise as the edges of his vision went red, then suddenly he was the one sailing over that particular tree while Scott was behind now, laughing before turning into a bat and flying away in the opposite direction. He couldn’t disorient Sausage to make him fall from on high after a swap, but he could re-orient him, and make him have to adjust his own altered gravity at the last second to avoid crashing into a tree trunk, or cliff face, or the side of a building.

Sausage would end up harmlessly bouncing off each of the obstacles, but in the meantime Scott would make his escape.

And meanwhile, the gravital was hesitant to try to bring a permanent stop to the vampire’s threat. Scott’s good side still had to be there; he merely needed to choose to come back to the light. Yet, for some reason – one that Sausage had been unable to find – Scott chose the darkness.

As he directed a cushion of gravi downward so he could return to solid ground, Sausage sighed. This chase was starting to seem pointless… But maybe he just needed to think of some other way to reach the person who had once been his friend…

His legs unexpectedly buckled the moment he dismissed the pocket of gravi. Then his head spun as well, and he grasped for the nearest tree to steady himself. For half a second the image of a building seen through a stand of bamboo swam before his eyes, then he blinked and his vision cleared.

Well, that was incredibly odd. Was this some new trick of Scott’s, projecting an image of where he might swap places, stranding Sausage in a random, unfamiliar place? He wouldn’t put it past him. Of course, such an attempt wouldn’t actually be very effective. The gravital’s senses extended to the magnetic poles and ley lines of the planet, so he would be able to figure out which direction to go with minimal trouble. Maybe some minor inconvenience, though, in the form of time lost while travelling.

When nothing else occurred, he tested his step to make sure his legs would no longer wobble. He decided against bouncing his way home and settled for a small boost to make his stride faster.

~*~

Mythland Adjacent, Unmasked Variant

The Angel of Aeor looked up as something prickled at his senses. The forest was peaceful as always, with sunlight filtering through the leaves and birds chirping just out of sight. The animals of this world didn’t fear the two specters that were the only humanoid life forms around, regardless of how one was an indistinct figure made of a glowing golden light with the shape of two wings behind it, while the other was a somber figure hidden by a black cloak.

The Angel then glanced at The Wither of Mythland, who drifted in a sudden unsteady lurch over the stream they had been following on their daily walk. He saw a bony hand raise to touch the side of its head. “Is everything well, my love? Are you also sensing something strange?”

“I… think I am,” The Wither rasped in reply. “Something is… pulling on the threads of reality.”

“Not that misguided fool Sausage again,” The Angel said with dismay, leaving off the usual honorific out of spite.

“No, not… quite? I believe it is something more powerful.”

“Who else but the guardian of realities could be doing so? …A deity, perhaps?” There was a frown in The Angel’s voice. “We know no such deity. And I refuse to accept the merest suggestion that he might have ascended.”

The Wither chuckled dryly. “I believe you should have no fears of that occurring. However, that is still the type of energy that I am…” it trailed off. Its hood turned as it looked aside into the forest.

“That is not all, is it?” The Angel asked. He could now sense The Wither’s troubled air.

“It is pulling on the threads of souls, but from beyond realities…”

“My love, should you even be sensing that type of energy from here? We are cut off from any mortal souls, as well as the realm where those souls end up at rest.”

The Wither brought a hand up in front of its chest. Nothing materialized, but it seemed to be looking down in concern. “My love, I can feel it pulling on me…”

Glittering white eyes gazed out from under the hood at The Angel; he saw worry within them.

~*~

Sanctuary, Prime Variant

Sausage the Protector gripped the hilt of his broadsword as he searched through the streets of Sanctuary. The warning had come, and all his magical senses were alert. The Tyrant King had finally found him, and would likely be seeking out the best place to drain the magic from both him and the land around them.

Not this time, Sausage promised. Today, it would end. Today, he would stand, and no longer run. And he would use everything at his disposal to make sure of it.

Bubbles trotted at his side, sniffing the air. She let out a bark the same moment Sausage paused and asked, “Do you feel that…?”

It was as if Sanctuary itself was balking at the intrusion of such evil. He hurried toward the next street – and saw the shrouded figure stalking toward him.

“I’ve been searching a long time for you…” came the gravelly voice.

“I know,” Sausage replied, keeping his head held high. “I couldn’t miss the assassins. But they missed me. As you can see, I’ve had plenty of time to build up something that you couldn’t destroy even if you wanted to.”

“Right into the bravado, I see.” The Tyrant King turned his head back and forth as if taking in the detail of the buildings around them. “I did not come to destroy anything. I came to speak. The reason I had you chased – not by assassins, mere trackers – was to bring you back so we could have this very conversation. About the truth!”

Sausage kept his broadsword at the ready. “I would prefer if you just leave, but let’s hear this supposed ‘truth’ of yours.” He shifted on his feet, anticipating a trick – he could see the golden bracer on the King’s arm, almost hidden by his gray sleeve, but Sausage knew he would not have left it behind even if this talk was genuine. His own sense for magic told him the bracer was still quite full of the power the King had taken from others. Who knew how much more he had wrung out of the people he had caught during the passing years.

The King proceeded to spin a tale that sent ice through Sausage’s heart. He claimed it was the truth, but the Protector of Sanctuary heard layers of lies. And then came the enticement of offered power, which made Sausage smirk to himself. Oh, the King knew nothing of real power.

The King did not know of the reincarnated soul that had come to reside in his son upon birth, a soul with more power than what this world alone would have granted the child.

Sausage feigned interest, then smirked outwardly. “Hmm, no, that old trick isn’t going to work. Been there, done that, becoming a warlock ended up being my downfall.”

“What are you talking about? You successfully contracted with demons?!”

“Just one in particular. It became this big thing where I banished part of myself to a pocket dimension, he broke out of it later, he ended up coming here, I had a big fight with him, and he lost pretty badly because I have the power of love on my side! I reabsorbed that guy about a week and a half ago, so technically I have all of my power and his in one place.”

The King scoffed. “How fanciful. If other such dimensions existed, I would have gained access to them by now. Yet, perhaps, if what you say is true, then we should ally ourselves. If you are as powerful as you claim, then why settle for this tiny spit of land, when you could hold sway over an even bigger empire!”

“Because I have absolutely no interest in anything like that. I just want a nice home where my friends and my people can feel safe, and Sanctuary is perfect for us.”

“So, do you feel that you have such an untapped wellspring of magic that you could defeat even me?”

Sausage smiled wryly. “There it is. Testing the waters now, are you? You’re not here to just talk, and you’re not here to win me over. You’re here to see what you can take – what’s available to take. Sorry, Sanctuary isn’t giving anything up to you.”

“We’ll see about that…” The King’s tone darkened. He raised his arm, letting the bracer glint in the sunlight. “I can either summon my army and capture all of your dear friends, then bring this whole place down, or you and I can battle here and now, and then I will claim every drop of magic in this pitiful ‘sanctuary’ of yours!”

The bracer sparked and crackled. Sausage frowned. He could sense the magic within it was protesting being used by someone who lacked the natural aptitude for it. He wondered if the King had actually mastered any of the abilities he just claimed to have, or if he could only twist them through the device. This might not be a very controlled battle. Sausage looked down at his broadsword and then grinned nervously. He wouldn’t yet risk taking out the Staff of Sanctuary, in case the King could steal the magic out of it, too.

“You wish to duel with mundane weapons instead?” the King taunted. “Very well.” He placed his other hand against the bracer and pulled a sword made of crackling yellow light out of it; the light faded to reveal a curved saber. Then a blank shield of burnt metal formed over the bracer itself.

Oh… So he had learned a few things…

Sausage leapt forward to do a quick test of the king’s reflexes, jabbing the blade of his broadsword between the shield and his opponent’s side. The crackling sword angled down to block, then the King parried. Sausage hopped backward and took his own shield from pocketspace.

“Not exactly a fair fight,” the King mocked, “But let’s see what you’ve got, son.”

.

Whether he struck sword or shield, Sausage soon found there was an extra barrier around both of the King’s weapons that prevented him from doing enough damage. He was certain that he was physically stronger, but he would have to dispel the magic to gain any ground. In the back of his mind he was remembering what Bubbles had told him to do. He was still reluctant; he didn’t want to cause any other fractures in reality, and didn’t want to weaken himself if he should happen to need his own magical strength when physical strength failed.

However, he couldn’t risk losing Sanctuary now, either. He didn’t have Hermes as back up this time… but he knew who he could count on for help. All he needed to do was trigger his own innate ability that ran soul-deep.

He caught the King’s saber on his shield then shoved him a step back – unable to do much more to deter the magically-reinforced weapon. Sausage then laughed.

“It’s not a stalemate yet, you fool! I am far from done with you! You are stubborn, but you will lose in the end! You are wasting your time!”

“No, I’m just laughing at your futility. You’ve got all the magic of the kingdom that you stole, but I’ve got all the power of the multiverse! And I don’t even need some fancy bracelet to use it!”

~*~

Afterlife, DFY Variant

Sausage shrugged all six of his wings in exasperation. “Why is it so easy for Pearl to keep track of me, but when I need her, she manages to be busy somewhere?” He and Scott had been walking along the path from their house to the center of the realm, but had yet to find the goddess along the way.

“Why don’t you fly ahead? I’ll catch up.” Scott smiled with a bit of a tired look. Daytime occasionally took some energy out of him since the sun overrode the rest of the stars, and today happened to be one of them, so they couldn’t both take to the air to search faster.

“Well, I kind of want you to be there, in case she’s like, ‘No time to explain, off you go!’ like last time.”

Scott chuckled weakly. He reached out to squeeze Sausage’s hand. “If there is danger in Sanctuary, I could come help, too.”

“You weren’t in my vision, though,” Sausage pouted sullenly. “It was whatever the presence was, and more than one of me. Well, and Bubbles. She must have been there.” He then stopped and put a finger to his chin. “I wonder where those other versions of me even came from. The only other one we know is Myth, and… Ohgod.”

“What?”

“Um… he might… have been there, too. There was a black soul with yellow in it. His was gray the last time I saw it, but with the shape he’s in now, I wouldn’t be surprised it changed. I mean, ours changed, as we went along, but the core usually stays the same, as I remember things.” He laughed awkwardly. “I mean, it’s been a long time since I was a wither.”

Scott clasped his chin in thought. “Well, if you saw his soul separate from that presence, at least it means you weren’t there to fight him.”

“I hope that doesn’t mean it would have devolved into a fight to see who was the One True Sausage, oh no.”

“They probably all have different responsibilities to go home to, anyway.” Scott tried to offer a smile, since both of them knew what type of responsibility Myth had. Then dismay crossed his face. “Um, Sausage…” He pointed at the seraph, who looked down at himself to see a glow surrounding his body. “I’ll tell Pearl,” the starborne said solemnly. “We’ll find you.”

Sausage nodded, then drew his flaming sword from thin air, followed by his shield. He might as well be prepared ahead of time, since he already knew he was heading into a potential fight.

~*~

Mythland, Champions Variant

The nap hadn’t brought any insight, and as Sausage reattached his prosthetic, he could still feel a sense of uneasiness inside.  As the redstone signals activated, he curled the fingers of the hand, then reached for his sword belt. There were plenty of guards around the castle, and even his eldest son, Azahar, was being trained to use a blade, so no one would go unprotected, but the uncertainty of what might be coming was eating at him.

He drew in a breath then headed for the treasury. Scott and their other son, Elowen, had ice magic for defense. Then there was Ilan, who had a promising grasp of beginner magic, but was still too young, and Sausage wouldn’t want them to have to stand between danger and their even-younger sisters. He tried to distract himself with the amusing thought of Liana – half a year older than Ilan, as she would insist – defeating foes with the sheer power of sass, but it didn’t alleviate his worry for long.

He threw open the doors to the treasury and strode directly over to a glass case high on the wall, which held the Staff of Mythland. He was surprised that Bubbles hadn’t already appeared to dissuade him; then he wondered if that was another sign. He removed the Staff and held it gingerly as he left. He would speak to Scott before beginning any kind of patrol, even though he could guess what the elf’s reaction would be.

That reaction came in the form of books hitting the floor as Scott was about to enter the library, probably intending to set some of them aside for the children’s lessons, except he had seen what Sausage held.

The human quickly cradled the Staff with his left hand and raised his right to stop an expected protest. “I don’t really want to use it, I’ve just still got a feeling – I don’t know how to explain it, but—”

Scott reached to try to take the Staff from him. “Sausage… I’m sorry, I can’t let you use this.”

“Please, Scott… I would only use it in an emergency – to protect the children! No offensive spells, just – just a shielding spell. Please. I know we’re safe, I know we have your magic. But I can’t shake the thought that I need to be prepared for something—”

At that moment a glow surrounded both him and the Staff. Sausage looked at Scott in panic. “Teleport spell… I didn’t activate it!! I swear!”

“I believe you.” Scott kept his hands held out toward him, his expression one of open fear. “Sausage… Hold onto it. Be safe. I’ll find you!”

~*~

Afterlife, x10 Variant

The world abruptly spun, and Sausage felt a tug on his personal wavelength of gravi. There was no red tinge to his vision, so this had nothing to do with Scott… Unless he had enlisted another gravital to mess with him.

Sausage wasn’t sensing anyone else, though. He would have felt the disruption they caused in the ambient gravity. But there was definitely something strange happening.

He uttered an angry noise as a glow sprung up around his body. Well, gravitals definitely couldn’t do that. He tried to think of someone who might be able to, as he turned left and right in an effort to spot them. “Show yourself! I’m in no mood to mess around right now!”

He felt the pull again, and realized it was a teleport – though still not the same as the vampire’s swap ability.

~*~

Mythland Adjacent, Unmasked Variant

The Angel whipped around as he heard the sound of a breath drawn through a straining windpipe. He hadn’t heard The Wither make that noise since the time when they first walked the mortal world. He saw a glowing light surrounding the former reaper. “Impossible,” he murmured. “Nothing can breach this reality, except for…”

Then he lunged as the cloaked form began to turn translucent. His attempt to grasp hold of even one of The Wither’s hands was met with empty air. “No!! Do not leave me!!”

~*~

Sanctuary, Prime Variant

“And what is that supposed to mean? ‘Multiverse’? Is this some more nonsense about other dimensions—” The King was then stunned to silence as someone in gleaming silver armor with gold trim appeared to his right – someone with six silvery-white wings, a flaming sword and shield in his hands, and a face that looked exactly like that of the Protector of Sanctuary – although with a stony, determined expression.

Then, to his left, a figure in royal robes with a bright red and gold crown on his head appeared. He had a scepter of some sort in his hands, and his right arm looked like it was covered by golden-hued armor. He was startled… and his face matched with those of the angel and the Protector.

Behind the King a third figure materialized; he was covered head to toe in blue and gray armor, with what looked like a bright green jewel in the center of his chest. He appeared angry, while sharing the same face as the others.

In front of the King, a specter of death appeared, with a skeletal visage just barely visible within the hood. The eyes went from glittering white to the same shade of blue as all the other faces around him – and as the group began to exchange glances with each other, they could all hazard a guess as to what the specter might have looked like in life.

The Protector joined this circle around the King. “Say hello to my army – the Seraph, the Lord of Mythland, the Superhero, and The Wither. And these are not the only ones out there, but we’re enough to put a stop to you once and for all!”

The King began to chuckle. His tone was now completely different from the doubtful mockery of a moment ago as he replied, “Now that happens to be a fact I know all too well.”

The Protector tilted his head slightly. “Didn’t you… say you didn’t believe other dimensions existed? So, how would you even know—”

“I lied,” the King gloated. “I have lied about a great many things, and that includes this life of mine, as well!” He laughed loudly, and his voice started to take on a strange resonance.

Three out of the five recognized the sound from recent memory. “No!” cried the Protector and the Seraph at the same time.

“We already defeated you!” the latter protested. “How could—”

“Impossible!” The Wither rasped with rage, interrupting. It pointed a bony finger at the King. “You should no longer exist!”

The King’s voice continued to shift until it came to sound just like the rest of them – minus The Wither – while retaining the resonance. “That’s right, you wretch. Your golden other half saw that coward gut me with the Rune Blade and try to banish my soul again!  But the fool didn’t realize I’m forever anchored to him. Parts of my soul were still scattered throughout reality, but only that banished piece was ‘reborn’ in this magic-deadzone of a body, sharing it with some other imbecile king. I awoke in him a hunger for power, and after he had stolen enough, the demon I had consumed – along with my own power – emerged once again. Thanks to you.” He turned to point his sword at the Protector. “When you absorbed that other piece of me, it gave me a beacon to follow and finally find you. So, thank you. …Even though you were the one to cause the entire mess in the first place!”

“Um…hey, guys?” the Superhero attempted to interject. “Um…” The four-way staring contest continued, however.

Lord Sausage sidled over to him and whispered, “You think he’s monologuing too, huh?”

“Yeah, classic villain stuff. Do you think we should...?” The gravital glanced him over, trying to figure out what was so special about him when all he appeared to be was some ordinary medieval ruler with a paltry amount of armor. Why wear plate only on one arm?

“We should take advantage of the distraction,” Lord Sausage said quietly as he drew his sword with his left hand. “Wish I had somewhere else to put this thing, though…” He looked down at the Staff of Mythland. “Can’t be helped. You ready?” He glanced at the Superhero. “You, uh, got any weapons there?”

“Don’t need them.” The gravital grinned. “I’ve got an idea, Your Highness – you go in and pretend to strike, then I’ll yeet him to the other end of the road. Maybe that will get our other counterparts to pay attention.”

Lord Sausage nodded. “Not sure what ‘yeet’ means, but let’s go for it!” He held the sword in position for a cross slash, keeping his right arm nearly behind him as if to hide the Staff. Then he rushed forward with a resolute smirk.

Of course he remembered his warlock self during another timeline of his own, but he knew that self didn’t exist for him this time around, so the one standing before them belonged to someone else.

Without a word he swung his sword – but then danced back a step, the blade neatly missing the shrouded King’s body. Then there was a sort of tug upon the air. The feeling only grazed Lord Sausage, but the King was yanked off his feet. He flew backward over the ground, sailing past the Superhero, who had his hands posed as if he had been pulling on a rope. His expression was smug – but then it turned troubled as the King simply landed right back on his feet, seeming unbothered, in the exact spot the gravital had intended to yeet him to, except he had been expecting the King to be staggering around in confusion.

“It will take more than that, hero.” Now all of them had their attention drawn by the surge of magical energy that appeared around the King. It took the form of crackling yellow light, which then shifted in hue to red, and it seemed a wind had arisen with it, tossing his shroud aside to reveal blue eyes the same as theirs – passed from father to son, but not quite the same face – yet then they turned red as small cracks glowing with purple and magenta formed at the corners of his eyes. He bared fangs in a grin. “Since you’re so fond of titles, you can call me Sausage Supreme!!”

The Protector froze, struck by a long-buried memory that had not been among those that resurfaced when he and the Seraph had gone their separate ways.

The Superhero snorted. “Oh, like you’re the One True Mythical Sausage, or something? Get off your high horse. You sound like just another bad guy to me!” He flung his hands upward, fingers curled.

The entire section of the street beneath Sausage Supreme broke off from the ground and rapidly lifted up, hurling him into the air along with it. However, he looked nonplussed, and as the bits of brick began to fall back to earth, he halted his own momentum. “You’re not going to be able to throw me very far that way. And now look what you’ve done – I’m out of reach of half of you!”

The Seraph beat his wings then took off like a streak toward Sausage Supreme. “Then let’s even the playing field!” He struck out with his sword, clashing with the sparking saber. The Superhero bounded across the distance then ricocheted off the nearby buildings to gain enough height to boost himself above the villain. Then he released a blast of gravi downward just as the Seraph was pulling back, intending to knock Sausage Supreme back toward the ground where the others could actually reach him.

The bracer sparked, and corrupted magic counteracted the gravi, stopping him from dropping too far. Now with a red, crackling sphere around him, Sausage Supreme was able to block both the flaming sword and any further attempts to yeet him. The Superhero boosted himself toward the nearest balcony to reconsider his strategy.

The Wither uttered a determined sound, then flew upward and grasped the bottom of the sphere with both hands. The color drained out of the sphere, then the energy began to fork off in ever-weakening strands of unraveling magic. The Seraph dived back in. He exchanged blows with sword and shield for several minutes; however, his flames were deterred by little bursts of the magic still shielding Sausage Supreme’s weapons.

Lord Sausage sheathed his sword and went over to the Protector, trying to read into his haunted look. “Hey, um… Maybe you should snap out of it? What’s the big idea, bringing us here like this? I mean, those guys all have pretty cool things going on, so that makes sense, but why me? I know about other realities so this isn’t a shock or anything, but I don’t do magic anymore. I want nothing to do with that guy. I got a second chance, and I’m not messing with anything that powerful ever again. Hey, are you listening to me?”

The Protector turned a horrified look toward him. “I… I sent this piece of him here. I caused the King to go on a purge of everyone who had magic in them…”

“Oh boy. Um. Okay, listen to me.” Lord Sausage placed his right hand on the Protector’s shoulder. “We take responsibility for our actions, and we can hang onto the guilt if we need to, but we can’t let that stop us from protecting the people still with us. We make amends by making sure the future is safe for them. For the next generation. And we do what we can when our head is finally clear.” He lightly squeezed the other’s shoulder.

The Protector looked at the hand on his shoulder and noticed that the details were too intricate to be mere armor, then he followed the line of the entire metal arm, seeing where it was connected halfway below his shoulder. Lord Sausage gave him a solemn smile. “The cost of getting my head clear. But it was worth it. I have a family to get home to, so let’s get in there and stop this guy. How are you with magic? I might be able to lend you something to help out.” He now smiled ruefully and nodded to the Staff of Mythland in his other hand.

The Protector looked at it as well. “I haven’t seen that thing in centuries…” He chuckled wryly. “And the last time I did was right after I broke it in half.”

“I’m going to be honest, that sounds like a terrible idea. Please don’t break mine.”

“Sorry. I was on a desperate quest to save someone. I needed all the magic I could get. I promise I’ll give this back.” The Protector grinned. “Sounds like you have someone special to look out for, too.”

“Eight someones, and thanks.”

“Eight…?”

Lord Sausage flashed the wedding ring on his left hand. “We’ve got seven kids.”

“Seven?? I only have three, and technically one is a robot…”

“Let’s discuss that later. Bigger concerns here. One question, real quick – can you place a barrier around this, like the one that guy’s using?” Lord Sausage held out his right arm.

Their attention was pulled upward and further along the road as Sausage Supreme released an energy burst that propelled his current two assailants away from him, both giving frustrated cries. Even the Superhero had to cover his face to block the malignant gust, but he quickly leapt from the railing of the balcony when it looked like The Wither wasn’t going to avoid a hard collision with the ground.

In barely the blink of an eye, the gravital leveled himself horizontal with the cloaked figure then boosted forward with surprising speed to catch it and get it out of range of the downward pressure from the energy burst. The Superhero was startled at how lightweight The Wither’s body felt, as if there wasn’t really a body there at all.

The Seraph beat his wings to stop his backward movement. With a need to adjust his plan of attack, he took a moment to assess everyone present. One of them must be able to cancel out this insane level of magic… He also tried to get a read on their auras to compare them to what he had seen in his dream. The Protector was obvious. The yellow filigree seemed fitting for a royal lord… The ten colors reminded him of his own time cycling through different powers, which could be a match for what the Superhero had and would experience over time. So, it seemed he had been wrong about Myth. The black orb, then, obviously was a match with—

But, no.

When he focused in on it, he saw that the hooded figure didn’t… have a black aura.

It had a void where one should have been.

 [To Be Continued in Part Two]

[jacquelinemerritt]

Dragon Ball Z: Abridged Episode 34 Review

Originally posted December 18th, 2015

Let’s get ready to fight some Androids.

There is a lot of ground covered by “News of Future Past,” which makes sense, as it’s the longest episode of Dragonball Z: Abridged to date (excluding the season finales). However, despite its length, it’s still so filled to the brim with story that it feels a little rushed at times, with some of the story beats near the end feeling more like one off jokes than relevant parts of the story.

Those story beats are funny enough to stand on their own, however, and the confidence with which Team Four Star cuts between these different stories near the end shows just how much they’ve grown since Season 1.

The first third of the episode is essentially an exposition dump, with Trunks revealing his identity as a time traveler to Goku and telling him of the androids that he must fight in three years. Of course, what we’re given is more than a simple exposition dump, as the core of the scene is not Trunks telling us what’s up, but Trunks finally getting to meet the man his mother told him so much about.

What KaiserNeko sells in his performance as Trunks is the bittersweet combination of disappointment and awe, as Trunks seems consistently frustrated with Goku’s dumb optimism while simultaneously revering his incredible power. This balance of disappointment and awe is a great depiction of what it’s actually like to meet your heroes; they’ll never be as great as you pictured them in your mind, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t great nevertheless.

After Trunks leaves, Goku (by which I mean Piccolo) delivers the news of the upcoming android attack to the rest of our heroes, who decide to train as hard as they can over the next three years so that they have a chance at victory. The only person who questions this plan is Bulma, who cleverly bring up the fact that they can just use the Dragonballs to stop the androids from being created in the first place.

And in a great display of toxic masculinity, everyone rejects this plan, on the basis that it will be more fun to fight the androids and potentially lose (Bulma doesn’t bring this up again, because they’re right: it will be more fun, and her plan would basically dismantle the entire plot of the show).

We are then treated to a training montage that covers the entire three years before the arrival of the androids. Krillin, Tenshinhan, and Chiaotzu all get a brief shot in the training montage, while Goku has to convince Chichi to allow him to train Gohan for the fight against the androids. Not only does this not go over well in the slightest, it ends with Goku accidentally launching his wife through the window and a tree.

Of course, Goku later convinces Chichi to let Gohan travel with him on “educational field trips,” which are just training sessions with the two of them and Piccolo. These scenes are the ones that feel a little rushed, and while they establish the intensity of Gohan’s training, they don’t really cover much new ground in the story, as we’ve already seen how intense Goku’s training is, and we know that Chichi isn’t a fan of Gohan risking his life to save the world (which is entirely fair).

Meanwhile, Vegeta gets a scene arguing with Dr. Briefs about the benefits of training at five hundred times earth’s gravity, which Vegeta naturally wins. Then, after a tragic accident, Vegeta decides to foolishly “work through the pain,” leading to a shouting match between him and Bulma over the dangers of this same training. The level of sexual tension in this shouting match are ridiculous (props to Megami33 and Lanipator; their chemistry is fantastic in this scene), and so they do the one thing that could perfectly close out this episode: fuck each other’s brains out.

Rating: 4.5/5

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Stray Observations

Goku: “Thank God. Or Kami. Or King Kai. I don’t know, that whole thing is screwy.”

Never caught that it’s been two years since Namek until now. That explains a lot about Gohan.

Goku: “Whoa, what happened to your hair? It’s yellow!” Trunks: “So is yours…” Goku: “It is?!”

Goku: “Androids?” Trunks: “Actually the technical term is cyborg-“ Goku: “Androids.”

Trunks: “You die from high cholesterol. From eating too much bacon.” Goku: *goes Super Saiyan* “You take that back.”

As a Doctor Who fan, I have to criticize Team Four Star for not reversing the fade on Trunks’ time machine before he disappears. I mean come on, that’s not even that hard to do. This is, of course, forgiven for the beautiful crossover of Doctor Who and Dragonball Z.

Vegeta: “Galick Gun fire!” Bulma: “Wow. Wait, where’s your condom?” Vegeta: “The fuck’s a condom?”

Piccolo singing Ludacris gives me life.

[downfallofi]

Hi!!! Some asks for you, if you’re still up for it<33 Ty!!

orchid ⇢ what’s a song you consider to be perfect?

mahonia ⇢ what place, thing, activity inspires you most and how do you express yourself when it does?

daffodil ⇢ do you have siblings? if yes, in what ways do you think you’re similar to or different from them?

camellia ⇢ what were you like when you were younger? do you think you’ve changed a lot?

ivy ⇢ what are your ‘tells’ for your emotions and moods? how can someone tell you’re happy, annoyed, upset or tired?

palm tree ⇢ do you have a fictional villain you shouldn’t like but love regardless?

taro ⇢ if someone called you right now to catch up, what’re the things you’d tell them about?

chamomile ⇢ what kind of things do you like receiving as gifts?

First of all, I AM, thank you for asking 🥹❤️ With the caveat that some of these are going to be long answers, not because I can communicate effectively but because of the over explaining leading to chattiness. Still yes love questions hit me.

Orchid - Excellent god damned question, and my mind immediately goes to "Black" by Pearl Jam because I grew up wearing out borrowed tapes in the grunge era from my brother, and Ten is an absolute masterpiece of an album with "Black" as it's magnum opus, but also maybe because I can sing it fairly well at karaoke; Also, "Can the Circle Be Unbroken" by the Carter Family ranks up there.

Mahonia - I mean I question how inspired I ever am anymore 😅😅 Im kind of a long expired gifted kid burnout. But sunsets always instill emotion in me, the night coming on makes me more in tune with it feeling like "my time" because it gets quieter/less busy. I mostly express it by scribbling in my notebook and venting feelings here.

Daffodil - I have two older brothers, my sister the oldest and a younger stepsister (I was the baby, at one point) I think I'm... similar to them in that we all were raised in the shadow of our father, who is a narcissist and abuser who left his mark on all of us, pushed one to murder, and kind of all of us to coping mechanisms. And I dunno. I worry. I fear that like. Of all of us, Im the most my fathers son because I LOOK the most like him, everyone tells me that. I have his exact same voice. I have his temper. His instincts for parenting occur to me sometimes and it frightens the shit out of me. I relate to my sister that way because she feels that too, and her raising my nieces can be a challenge. I worry about her too in that regard. And sometimes her version of our dad's narcissism, saying the things he would say or treating the kids the way he would kinda pisses me off. But in the end, Im not like most of them because for so long, I was treated like the disappointment, the failure to launch, but at least I didn't end up in prison so. I don't know, you tell me. Maybe we're all kinda screwups in our own way, or trying our best to get from under that. All in how you look at it, I suppose.

Camellia - Oh man, I was a weird little nerd that loved reading, loved comic books, loved energetically talking about dinosaurs and grew up loving Star Wars expanded universe novels so much that I grew my own pretend Skywalkersona, loved Mad magazines, Isaac Asimov novels in the fourth grade, loved writing superhero stories on loose paper written on an old typewriter, loved creating mini comic strips with my own superheroes and had no friends until late middle school in my isolated, ten acre house out in the country. I dunno, a lot of my adult years has been feeling like I've been dead inside because in a lot of ways it feels like I lost the ability to love things as passionately and with as much joy as that little boy; cause I was kicked out of that house when I was seventeen; because every friend I ever made left or was gone; and because my dad and the world all beat into me that those things that gave me joys and passions were stupid and childish. I have been trying to be kinder to myself now, and reconnect with things that make me happy even if it's hard to know how. Sorry, long, complicated answer. Life is hard.

Ivy - I've been told I can be kind of aloof, or awkward, but I don't think that's quite true. I think I have a hard time connecting. But when I can relax, and am able to let someone in, then they can tell easier when Im in a good mood, when Im feeling lower, when I get quiet.

Palm tree - I love all villains, because the villain is usually more interesting and has better motivations than the hero (or at least, more relatable, to me) but the one I shouldnt like, in retrospect, is Randall Flagg from the Dark Tower and the Stand series, not only because ugh, sorry Stephen, but older Stephen King books and especially the Dark Tower cycle contains some utterly cringey racist tropes and bad characterization and I dunno I just think maybe the books didnt age well.

Taro- Man. I was trying to think because in some senses... nothing, I am fucking boring, almost all of my life is just work and taking the bus home from working. But I mean. I've graduated from college and gotten my associates now. I've got a job with an office and my own business cards now. Im saving up to get a car. And even if living with my sister is occasionally a pain because it's triggering, or exhausting, or weird, we do get to go on some neat adventures and it is really amazing to see these three humans get to have cool experiences. So there can be like... a lot to talk about, in that.

Chamomile - Literally always socks, any type of book because I am both a hoarder of books with an unread pile three deep at any given time, and on the other hand a voracious reader and the genre can be literally anything, and. Coffee. Literally, give me so much coffee.

[fff777]

Comments on 2023 WayV Fanmeeting Tour ‘Phantom’ Behind

Episode 1: VCR Shooting Behind

Kun in the forest in a suit with frills feels very Twilight

Oh no it's below freezing TAT

Kun playing peekaboo around the corner like ok old man we're entertained are you happy now. (I call him old man as a person who is even older than him lmao)

Kudos to Kun for acting while freezing his ass off

Kun is of course most at home with music: perusing the sheet music, fiddling with the metronome, playing the piano

Playing the piano, then going off to film, and then coming back to the piano

Kun is playing 青花瓶 by Jay Chou. As expected from a Jay Chou stan.

Hmm Kun seems to have had way more scenes than the other guys so far. Kun had three scenes (in the forest, in the corridor, composing music). The others have all only had one so far.

I have never had 螺螄粉 but word on the street is that it is very polarizing.

Ah yes Xiaojun the mint chocolate chip connoisseur. Me too brother.

Ten clowning the guys for trying to look cool while turning their heads

"Let's all watch Kun do his old man sexy dance"

More Kun playing on the piano.

Kun playing and singing 説好的幸福呢 by Jay Chou. For those of you who don't know, Jay Chou does have a very extensive repertoire with a lot of bangers. Like, his influence on millennials and older gen z-ers is crazy.

I didn't know the next songs he played so I had to look them up but they're 不讓我的眼淚陪我過夜 by 齊秦 and 可惜不是你 by 梁靜茹.

Dancing filming (y)

And then some indoor filming

It looks like Yangyang might have also dyed his eyebrows too?

Episode 2: Dance Practice Behind

Oh this is cool we're seeing how they plan and design WayV's fanmeeting. Ever since seeing Rino Nakasone working with Dream to plan TDS2 I've been interested to see more about how they design shows as a whole.

To whomever does the hard subs for this video, white subs on gray floor is tough to read TAT

A fanmeeting is basically like a smaller scale concert so they basically have everything planned out.

First practising the dance for Try My Luck.

I basically can't read the hard subs so I just turn on the Chinese Youtube subs v.v

Hendery... (he does this multiple times)

Silliness is contagious

The guys just singing along to Nectar while they're dancing. Honestly that's the best way to do it when you're trying to practise a dance at a slower speed.

"Let's hug Xiaojun and remove his clothes for the ending." "Yes, let's. He works out these days." Wild ass exchange.

Dejun??

Ten being like "has anyone done this?" and the dance trainer was like yeah, EXO with Wolf lmfao (the tree of life).

Deja vu

Hendery just kept dancing with the hat on TAT the sweat dude.

I wonder what girl group song they were dancing a cover of?

OMG NCT DREAM CANDY COVER!!!!

Shinee Sherlock cover!!!!!!!!

The guys eager to get on with dance practice, which surprised the choreographer

Hendery dragging Kun to practise

I haven't seen the performance for Diamonds Only and the dance looks so tiring!!!!

Whatever Yangyang and Ten are doing

Xiaojun and Yangyang calling each other traitors for doing the dance differently lol

Xiaojun and Yangyang are copying someone but I don't know who lol

Karaoke or something

Yangyang: Are you feelin it

Xiaojun: Yeah I'm feelin it

By the way, they were performing Broken Love <3

Lmao they had to look at the lyrics for Dream Launch

All of the guys getting really into extending the ending ad lib forever and ever

Hendery's go to dance move?

[vvatchword]

I fucking moved. Fuck that city in particular and fuck everybody in it except for the cool Bat Dude and the lady who gave me a ride so I didn't get rained on and the nice old grandpa who saw me staring into space at the hamburger joint (as one does).

Yes, I got into a stranger's car, but look. She was very nice and she reminded me of a dear friend, and I was so darkly miserable that the fact she asked was like a little ray of sunshine. Like look. Not everybody is fucking horrid, sometimes they're a nice librarian-looking lady in an SUV.

Oh, now I can't stop thinking of nice people. Let's face it: there were plenty of nice folks there. It's just that I'm not made for cities. There's what I thought I wanted and there's what I actually wanted.

I hate cities

I hate noise

I hate traffic

I hate rich people

I hate pollution (and so does my bird)

I hate the horrifying cost of living

I hate lights and need a real nighttime. If I can't see stars I begin to die. If your lights are so bright the moon disappears, you're too damn bright

I HATE public transit because...

I hate having to maneuver around homeless shenanigans. You know how many times I'd be genuinely terrified per month? Way too many times.

There were too many people everywhere I went. I would try to go shopping early to avoid rubbing shoulders and end up rubbing shoulders. There was just no easy way to avoid crowds.

Tamed nature. Do you know what I mean? Nature made as humans desire it, not nature existing outside of humankind. At the very least--nature that hasn't seen more than two separate human beings per month. I have learned a brand new appreciation for wastelands. I am not renewed by a park with a tree in it. I need to see land that doesn't need a sprinkler system.

I was constantly overwhelmed and I never got to do anything fun because I was too poor. Cool shit happens here, too, though. So I'm just going to try and go to something nice at least once per month. It's more expensive because you have to drive, but it's less expensive on the whole because half of my income isn't going to rent.

Moving was a nightmare. I basically packed up and left in a week. My dad contracted some friends from his church. They said they could help me pack if I wasn't done yet. Joke's on me: those guys didn't give a single fuck. They launched my belongings like we were Cape Canaveral. I thought I was going to die from the agony of seeing brain-dead rednecks bodyslam my books into boxes. I still haven't found parts of my stuff yet. Who knows where it's all gone. I'll find it eventually? I guess?

I proceeded to drive home in the dark and the rain, where I chugged energy drinks and longed for death. I stopped once to buy the best possible snacks I could find (Muddy Buddies, Dot's Pretzels, some donuts. My life is falling apart. I deserve nice things). My traveling partner was the sole surviving African Dwarf Frog (long story, but they started dying one by one, and she is the last).

Got home and weeks of abuse caught up to me. I proceeded to fall into a catatonic state for about two days. Caught up with myself today and finally set my PCs up. I have two; one is an old-school mid-tier gaming device from like. 2012. The other is my custom-built gaming PC from about three years ago. Anyway. I've been wanting to make them both dual-monitor machines but I had to do some troubleshooting, and I figured it out today.

I can't connect to ethernet because this house wasn't built with ethernet in mind. It's going to have to be WiFi. Ewwww. Oh well

Being home is a HUGE relief. My parents are ecstatic to have me. The DOG is ecstatic to have me. The bird is angry because I can just straight-up leave his sight now. The apartment may have been a hideous, dimly-lit hole, but it was a SMALL hideous, dimly-lit hole, and he knew where I was at all times. He has to hunt for me now and he hates it.

I can begin job-hunting again in earnest, as well as begin NaNoWriMo. I need to hit 5,000 words today. Wish me luck lol