#sorry for taking so long to answer i went & did research and also wrote a whole long thing that i ended up taking out bc it wasnt relevant

[whalyrae]

THE OLD GUARD - CHAPTER 3

"We don’t get a say on how it ends, we never have. But we can control how we live."

Summary : You are a powerful witch, cursed and hurt through ages. Owner of your esoteric shop, you were resigned to live this lonely life when the powerful magic of soulmates and fate came to you.

Pairing : poly BTS x reader (she/her)

Genre : soulmate au, demons bts au, witch y/n au, fluff, angst, eventual smut, polyamory relationships

Status : In process

Word Count : 4.5K

Warnings : eventual smut, angst, mention of depression, death, suicide, past trauma, violence, blood, past (sexual) abuse, past torture, PTSD, scars, self harm, and more.

Tag list : @blackrockshooter780 @babyymeme @starrlo0ver @suckerforv @mushroom-main @m1sss1mp @prettydancingdamzel @i-have-no-life-charlie @avadakadabra93 @veronawrites @kawaiikpoplover268 @didi-9310 @ghostlyworld @carolinexkpop @gooooomz @00ihatesnaku

A/N : HEY YO I'M BACK !! Okay, I'm really sorry it took so long to publish the chapter... my exams, and after that I took a long rest because I travel in Spain and then in Paris during a whole month ! So as an apologize, this chapter is hella long I think it's the longest I've ever wrote in my life jfdkljgfk... I hope you'll like it !

Feel free to comment or send me a message (anonymously or not!) and give me your reactions, your impressions, your questions… I don't mind at all, on the contrary!

In the next chapters, there will be revelations, and answers to questions hehe so please don't hate me too much…!

A BIG THANK YOU again for all these views, I thought that by being absent for so long, my writings would be forgotten … but not at all!

Enjoy your reading, and thanks again, take care, I love you ♥

OH BY THE WAY !! I made a spotify playlist ! If you have any songs who made you think about the story, you can share it to me and I'll add it on the playlist !

Here is the link : The Old Guard Playlist

ps : sorry for the mistakes, it's already 1am here, but I really REALLY need to post something..... ENJOY :D

Masterlist | ao3 | wattpad

Chapter 2 // Chapter 4

☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ 

“I did it! I beat Ganon! Did you see, Jimin ?”

Jungkook put down his controller next to him on the couch, raising his arms with a big smile. Beside him, Jimin didn't seem to pay attention to him. His eyes focused on his cell phone. 

Jungkook frowned, and turned to Taehyung, sitting on his right. 

"Taehyung, Taehyung! Look!!!"

But he noticed that Taehyung also seemed lost in thought and was not paying any attention to him. 

Jungkook puffed out his cheeks, a pout on his face. 

"Hyungs! What's going on?”

“Do you know where Yoongi is? " 

Taehyung's question surprised Jungkook. He arched an eyebrow and thought for a few seconds. 

He knew that Namjoon and Hoseok had gone to the public library for some research, but he couldn't remember which. Jin had gone to the grocery store. 

And Yoongi... well, he didn't remember seeing him or even remembering him leaving the apartment. 

"He's been missing for a while, he doesn't answer when I try to call him..." Jimin sighed as he threw his phone down next to him. 

They remained silent for a few seconds, while the game on the television continued to play its cinematic. 

Jungkook turned his head and noticed that the window was slightly open. He pointed at it with his chin to his partners. 

The three demons then glanced at each other. They figured it out. They knew where Yoongi had gone.  

"You think he went..." began Jungkook. 

"I wouldn't even be surprised, he was very quiet yesterday after Namjoon’s explanations." Jimin continued.

And they all knew that at those times, it meant that Yoongi had something on his mind. And when he did, he became the most stubborn person alive. Nothing and no one could make him change his mind. 

"That guy... Ah, when he gets home, he'll hear me." Taehyung sighed and ran a hand through his hair. 

Jungkook jumped to his feet. 

"Are you going to wait quietly for him to come back?" He asked, crossing his arms before straightening up from the couch. "Because I'm not. We've been waiting for this moment for way too long." 

°°°

Yoongi was… well she couldn’t describe him. His voice was sweet, his little vibrato always made her body shiver a little. Besides, he was so kind, so gentle, she had never seen so much tenderness in a gaze that was destined to her. 

Well, of course, there was Jin. But that was so, so long ago. 

She bit her lower lip nervously. Thinking about him made her heart ache. She was close to him like she never was since the two of them were separated, yet so far at the same time. She still hadn't thought about how she would manage it. She'd never figured out how to get his memory back, and she’d never found him at all to try anything though. 

At first, she had planned to spend the afternoon with her books, researching curses, spells, or some kind of memory-related magic. She wanted to have some sort of plan before she tried any approach with her soulmates. 

But it seems that one of them decided otherwise. 

Yoongi never took his eyes off her. She seemed to be lost in her thoughts for some reason, probably his visit disturbed her. 

He couldn't read her mind, she was probably powerful enough to block her mind to telepaths, as he and his demon boyfriends were. His admiration for her only grew stronger and stronger. 

He wanted to know what was happening in her head, what seemed to be troubling her. 

From the moment he saw her through her shop window in his cat form, busy watering her plants when he saw the lines on her face when he realized he was standing in front of his last soulmate, the world stopped in front of him for a moment. 

Just as he felt when he met Namjoon, Jin, Hoseok, Jungkook, Jimin, and Taehyung. That feeling of being face to face with someone he'd known all his life, even though he'd never spoken to them, someone who completed him, who finally made him feel whole and fulfilled. 

A soul mate, pure and simple. 

She felt the same way. Like the day before with Namjoon, and when she was with Jin before they separated. However, she wasn't used to experiencing... so many positive feelings and emotions like that.  

She'd also thought that Namjoon would never talk about her or want to see her again. 

Apparently, she was wrong. 

She fidgeted nervously with her fingers, keeping a certain distance between them. She wanted to ask Yoongi where the others lived, to meet them, and finally see Jin again after all these years.

But the problem was that Jin didn't remember her. And when Namjoon, Yoongi, and the others hear about what happened, they probably wouldn't want anything more to do with her. And that was what she was afraid of. 

The pain of losing a soul mate is a sharp pain, like having her heart ripped out, without any anesthetic, raw. 

She met people who had been rejected by their soulmates, or who had experienced the death of their soulmates. They were a shadow of their former selves, and remained so for the rest of their lives, until their last breath. Most of the time, they ended up taking their own lives, the latter being a gentler and more bearable solution than living without one or both halves. 

She'd been through it once, with Seokjin. If she hadn't been immortal, she wouldn't have survived it. 

"I don't know what's been going through your head, or what you've been going through all these years alone," Yoongi began, taking a step towards her, "but it's all over now. I mean, you're not alone anymore, not now that we've found you. You should have seen Namjoon when he came home yesterday, I haven't seen him this excited since we met Jungkook decades ago." He let out a chuckle. 

She looked up at him, he was close to her, very close. 

If he knew, he wouldn't say that. Even though she couldn't deny that those words warmed her whole being without really controlling it. So, Namjoon was happy to meet her? Were they all? 

"You really thought Namjoon wouldn't tell us about you and we wouldn't want you?" He asked, tilting his head to one side. 

"Honestly, yes." she admitted with a shrug, smiling shyly, "I'm... old, very old, I spent several centuries alone, never finding my soulmates so... I always told myself that they weren't looking for me, or simply didn't want me."

And the only one I ever knew, I lost him, she thought.

"Oh, sweetheart," he murmured, his deep, soft voice making her shiver, "I'm sorry it took me so long to find you, we all are, believe me."

He raised his hand, without hesitation, to place it gently on her cheek. Normally, she wasn’t the most comfortable with physical touch, but strangely, she hadn't flinched, she hadn't moved. The warmth of Yoongi's hand against her skin felt good and soothing in a way she couldn't describe a comfort she hadn't felt... for ages. 

She surprised herself leaning slightly against it, even closing her eyes when he started to rub softly her cheek with his thumb. 

She opened her lips to reply but heard something behind Yoongi that made her take a step back. She heard the bell of her shop signifying that someone was entering.

"I knew it!" she heard a deep voice approach them, "I knew you wouldn't listen to Namjoon hyung!"

She tilted her head as Yoongi turned his, not disturbed by the interruption. She was surprised to find herself facing three new people. She didn't need to ask who they were, nor she didn't need to ask Yoongi who these three beautiful and handsome men standing in front of her were. 

When her eyes met those of the smallest of the three, while the other two were talking to Yoongi, she didn't even know about what because she wasn't paying any attention. Her gaze was completely absorbed by this pink-haired person standing a few meters away from her. She was feeling for the second time today what she had felt earlier with Yoongi.

These three people were part of their bond. They were their soulmates too. 

One of the other two noticed the smaller boy's attitude and turned toward him. 

"Jimin, are you..." he began, turning his head to follow his gaze, "Okay..."

His voice trailed off when he saw her.

She didn't know what to say or do, she could feel four pairs of eyes on her now. 

She noticed a smile tugging at the corner of Yoongi's lips and she bites her own nervously. 

He knew that the maknaes would notice his absence, and would quickly realize where he was and, most importantly, that they would come to her. 

"Are you..." the smaller one, Jimin, whispered in a trembling voice, taking a step towards her. 

"Yes... Yes, I am." she replied, looking away, "It's a pleasure to meet y-ah...!"

She hadn't had time to finish her sentence when she felt a pair of arms around her waist and a body pressing against hers. She looked down, surprised to see a pink ball, slightly trembling. 

"We've been waiting for you for so long..." he murmured shakily. 

She felt her head spin slightly under all these new sensations, not so new, but ones she hadn't felt for ages. It was as if she was rediscovering them.

She didn't know how to react and didn't have time to think about it when she felt two new pairs of arms around her waist. 

"Jimin, don't monopolize her yet!" a young man with blue hair sulked, "Ah, I can't tell you how happy I am to finally meet you... Can I call you Noona?"

She didn't know what to say and didn't have time to think about it either.

"Noona," the tallest of the three murmured as he hugged her a little tighter, "I can't believe I can finally hold you... You’re real...!"

She was surprised to see Jimin sobbing quietly in her arms. She looked up, utterly confused, and searched for Yoongi, who was standing not far from her, his hand resting on Jimin's back, stroking him affectionately as he looked at her. He gave her a gentle smile and shrugged. 

"They are our maknaes, Jimin," he pointed to the pink-haired one, "Taehyung," he pointed to the blue-haired one, "and Jugkook, the youngest." He finished by pointing to the last one, who was looking at her with shining eyes.

“Noona, you’re so gorgeous,” Jungkook said, making her blush furiously. 

“Kook’… you're making her uncomfortable," Yoongi grumbled as he brought his hand up to stroke Jimin's hair. 

"I'm not... thank you..." she smiled as she saw Jungkook's face light up, then looked down at Jimin, "Is he all right?" she asked, worried to see him in such a state. 

"Don't worry about him," Taehyung caught her eye and gave her a big smile, "he's very sensitive and just happy to finally find you."

"And we've been waiting for you... "Jungkook continued before letting out a shy little laugh, "Ah, you must have heard it lots of times since yesterday but... It's true... we've been looking for you for years, without success..."

"We've all always had that hole in our hearts..." Jimin spoke again, raising his head, his eyes bright and slightly red, "It was painful sometimes when all that was missing for us was you, I don't even want to imagine how you must have felt without any of us..."

She didn't even notice that tears had started to fall as they spoke. She wasn't the kind of person who cried easily, far from it. But in less than two days, this was already the second time it had happened.

She didn't know why she was so moved by their words, perhaps because they were the people she'd been looking for all her long life, never finding, thinking they didn't want her, which turned out to be wrong. 

She could feel the deep empathy in their words because they'd been through the same thing as her - less so because they were all together - she felt understood by the people who were meant for her, and that feeling was indescribable. 

Noticing her tears, the three maknaes backed away slightly but stayed close to her. 

"Noona I... we're sorry if we said something hurtful..." murmured Jimin nervously. 

"No, I'm the one who's sorry," she replied, shaking her head, "I'm just... I don't know, it all seems so unrealistic..."

And it still was. Knowing that she found her soulmates, that Jin was only a few miles away... After all those years of loneliness, of feeling guilty, of secretly envying the people who crossed her path, happy with their soul mates...

She thought back to Minji's words, yesterday’s evening in their apartment...

« You deserve it more than anyone else. You spent your whole life helping anyone who asks for help, sacrificing your life more than once - literally - for the helping and saving. You deserve to be happy, with those who are destined for you. »

The thought of those words made her tears double. Because after all these years, centuries even, in darkness, the light was finally coming to her, the hope of a more bearable and less lonely eternity was growing inside her.  

“Hey, sweetheart, please don’t cry,” Yoongi’s sweet voice brought her out of her thoughts, “You’re prettier when you smile.” 

She blinked several times and looked at each of the people around her. 

There they were, her soul mates. 

“Ah, I think Namjoon hyung and Hoseok hyung are back home," suddenly muttered Taehyung, who had his phone in his hand, "They want to know where we are..."

"I think we're in a bit of a mess..." chuckled Jungkook, resting his cheek against her shoulder. "Oh, you don't know Hobi hyung yet!"

"Same for Jin, I think we're going to have a bad time when we get home... they're going to be even more jealous!" added Jimin with a small smile.

Her eyes had widened when he'd mentioned Jin's name. He was with them. There was no doubt about it now. The confirmation twisted her stomach slightly with anticipation and excitement. 

Jin was alive. He was in the same town as her after... over five hundred years apart. She didn't know how to deal with it all, again, it all seemed so unrealistic. She felt like she was in a dream, that she'd wake up sooner or later, and that everything she was experiencing now was an illusion. 

If this was indeed a dream, she hoped she'd never wake up.

"I have an idea! Why don't you come with us?"

She lowered her head at Jimin's question. This was something she hadn't expected. 

"So you can meet them too and see Namjoon again! Good idea, Minnie!" Taehyung came and hugged his partner, kissing his cheek affectionately. 

Jimin giggled in Taehyung's arms, making her smile. But the idea of finding herself in the same room as not just one, but all her soul mates. Seeing Jin again, without the certainty that he'd regained his memory... If they found out the truth, what had happened, she'd lose them for sure.

Selfishly, she didn't want that to happen. She wanted to see Jin again, of course. It was all she could think about, constantly, ever since they both split up. But the risk was too big now. She wanted to come to him with a plan, a way of getting his memory back if he hadn't. She owed him that.

"I know we're all more than happy to find her finally," Yoongi began, "but our beautiful soulmate can't just walk away from her business, can she?"

"But Yoongi hyung... I don't want to leave her..." pouted Jungkook, rubbing his cheek against her shoulder.

"I know Kookie, me neither," Yoongi sighed softly, understanding with Jungkook because he too didn't want to part with her, "but I think she needs some time to herself, to get over her emotions, am I right?"

He looked at her, his lips stretching slightly into a thin smile. She could see in his eyes that he wasn't reproaching her and that he was also prepared to stay if she asked him to. Every one of them was ready to go and get the moon for her if she asked them to.

"I understand... it must have been a lot of emotions for you..." Taehyung sighed sadly as he pulled away from Jimin, "So can we give you our phone number? And we'll give you our address too!"

"Good idea!" Jimin exclaimed and snapped his fingers to summon a piece of paper and a pen, " So you can come and see us whenever you like! Usually, there's always someone at home, but if there isn't, we'll give you the code, and you can just make yourself at home and wait for us!"

"Deal," she replied as Jimin wrote their numbers and addresses on the sheet of paper, "and you, feel free to come here, whenever you like, my apartment's upstairs, but I suppose you already know that..."

"What was I saying, she's extremely intelligent, our soulmate, as well as being beautiful," Yoongi smirked, making her blush.

"Aaah, I don't want to leave you, Noona..." Jungkook whined, grabbing her arm, "You smell so good too..."

YoShe u held back a smile, feeling a slight pinch in her heart.

She didn't want them to leave either.

°°°

“You did what ?!”

Sitting on the sofa, Yoongi chuckled as the three maknae shrugged their shoulders at Hoseok, Seokjin, and Namjoon. Namjoon had his arms crossed against his chest, his eyebrows furrowed, while his two companions beside him looked desperate but amused at the same time. 

"You're incapable of listening to a tiny indication, are you..." Namjoon blurted out accusingly, "I hope you haven't scared her..."

"Knowing these three," began Hoseok, addressing the maknae, "they would have been able to jump on her..."

Jimin, Taehyung, and Jungkook glanced at each other. Without needing to reply, Jin's eyes widened. 

"You jumped on her..." It wasn't a question, but a statement. 

"I... I wouldn't go to the extreme of using the word jump Jin hyung..." defended Jungkook with a pout, "and then... it was Jimin who clung to her first and cried like a baby !"

The said Jimin turned to his boyfriend, outraged and betrayed. 

"At least I didn't make her feel uncomfortable by showering her with compliments! "Oh noona, you're so beautiful, you're so intelligent noona!" cried Jimin, pointing his finger at Jungkook, who was frowning, and Yoongi, who wasn't paying any attention to the conversation.

Hoseok and Jin couldn't help laughing as they watched their younger partners bickering, while Namjoon rolled his eyes and ran a hand through his hair. He should have known that his partners wouldn't listen to him and would go and find her the second his back was turned. He wasn't that angry with them, he understood them. From the second they'd said goodbye the day before, all he could think about was seeing her again. Yoongi was the most stubborn and obstinate of them all, and if the maknaes were by nature very impatient, he was even more so. 

He couldn't blame them, she was their soul mate just as she was his. And even if a reason they didn't know existed had darkened her heart and saddened her soul, she could not want to have something to do with them. She just couldn't. 

His four companions had only listened to their hearts.

"Did it at least go well?" finally asked Hoseok, who had settled on the floor, facing the maknaes, "how is she?"

"She's incredible hyung!" exclaimed Taehyung, "She's beautiful and her voice is so sweet..."

"Aaah, I miss her," Jimin added as he dropped onto Taehyung, "we shouldn't have left..." 

Hoseok chuckled and turned to Jin. 

"That means we're the last ones who didn't meet her, ah, that's not fair... Jin, are you all right?"

They all turned to the older man who had sat on the edge of the large sofa. He was staring into space, his face disfigured by pain. 

Yoongi was the first to react and got up to approach his elder. 

"Hyung, is it the same as yesterday?"

Jin took his head in his hands, nodding. He didn't understand why these violent migraines were suddenly coming to him, and more importantly, why he was now having these flashes and memories that weren't his own. 

Or were they? He had no memory of living in a human village with a hill and a big oak tree. And who was this person he was with? He couldn't see their face correctly, it was blurred, like everything that had happened since yesterday. 

"What's wrong with him, Yoongi?" asked Namjoon, concerned. 

"He's never been like this..." Jungkook sat down next to him, also worried.  

Yoongi told them about yesterday's episode in the kitchen, which made Jin wince, not wanting to bother them with it. 

"It's nothing," Jin muttered after a few seconds massaging his temples, "It's just tiredness I guess."

He wouldn't talk about the memories flooding his mind. He didn't want to worry them anymore. He'd look for the answers himself. 

"Hyung you've been very tired before, you've never had this kind of response..." replied Jimin who had gone into the kitchen to get him a glass of water. 

"He's right, maybe it's a problem with your powers? Or... argh, I don't know." Taehyung grumbled in frustration. 

"It'll be fine," Jin reassured him with a small smile, "I'll get some rest, and everything will be better tomorrow. But I will remember that you met our soulmate and Hobi and I are the only ones who don't know her."

He chuckled when he saw the innocent looks on the maknae’s faces and ruffled Yoongi's hair to reassure him. 

"If it happens again, you won't be able to escape," Yoongi replied simply, rising to his feet. 

He said nothing, but when his gaze met Namjoon's, the two demons understood each other. Jin's condition coincided strangely with the meeting of their last soulmate.

Pure coïncidence? Or was there a link between her and Jin's condition?

°°°

Every day there was an outdoor market in Seoul. She used to go there regularly to find various types of plants for her potions, spells, and other magical preparations. But also, fruit and vegetables for her personal use.

This time, Handong has decided to come with her. She closed her shop for the morning and set off in the early hours. 

She looked up at the sky and spotted the moon, gradually disappearing to make way for the sun. The full moon was for tonight. 

She knew that the moon was a very powerful force for witches. It was also that moment when she recharged her crystals and prepared her moon water for the month. 

But above all, the full moon influenced her powers. It was the best time to cast powerful spells and make sure they worked. It was therefore the perfect opportunity to find any spell that would help Jin recover his memory. 

The day before, after Yoongi, Jungkook, Taehyung, and Jimin had left, and after spending a good hour recovering from her emotions, she went back to combing through every magic book and grimoire she owned, whether in the bookshop or her personal library.

She hadn't found anything very conclusive. All the chapters on memory magic had one thing in common: the spells, their effects, and their duration always depended on who was casting them and who was being affected by them. 

The spell cast on Jin could have disappeared, just as it could still be present. She could only know this by seeing him and talking to him. But even that was a tricky thing to do. 

"Is everything all right, sweetie?" Handong asked in a soft voice, after noticing that she’d been quiet for a while now. 

"Hm?" she turned her head towards her, before smiling and nodding, "Yes, of course! sorry I... I was thinking about my research last night."

"Don't apologize," Handong smiled at her, "It's perfectly understandable. Don't hesitate if you need advice, I'm not a specialist, but I'll gladly give you my opinion."

She nodded again and explained what she’d found. Her different ideas, but they all came down to a single point. She had to see Jin to find out about his condition and memory. And that was where she was stuck. 

During her explanations and conversation, she had arrived at the market, and without stopping to talk, she looked at the different stalls, buying some fruit and vegetables from old ladies. 

In the distance, she notices a stall selling papaya. She hadn't seen or eaten papaya for a long time. It was also Jin's favorite fruit. 

Handong was busy with a merchant, so she waved back and headed towards the stall. She greeted the old woman manning the stall and looked carefully at the fruit on display. 

As she reached out to take one, she saw an arm in her field of vision landing on the same papaya as her. Surprised, she turned her head mechanically to see who it was, before freezing, her eyes wide. 

No, it couldn't be true. 

She had to be hallucinating, it couldn't... be him. 

And yet she could recognize that face, those features above all others.

Jin. 

Kim Seokjin was standing in front of her. 

°°°

"By the way hyung, why were you and Joonie at the library yesterday?" 

Jimin was currently sitting on a stool, watching Hoseok who was busy preparing lunch while Jin was away. 

"Namjoon wanted to research our soulmate," he explained as he chopped some onions, "At first I didn't understand why honestly, but you know, over time, you and I know very well that Namjoon's instincts are never wrong."

"Does that mean you've found something?" exclaimed Jimin, suddenly straightening up. 

Hoseok nodded, now working on dicing the vegetables. What they had found in the library... he could still hardly believe it. 

Should he tell Jimin? Or should he wait until they are all together to share the results of their research? 

He didn't have time to think about it any longer. He heard a loud knock, startling Jimin. It wasn't long before Yoongi and Jungkook emerged from their room, also startled. 

"What's going on here?" Asked the older one, "I don't suppose we were expecting company?"

"Maybe it's Jin who's back and his arms are too full to open the door!" Jungkook added, tilting his head to one side. I'll get the door!"

He trotted to the door, dressed in a long sweatshirt belonging to Namjoon, who was still asleep in the room, just like Taehyung. 

He opened the door with a big smile on his face. 

"Hi! What took you so long Jin hyun..."

He didn't finish his sentence. His voice faded as he saw what was standing in front of him. At his silence, Yoongi and Jimin joined him, themselves freezing in front of what was in front of them. 

Y/n was standing in front of them, totally panicked, out of breath, and sweating. 

But she wasn’t alone. 

"Help me... please..." she begged, her voice breaking. They could see she was holding back tears. 

She was supporting Jin, his arm wrapped around her shoulders. A completely unconscious Jin. 

[charlottesbookclub]

should we talk about the interlace on gwayne's horse's armor?

since I spend altogether too much time looking at stills and gifs of gwayne anyway, I figured I might as well share some observations I have about the really interesting visuals that are happening with his horse's armor

this is part art historical analysis, part gwayne meta, and part "let's look at some gorgeous images under the guise of doing visual analysis" so if that's your thing, please read on! if not, that's also totally fine – I get that this is hyperspecific and also a symptom of my very serious gwayne brainrot, so I'm putting everything else below the cut! 💚💚 (also it's quite long – sorry! 😅)

okay I want to be upfront about my qualifications and my shortfalls here: I'm an art history phd student and so basically all I do is visual analysis of objects. I've studied a number of medieval manuscripts that feature interlace (which is where I'm going to draw most of my knowledge from here), and I've taken a seminar (an advanced graduate course) specifically on medieval manuscripts, for which I wrote a research paper entitled "From Kells to Celtic: The Aesthetics of the Book of Kells Illuminations as a Marker of Irish Identity." HOWEVER I am NOT a historian of armor, so I will be taking my knowledge of interlace on other objects and applying it to the armor we see in the show

a short intro

so, the first thing that struck me about gwayne's horse's armor is that it's really different than the other equestrian armor we see, even amongst the other men who came with him from oldtown. to be honest, my guess is that this was likely done in the show to help him stand out and also show that he is a special and precious princess (which he is btw 😌😌) who needs fancy armor for his horse. I'm not sure if further thought went into it than that (but maybe it did! I'm happy to stand corrected here!)

however, the catastrophic levels of brainrot I've developed over this man have compelled me to read much further into it than that, which I shall now proceed to do with great enthusiasm! ☺️

first, let's look at the armor:

it's hard to find really detailed close-ups, but it's clear that the armor is incredibly intricate. not only do we have this very complex interlacing, but certain designs are marked out with different colors and internal patterning, making the whole thing even more visually interesting and complex

while interlacing is used across a vast range of time, cultures, geographical regions, and artistic mediums, given both the visuality of this armor in particular and knowing that westeros is based on medieval europe, seeing this interlace instantly called to mind a style that we today call "insular fusion" (I'm not going to go into all the specifics of it here because that's a post all its own lol 😅). it's a style perhaps most famously exemplified by The Book of Kells, but it is found throughout many different objects of the same period (ca. 700-900 CE)

now let's look at some fucking interlace hell yeah!!!!!!

from The Book of Kells (ca. 750-810 CE)

from The Lindisfarne Gospels (ca. 698-721 CE)

and two non-manuscript examples:

Animal Head Post from a Viking Ship Burial (ca. 825 CE)

and a later example, but one of my favorites:

Wooden Portal of the Urnes Stave Church (ca. 1050-1070 CE)

do we see the vision??? are y'all picking up what I'm putting down???

"okay, charlotte, I see the similarities, but why does this matter?" you may be asking yourself (or maybe you aren't idk), and the answer is: this type of interlacing had some super fascinating meanings and uses, some of which I think we can apply to gwayne! 💚💚

let me break it down from least to most potentially related to gwayne:

the aesthetics of interlace as an identity marker

use of interlace in a religious context

interlace as a status symbol

the protective potential of interlace

and now let's go into detailllllllll!!!!!

the aesthetics of interlace as an identity marker

I bring this one up because it's what I focused on in my personal research on the topic of interlace, but I also think it's the least relevant to gwayne. my argument in my paper was that the aesthetics of the interlace in the Book of Kells have been thoughtfully and intentionally re-used throughout history and into the present as a clear visual marker of identity that draws a narrative back to the production of the Book of Kells. however, in terms of the show, we have very little indication that the particular style of interlacing we see on gwayne's horse is associated with any larger identity concepts. it doesn't seem to be associated with house hightower, as none of the other men with gwayne seem to borrow this motif, nor do we see it associated with alicent (as far as I can tell from the little looking I've done, but I'm more than happy to revise this!). for it to make sense as some form of identity marker, it would have to be clear what identity he's visually referencing, and since his use of interlace seems unique, I think it's doubtful that it's part of a larger visual invocation of identity

use of interlace in a religious context

part of what makes insular fusion so interesting as a style is that it is indeed a fusion of a number of different regional styles, including vine scrolls from the mediterranean, triskeles from the northern british isles, and zoomorphic (meaning "in the form of animals") interlace from northwestern mainland europe. although insular fusion is used to decorate christian objects (like gospel books and churches), its component parts are much much older and have connections to various pagan religions that significantly pre-date christianity. obviously it's impossible to be 100% certain of the exact significance of interlace in any of these religious contexts (there are no written records explaining it), but scholars have a few guesses

one suggestion is that interlace in some way represented the spirit world/the world of the gods, or perhaps even a point of connection between the human world and the world beyond. although the religion of westeros is obviously different than any of the real-world religions that used interlace in this manner, I do still wonder if there could be a religious connection here. it's pretty clear that gwayne's mother was quite religious, and alicent is as well. although we don't totally know gwayne's relationship with religion, we could certainly guess that it's at least a little bit important to him, given the beliefs of the women in his life. I know that the most common religious symbol in westeros tends to be the seven-pointed star, which is not something I see on the interlace on the armor, so I'm not sure how far I would want to take this hypothesis, but I did want to put it out there for anyone who might have further thoughts!

interlace as a status symbol

as I mentioned to in the beginning, I do think it's likely that this particular type of armor was chosen for gwayne's horse because it does come off as a bit ostentatious. the manuscripts with interlace that I mentioned above were hugely expensive and time-consuming projects, and only the most affluent religious communities could afford such luxurious gospel books. given the level of detail on the armor, I have to imagine that the same is true in the world of the show. in some ways, it's a mode of conspicuous consumption; a demonstration of the hightowers' wealth and influence. there's a reason gwayne's horse's armor stands out: because it's meant to. it's meant to set him apart, even from the other soldiers who came with him from oldtown

now this next part is just my own conjecture, but I also wonder if the armor is meant to speak to a more artistic sensibility on gwayne's part. after all, equestrian armor is a very functional object with a very clear goal: to protect the horse. from a purely functional standpoint, the interlace does nothing to serve this purpose (and may actually hinder it a little??), it simply adds a complex visuality to the armor. aside from just flaunting the wealth that must have been expended to commission such a piece, it also suggests that it was crafted by artisans who had both functional and aesthetic goals in mind while creating it. whether it was gwayne himself who directed the commission or not, it seems significant that he chose to use this armor that doubles as a kind of art piece. he does seem to be someone who enjoys the finer things in life, so it wouldn't surprise me if he had an artistic appreciation too, and was using this armor as a way to demonstrate that (or perhaps even just as a way to show his own personal artistic taste/preferences)

the protective potential of interlace

technically, I think "interlace as a status symbol" is the most likely reason for the armor being the way it is, but this one is my favorite theory, so I'm putting it at the top. circling back to the religious uses of interlace, another theory of its religious significance is as a mode of protection. some scholars think that its creators believed that the weaving, intertwined lines of the interlace would confuse and trap evil spirits. building on this theory is the fact that complex interlacing was often used at transitional or liminal points, such as the beginning pages of a gospel book or on the doors of churches. the idea here is that the interlace wields its protective powers at these key entry points against any evil entities that might try to enter sacred or protected spaces

interlace as apotropaic (a fancy technical term meaning "protective," often used in reference to magic or magical practices) seems particularly poignant for an object that was literally going to be worn into battle. now, I admit once again that there is little canon evidence to suggest that interlace is thought of in this way in the world of the show, so I'm running with this theory more because I like it rather than because I think it's legitimately based in canon. but I just think it's very sweet that gwayne's horse would be adorned with this complex interlace that seems to be woven with protective powers. even if gwayne (or others) didn't literally believe that interlace had those kind of powers, the fact that he still made the choice to invoke the idea of protection against harm and evil is a lovely thought. (it makes me think of how people today still might carry a rabbit's foot or have charms against the evil eye, even if they don't actually place stock in the beliefs surrounding those objects. I just think it's cool that generations of cultural belief still imbue these objects with a kind of magical aura). I just like the idea that he (or someone else?? otto? alicent? his mother?) chose armor that might have been associated with protection against harm

and now I'll finally wrap up!!

whew that was a lot! if you've read this far – thank you so much!! I'm honestly not even sure if these thoughts were coherent, but I kept thinking about this when I looked at that interlaced armor, and I just had to get the ideas out of my head lol

but I'd love to hear what others think about this topic! I'm certainly not an expert on the matter, and I'd be super open to hearing if others have different interpretations!

if nothing else, I hope you learned something cool about interlace! (and also just how far I have descended into madness over this man that I am writing pages-long analyses of his horse's armor 😅🤪)

[moonshine-nightlight]

Being sick for the past week meant that I had nothing better to do today than lay in bed and refresh tumblr waiting for chapter 34, and seeing it at the very top of my dash was the highlight of my day! The wait was definitely worth it, my health for the duration notwithstanding lol

SPOILER WARNING FOR PAST CHAPTERS IDK HOW TO PUT READ MORES IN ASKS I'M SO SORRY

You made the right call taking the extra time to edit this doozy of a chapter—figuring out how to share Dale's exposition in a way that made sense and fit into the events of the story while maintaining tonal consistency must have been quite the process, between the restrictions of Sana's POV, regency genre conventions, and the story's (heh) natural climax being Dale's identity "reveal" followed by the wedding. I'm very curious if you currently have any ideas for how you're going to tackle this exposition in the novelization, or if you're inclined to handle it differently at all!

@weasellyferret

i hope you're feeling better! i'm so glad you enjoyed the new chapter!

i hav no idea if u can even put a read more in an ask anymore and i can't hide it now but my answer will be under the read more

thanks! i think some people really underestimate how helpful even self editing is to make things coherent, especially for a long chapter like this one that covered so much but also was literally just two ppl talking to each other (ppl lov to say they'll take any update, but lik, thats cuz they dont knooow lol and i dont just want it to b passable, i want it to b good).

with lore/backstory like this i also have to make sure it makes sense to readers who havent read any of it before nor know any of the even more info that I know because there's even more worldbuilding and dale backstory that wont end up in the story.

i'm glad u think i pulled it off to any degree because i was still pretty nervous when i was posting it that it did make sense, fit in the world, was followable, interesting but not just exposition monologue, etc

yeah, chapter 30 where they have the reveal convo is the primary climax of the story and that's also 'just talking' in a sense so its interesting to write this story in that sense lol

while i had the broad outline of the world and dale's backstory from the beginning (i did a little exercise where i sketched out a sort of Dale POV of chapter 6 to get into his mindset which was super helpful) as I wrote the story a lot more of that info became fully fleshed out/defined. so for the novelization, i'll probably try to work more of the info in earlier or have better allusions to it, which will make some of the info in chapter 34 more of a quick confirmation than the exposition itself

ie i might add a chapter with more detail on Sana researching with Dale's books that Bilmont smuggles and plant suspicions of what went wrong with the summoning; i might adjust the chapter after the attack to be more of a convo about the assassination that the grandparents interrupt where Sana can suspect more of Dale's past etc and generally spread out what i can so its more foreshadowed/natural - things like that

other aspects sort of have to be told to Sana because its POV limited, evn when it is updated to 3rd POV. i'll probably do a straight POV swap and minor edit ; then take a look at it as a whole, reassess things on my own, run those ideas by some writer friends/betas and get their thoughts, and finally my editors (who i used for DSM) are also very good with making sure worldbuilding fits in right and so their advice will be helpful - especially since they will only get the draft i giv them without knowing how it was and what changed etc

once chapter 35 is out (which i'm still writing because smut is a challenge to right and i write it more slowly than other things) i'll start slowly editing and passing along to betas the rest of the story (i've got thru chap 11 done and betas who only read those and who are chomping at the bit - u think u've had a long wait? lol) but it will be spring by the time i do any big edits/revisions and then i'll giv it to the editors, who i already lik, semi-lined up for that time period and idk how long they will take because its a long book and then i'll need to process their edits too so it'll be a lengthy process, but i hope everyone knows it will 100% b a novel and i hope they enjoy it!

now back to stabbing away at the smut writing ;)

[cochidinh]

Heyo! It will feel like deja vu, but since you're also asking for us to ask you your thoughts about characters and ships, of course, Yomi it is 👀

All of them, if you don’t mind

Aaand what do you think about Yomi x Seth, Hellxander, Fake Zilch x Seth, and Yomi x Fake Zilch x Seth ?

Take your time to answer

Heyyo, Yomi? yeah yeah Yomi *let my monster out of the closet*

First impression

His debut was cool, but that's it, a normal evil character and I was not into him that much. I did laugh at his last name tho.

Headcanons

I did a whole post about him but since I know you perhaps read it, I'll write down something new

His left eye has poor vision and has a different iris than his right eye (the right is square and the left is diamond).

He has a very sensitive tongue so he usually only eats after the food has cooled a bit.

Even though he looks very flashy, his family was actually not rich (He never went to Ginma District or Marunomon before becoming the Peacekeeper Director). Most of his bad behavior is learned from his surroundings.

He interned at Amaterasu's research lab and then became a peacekeeper. Thanks to the internships, he learned and targeted the right person for cooperation - Dr. Huesca.

Complaints and/or praise

My complaint must be that they didn't make him evil enough because Kodaka said he was the most disgusting person he's ever created so I was expecting a bit more. I like Monaka (ultra despair girl) and that girl really shows me what evil and the horror of torture are. Looking back at Yomi, he is more like a child than Monaka lol

and they gave him a whip-cane, and let his cloak cover it all? There's no plot to show the function of that cane other than whipping Vivia and making 3/4 of the players I watched say "he has a whip??"

As for compliments, his model is really cute, not only his face but also his body (his waist is sooooooooo cute).

I mean, he may appear weird, but the more I gaze at him, the more I am drawn to him...

They also let him like handmade kinds of stuff and carry small bag around his waist, yup, reasonable for someone who likes to carry small things and do craft stuff. Whaaaa and he has so many books in his office, and he wrote a letter explaining the murder to Yakou? He wrote all his deals and made a folder? Could we see his handwriting- *got shot*

Favorite pairing (platonic or romantic)

*wipe blood* okay. I love these dynamic

Hitman Zil x Yomi x Martina. An evil polycule.

Makoto x Yomi. They are both 3 years old you honor, nothing problematic here.

Yomi x Yomi. This ship lives in my mind rent-free.

Overall opinion

He is my favorite after 1) he ordered Martina to be turned into a cube 2) he stomped on Yakou.

What I need is a villain that can turn everything worse for the protag, easy to understand why they act but not easy to predict what they will do next. I like him, and I want to kick him down the throne. His ending wasn't bad but it wasn't good either, I was expecting something more satisfying.

Jump on the next question.

Yomi x Seth.

I like their dynamic, they're okay to me.

Hellxander.

I love them. Anyone who can convince me that 15 minutes of talking to zombie Zil is not long enough to show that those two are together will receive the key to my treasure room. No way. I swear they did something nsfw suspicious behind everyone's back.

Fake Zilch x Seth

I never think about it. It is not what I will touch in a romantic way but in a platonic way.

Yomi x Fake Zilch x Seth

Wait a minute, I think you scratched something out from my brain's corner and I actually did read a fanfic about this...I don't like it that much. Sorry.

[sneezemonster15]

So this person @tiesthatbindel @neolavender @neolilac @itunisaaa @neosprivateacc who champions Sakura and holds that Naruto is straight (they said he wasn't gay, didn't say he was bi either, and didn't seem to question his sexuality at all),

who holds Kishi is heteronormative and homophobic (🤦), has been harassing me on my private message and askbox. Here as well. They are using multiple accounts to do so.

Sorry guys, I had to shut off my ask box because this person is just refusing to leave me alone, all because I wrote lol to their comment. I was polite to them, and slightly dismissive perhaps, but this person is making it a mission to gather their followers to block me and hate on me. But seems their only followers are their own alt accounts. Heheh.

I think they feel slighted because I won't take them seriously. They really went from calling my content stellar, and God tier, to harassing me and trying to report me because I wrote a post over a year ago where I talked about my community being on the receiving end of systemic ethnic and religious discrimination in my country.

And a lot more but I blocked them. They are not only badmouthing me but denegrating other SNS fans that I happily interact with. And I am baffled. They simply won't stop.

To prove their point, they also gathered screenshots from a Hinata stan called 'chhote-pandit' who harassed me and several other SNS fans last year, someone who threatened to feed our intestines to their cats for shipping 'brothers', and called SNSers horny fujoshis and dirty lesbians. That person was banned by Tumblr. This person's account also seems to be partially banned. Why are SS and NH stans like this? Bah. Like it's some type of neurosis.

They think Sasuke shinden is canon. Lol. Thing is they went personal, and petty. While I put effort to link them to my content for their benefit, they skipped all of that and started to harass me on my message boards. When I saw that they were spamming my posts, I blocked them. Like I would with any other person. And THAT was their undoing.

Ah. Now one would think I am affected. And I do feel bad, both for myself and them because I didn't deserve this much craziness for saying fanfic writers should dig deeper and presented a research based and well reasoned perspective. And they chose to take offense and take it to a personal level, getting petty, verbally abusing me.

Meanwhile they don't know anything about my ethnicity, my background, my struggles. And if I told them, I can promise they will take it all back. Heh. It can be grounds for even suing them. Yeah, it's that significant. I come from a very interesting (and rare) socio politico cultural intersection. But I value my privacy and anonymity. One other SNSer asked me about it politely and as a response, I left some reading material with them as answer. It explains it much better than I can.

I also am not really bothered as of now because I think I hurt their ego real bad. Just by not taking them seriously. Because I said lol to their comments. They have bigger problems than my dismissal of them.

Anyway, I understand fandoms can be challenging and a lot of people with strong voices get dragged for it on Tumblr. Especially in Naruto fandom. Heh. But the simplest way for them to deal with it was to actually talk storytelling and characters with me, like I did, by sharing links to my content. Instead they got personal while not really doing any of that.

The reason I am here is the story, my boys, Kishi and I find it a lot of fun interacting with other SNSers here. I am grateful that people even make time to read my long winding, seriously long ass posts. Hehehe.

So if you see some stuff somewhere where people are talking about blocking me or talking shit, that's what it's about.

Cheerios. :)

[driftward]

Sorceress’ Apprentice

Rating: Teen

Thanks to @yzeltia​ for making the header image.

This is the masterpost for Sorceress’ Apprentice. If you’d prefer to read chapter by chapter, check the tag: Sorceress’ Apprentice.

And what a journey it has been! I would like to thank LynMars aka autumnslance for helping beta this thing. She reminded me of some of the landscape changes that would have occurred in history, and made suggestions which I incorporated into the Matoya character, as well as a probing question about tribal politics in Sharlayan which I touched here and will expand upon in a later story (Matoya, unfortunately, just does not care enough for it to have been explored here)

I would also like to thank my partner, Saesama who also helped beta this and was a great source of encouragement while I wrote it. Her long history in fandom and her unflagging support went a long way towards calming some of my anxieties.

And thanks to my FC, as it was a discussion in our Discord that really kicked my brain in the direction necessary to start this off.

Anyroad. The Sorceress’ Apprentice.

-*-

Delving into the depths of the mysteries of the star was Archon Matoya’s stock-in-trade. It was this zeal for the exploration of the unknown that lent her cause to take up residence so close to the Antitower. While it may have been hidden away, her cave existed near to it, near enough that she could perform her work on research into the aetherial sea. Here, she could sit close to the thinning of reality that existed just on the far side of one of her cave walls. She could plumb the depths of the very nature of aether, and fair near felt she could listen to the secret workings of the star itself, hidden though they were, but ready to yield under her gaze.

Which is why it was so frustrating to Matoya that her fellow Archons and the Forum insisted on interfering with her work within it every step of the way. They claimed to be just as keen as her on claiming the answers she sought, but hemmed and hawed on the most unimportant of details. Requests for materials were frequently slashed or modified. Reports were often just shy of demanded, drawing her attention away from her all-important work. Members of the Forum would often drop by to ask questions she had already provided answers for, or which were, frankly, beneath her attention.

And now this latest was nigh-inexcusable.

They insisted that as an Archon, it was necessary for her to not only perform her work, but also to ‘see to the next generation’. That it was necessary for her to 'share her wisdom and experience’ with others. That it was necessary for someone to be taught in order to carry on her work.

More like it was necessary for her to teach someone whom the Forum would unquestionably find more pliable.

Fools. Ninety nine fools, and rarely a sensible thought among them.

Hells take them. She would continue her work, with or without their help. Knowledge sought no man, and most of those ninety nine barely sought knowledge enough themselves for her liking.

To be sure, she was fond of those few who did, but they were of little help to her, and she would not be asking for it.

And she certainly did not ask to be saddled with this latest sorry excuse for an apprentice. She had already chased off several others with her sharp tongue and variations of rigorous schedules that were just shy of being unbearable. She could have pushed her would-be apprentices harder, if she had liked, but she chose not to.

Let nobody say that Archon Matoya was not fair.

And so she found herself frowning down at the latest would-be acolyte that had been sent to study at her knee.

Far, far down.

This one was younger than most had been.

She looked back up at the person delivering the burden.

“I trust there is a reason that you have brought me a boy of barely ten summers into my home instead of your usual milksop bleeding heart ambitions or prattlings about chosen?” she asked.

“I’m seven,” the child said, speaking out of turn. “And your home is a cave.” Typical. Miqo'te boys were all energy and trouble, and now there was one disgracing her home.

“Hold your tongue while your elders are speaking,” snapped Matoya, and was rewarded by the flash of fire behind those young eyes even as he snapped his jaw shut and glared up at her. This one had spark. Blessedly, however, he remained silent. She returned her attention to the elderly Elezen that had brought him, paying the boy no further mind.

“I thought it mete to bring you your new apprentice personally, that I may soothe your humours before they turned to bile. Archon Matoya, may I present Y'thol Tia,” said Louisoix.

Y'thol glared up at her, but after a moment, he bowed his head, and managed a curtsy.

Matoya frowned up at Louisoix, and damn the man for being taller, that she always had to look up to the overgrown aurochs.

“I find that I do not appreciate your sense of humour at the moment, Archon Louisoix,” said Matoya. “You know full well my research is my highest priority just now. Or perhaps you and my fellow Archons are under the misguided impression that secrets hidden will simply turn themselves out and fall into my lap? As I have insisted, repeatedly, I am busy. I do not have the time to spare to wipe snotty noses. The rest of you lot can have your precious apprentices. Leave me to my research in peace.”

Louisoix studied her for a long moment, and she pretended not to notice. He always thought himself so introspective into the nature of his fellow man. Well, let him look. Matoya never pretended to be anything other than what she was. She studied secrets; she was not one herself.

“Surely you do not think so little of me that I would come here with a burden, and not an opportunity?” he said at last. She snorted, but he held up a hand before she could lash out at him. “All I ask is that you give the boy a chance. Humour me, if you will. Place your crystal eye upon him, and observe the wonders that can hide from plain sight, if you would only look.”

Matoya scoffed, but she turned from him, and began to walk towards the back of her cave. When he did not follow, she simply gestured a 'come hither’ gesture over her shoulder. Louisoix was polite to a fault, and she knew he would not approach further if not explicitly invited.

“Fine. Come with me. Let’s get this mummer’s farce over with so that I can get back to work. Place the boy over there if you would have me look him over. But if I see not so much as a speck of merit to this exercise, I will be showing you both the door.”

Louisoix knelt down to the Miqo'te boy, and placed a hand on his shoulder. The fire she had seen in his eyes earlier cleared as the two looked at each other, and Matoya rolled her own as she turned away from them. Behind her, she heard Louisoix conversing quietly with the boy. Matoya tried to ignore them as she removed the protections around the crystal eye.

Her crystal eye. An artifact of impressive power, and one which provided her special insights into the nature of the aether that made up their world. Legend said that it could pierce to the very heart of truths unbidden and could whisper secrets untold. The reality was not quite so fanciful. It was a crystal of light, an artifact supposedly granted by Hydaelyn to one of her chosen champions in an earlier age. And while it would not simply hand over its gifts unbidden, it was still powerful in its own right.

She placed the crystal eye on a cushion on the round, simple wooden table she owned. She was not prone to extravagance, and the furnishings of her home reflected her sensibilities. Here in the back of the cave was little. Her bookshelves. A table, which she used for everything from taking her supper to performing alchemy. Little else. And now, the table would hold the crystal for her at a reasonable height while she looked for whatever it was Louisoix saw in the boy.

“Well, come along then, I haven’t got all day,” she said, pulling a chair up and taking a seat. She looked to the two, and gestured again at where she wanted the boy to stand.

Louisoix nodded, and smiled at the boy. “Show her,” is all he said. The boy nodded, and stood where Matoya had indicated.

He had a wand on his waist, which he now pulled free and held in front of him. He looked at Matoya, and she saw that fire in him once more. “May I begin?” he asked, and though his words were polite, his tone was just shy of recalcitrant, and she detected not one single onze of obeisance in him.

A thread of humour wound its way through her, and she resisted an urge to smirk back at the cheeky little bugger. It was tempting to bring him on as an apprentice just for his fire alone.

Matoya kept one eye on him, as she held a hand out towards the crystal eye. She dared not touch it directly, as the feedback could at times be nigh-overwhelming, and this was an exercise to satisfy Louisoix’s sense of propriety, nothing more. Using the crystal eye correctly required great personal discipline, will, and focus. Most had to concentrate and close their eyes to use its abilities, and even then, many found themselves overwhelmed and incapacitated by its puissant power.

Not Archon Matoya. She kept her eyes fixed on the boy, even as aether poured from her into the crystal eye, and in turn, its gifts flowed back to her. The world around her shifted, and the edges of reality swayed and shuddered. The world became full of colours unseen and warped liminality, even as she felt her mind drift into the realm of aether.

“Begin,” she commanded, and the Miqo'te boy began.

He started simply enough. Cantrips taught to any young acolyte beginning their first steps on their journey. But as he moved through simple spells to more complex ones, Matoya found herself transfixed. The boy was possessed of uncommon talent. Certainly, none of what he did was beyond any but the most amateur of spell weavers, but the power he channeled was impressive for one so young, and the grace - the grace with which he executed. She knew that Miqo'te were generally more agile and dextrous than their fellows, owing to their stature and natures, but in this, she saw an art to the movements and gestures of the boy as he moved through spell forms. The glow of the aura of his aether waxed and waned, but even at its dimmest still shined brilliantly as he shifted to simple restorative spells, and through to manipulation of the elements themselves.

As he finished his demonstration and the waves of manipulated aether fell away, she saw beyond, for just a moment. It was an uncommon boon of using the crystal eye - or a risk, depending on who you asked. Its power was not to be trifled with, and in the beyond, truth was rather more malleable, so one had to be wary and judicious with their interpretations. But here, for just the briefest of moments, as the flare of his aura subsided, Matoya saw something more. Something different about the boy. Something - but it didn’t make sense, now did it? She was a firm believer that what a person saw was what was, and that it was best to not allow any personal illusions to interfere with that.

She closed her eyes and broke the connection to the crystal eye. When she opened them again, what she saw before her was a boy - and she was certain of that point, no matter how young he may be - standing and looking up at her. He had placed his wand back in its place on his waist, and his hands were tensed into fists as his side. He looked like a little soldier at attention, save for the defiance she saw in his expression as he looked up at her.

“Well?” asked Louisoix. “I can already guess at what you saw within that crystal eye of yours. What the rest of us have seen in the boy over the last few seasons, as he began the practice of his art. Are you satisfied that he will be worth your attentions?”

Matoya took a deep breath in and let it out in a put-upon sigh. Well. The child had potential, of that there was no doubt. That fire in him would have to be tamed, it was true. She was free to turn him away, but if she did so, her fellow Archons would just find another to saddle her with eventually.

And Louisoix’s presence aside, she was certain this latest apprentice was an attempt to spite her. Sending her a willful child to waste her time. It was a message, and one which Louisoix was simply too soft-hearted to see around. She looked over at the man. For all his faults, however, he was always genuine, and he shared her zeal for delving into truth, which was why she allowed his presence at all. That he saw an opportunity here for both would-be master and would-be student was as real as he was.

Well. If her fellow Archons saw fit to spite her, she was just stubborn enough to spite them back. But perhaps Louisoix was right, and where would that leave them in this foolish game? And if the child was not up to the challenges she would present him with, well, that was no problem of hers to solve.

“Very well,” she said. She turned to Y'thol. “But don’t you go thinking you will find life easy here just because of your youth or your talent. We will find out the truth of your abilities, and see if you are truly up to the challenge of being my apprentice.”

The young child scowled, and his ears folded back just the slightest amount, but he looked her in the eye before nodding, once. He kept his tongue to himself, but still, she could see challenge in his eyes. She snorted.

“Well, if you are quite satisfied, Archon Leveilleur, you may take your leave. I have a new apprentice to train, it would seem.”

Louisoix bowed deeply, but as he straightened from the gesture, he frowned lightly at Matoya.

“Will you not ask anything before I go? You barely know naught of him past his name.”

“If he lasts so long as two moons,” she said, a trifle longer than her last apprentice had managed, “then perhaps I’ll care. Now go.”

Louisoix looked as though he was about to say something more, but she caught his gaze as it flickered from her to the child behind her. Something went unsaid, and he nodded, before turning and leaving. Matoya snorted, again, and turned around to see Y'thol still standing where she had left him.

“As for you,” she said. “Follow me. I will show you where you will be staying, and then I intend to put you to work.”

—

Whatever scant fondness of him she may have had, she had research she wished to return to, and too much of it could not be done while she had a young charge about. She put him to bed and spent the evening adjusting the schedule she had created for the previous apprentice. Once satisfied, she read it out to one of her ensorcelled frogs. The poroggos, while not necessarily very intelligent, were intelligent enough to be able to listen and provide some feedback. As a boon, she found them a useful sounding board for her ideas, for even if they could not challenge them directly, she found that she could find flaws in them simply by speaking them out loud. This particular plan was sound enough, however, and she herself went to bed, giving another one of the poroggos instructions to wake her early in the morning.

At four and a half bells, she had been woken up. At four and three-quarters, she was dressed and ready for the day. At five, she woke her young charge up by slamming the butt of her staff down on the floor next to where he was sleeping. He woke up with a yelp, arms flailing as he fell out of the bed. Matoya watched him, unimpressed, as he landed on the floor.

“I will be expecting you awake bright and early, boy,” she said. “You’ve much to do, and you’ll find the day’s length challenge enough to do it in. Come along.”

She turned and walked away, hearing Y'thol scrabbling free of his sheets behind her.

The schedule she had created was rough indeed. It was designed to provide him with scant time to get into mischief, and what was in her judgement sufficient time to take to his tasks. Waking up at five bells, getting dressed, cleaning himself up, and breaking his fast was expected to take no more than half a bell, after which he was to tend to the morning chores. Refuse would have to be sorted and delivered to where it needed to be, and various enchantments tended to. A simple enough task to start him out, as they only needed a quick influx of aether to be maintained. After that he was to take to morning studies. She had decided on a regimen of review and practice first thing after the morning chores were done. Once she had observed his progress, if any, drills would keep him occupied and sharp until noon.

At noon, she would allow him a half bell to take his luncheon, and then another half bell to clear away the dishes and clean up after lunch. From the first bell after the high sun he could begin to work on studying new material. Learning the basics of aetheric calculations would suffice for a start, she surmised; he was just of an age where he could be expected to focus on them, and they would serve as foundation for whatever came next. If anything came next. Her prior apprentice had protested the work, claiming herself beyond it. Matoya had a sense of triumph when she had turned herself out under her own volition, cursing the woman’s stubbornness and spite, as though not realizing that Matoya viewed both of those as virtues, long honed.

After the work on calculations and estimates, the child could be used to help maintain the various constructs around the cave, ensuring they were in good health or good condition as was fit, and helping her set them to their tasks. Then would be a reading period, in which he was free to study as he wished, but only insofar as he continued to show that he was, in fact, making progress and not simply fooling around.

Once his bell of self-directed reading was done, the rest of the day would be spent on more varied education, rounding out his knowledge. Spells and enchantments, history and esoterica, alchemy and artifice. At eight bells, he would be allowed a light supper, and after supper, it was expected that he would take to his chores, and any other evening routine, such as bathing and tending the cave. He could go to bed if he wished once he was done, but the next day would begin, no matter what his self chosen bedtime, at five bells.

She was rather proud of the schedule. Onerous, to be certain, but doable with diligence and focus. A Miqo'te child of merely seven summers, she was certain, would have neither, and soon she would be rid of him and could return to her life of relative peace.

—

The child did, in fact, last two moons.

It was a surprise to Matoya, but she never expressed it. To be certain, it had not been a peaceful two moons. Y'thol took to the schedule, and as she had hoped, he had not liked it. Rather than wither underneath it, however, he seemed to see fit to view it as a challenge to match his will against.

The first moon passed well enough between the two. It took him a few sennights to get used to being up at the early hour, and those same sennights saw him up late as he tried to get all of his chores and other tasks done. He often woke up tired and irritable, but despite that, he took to his chore list mostly without complaint.

It had taken them a while to settle into a routine and get used to one another. She forced herself to not outwardly resent his presence. The failings of her fellow Archons were theirs alone, and he would fail on his own merits. Or not. As for him, while his expressions were frequently surly, he did not buckle under her arduous schedule, but instead chose to rise to meet her demands.

The time was not, however, without its little challenges.

He had been sweeping up after breakfast one morning. Matoya had taken to reading during the after breakfast period. She could stay at the table and keep an eye on him to make sure he missed not one speck of dust, and look after her studies at the same time.

“Back in the crèche,” he said as he swept, “we were taught to all work together for cleaning.”

“Well, you are not in the crèche now, are you? And I expect you to earn your keep, boy,” said Matoya, not looking up from her book.

Y'thol swept along quietly for a few moments. “They said it helped the work go faster. And also helped us get along better with each other. They said, learning to work with others was important.”

Matoya lowered her book now and looked at the child over the top of it. The young Miqo'te’s face had an expression of doubtable innocence on it as he kept sweeping, never pausing in his work. His ears were ever-so-slightly back, and his tail was twitching back and forth at its tip merrily enough, though.

Whatever that may have meant.

“Then I suppose here you’ll learn well enough how to work on your own,” she said, going back to her reading.

Minutes slipped by without further conversation.

“It’s okay. Archon Louisoix did warn me you were messy,” said Y'thol.

“That is enough out of you, boy,” she said, snapping her book shut. “If you’ve got enough vim to run your mouth, clearly you’ve enough for more work.”

“Of course, Master Matoya,” the child said, continuing to sweep, with a nonchalance she now recognized as being forced. His tail continued to twitch as enthusiastically as his broom, and she felt her face turn red at having been baited so readily.

She harrumphed to herself, and after giving Y'thol a glare, she returned to her reading.

The next day, after they were done with breakfast, Y'thol took to his cleaning, same as he always did, and let her alone. A few days after that, instead of reading after breakfast, she begrudgingly took to cleaning the dishes once the table was cleared, and let him sweep the floor and clean the counters.

The child was wise enough to not comment on the change in routine.

—

They settled into a routine, Matoya and Y'thol. Every morning she woke him up; every morning, he had his chores. And every day, study, and drills.

“Again,” she would say, as he performed a specific spell or ritual, and she would say little more.

She was pleased to see him grow frustrated over time with the drills, until one day, it boiled over.

“Why?” he asked, after the sixteenth repetition of a particular form.

“I did not give you leave to speak out of turn,” she said. “Again.”

“Is there aught wrong to my form?” he asked, exasperated.

“I think you’re rather a bit too found of flourish for my tastes, boy. You aren’t performing for a crowd, you’re casting a spell. Again,” she said, and Y'thol nodded, took a deep breath in, and adjusted. “I did not say to change! The point of a drill is to do it the same every time, and your form suits its purpose. Three steps. Prepare, visualize, execute, and the drill is about the execution. About the actualization of your visualization, the achievement of your planning. You want to change your form? Fine, do it next session. I make your plan, you make your preparations, visualize the outcome, and then we execute. Execute, execute. Again!” she said as he shuffled his feet. He let out a loud exaggerated sigh, but he performed the spell again, this time without the adjustment.

“Again,” she said. “Again,” she said after that. “Again,” she said again.

“I just don’t understand why we’re doing this,” said Y'thol, stopping once more.

“Foolish boy,” she snapped. “If you want better answers, you had best learn to ask better questions.” She smiled at him, pressing her lips together thinly as she did so, before she spoke, in a voice honeyed and sweet. “Or perhaps, are you admitting this work is too much for you?”

He looked at her defiantly, and held himself tall, jutting his chin out at her as he answered. “Of course it’s not.”

“Then do it. Again.”

Y'thol brought his wand up, and settled back into his stance. Matoya nodded, satisfied that he had been brought to heel, but then he spoke up.

“It’s just - I don’t understand, Master Matoya. Have I mastered the form or not?”

“Mastery. Pah. You know nothing of mastery.”

When Y'thol replied, his words spilled out, going a malm a minute. “But my form is good. I know I’m doing this right. I can feel the aether respond, I know how the spell’s going to manifest, I know what shape the result will be. You’ve had me doing this exact drill every day since I arrived, and it’s not changed hardly at all. I know what I’m doing, but I don’t know why. I just don’t understand,” he said, and at that, his outburst seemed to have ran its course. He bit his lip and frowned, looking down at the ground. And then he held his wand up, ready to repeat the spell again, but he stopped, and looked sideways at Matoya.

“You ask me about mastery, but what you’ve got is talent, boy. Talent enough to be sure, but you cannot rely on that alone. It’s a head start, but it is not the art itself. And I will not have an apprentice that relies on artless talent to muddle their way through life. You will master your magicks as art or not at all. You want to earn mastery? Then do the work, and I’ll not stop until you’ve done it to my satisfaction. Now. Again. And this time, without the backtalk.”

Y'thol frowned, and blinked a few times, but at last, he seemed to be mollified. He nodded, and he continued on through the form, and Matoya watched.

He was good, there was no doubt of that. But he had not honed his instincts yet, and she could tell he was still having to think about what he was doing. That was good enough for a great many mages, to rely upon their concentration, to simply cast as they went along, as good as learning the spell again every time they cast it.

But she could do better than that in her sleep, and she would teach the child the same.

Y'thol paused, and Matoya frowned.

“Master Matoya?” he asked, staying in his form.

“What is it, boy?” she said.

“How will I know when I’ve achieved mastery?” he asked.

Matoya laughed, but she felt no humour. “A question that will take you the rest of your life to answer, boy. You must go past talent and into reliable experience, and from there, you can finally begin the work on mastery. What we are doing here is establishing a foundation, nothing more. Your spell work may well be flawless, but it is not part of you yet. I will see you continue until it is innate, until aether flows from your fingers as easily as air from your breath, until you’ve honed your mind past mere memorization and motion and it becomes part of your very self, do you understand? You’re barely begun on the path to mastery and I shall see you learn to walk it properly or I will turn you out on your ear. Now. Again.”

The child’s ears folded back just a little bit, but he nodded, and he resumed the drills, settling back into his form and casting his spells.

“Again,” she said, and he followed her instruction.

—

“Master Matoya,” said Y'thol the next day just before drills, “I want to start over from the beginning.”

Matoya frowned at the young boy. “You do, do you? Whatever for?”

The boy took a deep breath in and stood up straight as he faced her directly.

“I believe I missed something in your initial instruction, and I wish to try to learn it again.”

“Hmph. Waste of time, if you ask me. Unless you’re going to bother yourself to pay attention this time. Will you?”

The boy’s fists twitched, but he nodded. “Yes, Master Matoya.”

“You’d better,” she said, as she rubbed her chin, pondering. “I’m not going to get in the habit of repeating myself, so you’d best mind my words this time and in the future. If we’re just going to go in circles, I can think of better ways to spend my time, do you understand?”

The boy nodded, again. “Yes, Master Matoya.”

She regarded him for a long moment. There was still defiance in his expression, and his tail was yet unreadable to her, swaying as it was back and forth slowly, looping in on itself at the end of each movement. But his ears were forward. Well enough. She sighed, and gestured to the poroggo that would be the subject of the day’s lesson.

“Very well. Show me your simple curing cantrip, then, and we’ll work from there.”

The boy nodded, and pulled his wand free from where it rested on his waist. He held it in front of him, his other hand curved towards it, and his expression focused on the poroggo. He then curled in slightly inward, pulling the aether necessary for the spell into himself, before he flung it out towards the poroggo, and lifting both hands in the air to finish the spell with a flourish. The cure spell landed successfully, and the poroggo hopped in a dance from its left foot to its right foot, waving its little staff in the air to express its satisfaction.

“Good. Now. From the top. Prepare! What are you casting?” she said.

“An invocation of curing magicks,” the boy replied, still standing in his ready stance.

“Good. Now, visualize! Shape your purpose in your mind, but do not follow through just yet. Make the movements if you must, but do not cast the spell.”

The boy looked sideways at her, and she waved her staff at him. “Well, go on then,” she said. “Don’t keep me waiting.”

The boy looked back to the poroggo, took a deep breath in, and nodded. His hand and his wand came up again, and his eyes squinted as he followed through on the motions he would need to take, but he did not actually draw upon any aether.

“Good. You should be just on the cusp of feeling the aether, just a scant bit beyond your grasp, waiting to be pulled, to be utilised for your own ends. Can you feel it waiting for you, boy?”

Y'thol made the motions of the spell again, his ears folding back against his head just the tiniest bit. His tail swayed and twitched just at its very tip. The child was showing concentration, not annoyance, Matoya decided for herself. And not defiance, either, which was well for him.

“Alright. Now settle yourself. Be calm inside. Repeat the motion thrice more, and then… execute. Let what you’ve visualized become reality. When I say again, you execute again. This is the basis of the drill. Preparing and visualization are different steps, and we are focusing now on execution. Begin.”

The child’s nod was shallow and quick, as he followed her instructions. On the fourth movement, he pulled on the aether, and cast the spell. The poroggo once more did its dance, while Matoya watched the process with a well-practiced eye.

He did not have the same flourish as he had had the day before, but his movements were still graceful. They were just less wasteful, now. The movements all had purpose, and that purpose all came to a point, and she was secretly pleased.

Perhaps this one might be worth a damn.

“Again,” she said, hoping to see more of the same. And she did.

“Again,” she said, walking around him slowly. Each time, the movements were alike.

“Again,” she said, and each time, the result was the same. Each time, Y'thol brought focus and attention. Each time, the same result for the same action, but today, it was on purpose. His every action was more alike to its prior, the shape of the drill finally being fulfilled by its student.

“Again,” she said, and each time, the poroggo danced.

Matoya smiled thinly as she said, “Again.”

Yes, this one was worth a damn, she decided, if he could keep this up.

“Again,” she said.

—

“Archon Matoya,” said Louisoix pleasantly.

“Hmph,” said Matoya.

He arched a brow, but did not comment on her taciturn response.

“I have come to check on the boy, and have been asked to remind you of your responsibilities.”

“You, poroggo,” she said, pointing a staff at one of her frog familiars. “Go fetch the boy, and inform him of who it is.” The little frog stood up at attention briefly before dashing off to follow her command. “Very well, then. I suppose it’s been long enough, hasn’t it.”

“It has,” said Louisoix. “I must admit, I was pleased to report to the Forum that your latest apprentice has managed to last six moons - a full two seasons.”

He smiled, and she saw an edge of wickedness to it. “…for which my pocket book thanks you. That’s a new record, after all. If it is incentives you are looking for, I could offer to split the proceeds with you should you manage a few full summers…”

Matoya sighed, and thumped the butt of her staff on the ground in irritation, and Louisoix smiled as he shrugged at her.

“You can hardly blame a man for trying.”

“I can, and I will,” she groused. “I did not realize your duties required you to aggravate me with your prattle.”

“Well, not require, no,” said Louisoix.

She gave him an annoyed look even as behind her, she heard the slightly dampish sounding pitter patter of frog feet, as well as the rather more solid footsteps of her apprentice. She did not turn to face them, merely making a 'come hither’ gesture over her shoulder.

Fortunately for once, Y'thol was feeling obedient, and he came to her side. He offered Louisoix a bow. “Archon Leveilleur,” he said politely.

“Master Y'thol,” replied Louisoix, offering his own bow in return. Matoya suppressed a sigh. It was well that he could choose to be polite when he wished, and she didn’t want to discourage that.

“May I ask your apprentice how he’s been getting on?” asked Louisoix. A formality, Matoya knew; he could demand a report if he wanted one, and she was not going to waste time beating about that bush. She gestured with her staff to where Y'thol was standing, quiet, watching the conversation.

“Go right ahead, if it pleases you. I don’t care,” she said.

Louisoix turned his attention to Y'thol. “How are you finding your tutelage under Master Matoya, young Master Y'thol?” he asked.

Y'thol glanced over at Matoya before answering. “It’s hard work. But I’m learning a lot.”

“How do you think you’re doing? Are your studies coming along alright?”

Y'thol glanced at Matoya again, and his shoulders slumped a little. “I think I am, but… well, Master Matoya is a good teacher, but…” the child was clearly struggling to say what he wanted.

“Sparing with her praise, I imagine,” said Louisoix, looking back at Matoya.

“Bah. I will not praise him for merely performing what I’ve asked of him. Maybe if he does something of actual merit.”

Louisoix sighed as he patted Y'thol on the head and stood up.

“You’ve got to encourage them, Matoya. Kind words can go a long way to fostering cooperation, camaraderie, a sense of accomplishment. Even just enough to let them know that they’re doing the right thing, and doing it correctly.”

“Pah. You coddle your apprentices, Archon Leveilleur, and call it nurturing. I call it delusion and deception. You have them casting a spell a babe could manage or that an oppo-oppo could mimic, and you tell them what a good job they’re doing. What I ask for is not too much. Competence, nothing more. But acknowledgement of their bare competence is all they’ll get, and they should be able to figure that out themselves. You can baby your charges if you like, but mine will know the truth of their abilities themselves or not at all.”

Louisoix gave an exaggerated sigh with a shrug.

“Well. Perhaps you can share with me what you have covered thus far, then, Master Y'thol.”

“…she has shown me drills for most of the spells I know. For those I don’t, we’ve begun aetheric calculations for making new spell formulae, though I haven’t actually made any yet. She’s shown me how to keep up the enchantments in the cave. I look after the poroggos, though I haven’t learned how to enlighten one yet. We’ve done some enchanting. She also teaches me history, geography, and I’ve learned how to read some foreign texts.”

“…busy,” said Louisoix, looking to Matoya.

“No busier than he can handle,” she replied coolly.

“Well enough then. But hearken unto my words, as I did not come merely to check in on the boy. I have also come to ask when you intended to schedule him for classes with the rest of his crèche, and also to inquire as to when he will be able to fulfill his responsibilities.”

“Responsibilities?” asked Y'thol.

“Well, you were already fulfilling them before your Master Matoya took you on as an apprentice. Service to the community that you are a part of.”

Y'thol nodded.

“There’s a fête soon, which I am asking the both of you to attend. Afterwards I can perhaps arrange a schedule for you that will be agreeable?”

“I did not ask for any favours from you, Archon Leveilleur,” said Matoya testily.

“It is not for your behalf that I take this action, but for your apprentice, Archon Matoya. Who I still consider to be the responsibility of all of us, not just yourself,” responded Louisoix evenly.

Y'thol frowned and his ears folded back slightly. “If Master Matoya needs no favours, then neither do I.”

“You should not be so hasty to turn away a hand offered, young Y'thol,” said Louisoix. “You would be prudent to judge whether that hand is friendly or not, perhaps. But we all would do well to lend each other assistance when it is warranted.”

“Feh,” said Matoya. “Favors owed, known and hidden. I’d rather my business be kept plain.”

Louisoix shook his head. “Must you view everything with such cynicism? An offer may be made that asks nothing in return.”

Matoya frowned at that. “There’s always something asked for in return.”

Louisoix shook his head. “And as for you, young Y'thol,” said Louisoix, “as I recall, you were quite diligent when you were still in the classrooms and fields of Sharlayan. I recall you working quite well alongside your fellows. And surely that’s not changed just because of your newfound apprenticeship. I trust that you and Matoya help each other around her home.”

Y'thol turned and looked long at Matoya. She just shrugged at him in return. He could speak his own mind, or not at all, she thought to herself.

“…it’s true,” he said. “She helps clean the kitchen after we eat. And, well, I maintain the enchantments and look after the poroggos, and she teaches me what she knows.”

Matoya harrumphed. “That’s all well and good, but you’re a child yet, boy. It’s my duty to look after you.”

Y'thol turned fully towards Matoya. “But if you’re right, then as a child, I should accept Archon Leveilleur’s help.”

Louisoix chuckled quietly. “Well,” he said. “I see the boy has learned a thing or two about rhetoric from his master.”

“Hah! If only you were the one who has to tend to him,” said Matoya.

Y'thol took a breath in. “Master Matoya.”

“Go ahead.”

Y'thol stood up straight and spoke confidently, as he had been taught. “I do want to help, though. With or without Archon Leveilleur’s favour. I’m learning much and more here, but there’s more to the world than just your cave, and I want to be a part of it.”

“Very well, then. If the boy’s so keen on it, then perhaps we’ll accept your help.” She held up a hand before Louisoix could speak further. “But it will be on my terms or not at all. He’ll learn, and I would see him taught right. It’ll simply not do for such talent to be wasted at the knee of the Forum’s curriculum. As for my part, I shall send my lesson plan with you, and I shan’t hear any complaints about it.”

“In that, we are in agreement,” said Louisoix. “So if I can find a path that is agreeable, you will continue his teachings, and both of you shall fulfill your obligations?”

Y'thol nodded, and Matoya shrugged.

“Very well, then. It’ll be good to see you out and about once more, Master Y'thol. With that, I take my leave, lest I wear out my welcome.”

“Like that’s ever stopped you before,” said Matoya. “Good day, Archon Leveilleur.”

“Good day, Archon Matoya, Master Y'thol,” said Louisoix, offering a deep bow before turning and heading out.

Matoya looked down at Y'thol, who frowned up at her.

“…if you weren’t planning on helping out, how’d you know to have a lesson plan?”

Matoya smiled.

“Never let them have it easy, boy. Let that be a lesson,” she said.

—

Small children danced and played gaily in the streets, holding streamers high and above them as they ran, or launching simple fireworks into the air, or playing tricks on one another with simple cantrips. The adults milled around the square, mostly congregating in small clumps of threes or mores, but seldom more than five, sharing tidbits of their lives with one another. It was a nice day, by Sharlayan standards. The air was warm, and the humidity was not so bad.

Archon Matoya was off by herself, of course. Those few who thought to approach her found themselves shying away, seeing her arms remain crossed and the scowl never leaving her face, her gaze meeting nobody at all.

She did think to keep an eye out for Y'rhul, Y'thol’s father, but did not expect to see him around. Miqo'te tribes varied in custom, and the Sharlayan ones had taken to raising their children in a communal manner. Some of the few menfolk there helped raise the children, but Y'rhul, as Nuhn, would have been expected to attend more to other matters of population. She was mostly curious as to why a young male had been considered for apprenticeship. As a population matter, such decisions, she thought, would have fallen under his purview. And considering the relative rarity of males among the tribe, she had thought that they would rather keep him in their community and raise him more traditionally. However, she was not so curious as to seek the man out any further than a cursory look around.

Her charge was off and about, and she was keeping an eye on him. She watched as he played with the other little boys a bit, but he mostly seemed to gravitate to where the girls were. He seemed more interested in their dances, which he tried joining in, and in their simple games, which they delighted in allowing his presence in - so long as he was willing to put up with some obligatory teasing. He did not seem to mind overmuch, and Matoya smiled wickedly to herself at least once when he rose to a particularly mean taunt with a cutting retort of his own that left his would-be tormenter red in the face.

She disliked being here on the whole, but it was an obligation that she had to meet, as the master of an apprentice. Generally, she was allowed to keep to her own ends, and her apprentice as well, but Louisoix had been correct - both master and apprentice had duties to the greater society of Sharlayan. Y'thol was to spend time in the crèche, learning things that Matoya could not teach him, and helping out his fellows. And Matoya was to spend time here as well, ideally conversing with her fellow Archons, and spending some time teaching as well.

Hells take them all.

But, she did realize, as she watched Y'thol sway through the movements of a simple Miqo'te dance, that this would be good for him. The child did want for socialization, and watching him in motion, watching him converse with others, watching him as he fair glowed when letting one of the girls clumsily put makeup on him, she decided she would stick with this. For his own good, and none other.

She continued to watch the proceedings, distant and apart, as her apprentice made merry.

—

“I noticed you didn’t talk to hardly anyone at the fête. Is that why you live out here all alone in this cave?” asked Y'thol in the evening, after they had arrived home.

The two were cleaning the kitchen together. Y'thol was sweeping the floor, as was his duty, while Matoya was washing out the cups.

She’d meant to uplift some poroggos for the task, but she never seemed to get around to it these days.

She looked at him, and saw he had that light frown that was so often his hallmark, and his ears folded back just the slightest iota. It wasn’t unusual for him to test how much insolence she’d tolerate from him.

“Speak up, boy. And without that attitude this time,” she said.

He took a deep breath in, and stood up a little straighter, not stopping his sweeping. His ears came forward, at least.

“I was wondering, Master Matoya,” he said, more measured and carefully this time, “why you choose to live all alone out here. In a cave.”

“This is what I prefer, boy. Nobody to get in the way this way. I get left alone, and I’m able to get on with my work without anybody bothering me.”

“Right,” said Y'thol. “Because having somebody help you with your work would just be the absolute worst thing possible.”

“Y'thol Tia,” she said, and her voice carried command and more than a bit of venom to it. Y'thol stilled, and he frowned, looking at her. Matoya glared down at him.

“I ought to box your ears for your mouth,” she said. “And just you watch yourself, for next time I might. You pay attention, now. Criticism without substance is the sort of intellectual dishonesty I won’t tolerate, boy.”

Y'thol folded his ears back again as he spoke. “You criticize everything all the time, though,” he said.

“Oh, to be sure, to be sure. But not without substance! Never without substance, boy. If you wish to cut to the quick,” and here she allowed herself a wicked grin, “then you use the truth.”

Y'thol’s scowl deepened. “I don’t know what you mean,” he said.

“The truth, young apprentice, is a powerful weapon and ally when wielded by a clever tongue. And I believe you can do better than those dunderheads over in the Forum with their snide sarcasm and simpering affectations. No, if you want to point out the folly of man, you need to do so with substance, not with empty flash and flair. Cynicism for sarcasm’s sake is the lazy way out. Oh, sure, you’ll seem wise in the moment, and your peers will surely cheer your oh-so-clever wit, but the hollowness of your words will find you in time.”

Y'thol, still frowning, just looked at the ground, and Matoya sighed.

“You’ll learn eventually,” she said.

“Of course, Master Matoya,” said Y'thol, but he didn’t sound convinced.

—

Y'thol looked at himself in the mirror.

Master Matoya was away, tending to her business down in Sharlayan. It was a day when she taught classes, but he himself had none, so he’d been entrusted to look after the cave for a few hours. It was easy work, especially in consideration of what usually came from her. She’d adjusted their schedule in the moons since they’d started at the crèche again. Y'thol was allowed more time to his own studies now, and they’d settled on a schedule of sharing the work around the cave.

But for today, Y'thol was on his own.

Which was well, because the mirror he was using was Matoya’s, as a part of her vanity. It was perhaps the only one in the cave that was suitable for this use. But, she was gone for now, and he knew how long she would be gone for, and so it was fine.

This was okay.

He didn’t feel okay, though.

Working alongside his peers in the crèche once more had bubbled up feelings that he had harbored, but he had thought he had put away once he’d been brought to Matoya’s cave. He had thought, maybe, that they would stay away. Instead he had been reminded of them once more, and they had come back stronger for the absence.

But he had changed under Master Matoya’s guidance. Now he was different. He was better than when he had started. And Master Matoya, for all her seeming harshness and sharp tongue, was a good mentor. She had taught him how to be better, and he was. And he had learned much, and like she had said, he had talent.

And under her tutelage, he could tell he was beginning to turn that talent into something more, something he definitely had learned from her. Utter confidence in the self. He’d had confidence enough before, but pitting his will against her, winning some, losing often, had taught him much about himself.

But something yet eluded him.

He suspected he knew what it was.

He looked at himself in the mirror, and he tugged on his bangs. His hair was rather long for a boy. Matoya had told him to cut it back once or twice, but could not seem to be bothered to do so herself, and he’d made a fuss when she had ordered the poroggos to do it.

He smiled at that memory. She had finally given up, throwing her hands up. in the air, and told him that if he liked his hair that much, he could keep it. And so he had.

He pulled two tufts of hair forward, one in each hand, and looped his fingers around them.

How would one prepare for what he was thinking.

He did not know, so he visualized instead, closing his eyes.

How far into the future could one visualize, and still execute on their desired outcome?

He didn’t know.

But when he looked, when he imagined, he did not see himself. Not like this. Not as he was. No, he saw something different. Someone different. Someone that was him, but not him. Someone not the same.

They would need to make some purchases and try this again, they decided.

They hopped down from the stool they were using to look at themselves in the vanity, and tucked it under an arm, and walked out to the front of the cave to go outside to the garden. The poroggos should have been done with their tasks for the day, and it was their job to tend to them, and so they would. They left the stool in the kitchen, and went outside.

They liked the poroggos. The poroggos were good company, and lively, adorable in their own way, and so much fun. All Y'thol had to do for the day was to make sure they were in good health and that they all had accomplished their tasks.

“Line up!” Y'thol said cheerfully, pushing their prior thoughts out of their mind. “Pedronaine, Gren, Thomallaine, Webby… where’s Frederick?” they asked.

The poroggos looked at each other nervously before one of them spoke up.

“Before she left, Master Matoya asked them to get some mushrooms for dinner. That was bells ago, and none of us have seen them since!”

“Hmm,” said Y'thol. They mimicked a gesture they’d seen from one of the other girls, curling their knuckles and tapping them against their jaw, trying to appear thoughtful. “Well, where did they go?”

One of the poroggos pointed with its staff while another answered. “Down to the valley, underneath the locks, Master Y'thol. Uhm. I looked down there, but I was too afraid to go down.”

Y'thol frowned, putting their hands on their hips and looking off to the side, thinking. The locks were part of Sharlayan’s flood control system, and sort of informally defined the boundaries of their civilization. While going beyond them was not uncommon, it was also further than Y'thol had often had to go.

“At the bottom of the locks… hang on. There’s narbrooi down there!” Y'thol said. They were familiar with the creatures. An interesting sort of seedkin, they floated low through the air. Sharlayan tolerated their presence as part of the local ecosystem. Master Matoya would, rarely, harvest them for the sting in their nettles.

The self-same sting which they would use to attack and kill small animals to feed on.

Like frogs.

Even enlightened and uplifted ones.

Y'thol immediately pulled their wand off their waist, and began to run towards the entrance of the ravine that led to Matoya’s cave.

“Master Y'thol!” cried one of the poroggos. “Master Matoya said-”

“Tell her where I went! The rest of you, head inside!” yelled Y'thol over their shoulder. “I’ll take care of this,” they muttered to themself.

It wasn’t long before they were free of the ravine system and found themselves navigating the waterway system, comprised of natural river streams and corralled canals. It wasn’t going to be a fast trip, but they didn’t have to go very far either. Y'thol paused, panting, and considered their options before picking a path down. They quickly hopped between outcroppings and streams, navigating between canal edge and river bed, climbing down a ladder, and traveling down the steep ground.

The valley was verdant and green, especially this time of year. Y'thol found themselves eventually following along one of the many river paths in the area. The rocks near the river edge were slippery, and they tried to be careful, but they were in a hurry. After all, the narbrooi could be nasty in large numbers, and could even pose a threat to an experienced mage. To a poroggo, they may as well have been certain death.

Y'thol hurried, thinking little of the potential consequences to themself.

At last, they came to an overlook, where they could see a little poroggo, trembling, its staff held up in the air as it tried to maintain a magical ward around itself. The narbrooi were there as well. There were three that Y'thol could see harassing the poroggo, and more in the distance seemed to be gaining an interest in the commotion.

“Help! If there’s anybody that can hear me, help!” yelled the Poroggo.

Y'thol needed no further encouragement. They leapt down from the ledge, wand aloft.

Prepare, visualize, execute.

The three steps were as one as Y'thol pulled from the force of earth, feeling the elemental power surge through them, transforming aether to stone that they flung directly at the middle of one of the creatures. Without even slowing down to see whether or not their spell had succeeded, they were already by the poroggo’s side, weaving a rejuvenating spell from the whisps of aether left over from the first one they had cast. The narbrooi flew away, momentarily startled, their tentacles flailing in the air behind them.

Y'thol frowned, and with a moment of concentration, had erected a field of glowing protective aether around themself and the poroggo.

“Are you badly hurt?” asked Y'thol, not turning away from the narbrooi as they started to gather themselves back up, and looked as though they might be considering another approach.

“I - I - I will be fine, Master Y'thol. Just - just a few sprained ribs, and my arm’s twisted, and I hit my head, and I can’t see out of one eye, but nothing a few moment’s respite at home won’t cure, I assure you!”

Y'thol folded their ears back and frowned, and resisted the urge to look back incredulously at the poor little creature.

“Yes, and perhaps with a few sennights of nursing you’ll just be the very picture of health. Can you run?”

“I- I- I believe so, Master Y'thol.”

Y'thol nodded, determined, as a plan formed in their mind. “Alright. When I tell you to, make a run to go back to the cave. I’ll cover for you as best as I can.” they said. Casting another spell while focusing on maintaining the shield would be impossible, but perhaps if they dropped it fast and leapt to the side at the same time, they would have a brief moment to gather the aether needed for more spellwork.

They tightened their grip on their wand. The narbrooi had recovered, and now were testing the barrier, slapping their tentacles against it, chittering excitedly. Y'thol looked at each of them in turn, paying attention, trying to find a rhythm or pattern.

There.

“Go!” yelled Y'thol. The poroggo immediately took off, running through the barrier and out the other side. The creatures paused, two of them turning to give chase.

Y'thol dropped the barrier and sprang to the side at the same time. They called to the elements once more, and one narbrooi was sent to the ground, crumpled by the stone Y'thol hit them with. Y'thol did not give them time to recover, springing lightly, jumping from rock to rock, and twisting as they called to a different element whose aether had surged to abundance in the wake of the use of earth, the element of air. The spell manifested and tore at two more of them with a self sustaining gale force that ripped into them even as it trapped them to the ground.

Y'thol landed lightly on their feet, panting from the sudden burst of exertion. Matoya would be so mad at them, acting without thinking, casting without proper preparation-

They stopped, and stood slowly to their feet, and looked at their wand, their eyes going wide with sudden realization.

They hadn’t thought the spells all the way through.

They hadn’t needed to.

The spells had come from them, as they bid them, but the elemental magics were coming to Y'thol as easy as breathing, and as such, they’d been able to not just cast them, but improvise with them as well. Y'thol could fair well feel the aether almost as well as they could smell the air.

They almost leapt in the air with joy, but they knew Master Matoya would not approve of such an unseemly display. So instead they grinned wickedly at the remaining narboori, almost daring them to try to get closer, to try to get by.

Y'thol would protect the poor little poroggo at any cost.

“HELP!”

Y'thol’s ears twisted towards the sound of the voice, and they looked over, and sucked in their breath. The poroggo had made it over the river, but had slipped on the rocks, failing to make it above the locks. Some narboori who had not been interested before were certainly interested now, and their fellows were turning away from Y'thol to focus on easier prey, all of them heading quickly towards the helpless frogkin.

Y'thol sprinted over, splashing through the river, not watching out for themself. They slipped and almost went under, but caught themself in time, and instead went sprawling towards where the poroggo was. They saw the poroggo hiding its face, bringing its staff up to try to protect itself as the tentacles closed in.

And then Y'thol was there, in the thick of it. They yelped as they felt several barbs slice into their flesh, as they felt the jolt of an enervating sting from the seedkins’ nettles. They wrapped their body around the poroggo to protect it, and felt the lashes upon their back as they did so, and gasped with pain. Shaking their head, they reached down deep inside of themself, and focused.

They pulled the aether to them, and it vibrated and hummed in their body, and then they shot upward, arms wide. A white sphere of aether erupted from them, momentarily stunning the narbrooi even as it pushed the seedkin back, and Y'thol formed a barrier around themself and the poroggo once more.

“Frederick?” said Y'thol, weakly, looking behind them.

The poroggo lay on the ground on its back, its staff discarded, one arm over its belly, its breath heavy and labored. Its eyes were shut, and it did not respond.

Y'thol bit their lip, and looked back at the narbrooi. They hurt. They hurt all over. The nettles were known to have a nasty deleterious effect, and were not just painful, but arrested healing, and worsened any ensuing injuries as the poison from them was quick to fill in damaged tissue.

A few stings were not so bad.

A lot could be lethal, as the effects accumulated.

Y'thol couldn’t stay here, and the narbrooi were swarming, starting to come back around, angry now.

They had one shot.

Y'thol dropped the shield, scooped up the poroggo in their arms, and they ran.

—

“Alright, you lot, where are you at?” grumbled Matoya.

She was used to being greeted by the poroggos when she got home, and it was part of Y'thol’s responsibilities to have dinner, if not ready, at least in progress when she got home. So she was less than pleased to find none of the poroggos about, the kitchen cold, and her apprentice away.

“Figures,” said Matoya. Miqo'te boys were trouble, and this one was no different. “Probably off getting into mischief somewhere.”

She heard the slap-slap noise of little webbed feet, and she turned towards the sound with a frown.

“Well, it’s about time,” she groused, ready to tear a strip off the creature, but something gave her pause. The poroggo did not seem to be so much rushed as it was panicked, having leaned forward in its running, its eyes somehow seeming to bulge out of its head even more than usual.

“Master Matoya! Master Matoya! It’s young master Y'thol! Come quickly!” the poroggo said, as it came to a sudden stop and waved its staff urgently.

Matoya frowned, and hiked up her skirts with a hand, and began to move briskly towards it. “Whatever is all this racket about? What’s happened to the boy?” she asked.

“They’re hurt!” the poroggo said as they ran. They stopped only to gesture back at Matoya. “Hurry, hurry!”

Matoya frowned. Poroggos were high strung at the best of times, and this could be anything from the child having a bruised shin all the way up to a skinned knee. She sighed, and rushed after the poroggo, out of the cave, and into the ravine that lead up to it. The poroggo and her ran along until they rounded a corner, and she near bowled the child over.

“There you are,” she said, gathering herself. “What’s all this about th-”

She found her words stolen away from her.

Y'thol was in bad shape. His clothes were tattered, and through the tatters, she could see angry welts weeping blood. He was moving slowly, his head down, and his tail muddied from having been dragged through ground and river behind him. One of his eyes was swollen shut, and he wasn’t so much breathing as he was wheezing.

He looked up at her, and when he spoke, it was obvious his tongue was thick in his mouth.

“Master Matoya,” he managed, and, trembling, he held his arms out to her. An injured poroggo, unconscious, lay in them.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

Matoya found her wits once more.

“Alright you lot. You two, get in there, draw a bath. You two, go to the cauldron, and begin preparing healing poultices and bandages. Hand him here, boy, and lean on me, I’ll tend to him and get you both back inside.”

Y'thol just stared at her for a long moment, and then he looked back down at the poroggo. Matoya frowned, and was about to repeat herself, but he spoke first.

“Not a boy,” he whispered.

Matoya stared, and almost wanted to laugh at the absurdity.

“Well, this stunt certainly does not make you a man,” she retorted. “Come along now. Let’s get you both cleaned -”

Y'thol collapsed, and Matoya caught him in her arms, careful to not crush the delicate poroggo he held as she did so.

“What have you done,” she murmured, worried.

The poroggos surrounded them both, each of them fretting in their own way. One was nervously twirling its staff in its hands, while another bobbed back and forth from foot to foot. Matoya glared at them in turn.

“Well go on! I gave you orders, now carry them out if you wish to see the child or your comrade well again.”

That seemed to get them moving, and the poroggos practically tripped over one other as they scattered, each tending to their task. Matoya sighed, and walked slowly into the cave that she had shared with her apprentice these past few seasons. She looked down at his face as he lay there unconscious.

She would not cry. That was not her way.

But she would see him better.

Grim but determined, she moved into the cave. Soon enough she had both child and poroggo cleaned up, wounds bandaged, poultices applied, toxins drained, and humours corrected as best as she could manage. She charged the poroggos with taking care of their fellow, seeing it to its little bed, and she took Y'thol to his own bed, gently laying him down in it.

Once he was settled, she left, but only just long enough to bring a chair into his room, and sit down next to him. She looked him over, worried. His wounds were not so terrible, but she knew they would be painful, and she could guess at what had happened from looking at them.

That her own child, and she did think of him as such, would risk so much for what most of Sharlayan would view as so little. That he cared so much for even the least among them.

She wiped her eyes and shook her head. This little misadventure was unlike of the sort to cost him his life, but it was not an impossibility that it may have done so. She frowned, imagining the tongue lashing he would deserve when he finally awoke.

He would be spared it, she decided. He had decided for himself that the little poroggo was worth it, and she would not dissuade that in him. The adventure would be lesson enough.

“Foolish child,” she murmured.

—

Matoya did not see much cause to leave Y'thol’s side for the next few days. He woke fast enough, within hours of her tending to his wounds, but she insisted he stayed in bed and he was, blessedly, too tired to fight her on the point. The poroggo, thankfully, was also quick to recover, but had nowhere near the risk of obstinate willfulness. She left its fellows to tend to it, and after their misadventure, the creature was more than happy to be having a sennight off from its many labors.

Y'thol was rather more recalcitrant. On the third day, she awoke to find his bed abandoned. A quick search through the cave found him in the kitchen, and one scolding later saw him returned to bed. On the fourth day, she had to leave for a short bit to make sure the poroggos carried out her instructions for retrieving supplies for dinner correctly (with a probably unneeded but still added sharp admonishment to stay away from where those damned narbrooi were). He took the opportunity to abandon bed once more, and she found him in the study, hobbling along but looking for a book.

By the fifth day she gave up. He was well enough by then, he no longer needed tending to, and she was hardly a fit nursemaid anyway.

“Well, if you’re going to be out and about anyway,” she had groused, “Then I expect you to return to your studies.”

“Of course, Master Matoya,” he’d responded. And then, “…I’d like to be allowed down to Sharlayan.”

“Hmph,” she said, looking him over. His welts had gone down significantly, and the color had returned to his cheeks, and he wasn’t shivering as he walked anymore.

She wanted to tell him no.

To fight him on this.

To keep him home, and safe.

But, if he was not going to tend to himself as he deserved, then she certainly was not going to force the issue. In fact, she found herself recognizing more than a bit of herself in this sort of stubbornness, and as she thought about it, the desire to fight him lessened. He would do as he willed, or not at all, when he was truly determined.

She’d taught him well, she supposed.

“If you feel up to it, I suppose,” she said. “But you are not yet fit to return to your duties. I will send you down for shopping, and you can attend your classes as you like, but nothing further. Do you understand, boy?”

His ears went flat, and he muttered, “Not a boy,” but after that, he nodded, once.

She decided to overlook his mouthiness this one time.

And so they returned to their routine after a fashion. And a part of her was relieved, to know that the misadventure, dire though it had almost been, seemed to have done little to dull the child. Indeed, it seemed to have tempered him. He seemed more resolute, now. More confident, somehow.

A few days passed without incident. She continued to teach as her schedule demanded, but she admonished him to not travel so far afield or to be so foolhardy again. No fool herself, she also made sure to tell the poroggos to stay rather closer to the cave than they had been, and to engage in no further adventures.

She returned home one day and went to go find Y'thol, expecting to find him busy with his chores. Instead, she found the cave quieter than usual. She resisted a feeling of urgency that threatened to rise up and override her senses. After all, there was no reason to it. She could see several poroggos milling about, tending to their business. And the cave was in good order. A check of the kitchen showed that dinner had been dutifully made, as was Y'thol’s responsibility. Just no sign of the child himself.

Well, almost no sign.

She just about tripped over a broom on her way out.

She frowned down at it.

It was an animated broom.

“Excuse me, Mistress!” it said cheerfully as it moved to one side.

An animated talking broom.

She was intrigued, now.

“You, poroggo,” she said, pointing her staff at one of the little frogkin. “Where is Y'thol? I would know what mischief he’s gotten up to this time.”

The poroggo looked at her, and pointed. “They took their dinner to the study, Mistress,” the poroggo said.

“Very well,” she muttered to herself, and soon enough had made her way there.

She found Y'thol on the floor, surrounded by piles of books. How he had managed such a mess in so short a time, she could not fathom.

She pointedly did not interrogate her own behavioral patterns on the matter.

He looked up as she entered, and stood up to his feet. “Hello, Master Matoya.”

“Don’t 'hello’ me, boy. What mischief have you been up to?” she said, but she smiled as she spoke. “I cannot help but notice the cave has several more helpers than usual.”

“Not a boy,” he said. “And you forbid me from tending to my chores as I usually do, so I chose to take matters into my own hands. Master Leveilleur did warn me you were messy, and I would see the cave tended to.”

“Will you ever tire of your insolence,” said Matoya, laughing. “I should have known better than to try to keep you from doing as you will. Show me what you’ve been up to, then.”

Y'thol smiled, and he pointed to several books that he had left out on the table.

“They’ve got brooms like that all over Sharlayan,” he said. “I wondered how they worked, and so thought to animate no few of our own. It took me a few days to figure out how to make that work, and a few days more to get the supplies. I had hoped you wouldn’t notice that I’d bought far too many brooms.”

Matoya snorted as he continued. “…but I couldn’t figure out how to get them to do what I wanted. I consider the problem, and a solution occurred to me. The ones in Sharlayan are generally unintelligent, traveling on predetermined routes. However, I thought to make some smart ones. The same way you make the poroggos smart. That…didn’t work though.”

“Of course it wouldn’t. With the poroggos, we enhance what’s already there, taking a frog and making it more,” said Matoya.

“Quite so. But I looked through some of your books, about animating familiars. Often they’re creatures, because it’s easier to just make something that’s already there better. But there is more than one way to grant an intellect. So I asked one of the poroggos to help, and I was able to transfer a sliver of a facsimile of its mind. The core of the broomsticks is a sample of a living sapling - enough living aether to take to its new purpose.”

Y'thol smiled here, and Matoya could only imagine how proud her apprentice was of himself.

“I imbued the self-same pattern of the poroggos into said core. I had to give it a bit of a nudge, but I do believe I succeeded splendidly.”

“Ah, and so you gave them a copy of an existing mind, that they may have one of their own. Well done, apprentice.”

Y'thol fair beamed at her, and Matoya chuckled.

“I suppose I have learned there is no getting you to keep to your rest as you should. Well, come on, then. I see you haven’t touched your dinner, and mine’s still out in the kitchen. We can discuss what you’ve accomplished there.”

Y'thol nodded, and grabbed his plate, and both of them headed out to the kitchen, Y'thol enthusiastically explaining the particulars of what he’d accomplished, and Matoya listening intently.

—

“Follow me, boy,” said Matoya after breakfast was done one day. In her estimation, Y'thol was, at last, as whole and hale as he was like to be, and after his demonstration with the broom, she had decided that it was time to advance his training. “We’ve work to do, and I would expand upon your education.”

“Not a boy,” said Y'thol absently, even as he obediently came to her.

“So you insist, but you are still very much a child,” said Matoya, annoyed. She saw Y'thol consider her words, though, and then nod.

Matoya looked at him for a long moment, and he looked back at her evenly. “Very well then, child,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Come along.”

He followed her as she took him to the library that was in the cave. As she approached the door to its space, she waved her staff at it, removing the defenses that she’d erected to keep Y'thol from wandering in.

He could be a right pain at times, all curiosity and mischief and willfulness, especially when she was away.

“You seem to have advanced your training all by yourself, child, which I am glad for. You show promise. But what is a promise, if you don’t fulfill it?” she smiled at him.

He nodded. “I understand,” he said.

“Good,” she said, quickly moving to gather the books she wanted for the day. “You’ve done well with what you were able to learn from the books in the study, and so I grant you access to my library, save for the forbidden section, which I expect you to stay out of.”

She looked at him imperiously, catching him looking around the room, his tail fair twitching in anticipation, his eyes wide.

She banged the butt of her staff on the floor to get his attention.

“Mark my words, young Master Y'thol,” she said, and he looked at her. “I will grant you access to my library, but you -will- stay out of the forbidden section. I shan’t attempt to ensorcell it, as doing so may ruin the magicks some of them contain, but if you thought your misadventure below the locks was harrowing, you will find it but a mild summer’s walk in comparison to the possible consequences of meddling in things beyond your ken.

"If you want to know of them, ask. And I will be tasking a poroggo with keeping an eye on you when you’re in here. Do I make myself clear?”

Y'thol frowned, but after a moment, he nodded. “Yes, Master Matoya.”

She pressed her lips into a thin line and reconsidered the wisdom of letting the child into her library, but then sighed, and shook her head. Well. He’d learn the easy way or the hard way, and despite her dire warning, her truly dangerous books were in the Maker’s Quarter, away from the main parts of her cave and guarded by others.

“Very well,” she said. “You’ve shown a knack for familiars, child, so we shall build upon that. I shall show you first how to uplift a poroggo, properly, and then we shall review and refine your work on the broomsticks. We’ll see where we go after that. There are many choices available to us. And I would advance your alchemical education as well. I suppose it is well past time that we delved deeper into the mysteries of magic, as well as seeing about getting you access to other facilities in Sharlayan. Supervised, mind. Anyway, let’s get to it, shall we?”

Y'thol nodded, and Matoya began the work of teaching him, and he proved to be a voracious learner.

Louisoix had been right. Young Y'thol had proven to be an opportunity, and Matoya found herself relishing in teaching him.

—

Matoya entered her cave with a sigh, setting her hat aside as she walked in. She was back earlier than she had intended to be. She had expected her meeting with Louisoix to lead to more argument, but for once, the old man had not seen fit to cause her ire. Indeed, the two had discussed her apprentice as planned, but they were of like mind. Her charge was healthy, and well. He was kind to his fellows, and eager to help around the crèche. She had kept to herself her apprentice’s recent spat of insisting that he was no mere boy, as well as the incident with the narbrooi. All Louisoix needed to know was that she was pleased with the arrangement, and he was thriving under it, and that it would continue unabated.

This satisfied Louisoix without further argument. He had given her gentle chiding that Y'thol should spend rather more time in the shared class settings than under her tutelage, but she had scoffed and informed him that she was more than capable of covering a multitude of topics. He’d pushed, gently in his way, and she had decided to compromise, and acquiesced on his request to allow him to teach the child history. Their business thus concluded, she had returned home.

“Y'thol,” she called out as she entered the main area. She heard nothing in response, and sighed, exasperated.

“Perhaps I shall see to my own supper, then,” she muttered to herself. If he was going to hide away instead of being out and about tending to his chores, he could fend for himself as well.

She made her way back to her own room, to hang up her hat and put up her staff before she got to the work of making dinner. As she walked along, one of the poroggos noticed her, and came over quickly, hopping alongside her, trying to pull her attention.

“Ah, Mistress, Mistress!” the little thing said. “You are home rather earlier than we thought you might be! Ah, perhaps you wanted to, ah, settle in for some reading for a bit? Or perhaps we could see to some tea for you, in the kitchen!”

Matoya scowled down at the little creature as she reached her room. “What is all this noise and fuss about? I do not need minding as to how I choose to spend my time now that I’m home, and anyway, shouldn’t you be about tending to your own business? If there is naught of concern, then away with you.”

“But Mistress-!” the poroggo cried out, reaching a hand for her as she swung open the door to her room.

She was greeted by a most unexpected sight.

In retrospect, it may have behooved her to keep a few more mirrors about the place.

Standing on a stool in front of her vanity was Y'Thol, the child leaning against the top of it. She could see a variety of makeups arranged on its shelf, and they were looking at themselves in the mirror, apparently trying to apply them. They had also gotten themselves a pair of traditional Miqo'te hair rings, and had threaded their bangs through them on either side of their face.

Y'thol froze, as did Matoya. The poroggo caught up to her, breathing hard and leaning on its staff, but as soon as it saw that the two had seen each other, it came to a stop, and snapped to stand at stiff attention.

Nothing happened for several long moments.

“I certainly hope,” said Matoya, carefully, “that that is not any of my things that you are playing with.”

Y'thol turned around, slowly, frowning, hands clenched. The child hopped down off the stool, their jaw set, and they slowly brought their gaze up to look into Matoya’s face.

“It’s my makeup. I bought it at market.”

The room settled into silence once more, but then Matoya snorted, and laughed.

“Not a boy, hmn,” said Matoya, quietly. She then continued at a normal volume, but still spoke carefully. “Little Rhul or little Tia, makes no difference to me,” She looked between her apprentice and the mirror. “I do rather wish I had found you less vain, however.”

The child stuck their chin out at Matoya defiantly. “That’s rich coming from you, Master Matoya, who elects to tell none her age despite the truth of it on her face.” The child then looked down and away again, frowning at the floor. “…and it’s Rhul,” she said.

Matoya scowled at the young woman, considering a biting remark. Instead, she smiled, and laughed. Her apprentice looked back at her, with a slight frown of her own, seemingly nonplussed.

“Well, let this be the start of a set of new lessons I suppose I am now obligated to teach you, young lady” said Matoya. She was pleased, as Y'thol’s expression brightened considerably at being called young lady, but she did not let that show on her own face as she continued. “And that is thus. A woman would do well to maintain more than few mysteries about her person, her true age among them. A man who holds secrets of himself is oft considered craven, but a woman who does the same is considered mysterious, which holds its own kind of power. You’ll learn as you grow older.”

Her apprentice looked at her questioningly, and then after a moment, nodded.

“Very well then. Now, get out of my room, and we can discuss where we go from here. I’m supposing I’ll have to figure a few things out.”

Y'thol obediently moved to walk past Matoya, leaving the hair pieces in and the makeup on. She noticed that the girl seemed to have changed, at this acknowledgement of her truth. Her movements seemed more sure, somehow. Her expression had been one of a mix of fear and defiance, but it seemed to soften to something new.

Determination, to be sure. But a tinge of confidence as well.

Matoya cursed herself, uncertain how she could have overlooked this secret in her own home. Was she so set in her ways as to be blind to what was in front of her now? Where was her vaunted insight? And it was not as though the girl had been very subtle in the weavings of the tale of her life.

Well, problems for later, Matoya decided. For now, she had a young woman whose path would need to be charted.

She began to lead the way to the kitchen “We’ve much and more to talk about now, girl,” she said, “But it can wait until after supper.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Y'thol Rhul beam up at her as the young girl nodded.

—

Supper passed quickly enough, and at last, Matoya took Y'thol into her library, where she would have ready access to her tomes and materials.

“Stand there, girl, and let me take a look at you.”

Y'thol Rhul - and would she change her first name, Matoya wondered? - stood before her, and looked up at her.

“Yes. Yes, I see,” murmured Matoya to herself. She pulled up her sleeves and flexed her fingers. “There is no question as to the truth of the matter, I suppose. It is just a question of convincing reality to conform to it, and there are magicks or alchemies that shall do so, along with chirurgeons-”

“Magicks,” said Y'thol. “I have looked into the matter already. I know what it is that I want to do,” she said, and she walked over to Matoya’s books, running her fingers along the titles on spines until she found what she was looking for and pulled it out.

Matoya huffed. “Have you been sneaking in the forbidden section, despite my express desires otherwise, girl?”

“Yes.”

Matoya looked at her for a long moment, and then laughed, taking the book from the girl. “Such cheek! Why, I’m not sure if I’ve taught you well enough or hardly enough at all.” she looked through the book, and then frowned. “…you’ve chosen a hard path this way. Keep well to my words, girl. If this is truly what you want, you will be embarking upon a lifetime of singular study of the self. Your form will change, but you will need to periodically remind your aether of your truth, lest your humours fall out of rights and you fall ill, or worse. The consequences of mistakes here may be grave. Do you understand?”

Y'thol held her gaze steady, as she always did, never flinching or looking away. Her tail swayed slowly, calmly. And she nodded, once. “I would do such and more.”

Matoya felt pride swell up within her, but she tempered it. This was important, and she could not allow her ego to interfere.

“Very well. It will be a regimen of spell works and ritual, as I recall, that will need to be refreshed and nurtured throughout your life. You will come to know your own self and your own aether as few in life ever do, but it will not be without cost,” said Matoya grimly. “The spells can be taxing, and the work will not end until perhaps towards the twilight of your days, and possibly not even then. You will have to be diligent.”

Y'thol nodded once more. “I understand.”

“Then stay here. I shall fetch the materials we need at once, and then we can get started.”

As Matoya turned away, Y'thol reached out and grabbed her arm. “…I wish to be allowed to perform the initial spell works myself, Master Matoya.”

“Foolish girl! Do you know what you are asking? The magicks you are asking to invoke are advanced indeed. Or perhaps you wish to turn yourself inside out, as instead of manipulating your aether to your desired outcome, you pour it straight into the endless abyss of the lifestream?”

Y'thol’s mouth got that stubborn set to it that Matoya had learned to recognize well, and she prepared to match herself against it once more. Though she recognized she had grown soft with the girl over the moons, on this, she did not plan to move.

“I would control mine own destiny, or not at all,” said Y'thol.

The girl had grown rather too precious to her, she realized, and she found herself shocked by the revelation, sudden as it was. Her will crumbled before such a plain and bold declaration, honestly stated, clearly felt. She set her jaw, and sucked in her breath. It must have shown on her face, for she saw the determination in Y'thol’s face shift to a look of concern.

“…Master Matoya?” she asked.

Matoya shook her head clear, and pulled her arm free of Y'thol as she turned away, and took a shuddering breath. It would simply not do to show herself to Y'thol like this. She would not cry. She would remain dignified. And she would solve this problem for them both. She felt Y'thol come up behind her, her hand on her arm once more, but gentle this time. Matoya took a long slow deep breath in and closed her eyes, stilling the storm in her breast, and let it out twice as slow as she’d let it in. When she was ready, she turned to Y'thol, seeing the young woman’s concern still writ on her face, her tail almost still, swaying so subtly that only one intimately familiar with Miqo'te mannerisms would recognize it for the message it was displaying. A kind of anxiety. Fear, in this case, for Matoya.

Matoya felt the urge to be reassuring, but squashed it. No. This situation called for truth and steadfastness, not for milksop bleeding hearts and tears. She turned away from Y'thol again, and began to pace.

“You are young yet. We’ve caught this before your growth. The spellworks will be easier for it, and it is simpler if we do it now, but if you truly wish to learn the rituals yourself, well, then we must needs accept the consequences of delaying until the relative safety of the time after your growth.”

Y'thol frowned, and stood up straight. “I can do it now,” she said.

“Silence, girl, for I am thinking. And puissant though your abilities may be, what we are proposing is yet beyond your ken. That book contains many techniques that you will need to master, much of them outside our immediate goals here, and I will not have you stumble across them foolhardy in your pursuit of seizing your own destiny. Now be still and let me be, for Twelve’s sake.”

She saw a familiar flash of fire in Y'thol’s eyes, but the young girl nodded, and let Matoya resume her train of thought. Now, where was she? Oh yes.

“…it would take even a true master over a year to gain the confidence, knowledge, and skill those books demand, but you have rather less time than that if we’re to do this your way, or we accept the consequences of waiting, simplicity and ease be damned. It is doable, to be certain, and has been done often through writ history, but… hmn. Hold on. Yes, waiting. Waiting would be wisest, for it is time we need to buy, but not all time is equal, and… yes, I think that’s it.”

Matoya turned to Y'thol.

“If you would not trust me with your destiny for the desire to hold it with your own hand, then perhaps you will trust me to hold the reins of time for you for a spell. There is another spell, no less difficult, but less profound in its changes. I will hold the winds that blow the changes of aether within you, until as such time as you can affect your change yourself. You will age still, of course; time waits for no woman, even though we can slow its march with great effort. But we can delay the onset of your growth until as such time as you can master your own destiny in the way that you desire. Is that agreeable enough to you, young Lady Rhul?”

Her tone was as sharp as she intended, but despite herself, she found herself smiling. Curse her sentimentality. But it was a clever enough solution, she thought, and workable.

Y'thol looked at Matoya steadily. “…and then you will allow me to affect what changes I will upon myself, by myself?”

Matoya looked back, just as steady. “Of course, girl. You are brash, but in this? I will concede your right to your own destiny. It would be churlish of me to deny it, considering how hard mine own has been to fight for.”

Y'thol took several deep breaths in, nodding her head, slowly at first, but then more vigorously. Her tail began to sway back and forth, slowly and then more quickly, and she clenched and unclenched her little fists several times. She looked down at the ground, and Matoya could not see her face for a time, but when she looked back up, her eyes were wide and glittered wetly.

Matoya felt her breath catch. This child would be the death of her.

“Then I ask for your grace, Master Matoya. Please grant me the time I need.”

“It shall be done,” said Matoya.

And so it was.

—

It was incredible what could be accomplished in mere moons with a mix of skill, talent, will, and motivation, marveled Matoya.

Ever since she had learned about her young charge’s truth and desires, the two of them had worked nearly tirelessly. Y'thol was bright and eager, and far less recalcitrant than she had been in days past.

She still had a mouth on her, thought Matoya, but she was less rancorous and more just plain stubborn. Matoya decided she could not well fault her on that. After all, she had taught the girl well, hadn’t she.

The two clashed, same as they ever had, but now it was in pursuit of a greater goal, and of deeper truths in their studies. Y'thol’s challenges to Matoya’s authority and knowledge were not without merit. Often would she push back, but it was on matters of clarifying a detail or exploring a line of inquiry to its end.

And so Matoya taught, and so Y'thol learned. She learned the turning of the aetherial chart from one element to the next. She learned of the waxing and waning of living aether in the world around and through all things. She learned of the intersection of aetherial sea and liminal grounding, where concept met solidity and became reality. Her knowledge was pushed into new frontiers and beyond.

And the world outside did not rest, either. Matoya heard from Y'thol’s other instructors and classmates. There were those who were reluctant to respect her as she was, but Matoya’s reputation seemed fit to make them keep their opinions to themselves. Others noted how she seemed to be blossoming, coming more into her own. How she had greater confidence in herself, how she was more attentive to her studies. It was as though she had a new vibrancy to her, and Matoya supposed she did. She still had a sharp tongue, and it was not uncommon for an instructor to complain to Matoya about some insolent response the girl had given in their class, but such reports only made Matoya smile thinly to herself.

The girl knew how to stand up for herself. And though she was not always right, at least in Matoya’s estimation, she was straightforward and honest, and that was more than enough for her.

More moons passed. Her studies advanced, from broomsticks to poroggos, and at last to a test of her abilities. Another in a long line of tests, but this one would be a marker for greater things.

“Come, young lady,” said Matoya to Y'thol one day, and Y'thol followed.

“Where are we going?” she asked, and Matoya just smiled to herself when she responded.

“Great things do not necessarily require extravagance and pomp, but it certainly couldn’t hurt,” she said. “I am taking you to a place where you can exercise your final learnings, and we shall see the truth of your mastery.”

The two travelled in companionable silence after that, until Matoya opened a door, and ushered Y'thol inside.

Matoya smiled as Y'thol’s eyes grew wide and jaw fair dropped as she looked out into the great cavernous space. Like many of the more impressive areas of Sharlayan, it was hidden from the world, taking advantage of the natural cave systems underneath the land, and hidden behind clever architecture and plain hollows (such as Matoya’s own home) over top.

There were poroggos and magicked brooms wandering the place. Shelves as well as piles of books stretched from the cave floor to the top of its cavernous ceiling, which loomed up many dozens of feet. The place stretched far back and away, the edges of it disappearing out of sight. Despite the books, it did not appear to be a library so much as a laboratory, with cauldrons and tinctures, flasks and fluids, alembics, and lapidary hammers, and other tools both broad and fine.

Y'thol turned around and looked at Matoya.

“Here is where we shall measure what you’ve learned, young apprentice,” said Matoya, “and so long as you succeed, well then. Perhaps I’ll acknowledge that you’re at least ready to at last begin. Come. Bring your supplies, and I will take you to where you can show me what you’ve learned.”

Y'thol followed quickly behind Matoya as she went to one of the portals. “What is this place?” she asked.

“My atelier,” replied Matoya, simply.

“Why have you not brought me here before? Why, the reading materials alone -”

“You were not ready,” said Matoya, interrupting.

Y'thol folded her ears back just as they teleported, and they were still folded back as they both left the shimmering purple portal behind them.

“I may well have been ready before now. I would think it hard to say without at least trying.”

“I had not fully accepted you yet,” said Matoya simply and honestly.

There was silence between them as they walked through the caverns.

“…whysoever not?” asked Y'thol. Matoya paused, and turned to look at her. Her tail was still, and her ears had come forward, but there was some pain in her expression.

Matoya sighed.

“The fault is mine, girl, not yours,” said Matoya. “I knew not better, even with Louisoix’s exonerations, hells take that man. But never mind that for now. We’re here.”

Matoya stopped, having led the both of them to a chamber that led off one of the cavern paths. It was cavernous, and there was water present, as well as a small lava trickle from elsewhere in the undermountain. The water met the lava and formed steam that floated up to the top of the chamber. The ground was solid rock that had been cut to form a flat surface where people could walk and work, or draw aetheric geometries upon.

It was a place where many kinds of aether would tend to pool and could be worked upon, and it was perfect for what Y'thol would do.

“Now,” said Matoya. “Prove him right, and prove me wrong. Show me what you’ve learned.”

Y'thol continued to look at Matoya for a long moment, and then nodded, and took a deep breath in. She closed her eyes and bowed her head, holding a hand in a fist in front of her face, in what might have been prayer. Matoya frowned, and waited, and was on the verge of interrupting her reverie when her eyes snapped open again, and she was suddenly present, and there, as her shoulders rose and her head stood tall, as her tail swung out and her movements flowed, as she pulled the staff from her back and her materials from their pouch.

She was quick from there. She laid out the three materials she had felt she would need for the ritual she was to perform; a water flask, a water crystal, and an elemental orb. She then stood apart from them a little bit, and held her staff in front of her. Closing her eyes, she held one finger to her nose, and began to chant.

“From ocean rise and cloudbank form…”

As Y'thol spoke, energy began to flow up from the ground and around her, affecting a small unnatural breeze.

“From mountain spring and rainfall storm,” she continued, letting go of her staff. It floated in front of her, seeming of its own volition, glowing.

“From river flow and life be born,” she said, taking a step back before she herself was lofted into the air by energy unseen, her toes pointing toward the firmament as she was freed from it.

There was a moment as she hovered, and then she snapped her eyes open, grabbing her staff out of the air. She spun around, and as she let go of her staff again, it spun as well, the energies she was manipulating flowing freely and powerfully, but under control. She grabbed her staff once more with an exaggerated wink, and as she came to land on the ground, she pointed its tip at the materials with a flourish.

“Water water froth and foam!” she cried out, exultant.

For a moment, nothing happened.

But then the energies took hold, surrounding the three materials, and fusing them, merging them into one. They hovered up into the air, taking on the form of what looked to be a single bubble of water, wobbling and pushing against itself in the air, and then it burst.

And from the bubble’s explosion, floated out two little familiars, each looking a bit like an animated water drop, with pale blue colors on one half and a lighter blue on the other, with little eyes and little ears and little droplets that could possibly have been meant to have been hands.

Life from lifelessness, a form of sentience, the formation of living aether into a form, both familiar and useful. Nixies.

Y'thol grinned girlishly up at them, reaching her hands up to them, and they floated to her, playing around her arms and her head, and she spun with them for a moment. Matoya smiled at the display.

“Now,” she said. “We can begin the real work.”

—

Y'thol waved to Matoya and Louisoix as she ran by them, a trail of nixies trailing behind her, seven in all.

“I’m off to the waterways,” she yelled out cheerfully as she went.

“Make sure you tend to the cauldron as well, girl! You’ve still got work to do, and I expect to see it done, what with all that vim you’ve got after you,” said Matoya back, waving in Y'thols direction with her staff.

“Of course, Master Matoya,” called back Y'thol cheerfully, stepping up to one of the portals and vanishing in a puff of purplish aetheric vapor.

Louisoix chuckled. “I am not generally in the habit of telling you I told you so, but…” he said.

“Oh, out with you, you insufferable miasma drifting through my halls,” grumbled Matoya, and Louisoix laughed in response.

“I understand she is about ready to begin her thesis work to present to the studium,” said Louisoix. “She tells me she wishes to go into aetheric studies, much like her master. She has come a rather long way rather quickly, it would seem.”

“Yes, well, she’s the first apprentice that was sent to me that was worth a damn,” said Matoya.

“Or the first who could thrive under your demanding schedules, due to the fire of her spirit. You know, any of the other apprentices you have been assigned over the years may have thrived also, if you had only shown any willingness to meet them at their level instead of insisting on trying to drown them under an obstinate workload.”

“Hmph. The girl had the same work as the others, they just weren’t willing to work for it as hard as she has,” said Matoya. “I was fair to each and every one of them, I’ll have you know. The same opportunities to succeed! It’s hardly my fault she was the only one up to the challenge.”

Louisoix looked over at Matoya meaningfully. She stared back at him, challengingly.

“As you say, Archon Matoya,” he said evenly.

She threw her hands up in the air. “Bah, fine! I may have driven them a touch too hard. But look at what I’ve managed to accomplish with her. She’s learned fast, you’ve noted that yourself.”

“And had you tried to reach out to her earlier, rather than trying to drown her out much as you have your other charges, how much faster would she have learned? The standard classrooms are standard for a reason, they allow everyone to reach some level of potential, but as such they’re designed to also leave nobody behind. As you’ve now learned, there is no speed limit to learning - if both master and apprentice are willing and capable. There is a reason we try to pair our most gifted with our most accomplished, and she may have gone to Studium even earlier if you had not insisted upon your notably onerous schedule.”

Matoya tapped the butt of her staff on the floor, and frowned at the ground.

“Maybe so,” she conceded. “But I’ll not change my ways, and I’ll not be asking for another apprentice. I’ve discharged my duty, Archon Leveilleur, and I’ll thank you to leave me at that. If it’ll get you to leave me alone, I’ll share what I’ve done with you, and maybe you can find some apprentices in the future that you can perhaps mollycoddle into your idea of excellence. Otherwise you can leave me and my methods alone. I am more than satisfied with the outcomes my work has achieved.”

Louisoix sighed. “I should know better than to try to dissuade you from your ways, Archon Matoya. Very well, I’ll speak on the past no further, but rather of your charge’s future. When were you planning on enrolling her in the Studium, anyway?”

“When she is ready, and not a moment sooner.”

“Ah. What is the hold up? I… hope it is not the project the Forum has tasked you with.”

“It is not, and we shall speak of that no further here,” said Matoya. She gestured a hand out to the caverns of the atelier. “She’s been studying by herself here and does not need me to keep a continuous eye on her. I’ve done the work asked of me, but it’s held her up not one iota.”

Louisoix nodded thoughtfully. “I overstep, then, and you have my apologies. But as to your apprentice, might I ask, whatever is holding her back? I have seen lights half as bright as hers begin their work.”

“She’s not ready yet,” said Matoya with a frown.

Louisoix was quiet for a long moment.

“Is it because of the decision she has made regarding her true self? Alchemies are available, to say nothing of chirurgeons. She’s hardly the first-”

“She has chosen her path in that matter,” said Matoya. “She has settled on handling it herself, through aetheric transformation techniques.”

Louisoix blinked, looking shocked. “That is… not without its risks.”

“I am aware,” said Matoya.

Louisoix looked thoughtful, frowning as he bowed his head, holding his chin in his hand.

“But with what I’ve observed… I think she could manage,” he said slowly. “She is one of our best, now. All she needs is opportunity.”

Matoya did not respond.

Louisoix looked up at Matoya, and his eyebrows rose in that way that meant he thought he’d stumbled across something.

“Is it perhaps that it is not that she is not ready… but that you are not?” he asked, gently.

Matoya did not argue back. She tightened her grip on her staff instead, and stared outward.

“…I shall push no further, and apologise again, Archon Matoya,” he said, quietly.

“No,” said Matoya. And she lifted her staff up, and slammed its butt onto the ground.

“You are correct,” she said. “It is time. Thank you for your counsel, Archon Leveilleur. I ask your leave. It would appear that my apprentice and I have preparations to make.”

Louisoix nodded, and gave her his customary deep bow before he left. Matoya sighed as he went. He didn’t even have the good grace to be a poor sport, she thought, as she went to go find Y'thol.

—

Matoya had been woken up early in the morning.

“I am ready,” is all the girl had said, and Matoya had simply nodded.

On this, they were both were in agreement, and she found she could brook no argument. They had prepared for this moment. They had gone over the spell works in exacting detail. The girl had practiced until she had mastered it, and then further, until she had turned the workings of the flows of aether into very art itself, and then into further mastery beyond that. They had delved into the alchemy, and explored the history, and now, there was no doubt.

She was ready, and Master Matoya could ask nothing more.

The day was spent in unhurried preparation. Runes made with silvery enchanted ink were drawn and measured and corrected. The girl’s staff was examined, once, twice, to look for any sign of imperfection or weakness. The rites were gone over one last time, and to Matoya’s immense satisfaction, the girl had mastered them such that it seemed to come to her as easy as breathing.

And at long last, they were here. In one of the deepest rooms of the cave, where the aetheric properties were amenable to the task at hand, and disturbance exceedingly unlikely. Matoya had unlocked and brought her crystal eye with her, and now she sat it down on a wooden pedestal with clawed feet and a clawed hand. It would hold the crystal eye level so that Matoya could watch her young apprentice as the rite was performed.

Matoya stood quietly, and watched as the young girl walked confidently into the middle of the runes that had been inscribed on the floor. Her steps were steady, unwavering, yet gentle as she padded across the floor. She came to a stop in the middle, and raised her staff in the air, keeping it strictly perpendicular to the ground, and brought its butt down to the ground with an authority that echoed in the chamber.

The young girl looked to Matoya. “Now,” she said. “I shall begin.”

Matoya just nodded, and the girl nodded back before her gaze drifted to look dead ahead. She held her staff in front of her in one hand, while her other hand was held nearby as though to steady it, and she bowed her head.

Many of the more complex rituals had many components to them that had to be executed to see them to their success. Some required specific movements to be executed by the practitioner, or for words of power to be uttered as though they were truths from the very soul of their speaker. However, the nature of this transformation spell made it all the more difficult to master and perform. Words could not be uttered, for the very voice speaking them would be changed, and the shift could spell disaster. The movements were helpful in the beginning, but soon the caster would find themself in a body that might be poorly recognized by themselves and eventually by the aetheric stream itself, and so that could also lead to an unhappy end.

No, it required a truly disciplined mind to perform the work correctly.

Matoya knew her charge was up to the task.

And despite that, she still felt a trickle of nervousness that she was quick to shunt away as the rite began. Matoya held a hand out to her Crystal Eye, and she reached her mind out to receive its gifts.

The girl began.

She murmured to herself, as in the early part of the ritual it was safe to do so, and she would need all the help she could give herself. Aether flowed from her hand to her staff, and the gem atop of it began to glow, first with a pure white light, but then shifting to showing all the colors of the full elemental rainbow. The silvery ink on the ground glowed faintly at first, but then more brightly, as the space filled with azure dust from the aetheric stream being brought into physicality. Her hair begin to rise and then flutter as though a wind was blowing from the ground towards the ceiling, and as the energy picked up, as the shining light grew brighter, as the silver ink’s shine flowed upwards as though they were physical ribbons, as the azure dust swirled into a storm, the girl’s clothes fluttered and flowed, and then she was lifted up, into the air. She finished her chanting with a flourish of her staff, and let it go, freeing it to fly in the space around her. She spun, raising her head heavensward, her toes pointing towards the firmament, and her arms outstretched.

Her form became diffuse, and she began to glow, as the light from the top of her staff flowed across the space and into her, and through her. The ribbons of light from the runes on the ground fluxed and waxed as they spun around her, enveloping her into a cocoon of aetheric energies. The light in the room continued to grow, brighter and brighter. Matoya resisted the urge to shield her eyes. She continued to watch, seeing the journey play out in both the material plane and in the aetherial through her crystal eye. She watched as the girl practically became as bright as a star, throwing her head back and her arms wide.

Matoya at last could stand to look no longer, the brightness overwhelming her. She closed her eyes, and fell fully into the crystal eye’s gift. The world of the real vanished, and she was fully immersed in the beyond, of thought and concept and ideals. Transfixed, Matoya watched as the girl continued the ritual. She could see as the girl’s very essence reached not for the easier path of simple transformation, but for a more difficult course. The girl was threading her own aether, unweaving and reweaving it, not merely changing its form in the present but changing what it meant to be her.

Matoya found herself impressed, and even had she been moved to speak, she knew she would have had no words. Her apprentice had come so far, in so few summers, and had now demonstrated not only mastery of her art but a sort of mastery over herself that few could claim.

The girl curled in on herself, now, and the flow of energies slowed, the storm of aether stilling, the ribbons of light now wrapped tight around her form, and the wind stilled. A moment passed like a season, and then, the girl threw her arms out once more. The cocoon of energy that had wrapped itself around her burst as she did so, with a final burst of prismatic spray, and her form became distinct once more.

Matoya opened her eyes slowly, experimentally, and found the brightness fading away. The aetheric dust and silvery ribbons were gone, and the girl’s staff was returning slowly to her outstretched hand. The glow of her body faded, and once more, she was fully present. No longer a being of energy and aether, now she was just a little girl again, physical and present. Her toes touched the ground first as she drifted once more to the firmament, and she swayed as she landed, her knees buckling a bit. She gripped her staff with both hands, and her chest heaved as she breathed heavily. She looked fit to fall over, and she almost did, but she managed to stay on her feet. She looked over at Matoya, and gave her a weak smile, before pushing herself to stand upright. She swayed, steadied, and then gave Matoya a slow, theatric curtsy.

“I did it, Master Matoya,” she said, her voice hoarse and none-too-steady.

Matoya felt a rush of relief flow through her. She had not realized how nervous she had been, had not fully realized the fear that she had felt. And she had not realized that she had thought that she might not see her precious girl ever again, and she laughed.

“Such cheek you’ve got, girl, after such an ordeal,” she said. She was surprised to hear such happiness in her own voice, considering how afraid she had been. “You’re fit to fall over, don’t pretend you aren’t, I’ve got eyes you know. Come over here, girl, let me take a look at what you’ve done.”

The girl stood up straight and walked over, all grins and giddiness, as she walked right up to Matoya, her path only a little wobbly as she made her way over. She presented herself before Matoya with her head held high, standing in front of her, and bowed, leaning on her staff. “Master Matoya,” she said, as though introducing herself for the first time, and in a way, Matoya considered, she was.

Matoya was a little surprised at the end result. She had expected her to have pitched her voice somewhat higher, to make herself look much more different. But, again, the girl had not attempted to perform large transformations on herself, but instead had reached back through her history, and unwoven her aether only to reweave it to what it ought to be. And she had succeeded. Her hair was perhaps a touch longer, her voice a little higher, her features a bit softer. But it was the same girl.

Just one that now held a different destiny for herself.

“Well, go on, then,” said Matoya. “Spin around, let’s make completely sure you didn’t give yourself a third arm where your tail should be or some other nonsense.”

The girl giggled, and she held her arms out as she spun around, her tunic flaring outward and twirling a bit with her. Matoya looked her over as she did so, and found that her conclusions thus far continued to hold.

“Well, don’t we look a fair sight. You’ve done well, girl,” said Matoya. “Though I ought to take you to task for what you did. Weaving of self! I thought we had settled on transformation. You might well have turned yourself inside out.”

“I certainly would not have,” said the girl, and now Matoya did notice a greater difference in the voice. Her voice was clearer, more confident. It had a power to it that it didn’t have before.

Well, if she had been insufferable before, she might be much more so now.

The girl suddenly tipped over rather too far, and Matoya found herself rushing forward to catch her in her arms before she made it all the way to the ground.

“I find I am… rather tired,” the girl said, clinging to Matoya as she had to fight to stay on her feet. Matoya sighed, and reached under her, and scooped the girl up into her arms.

She was still just a child, after all, and had a long way to go yet.

“Foolish girl, pushing yourself too hard,” murmured Matoya. “Let’s get you to bed, then. We can talk about this more tomorrow.”

“Yes, Master Matoya,” she said quietly, as she relaxed into Matoya’s arms. Matoya had to take care as she walked to not trip over the girl’s tail, which was dragging on the floor limply.

It was not long before the girl was tucked into bed, and only moments after that, she fell asleep. Matoya watched over her for a bit, checking her with magicks. Once she was satisfied that the girl would be okay and was stable, Matoya went back to put away the crystal ball and otherwise clean up, leaving the girl to her rest.

—

Matoya was up rather earlier than usual in the morning, busying herself in the kitchen and pretending not to be fretting. She was not fretting. That was beneath her. She had a perfectly reasonable reserve of energy, thank you very much, and she was simply finding a useful outlet for it.

Such as trying to find the ingredients for her apprentice’s favorite breakfast.

She ordered one of the poroggos to go fetch some berries, and had just set a pastry in the oven to cook for a short bit. In the meanwhile, porridge with honey would have to do while she finished making the tarts and waited for the little frog familiar to come back. She found herself squinting at the cabinet, wondering what else there was she could do, when she heard the door behind her.

She turned, and saw her apprentice - her brilliant, wonderful apprentice - standing there. The ritual had been a success. The transformation would take some time to fully affect the fine details of its changes, and she expected to see more over the coming weeks, but for now, her apprentice was hale and whole and in motion.

Whatever changes had been made, however, it was enough that she was here.

“Good morning, Master Matoya,” she said, placing a hand over her heart and giving a short bow.

“Good morn,” said Matoya. “I did not expect you up at this hour.”

Or at all, really. She had intended to let the girl sleep the day away, and possibly the entire sennight, if needed. Even now, as she examined her, she could see the after effects of exhaustion from the ritual writ large across her form. Her tail was low to the ground, swaying back and forth very slowly, and not very far at that. Her shoulders were relaxed and down. Not slumped, no, just not upright and back in her usual confident manner. Her eyes were half-lidded, and she didn’t seem too steady on her feet.

Still, telling her to go back to her rest would probably just prompt a battle of wills, as Matoya well knew. She decided to let the matter go.

“I must needs apologise, then. 'Tis an unusual hour for visitors, I must admit, but I found I simply could not wait any longer,” her apprentice said. “As you may know, patience is ever one of those virtues I am told I could always use more of. But come; surely it is rude to not ask the name and purpose of a guest.”

Matoya stared at the girl for a moment, and then she chuckled, despite herself.

“Such temerity! Will you ever tire of it? Fine then, girl. Tell me who you are and your business, and be quick about it.”

The girl smiled back, and her smile was warm and sunny and softness, and Matoya found herself moved despite herself. “You may call me Y'shtola Rhul. And it is my pleasure to present myself to you, Master Matoya.”

“Y'shtola Rhul,” said Matoya, slowly, rolling the name around in her mouth. It was odd, she thought, how well that seemed to suit the young woman. It was as though the name had been hers all along, as though Matoya was not hearing it for the first time but being reminded of it after a long absence. Possibly the after effects of being present in the room during the ritual, or perhaps something more. “Such a pretty name. It suits you. Y'shtola,” she hummed around the name. “Very well. And your business?” she asked.

“Why, is it not obvious, Archon Matoya? I hear you have needs of an apprentice, and it just so happens that I have needs of a mentor.”

Matoya felt herself smiling.

“So you say. It will be difficult, you know. I have never had a day’s laziness, and neither will you. I will work you until your very bones ache,” she said.

“Oh, I know,” said Y'shtola, smiling as she tilted her head lazily and tapped her chin with her knuckles. “I have heard the stories. Irascible, irritable, stubborn as an aurochs, unyielding as the mountain, uncompromising and exacting, a perfectionist through and through, and sometimes, I even hear, just plain mean.”

Matoya scoffed.

“But also capable of great insight, a kindness she hides away from everyone, and a font of wisdom the star has rarely seen. She shares her secrets with those she deems worthy, and sees the truth of things for what they are, never afraid to speak her mind, or to speak up where others would fall silent. Courageous and wise. Yes, I think I have chosen wisely for myself. If you would still have me?”

Matoya noticed how Y'shtola’s tail had gone still at the end, even as she tried to put up a front of casual levity. She suddenly realized the truth behind the mummer’s farce. Y'shtola had gone through one hell of a fight for herself, but there was one last thing for both of them.

Would Matoya accept her as she was now?

“How could it be otherwise,” said Matoya quietly to herself. And then she rapped her staff on the floor, and smiled at Shtola, for she was her Shtola, and found herself elated to see the expression returned tenfold.

“You are as near like my own daughter as ever could be. Now and forever more, Y'shtola Rhul. Of course I would have you.”

Shtola took one slow step towards Matoya, and then another, and then all of a sudden she was running, and Matoya barely had time to take a step back and brace herself as the full force of the young Miqo'te was upon her, arms around her, face buried in her, Shtola laughing around tears barely held back.

“Thank you,” she said. “For everything.”

Matoya, stunned, slowly reached her arms up, and hugged Shtola back, patting her on the back gently.

“There’ll be none of that, now, Shtola,” she said gently. “You’ve proven yourself, nothing more. The rest is up to you.”

Shtola nodded, and pulled back, wiping away her tears, and then standing up. She looked almost regal in her bearing, with head held high and eyes now clear, her tail swaying slowly back and forth in a careful and controlled manner.

“Of course, Master Matoya,” she said, and Matoya nodded in approval.

“Well then,” said Matoya. “If that’s enough of that, then. It’s time to show those fools at the Forum what mastery looks like.”

Shtola nodded, with a flash in her eyes, and Matoya nodded back approvingly.

Well. Louisoix had been right after all, mused Matoya to herself as she and Shtola set about their work once more. An opportunity indeed, and Matoya felt very much that she had uncovered perhaps the most precious secret in the world, and had been blessed to see to its lighting anew.

[elfpen]

Hi!!! So, this is going to be a weird (and probably invasive) question to ask a stranger on the internet but. um.

So I saw your add-on to the post about historical remedies and such and it FASCINATED me. The cross between historical and scientific study was just... so cool!

And I'm in High school, right now, and I'm still trying to decide what I want to major in. So I wanted to ask--

What major did you write that thesis for? How did you get into that major (like, what kind of credits/ background/grades did you need to get accepted)?

And-- this one you don't have to answer at all, bc I don't want to pressure you into doxxing yourself or anything, but-- What college/colleges did you go to/ consider going to that had good programs for said major? (I live in America, if that helps?)

Sorry for the random (and a lil' aggressive) questioning on major details of your life is uncalled for-- which it probably is. I just!!! Your research was really cool and it felt like something I'd want to consider pursuing!!!

TY for your time <3

No worries! None of those questions are what I would consider really invasive, and I don't mind talking about the basics.

That thesis was one that I wrote for my Master's degree. My major in undergrad was history—no specific area of history because it wasn't an option at my school—just history. While there were some classes I was required to take, whenever I was able to choose my own classes, I took classes that dealt with medieval history, which was something that interested me. Most of my large writing projects in undergrad I wrote on medieval topics. My uni didn't even have that many of those classes, but I basically found ways to work those subjects into my work anyway lol. In topics as broad as history, you have to carve out your own space.

I graduated with good grades and went straight into graduate school. I'm not sure I would recommend going straight into grad school after undergrad, but I knew myself and knew that if I didn't do it right away, I would not go back.

At the graduate level, no matter where you go, if you study history you will pick an area/region of history to study in depth. I chose medieval history, and within that carved out an unofficial specialization on early medieval British history. My advisor wasn't even an expert in that topic, but she was supportive, and connected me with other academics who knew more about it. I was a bit of an oddity in the department because I was one of the few students who was getting only a masters degree, rather than going for a PhD. The only reason I did this was because I was also studying for another degree which was more relevant for my desired career path; I chose to study history as in addition for the broadened experience and also because it really interested me.

Now, I know you're in high school still and this kind of decision is a long ways off, but for the sake of my on conscience I am going to pause here to say that you should not get a masters in history unless you are either going on for a PhD and are committed to a career in academia, or if you have another solid career path open to you (like having another degree or other experience). Studying history can give you a lot of great skills and experience and insight that will make you compatible for a lot of jobs, however, if you already have a bachelors, a masters degree in something like history will generally not increase your marketability, and can be very expensive. Alright, you didn't ask for career advice, but I couldn't not say it.

But yeah! As far as prerequisites and such, it's a fairly straightforward matter of keeping up your grades, which may sound kinda lame. The harder and more vital part of pursuing the research you want is to define your goals, communicate those with your professors, and foster relationships with professors who can help connect you with opportunities to present your research and meet others in the field. If you have the chance to present at an undergrad conference, do it. If your professor has office hours, talk to them not only about the current assignments, but about the kinds of things you're interested in. By the time you're a senior in college, having positive relationships with one or more professors will help you find connections beyond college.

This has turned into career advice, I'm sorry if that's not what you were after! I hope that helps.

[dojae-huh]

Dont get me wrong ....I was frustrated and annoyed by jaewoos popularity so that I decided to do a quick research on woo's ships in 127....here is my theory...correct me as I knw I could be wrong....

When woo included in nct he was went with the concept of mark's soulmate??..may be sm was testing the water I understand...even in the radish pulling game episode where do jae and woo being asked questions about mark woo couldn't answer it properly..it I can say that mark and woo is close but their shipping didnt work...I think domark is still popular than woomark....sm didnt even try to ship woo with haechan I think....they can make a content funny but shipping didnt work...with taeil they did everything they can but didnt get the popularity they wanted...and yuta had a crush on woo and they did the shipping things but still yuta most of the all time prefer mark as his bf....and johnny I dont knw how they worked....i didnt even heard anything about johnny and woo I dont even knw their ship name...sorry....but u can add if u are aware of anything I didnt include here....ok....and with dy we all knw....so take ty...they were awkward first...but the ice is melting now...woo is the only person who visited ty in his solo mv shooting...and they talking about each other now....so I really hope their ship get the all popularity so jaedo could have their moment.....

Lastly jae....just put aside the fact that it is the only ship jae prefer to do infront of fans and camera only becoz he dont hate woo and also comfortable to annoy woo in public too....woo is not all that innocent for him it is the only ship that is very popular for now....so he does everything to go smoothly with this ship...so they both annoy each other...the problem with woo is that he is not effortlessly funny....he needs to make effort to be funny...if he is not funny he wont be seen in their vedeos...he is kinda moody person as far as I knw. ..so he cant work on both shipping and make fun all the time...and jae have no problem in make their ship float well...so in jaewoo woo can both do shipping and make fun for their group too....he dont have to make all the effort coz jae is helping him too.....

I knw I wrote this mainly to calm me down ...and may be all of my theory as not right...but it cant be fully wrong.....eventhough I am not an observer like you but I did made an effort...so u can correct me and can u reply ur opinion on this..?..thankyou

Hm. SM, without a doubt, uses shipping on earlier stages. We can see it currently with Riize ("Memories" MV) and Lastart (the way Yusion is portrayed and promoted). Neo City tour had bl fanservice.

That being said, Jungwoo used shipping so much himself, and very openly so, that it is hard to say where it was primarly his initiative with different members (and SM used the footage) and where it was by the management's design. SM tried different MC combinations (IlWoo, MarkWoo, DoWoo, JohnWoo), but I don't remember a special accent on LuWoo (and the ship was a super popular ship back in the day).

WooMark was a thing. They did vlives together, 24h relays.

The members understand shipping, and use it for entertainment as well (YuMark is the most blatant example). As you correctly pointed it out, it's not just for the purpose of being liked as a (bl) ship, but mainly as an easy to-go-to entertainment tactic. Fans like cuddles and interactions. Most fans don't ship seriously (as in really believe there is something), they just pretend. How many times Woo used "(to Yuta) Liii-oon" joke? Yuta can just hug Mark, and some footage to include into group content is ready.

Anyway. I don't think JaeWoo will disappear anytime soon. Not as long as DJJ exists. What we can wish for is for JaeDo to start to get their two-men content/gigs again. Woo is popular enough to be sent alone on shows nowadays, he doesn't need DoWoo anymore as much.

Woo is absent from ts7 unit, so let's look forward to Baggy jeans are, it should bring us something. Jaehyun gets more attention seeking when his rival Tae is in the vicinity.

[goose-onthe-loose]

i understand and relate to your ex religious posts so much it feels like you're in my head, even though i'm exmuslim instead. i'm also 19, i'm kind of jealous that your parents took it okay. i know it won't be safe for me to mention my atheism to mine until i'm moved out and independent (which is pretty far away atm). i'm glad for you that you got away from that and found your own beliefs. do you also feel like you're stunted from your upbringing? if so, do you have any advice on learning how to be a normal person lol

Hey! First of all thank you for your ask, and I'm sorry for the late reply. I've been in the shadow realm for a couple days but I ate a bagel so I think I'm good /hj

Ok! Before the advice, a couple disclaimers. First of all, I recognize that my relationship with my parents is pretty unusual, meaning there are certain aspects of what you might call "the standard deconversion experience" that I can't advise on.

I wish I could reveal the secret formula for supportive parents, but honestly I just got stupid lucky.

And second, obvs we are from different backgrounds so like. Take this with a massive grain of salt. Perhaps even an entire teaspoon.

Now to answer your questions.

Yes, I definitely feel stunted in a few ways... like, I missed out on plenty of general teen things, like parties, dating, and extracurriculars. Because of this I'm a little scared for college, mingling with people I feel I don't have much common ground with.

And then there are the years I spent in emotional turmoil, trying to figure out if I wanted to leave, how to do it, if I was making the right decision, etc etc etc.

I also regret the hundreds, if not thousands of hours I wasted studying obscure Jewish laws, time which could have been spent on... literally anything else.

But at this point, I can't change any of that. So I'm trying to focus on what I can do; here are a few things that have really helped me.

Research! Google is your friend, and you can use it to learn about everything from secular social norms to basic life skills. I literally got all of my sex ed online, lol.

Which brings me to my next piece of advice: build community. This one was especially helpful to me. In fact, I think of my discovery of the subreddit r/ExJew as a turning point in my deconversion journey. Like I know the site in general has a bad reputation, but stumbling across that page genuinely changed my life. It provided me with something I sorely needed: a place full of people like me. Somewhere where I could vent, ask questions, get advice, and even joke around. Idk about the culture on the exmuslim sub, but I'd say it's worth checking out.

This was also a good place to find anti-apologetic blogs and books, which went a long way towards undoing the bullshit religious pseudologic I'd been inundated with.

And lastly, "coming out". This one is iffy, and you should only do it if safe. But I still recommend it, because honestly. After I had decided to leave, one of the hardest parts was pretending to be something I wasn't.

So... after a while, I stopped. Wrote a letter to my parents, sent a mass email to the teachers in my religious school. I chose not to tell most of my classmates, but I did find another closet atheist in my school, and she honestly made the rest of my senior year a lot easier. Just having one other person to look over at and silently agree, "yeah, this is bullshit," can help with morale.

And even if you don't find anyone like that, there's a lot of peace, I think, in speaking your mind.

I hope this helped, and I hope good things come to you soon.

Lmk if this was helpful, or if you ever wanna chat :)

[the-common-cowgirl]

Hey, Leah!! Just wanted to say that i’ve just finished reading “False Dragons” and it’s amazing. But i have a lot of questions dhhdjsjs.

How did you come up with the decision of ending the ocs path that way? Did you write it with criticism (not about your story, but on the patriarchy, the idea that woman couldn’t be powerful in that context) in mind?

I was just wondering, cuz I really felt bad for her and found it so sad that people perceived her that way, including her husband. To me she was really misunderstood.

Besides my questions just know that you’re an amazing writer and I’m definitely going to explore your other works! x

Hi Nonnie!! So glad you liked my work!

“False Dragons” was my very first fic ever. If you read it closely and analyze the text, you can pretty clearly see the growing pains and mistakes I made writing it. I did absolutely no prior research going into the fic (other than my extensive knowledge of the ASOIAF world) and had no mentors or anyone to look up to and ask for help.

I did not plot False Dragons at all. I had an idea about where I wanted to take it and knew I wanted a tragic ending (for the viewpoint of the reader who had grown close to the OC). I also wanted to be an unreliable narrator and have bias for the OC. Both of those attempts were poorly executed.

If I ever have the chance to rewrite “False Dragons” I would, without a doubt, do it. Despite what I feel I did wrong with the fic, it is still by far my favorite fic I’ve ever wrote. I love the original ideas that I came up with and I love the tragedy of the character. I think for a very first fic, I picked some extremely difficult ideas to write. Nevertheless, I think that I didn’t do my idea justice.

Last but not least, to answer your question, I wanted the OC doomed from the start. I wanted her to suffer and I wanted her to peak in happiness right before being blindsided by betrayal. Although I didn’t really know who I originally wanted to betray her (I actually went back and forth between Jamethon, Aemond, and her own daughter) I knew she had to perish horribly. She was never going to be allowed a happy ending.

I stand by the fact that I believe the Targaryens are canonically cursed in the world GRRM built. I believe they’re doomed by the narrative by their own actions and elitism. I wanted to portray that theory within my fic but give it my own personal flair.

Sorry for the super long winded reply, I absolutely love talking about “False Dragons” and what I tried (and failed) to do with it. I’d love to find the time to rewrite it properly someday. I’m so in love with that fic.

Thank you so much for asking 💞💞💞

[atthebell-moved]

heya op from the karlnapity number 1 post, i want to hear the theories you have as to why it got so popular it would sound interesting!

oh wow did not expect anyone to actually want to hear about this. thanks for asking!

so first thing, in terms of numbers on this: when i initially looked at this, i guessed at popular poly ships and figured out from this that karnapity was big; this time, i used @/toastystats' analysis from may 2021 to figure out big poly ships and then cross referenced their current numbers with karlnapity's-- they're ahead by at least 1000 works from the (presumed) next biggest poly ship, Bucky/Steve/Tony from the MCU.

This is super impressive! DSMP on AO3 has been one of the fastest growing fandoms in the last couple of years (toasty has stats about that as well, as does @/ao3-anonymous who does weekly fandom growth stats) and has absolutely exploded in terms of amount of works, though it's a bit hard to quantify due to only receiving its own fandom tag recently. Still, competing with the MCU, BTS, & BNHA, to name a few fandoms, is impressive as it's still such a new fandom compared to how long they've been around and been able to gather works.

In regard to why I think Karlnapity is popular, and to compare it to other popular poly ships, I think there's a few factors. In no particular order:

#1 - This one's easy. DSMP is hugely popular right now, and Karlnapity is one of a few significant canon ships in the world of the server. Other big ships (DNF, tntduo, beeduo, etc.) have less canonical status or are in some way fraught with RPF issues.

#2 - The ship is M/M/M. If you look at the stats I link above from toasty, M/M/M by far dominates poly ships, with F/M/M a ways behind. As you probably know, ships involving women tend to be far less popular, and vice versa.

#3 - This is where we get into my actual juicy analysis. The biggest reason I think Karlnapity is huge is it's canonical status, which is BY FAR what distinguishes it from other poly ships.

Below is a list of the biggest poly ships, as of May 2021 (again, from toasty, linked above). Obviously Karlnapity has shot up in terms of stats, but this provides us with a solid basis for other poly ships.

Most of the other popular poly ships are non-canonical ships, with the basis of the ship being people want ot3s and there's three central characters in these pieces of media (Bucky/Steve/Tony, Castiel/Dean/Sam, Poe/Finn/Rey, Hermione/Harry/Ron). For BTS, it's a similar situation but instead of three main characters the band has 7 members.

The two ships that are canonical/semi-canonical (depending on your interpretation of things like word of god and possible retconning) are Karlnapity and Hardison/Parker/Eliot. I'll start with the latter; feel free to skip this paragraph if you don't want to read through me talking about Leverage.

If you're not a Leverage fan, you probably are not familiar with this OT3 and may be confused about its popularity considering it is a MUCH smaller fandom than the other ones (only ~9k total fics). Hardison/Parker/Eliot is also the #1 ship in the Leverage fandom tag, whereas the rest of these are generally quite a bit further down in the ship tags. The reason for this is that the relationship dynamic on the show is very intimate, I would say a majority of leverage fans ship the ot3 without question, AND the creators have on multiple occasions encouraged and endorsed the ship. Additionally, they have made the ship canonical (in a sense) by stating that the finale of the original show was meant to end with the three of them in a relationship, so they hold a semi-canonical, word of god status in that sense. However, for much of the show, only Hardison and Parker are explicitly dating and it is my understanding that in the recent revival that is still the case (haven't watched it yet, planning to soon). Still, it is far more canonical than most of the other ships on this list, which is why it's so high up despite being a smaller fandom, and this feeds into why I think Karlnapity is so popular.

Okay! Back to Karlnapity!

Karlnapity is the only ship on this list that has full, in-canon support for it being a romantic, polyamorous ship. That is, as you probably know, incredible rare in fandoms of this size. The three of them are romantically & phsyically affectionate (when they were together) and explicitly involved, which cannot be said for any other ship on the list above.

All this to say, the biggest reasons Karlnapity is so popular are that the fandom is hugely popular right now, the ship involves men, and the relationship is canon.

[queenoftheworldisdead]

Could you maybe write something with dark dark Steve who has a huge size kink and crying kink and loves to humiliate?

School Days

Note: sorry it took so long. been kinda down. also hope i did OK with humiliation.

Summary: Co-worker makes you feel uncomfortable.

Warning: 18+Only, short reader, size kink, crying kink, humiliation kink, non consent, forced fingering and cock warming i think

Dark Coach Steve x Short Teacher Reader

📚

You had always had a love of teaching. Growing up your friends would always groan when it was your turn to pick what to play, because you always chose to play school.

You knew exactly what you wanted to do when you got to college. You wanted to shape young minds. It was fascinating watching them grow and learn right before your very eyes.

Shelby elementary hired you two years after you received all of your certificates. Replacing their beloved Mrs.Pepper Potts after she moved out of town with her husband.

You taught first graders. You preferred teaching the lower grades. The higher grades were a bit difficult. Competing for attention when most of the students where dealing with raging hormones proved an exhausting endeavor. Your short stature became a reoccurring issue too. During your student teacher days you realized the taller they got the more they seemed to not take you seriously.

At least working with the lower grades you were less likely to be confused as a student. You had lost track of how many times you were stopped in the hall by a colleague. With the lower grades you towered over your class and commanded respect with little effort.

📚

You felt exhausted. Your first parent teacher meeting was over. It was endearing and encouraging that so many parents had so many concerns about the development of their little ones. But their critiques on your credentials didn't fail to strike a nerve, an issue new teachers faced all the time. You smiled through it as you normally did. Letting them have their back handed remarks as you answered and waited out the clock.

When it was all over you needed a drink. You cleared up the mess they left for you, a preview of what to expect from their spawn.

When everything was in its place you tackled the blackboard. Taking out your stool you stood on tip toes erasing. You had the bright idea of outlining your curriculum on the board for all the parents to view. It was hard getting it all on the massive board, but with your step stool you got as high as you could go.

"Hey! Whoa you know that's dangerous." A voice rushed to your side as your stool tilted.

"Are you OK little one?" he asked helping you down.

God he's tall. You barely came eye to eye with his chest. You tensed in his arms and when he realized his mistake he released you.

"Oh sorry" he rubbed the back of his head slightly embarrassed. "I'm Steve Rogers." He reached out a hand for you to shake. You took it and introduced yourself. His firm grip swallowed your hand, when he squeezed you held in the hurt from the pressure.

Steve's presence was intimidating despite the smile he wore. When he released your hand, you took as step back, but he stepped forward.

He is just a close talker. Don't over analyze.

"Sorry again with your clothes I just assumed you were..." He motioned at your clothing.

Taking inspiration from Ms Frizz, your favorite animated teacher, you always wore colorful puffy skirts that depicted various things related to education or fairy tails. The look kept the attention of the youngsters, but it certainly didn't look childish.

"It's OK, but I am afraid you are a bit late for the meeting."

Spinning away you move to the other side of your desk to give yourself more space. "If you wouldn't mind filling in your information, encase of emergencies or special needs. I know you probably filled it out for the front office, but I like to have my own copy." You explained as you handed him a pen and the piece of construction paper with the other parents info.

He took it and filled it out. "I just erased the curriculum, but I can email you a copy."

"Did you also used to teach at Camdien?" Steve inquired, bending over your desk as he wrote. While you waited you packed up your belongings.

"Um yes I was a student teacher there. Did you have a child there too?"

"I coached there actually. Well was." He rose and approached you. Slipping your purse straps on your shoulder, you tried to remember if you seen his face before. You didn't recognize it. As striking as he was you doubted you would forget it.

But the athletic department lived in a world separate from the teachers. Their multiple championships brought in funding that went to their brand new athletic facility. The highly coveted building allowed them to live above the peasant class of the faculty. You had even heard a nonsensical rumor that they even had a Starbucks and onsite masseuse.

When he handed it back you reached out, but Steve pulled the paper just out of reach. Hovering it over your head like a bully playing keep away. You huff and frown after two attempts. You were not a child and would not be treated as such. Pursing your lips you made a move to leave. You would just go through the admin office to get the information.

"Aw don't pout, but I must say you do look adorable when you do." He smiled down at you as he blocked your retreat. His wholesome grin did not match the darkness in his eyes. There was a disconnect somewhere. You felt like a mouse before a lion. Were the other teachers like this? You were so eager to get started working you did little research in the school that so swiftly hired you. "Here you go."

Snatching the paper away you say, "thank you." It sounded slightly annoyed, but you did your best to choke down the edge.

Unhooking the lip of your bag you placed it with the others as his shadow clouded you. Ignoring it you side step him.

"Yeah I remember. I used to see you at Camdien." Steve recalled, blocking you once more. You stopped just short of bumping into him as you closed your bag. "Cute little thing, roaming the halls." Steve informed you, stepping closer once more, making you take a step back. The alarm bells blared in your head at that comment.

"Boy wasn't I relieved I wasn't crossing the line with all the thoughts I had." He chuckled as your back hit the chalkboard. You had to strain your neck to look him in the eye this close.

The principal was making his rounds soon. He wouldn't try anything right?

"Mr. Rogers-"

"Coach" he interrupted. He didn't touch you but that fact gave you very little relief. You felt your nails dig into your palm as you gripped the thin strap of your bag. Your arm the only barrier between you two. "Just call me Coach."

"Rogers!" Your saving grace, Principal Barnes, exclaimed from the door. Steve's body blocked you from James. "There you are. Nice to see your getting to know your colleagues."

"Yeah, just sharing stories from Camdien" Steve stepped aside to greet Principal James. His hand landed on the top of your head, messing your hair as he patted you playfully like a dog. You swallowed the discomfort as he moved to talk to James. You gathered the rest of your things as they focused their attention on each other.

"Oh yeah I forgot you both came from their."

You took that opportunity to make your exit. Walking fast mumbling a 'goodnight,' you bolted toward the door. They replied back, but you ignored it, allowing their chatter to fade the further down the hall you got.

📚

The first week of school was hectic. Lost students, late students, little accidents here and there, it ran the gambit. But nothing worried you more than P.E. period.

Steve was listed as your classes gym teacher and made the drop-off a chore. It surprised you how increasingly inappropriate he was becoming. Always stretching out your name flirtatiously in front of the children causing them to taunt you with 'OOO's, and pepper you with questions about the nonexistent relationship until you departed.

They stayed in line as you approached the double doors that led to the gymnasium. He was there, dressed in his sweat pants, gym shirt and the whistle dangled from his lips.

As you ushered them inside he caught site of you as he wrangled another group and smirked. It was unnerving especially when your students egged him on by making kissy noises loudly when they noticed him too. On one occasion he sent a note with one of your students asking you out. You ignored it.

You should've reported him you know, but what would they say 'Oh he was just being friendly' or any number of things to justify his behavior. You'd been in enough situations to know without evidence that met their standards nothing would happen.

📚

In the teachers lounge Steve made his presence known. You stared at your custom coffee mug as it sat high on the edge of the third shelf. You had half a mind to take and break his, as it taunted you from the first. You were growing more and more tired of his antics. This wasn't the first time and you knew it wouldn't be the last.

Two arms planted themselves on either side of you as something rested on your head.

It was him you knew it. Who else would it be?

"Need some help little one?" He hummed.

"God damn it Steve get off me" you barked You elbowed him, but the mountain of a man didn't budge.

"No need to be nasty."

You felt him push you into the counter, crushing you against it as he reached for your cup on the high shelf.

"Here you go" he said placing it daintily in front of you.

Calm down don't blow your lid he is doing this to fuck with you.

"Shouldn't you be watching my class?" You asked as you waited for him to move out of your way.

"Student teacher got me covered. You remember what that's like? Give them the work while we teachers kick back and relax."

He backed away allowing you to get the coffee, but stayed glued to your side. You ignored him, pulling out your phone and flopped on the couch, waiting for gym time to end.

Steve of course sat next to you crowding you into the corner. He boldly placed a hand on your thigh, you brushed it off, cursing at him to 'go away'. If you got up he would only follow so you crossed your legs and leaned into the arm of the couch. Don't let him get to you.

Steve stretched out his arm on the back of the couch. Even sitting next to you he towered over you. His arm wrapped around your shoulder, pulling you in snugly. Your head resting against his tone chest. "God your so adorable."

"Steve!" you almost shriek at him as his other hand slyly crept under your skirt. "Jesus Christ what the hell is wrong with you."

You try to stand suddenly, but get jerked back down. Landing in the same awkward situation as before.

"Fuck you let me go" you hissed at him. He only chuckled as you tried to stop his hand from advancing up your skirt again. You became panicked the further he got.

Clamping your thighs tightly together as he wedged between your crossed legs. Your eyes shifted to the door before you, the couch sat across from the only entrance. If anyone came in they surely would be under the wrong assumptions.

His arm refused to budge as you attempted to pry him away. Steve was nothing but muscle, struggling was getting you no where, each shift pressed him hard against your sensitive area.

📚

"You know I've been nothing, but nice to you" Steve sounded disappointed.

"Stop please" you sounded panicked and desperate. Your nails dug into his arm as you tried to fight back an ache that taunted you as he teased.

"But you always give me attitude." He stated casually.

You slapped him. The sound loud in the empty room. Your eyes blurred with tears of frustration. Your hit did nothing, only leaving his cheek red, but from the smile on his face he liked it.

"And violent too. Hope you don't act that way around your class" he tsked while poking hard at the growing wet spot. You felt your spine curve and breath become heavier, your toes curled in your shoes as he increased his friction.

"Oh look at you. You like that don't you" he teased rubbing circles after noticing the tension in your legs relax. You cocked back to slap him again, but stopped when you felt his other hand at the back of your neck. It squeezed softly, but it was a warning nonetheless. You felt defeated. Not only was Steve bigger than you, he was stronger. Tears of frustration finally fell as you lowered your hand and let him do as he pleased.

"God your even cuter when you cry." He preened. "Tell you what. Since we don't have that much time....Kiss me and I will stop." You bristled as you felt him peel your panties to the side.

He didn't wait for your reply. Steve crashed his lips on to yours without warning. You flinched expecting pain, but it was soft. It was so tender that with anyone else they would given and close their eyes, accept it, but you couldn't.

"Stop..Steve.. Please" You panted over his lips, pushing at his chest as his fingers pushed into you. He didn't stop, the kiss only embolden him to go further. You whimpered and moaned as he took from you.

"Give me your panties" he asked pulling away from you, but his fingers still curled inside. "You promised you'd stop" you remind him, wiping away tears.

He wasn't going to relent, you could tell by the determination in his eyes. You felt exposed and embarrassed. Anyone could walk in at any moment and he knew it. He would probably get a slap on the wrist while you would need to find employment else where to escape the shame.

"I promise this time" he said lowly. "No tricks."

Swallowing your pride you lifted in your seat, he moved just enough to let the fabric pass. Rolling them down your knees quickly you hand them over. His hands slipped from you as you pass it. He held them up to the light and examined the wetness he created. Wiping away tears, you stood and bolted toward the door, but stopped when Steve whistled loudly.

"I think you forgot something."

You turned to find him pointing at your discarded mug.

"If you leave it, I leave this in it", he waved your shame in the air.

"Don't forget to wash it....don't want it to leave a stain" he ordered from the couch. You walked back on edge. Snatching the mug from the other side of the table. You rushed to the sink and rinsed your cup. More tears fell as you felt the wetness between your legs. The mirror mounted above the sink allowed you to examine yourself. Your mascara bled a bit and lipstick smeared, but nothing that couldn't be fixed with a dab of a napkin.

You swore to never step foot in the lounge ever again. If you needed to eat you would do it in your car or at your desk. This was supposed to be a magical time for you, but with Steve it had turned into a nightmare.

You sniffed as you blinked away the tears, forcing yourself to stop crying. Gym time was almost over and you needed to pull yourself together and collect your class.

"You know how often I wonder about you" Steve said rising from the couch, you watched him carefully from the mirror. You fumbled your mug, the water splashing back at you.

"Steve you promised" you said meekly, utterly defeated. He stared at you through the mirror, you felt his eyes watch your discomfort as you picked up the cup.

"What would the parents think if they knew their kids teacher walks around the class with no panties on" he tutted. You hung your head low and noticed your panties balled up in his hand as he rested it on the counter.

"I also wonder" He said pressing you into the sink. You felt his resolve through his sweat pants. "Do you fit?"

Fit?

Then it became clear. You felt his cock against your backside. You tried frantically to flea, but Steve caught you by the neck.

"I'm willing to bet you can't even fit half of me inside" he whispered in your ear as he bent you over the sink, crushing. "If I'm wrong I will let you go." Your eyes rounded as he hauled up your skirt. You whimpered as the cool air of the staff room tickled your exposed rear.

Steve was really going to fuck you in the staff room. These walls were paper thin and he knew it. Your head swirled in panic as you pleaded with him to stop. He only chuckled and shimmied down his sweat pants as you swatted back at him.

He angled and aligned himself as you sobbed. The tip slipped through your wet thighs, finding the target of its need.

You choked down a guttural moan as he breathed out 'good girl'. He watched your face as every inch stretched through your insides.

"Its is too much" you gasped out, trembling from the pressure, dancing on your tip toes as you adjusted around him.

"Its all inside" he praised the accomplishment. Forcing you to look at the mirror. "You fit me so good...see."

The mirror reflected your assault to your horror. "All cute holding me inside, taking everything I got" he said while stretching you.

Shooting pains radiated from your core as sharp breaths escaped you.

"Look at you" he taunted "coming apart just for me.... "

You heard the door to the room open and close quickly as you panted wildly. Steve didn't pull out, unabashed, letting whomever take in his pale ass as he continued to stuff you.

You didn't know who saw you, you only hoped his massive body hid you and your shame.

📚

[definitelynotafurinasimp]

hi! could i request ei, yae miko and ningguang with a reader who has anemia? have a nice day and take care.

Ei with a reader that has anemia

characters: Ei x gn!reader

warnings: none

a/n: First of all, I'm sorry that I only wrote Ei. I managed to do her part and tried to write the other two but had massive problems with writing them. I'm sure there are other writers that would manage to write it completely, so if you still want the other parts or also Ei's, then feel free to request it from one of the other many talented writers on this platform, some of them are listed in my Navigation post.

Also, I don't have anemia and am not a doctor, so most of the things depicted here are from some research I did, but it could still be, that I made a mistake, so if it's not entirely accurate then I'm sorry.

Anyway, hope you enjoy nonetheless!

Ei 

Ei, with her rather lacking knowledge of humans, would take a long time to realise that there was something wrong with you. You probably had to tell her about your condition for her to even notice, of course she knew how fatigued you were most of the time and how often you complained about headaches, but she simply assumed it to be nothing special, since she knew quite a lot of people working for her that looked to be constantly tired. 

Once you told her about having anemia, Ei would try to help you in every way possible. But she didn’t really know how, she mostly relied on you telling her what to do in specific situations, she rightly assumed, that you knew a lot more about the condition than her, since you were the one living with it. 

Since Ei heard that drinking a lot of water during the day would help against your fatigue you would never again have a single moment during the day without a glass of water in your vicinity and while she wouldn’t force you to drink it, her constant reminder to do so basically served the same purpose. When you would eventually consume the water, the glass would quickly get refilled, causing the circle to repeat. 

Another day was drawing to an end, with you and Ei sitting opposite of one another, eating dinner together. Just as in the hours before, a glass filled with water was just in arms reach of you. But just as you reached for it, a sharp pain went through your head, but when you pressed your fingers against your temples, in hope to dull the pain a little, Ei instantly appeared by your side. 

“Is everything fine? Or should I call someone to help?”, she asked, her voice still sounding as elegant as ever, but you could still see the worry clearly in her eyes. You immediately shook your head before answering just as quickly. 

“No don’t worry. It’s just a small headache, nothing serious”, you assured her, visibly making her relax a bit before the determination you knew all too well appeared back in her eyes. 

“Fine, but if you get another one then tell me immediately and we’ll go see a doctor”, she stated. You knew Ei well enough to see the futility in arguing with her, choosing instead to nod your head before giving her a small smile and continuing to eat. 

[mypoisonedvine]

vignettes of a bond || alpha!bucky barnes x omega!reader

I originally wrote this in two parts for my sleepover but after I realized how long it accidentally became, I've reformatted it, added/changed a few things, and made into a oneshot!

word count: 3.1k

warnings: smut, angst, knotting, violence

June 2nd, 1943, 11:43 p.m., James Barnes’ bedroom

“I wanna do it, before I go,” he whispered against your skin. “But I know it’s wrong. It’s too cruel.”

“No, please,” you whimpered, “I want it. I want your mark.”

Bucky pulled back for a moment and you examined your Alpha’s face carefully, knowing it might be the last time for a long time. “I couldn’t bond to you and then leave you. It wouldn’t be fair… you deserve to find somebody who can stay, and be with you, and protect you.”

“All I want is you,” you whispered. “Please, Alpha… bite me.”

You saw him hesitate for a moment before he leaned in and sucked at your neck, building the anticipation before he finally sunk his teeth into your skin and you cried out, one single tear rolling down your cheek. “Mine,” he growled against your skin as he lapped at the healing wound, “my Omega. Forever.”

“Yours, only yours,” you agreed eagerly.

It wasn’t the first time Bucky had taken you, but that night he really and truly claimed you, left you a desperate begging mess, stretched out over his knot as he filled you over and over.

The next morning, you were still sore between your legs as well as on your new mark, and it took everything in you to be strong as you saw him off at the train station, waving goodbye and praying that your Alpha would return to you soon.

November 9th, 1943, 2:24 p.m., undercover SHIELD facility

“You promised Bucky you’d take care of me,” you reminded him with a little smile, wiping a tear from your cheek.

“I know,” Steve relented, “but we both know I can’t do that. Not in this state. But maybe I can protect you if I do this. Maybe I can protect my country. I owe it to everyone, especially Bucky, to try.”

You nodded. “But I’ll miss you.”

“I’ll miss you too. Come see me before I ship out for good, alright?”

“Of course,” you agreed.

December 27th, 1943, 8:32 a.m., your front porch

“You’re lying,” you gasped as you shook your head. “You’re wrong, no, it’s not true.”

“It is,” Steve promised as tears welled in his eyes, “I’m so so sorry, I saw it myself, I had to watch him fall…”

“It’s not true! He’s not dead!”

“I know he loved you so much. He talked about every day, he couldn’t wait to come home to you,” Steve remembered, choking up noticeably. “But he won’t. He’s gone.”

“You don’t understand, I know, okay? I know.”

“You’re in shock, I understand, it’s hard to lose your mate—”

“You’re a beta, you wouldn’t understand,” you dismissed; sure, he looked like an alpha now, but it didn’t make a difference. “Omegas, we know when our Alpha dies, we feel it, it kills us. He’s far away, but he’s still there, I still feel him!”

Steve held you as you sobbed, your body crumpling into his arms. Sometimes you thought maybe he held you too tight on accident because he was still getting used to his new strength; other times you thought he did it on purpose.

February 3rd, 1944, 12:00 p.m., undercover SHIELD facility

“Even when I had nothing, I had Steve,” you recalled shakily, “and now he’s gone too.”

“Is that why you’re volunteering?” Agent Carter asked you. “Because you’d rather sleep for a hundred years than live without your mate and your best friend?”

“I’m volunteering because my mate and my best friend died for SHIELD,” you corrected firmly, “and if I’m not willing to also, then I’m admitting I think they went to waste.”

“Steve told me you didn’t think Bucky was dead,” Peggy remembered.

You winced. “I’m not sure. But I know he’s not coming home again. I came here to give whatever I could to help find him… I was asked to participate in a cryogenics research study. If it helps him, then I’ll do it.”

She was about to get up, apparently satisfied with your final interview, but you stopped her.

“On one condition,” you added. “If James Barnes is found, alive or dead, wake me up to see him.”

She nodded, stepping out of the room and leaving you alone again.

May 8th, 2012, SHIELD headquarters

“Can you hear me?”

You slowly blinked awake, your vision taking a moment to catch up with your mind. You saw tubes coming out of your arms; you saw Steve above you, looking like the day you saw him last.

“Did you find Bucky?” you asked instantly. Why else would they wake you up?

“No,” Steve answered, seemingly a bit disappointed that that was your first and only question.

“Then put me back to sleep,” you demanded.

“It’s been 68 years,” he told you. “You’ve slept for 68 years. It’s time to wake up.”

And you did, more than you ever wanted to, because you realized you couldn’t feel him anymore. Your Alpha was gone. Worse, he probably died while you were asleep; he probably died alone.

One more time, like he had 68 years ago, Steve held you while you sobbed.

August 1st, 2014, 2:11 a.m., Avengers compound, Steve Rogers’ quarters

You ran into Steve’s room barefoot and still in your pajamas, barreling through the door and right into his bed.

“Steve, I feel him!” you rushed.

“What?” he groaned sleepily, looking up at you as he blinked in confusion.

“I feel him again, he’s alive,” you explained. “I know it. He’s weak… he’s hurting… but he’s there.”

“That’s impossible,” Steve shook his head. “It’s been too long, he would’ve died of old age anyways.”

“Don’t you want to believe it? Don’t you want to think he’s out there?”

“Do I want to think he’s alone and I didn’t save him?” Steve hissed. “No, I can’t say that I particularly do!”

“But we still can, Steve, we just have to find h—”

But before you could finish, the feeling left you, and you were just half of something again.

“Oh,” you breathed.

“He’s gone again?” Steve realized.

You nodded, biting your lip as it started to quiver. He sighed and pulled you into a hug. “If I could just see his body, and know it was over,” you whispered, “if I could just bury him, have a funeral…”

“We’ll have one,” Steve decided, “after this mission. We’ll put him to rest. He deserves that, and so do you.”

You nodded into his shoulder. It shattered you into a million pieces but it was still the better option, to try to let him go in whatever small way you could. He would always, always, always be your Alpha, nothing could change that, but a funeral would at least bring some closure.

That would have to wait until after your next mission though… and it was going to be a big one: tracking the elusive Winter Soldier.

August 3rd, 2014, 1:14 p.m., Lower East side

You were a few blocks away, helping civilians escape the firefight, when you felt it.

For one impossibly brief moment, you felt him, stronger than you had in nearly 80 years. He was here.

You instantly got up and ran like you’d never run before, finding the Soldier and Steve locked in a brutal showdown— but his mask was gone now, and you nearly fell to your knees at the sight of him.

“Bucky!” you yelped, but you knew he wasn’t there or you would’ve felt his presence. Your Alpha was somewhere underneath the shell that wore his face, and you needed to find him.

You ran forward just as Steve made a break for it, getting to him just in time to stand between the Soldier and his mission.

“Alpha, please,” you whimpered, clutching at his chest. A metal hand backhanded you to the ground.

“Out of my way, Omega,” he growled, stepping over you, but you grabbed at his ankles even when he tried to kick you away.

“My mark,” you explained hastily, pulling your shirt down some to make sure it was visible. “It’s yours. Do you remember? You gave me this. This is your mark on me.”

He stared down at you, seeming to be contemplating it, and you scrambled back to your feet and faced him.

“I still feel you,” you whispered. “I knew you were alive, I knew you’d come back to me. I could feel you, right here,” you explained as you took his hand and placed it on your chest. “Could you feel me? Did you know I was waiting for you all this time?”

His eyes were watering but he still seemed confused— stunned, more specifically, as you placed your hand on his chest.

“I’ll always be yours, Bucky. I’ll always be your Omega, no matter where you are.”

A stun gun took you down, an array of masked men appeared, and before he could really see you for what you were, he was dragged away and taken to be erased again.

August 3rd, 2014, 9:04 p.m., Avengers compound, medical bay

“I can’t believe we let them get away,” Steve lamented, resting his face in his hands. “I can’t believe they took him again…”

“They’ll be back,” you promised sternly. “They’re going to figure out what I am to him. They’re going to realize I could break his programming. And they’re going to come for me.”

“And when they do?” Steve pressed.

“We’ll be ready. And I’ll get my Alpha back.”

August 3rd, 2014, 9:04 p.m., temporary HYDRA operations facility

"The woman on the bridge... the Omega..." Bucky mumbled. "She knew me... she had my mark."

"No she didn't."

He furrowed his brow. "She showed me..."

Pierce sighed, glancing over to the HYDRA scientist who looked back at him sternly.

"She's too dangerous to be left alive," the man sighed, shrugging in his lab coat. "We can't deprogram a bond like that."

"We'll take care of her," Pierce promised.

Bucky launched from the chair, snapping his restraints like paper. "Touch her and I'll fucking kill you!" he bellowed, tackling his handler to the ground.

Pierce just laughed as another scientist jabbed Bucky with a needle, dosing him with something strong enough to kill any other man but just enough to knock out a super soldier. Pierce stood up and dusted himself off as he watched Bucky go limp and be lifted back into his chair.

"I can see the fight in your eyes, Soldier," he taunted as he leaned into his face. "I know you really would kill me, if you could. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak, right? But don't worry about your mate, we'll make it quick and painless. Hey, maybe beforehand me and a few of the other Alphas will show her a good time, poor thing's been without her mate for 70 years... I bet she's raring to go."

Bucky's arm twitched as his eyes started to fall shut, a tear falling down his blank and motionless face.

"Wipe him," Pierce instructed to the scientist, turning and walking away as the electric whirr of the machine charging up filled the room.

August 11th, 2014, 3:53 p.m., SHIELD headquarters

Steve was impressed with how accurate and imminent your prediction was; HYDRA was hot on your trail and desperate to eliminate the biggest threat to their Asset. Knowing they were coming made it easier, but it was still a brutal fight.

You and Steve tried to stay together, but they were smart, they used the perfect bait to lure you away.

"Tell me where he is," you demanded from the HYDRA agent as you held a blade to his neck, "then I'll kill you."

"Isn't it supposed to be 'or I'll kill you'?" he frowned.

You shook your head. "Not the way I operate."

Opposite to the reaction you were expecting, he grinned widely. "He's here."

Your heart stopped.

"On the roof. He's here to kill you."

You dropped the knife and ran straight for the stairwell, ascending them like they were nothing and calling out for your Alpha.

You found him there, waiting, gun trained on you. Raising your hands in surrender, you yelled to him again.

"Bucky," you called across the windy roof, eyes nearly blinded by the bright afternoon sun. "Alpha."

"I'm not who you think I am," he yelled back. "I'm not your Alpha."

It hurt to hear it in his voice, but you knew it wasn't him. Cautiously, you stepped closer. "Before you left, you told me you didn't want to mark me and leave me behind," you recalled. "But I wanted it. I wanted to be bonded to you more than I'd ever wanted anything."

He could clearly see you were coming closer, he even tightened his finger over the trigger of his weapon, but he was waiting. You kept walking to him, slowly.

"I've never regretted it," you continued, "not even when I thought you were dead, not even when I had to spent a lifetime-- more than that-- apart from you."

Finally you were face to face, and you stepped closer until his gun was pressed right into your chest.

"You can shoot me now and I still won't regret it," you promised. "I love you."

Shakily, he lowered his weapon. "Omega..." he breathed.

"Your Omega."

He pulled you into him and you sobbed as you felt him come to life in your arms-- the real him, your Alpha, your Bucky. He held you close and breathed against the top of your head and it was like a dream coming true decades after you'd forced yourself to let it go.

But you'd never given up. And now you had found him again.

Agents started to come onto the roof and Bucky spun the two of you around, firing with his right hand and using the left, metal arm as a shield for you.

He carried you and you didn't even know where he was taking you, but it didn't matter. In his arms, you were home.

August 12th, 1:03 a.m., Avengers compound, your quarters

You hadn't stopped coming or crying for at least an hour. Bucky had all but split you open on his knot all night and he didn't show any signs of stopping.

He apparently intended to make up for lost time. And you'd lost a lot of time.

"Just one more, I know you can give me one more," he groaned furiously rubbing your clit as his knot began to swell again.

You could give him anything, as long as he asked for it like that.

You'd lost count of how many times he'd told you to come for him, and how many times you did it immediately.

"I can see how full you are," he whispered as he rubbed your stomach gently. "So much seed in you that your body can't hold it all."

You looked down and yep, you were distinctly bloated from his come alone; it made you a little dizzy to even look at it.

"The idea of you alone during your heats, no one to protect you, it kills me," he explained with a growl. "I won't let you go again. I can't."

"Then don't," you sighed. "Never leave this bed, fill me with everything you have."

"Did anybody ever help you through them? The heats?" he asked. "I wouldn't blame you, they can be so painful... I just need to know so I can make sure you forget about them."

"No, Bucky, never— I never let anyone touch me."

"Steve could've helped you, at least some..."

"He wouldn't have, he loves you too much. And I wouldn't accept anything less than you, ever. You're my Alpha. We're bonded. There's never anyone else."

That didn't seem to satisfy him, his eyes darting away as he swallowed. Your gut sank with the realization he probably wasn't being totally honest about why he asked.

"Your ruts," you gasped. "Were you alone for all of them?"

He shut his lips tighter.

"Bucky, it's okay, just tell me. I was asleep for 70 years, I skipped most of them, but you... you had to live through them all."

"They gave me betas, and omegas," he mumbled, "but I don't... I don't really remember. I know they wanted me to. They threatened to hurt me if I didn't, because they knew I'd go crazy after so many ruts alone, but I can't remember if I really did it. I remember... I remember crying, and begging for you."

"Alpha," you breathed as you felt new tears run over the stains of your old ones. "It's okay. Whatever happened, it's okay now. We're together again. Everything's okay."

You wiped his tear away with your thumb, holding his face tightly, weaving your fingers into his long hair.

"I'll always be your Omega," you promised.

He leaned in closer to you, kissing your cheek before pulling back a little. "It's faded," he whispered as he ran his thumb over the mark on your neck. "The last time I saw it, it was still fresh."

"It's older, sure, but it's stronger than ever, Bucky."

August 14th, 10:12 a.m., Avengers compound, residential area kitchen

Steve's eyes went wide when he came into the kitchen for breakfast and found you there, steeping your tea. "Surprised to see you out of the love nest so soon," he smirked.

"It's been three days, I don't think that counts as soon," you scoffed.

"It does to him," Steve frowned. "He's asleep, isn't he?"

"Yep."

"I know he wouldn't let you out of his sights if he was conscious," Steve chuckled.

At that moment, you heard Bucky call your name and run out into the hall, only a bedsheet covering his groin as he appeared in the doorway. You spun around and smiled when you saw him come running towards you, embracing you with his free arm.

"You should've told me you were leaving, I got scared when I woke up without you," he admitted weakly.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to make you worry!"

He pulled back and clutched your face in both his hands. "I'm waking up next to you every morning for the rest of my life, you understand?"

You nodded dutifully. "Yes, Alpha."

"One hand on the sheet, please, Buck?" Steve winced, looking away.

“Whoops,” Bucky groaned, reaching to cover himself as you laughed softly.

“Let’s go back to bed, baby,” you decided quietly, taking Bucky’s (free) hand in yours and waving goodbye to Steve, who was already making his way as far out of earshot as possible.

[kirishimaswife2819]

When Their S/o is on Their Period || BNHA Boy Headcanons

Masterlist

Pairings: Izuku Midoriya x Fem!Reader, Katsuki Bakugou x Fem!Reader, Eijiro Kirishima x Fem!Reader, Shoto Todoroki x Fem!Reader, and Denki Kaminari x Fem!Reader

Summary: How the boys act when you’re on your period

Word Count: 1.6k

A/n: I wrote this because my period is supposed to come in like two days and I am not very excited at all. Anyway, I hope you like these headcanons, and requests are still open and all that, just read the rules first. Also, thanks for everyone who has liked/reblogged any of my posts or even followed me, I really appreciate it. Hope you all have a great day/night! :) -Danielle <3

Izuku Midoriya:

If you don’t tell him ahead of time that you’re going to be on your period and you snap at him he’s gonna get so upset

Like he’s going to think about every little thing that happened for the past few weeks and try to see where he went wrong

Then when you tell him you’re on your period, he’s going to just freeze, and then start to panic

His face gets all red, but he still asks if you if you need anything

If you send this boy to the store to get pads/tampons, expect him to be gone for a solid few hours

When he firsts gets to aisle, he stands there, because he knows absolutely nothing about pad/tampons, and he doesn’t know what brand to get

So then, he takes out his phone and starts typing, and trying to do research, but google isn’t helping him decide what to get at all

So, then the nice old lady restocking the shelves, offers to help, noticing how he’s panicking

He still ends up getting a few different brands, but that’s okay

If you get bad cramps, like really bad, he’s definitely going to cry

He hates seeing you in pain

If you are having cramps he’ll give you some medicine he bought and offer you a heating pad

After he gets you feeling a little better, he’s going to give you all the snacks he got you and offer to cuddle and watch whatever you want with him

Overall, even though he gets really embarrassed about it, he’ll still help you if you need him to

Katsuki Bakugou:

If you snap at him, he’s going to like brush it off, but after the second or third time he’s going to go off on you

But once you tell him you’re on your period he’s going to be so confused

Not because he doesn’t know what it is, but because he has no clue what he’s supposed to do about it

He’ll apologize for going off on you

By apologize I mean that he’ll mumble sorry under his breath so that you can barely hear it

But I mean it’s Bakugou, so just take what you can get

He probably wouldn’t offer to go anywhere to get you anything

But if you ask him, he’ll go (Only after complaining the whole time getting ready to leave though)

He’s going to make sure you tell him what brand of pads/tampons to get so he doesn’t have to embarrass himself in front of people in the store

If the cashier says one word about him buying them or gives him a weird look, he’s going to get very pissed

“They’re for my girlfriend, now stop giving me weird ass looks and comments and just scan the damn things!”

He’ll probably end up grabbing more snacks or chocolate than you asked for but if you ask why he did that, he’s going to say it was a total accident, even though it wasn’t

After he brings you the stuff he’ll just crash in your bed, and demand cuddles

But he won’t ask, he’ll just pull you to him and cuddle you

The first time you’re on your period around him, he’s pretty embarrassed but hides it, but with time, he gets used to it and it doesn’t bother him anymore

Although no matter if he’s sixteen and buying pads/tampons for you or seventy and buying pads/tampons for you, he’s still going to end up yelling at the poor cashier, even if they don’t comment or give him a look

Eijiro Kirishima:

I may be a bit biased because I absolutely love Kirishima (if you couldn’t tell), but I am convinced that he would be the best boyfriend in every way

And that includes when you’re on your period

If you snap at him, he’s going to get a little upset, but immediately ask what’s wrong and try to figure out what the issue is

After you tell him, he’s going to panic but hide it so he doesn’t alarm you

Immediately offers to go get you anything you need

But he’s so eager to help you out, he forgets to ask what brand of pads or tampons to buy 

So now he’s in the feminine hygiene product aisle, standing next to some twelve year old girl whose low key too embarrassed to grab a box of pads in front of some teenage boy

So she’s just standing there, waiting for him to leave, but he’s trying to figure out which box to buy, so he’s like looking at all of them and picking them up, trying to figure out the difference between all of them

And the girl goes to quickly grab a box and run off, but then he speaks

“Wait, can you help me?”

And the girl low key just wants to disappear right then and there, but she helps him anyway

This man walks away with a few different brands of pads/tampons in his arms not realizing he just traumatized some little girl by asking her for advice on getting his girlfriend pads/tampons

Then he grabs you some snacks, medicine, and whatever else you wanted, before checking out and leaving

He like rushes home because he was taking so long and he was worried about you

But when he like bursts into your room, you’re literally fine, and just chilling eating some stale chips, and watching some Netflix

Kirishima immediately takes away your stale chips, and gives you the stuff he bought

So now you guys are eating the new and not stale chips while binge watching your favorite Netflix show for the fiftieth time

Shoto Todoroki:

I only have three words: Human Heating Pad

But seriously, if you have cramps, and you tell him heat helps, he’s definitely going to offer for you to use his hand as a heating pad

Once he learns that you’re on your period, he’s going to try his best to help, but he knows nothing about them despite having a sister

After taking a moment to compose himself after initial shock of you telling him, he’s going to offer to go to the store for you

So, now he’s in the aisle, trying to figure out what brand to get

He had tried calling you, but you must of been napping, because you didn’t pick up

Eventually he decides to call his sister and ask for some help

His sister proceeds to tell him about pads and tampons and how they work

He ends up writing some of the stuff down in his notes on his phone so he knows for next time and doesn’t forget

Then he’ll get whatever else you want

He’ll probably end up grabbing something extra too

Like a little gift such a plushie or a necklace, since he now knows periods really suck

He ends up getting you a gift every time your on your period (with Endeavor’s credit card of course), so it kind of morphs into a little tradition even though you insist that he doesn’t need to do it

But once he returns to home, you apologize for not answering, since you were in fact napping, but he quickly shuts you down and gives you everything he had got for you

Then you use his hand as your personal heating pad and talk about your lives

Overall, he’s pretty calm about the situation, and doesn’t make it a bigger deal than it needs to be

Denki Kaminari:

When you snap, or if you snap, he’s probably just going to brush it off

But the second time you snap at him, he makes some dumb remark

Probably something like, “Damn is it that time of the month or something?”

That gets him a textbook to his face

He’s honestly surprised with your response to his question

“Actually, yeah! Asshole! Now, if you’re gonna be a jerk, get the hell out and leave me alone!”

He was only joking and didn’t expect you to actually say yes

After you admit that you being on your period is the problem, he doesn’t know what to do

He knows the basics of a period, he knows you bleed, and like chocolate, and you sometimes get cramps, but other than that he has no idea how to handle the situation

After a moment of trying to figure out what to do, he asks if you need anything

Now he’s in the store, trying to figure out what a ‘flow’ is, and why pads and tampons are so expensive

He ends up calling Kirishima to come help, who has no clue what to do either

Then they turn it into a group call by adding Bakugou and Sero

Bakugou calls them ‘fucking stupid’ but doesn’t know shit about periods either so when they ask him for help he makes up some excuse for not telling Kaminari what to do

Sero is actually helpful and tells him to just get one of each type of flow, since Kaminari refuses to call you and ask (R.I.P. Kaminari’s wallet)

Kaminari thanks him, and then they end the call

Then he gets whatever else you asked for, before heading home

When he gets there, he awkwardly hands you the bag and asks if you need anything else

When you say you want him to stay, he’s immediately jumping into your bed and cuddling with you

He thought since you were on your period, you wouldn’t want to be around him and it low key made him kind of sad, cause he would miss you

Then you guys spend the rest of the night scrolling through Tik Tok, and laughing along to videos

At some point, you end up seeing the thing girls do on Tik Tok where they ask their boyfriend’s how pads work

When Kaminari continues watching the video, and learns how pads actually work, he’s like turns to you and is like

“Wait, the sticky part doesn’t stick to your vagina?”

Somebody please help this poor idiot

[the-original-skipps]

Your box is open !!! Please can i have some Mikey’s headcanons with his wife ? How and when he proposed 🙊💕 with domestic life

Sorry for the long wait! I hope you like it ❤ I'm gonna make a separate post for domestic life

When Mikey asked you to be his girlfriend, he saw it as something he would fully commit to. He knew his feelings towards you and he wanted to be earnest with them.

He knew he wanted to spend the rest of his life with you but the thought of marriage didn't come up until he was older when one of his friends mentioned it. His immediate thought was how you were going to take his last name "Sano (Y/N)", he liked the sound of it.

Mikey would definitely bring someone most likely Draken or Takemichy to go look for a proposal ring with him. He already knew he wanted a ring that was simple yet beautiful nothing too extravagant. It took him a long time to decide but eventually he did.

Now, Mikey didn't know how proposals went so he did some researching on the internet. He watched tons of proposal videos and assumed he should probably have a speech prepared. It was hard to hide it from you since you don't often see Mikey so concentrated on writing something.

He struggled, there were so many things he wanted to say to you but he didn't want it to be too long. Eventually he finished, he's kinda embarrassed that he wrote all of that.

Mikey already knew how he wanted to propose to you. One night, you both ate out and afterwards he took you out on a ride on his Babu. It reminded him of when he and you were younger, you both would sneak out at night to ride around with no destination in mind. Just enjoying the presence of each other in the silence of the night.

Eventually, Mikey stopped his bike by the seaside. A place you both know particularly well. It was yours and Mikey's place of comfort. How you'd both watch the sunset as you munched on taiyakis that Mikey bought. It was also the place where he and Shinichiro often went to, he knew this was the perfect place to propose.

"(Y/N)..."

You turn your head towards your boyfriend in curiosity as he spoke your name amongst the sound of the waves. Your eyes visibly widened at the sight. Mikey was sitting next to you and is his hand was a box opened to reveal a beautiful ring. His eyes staring lovingly at you as the breeze softly brushes through his hair. It was a sight that brought immediate tears to your eyes.

"Manjiro..."

"(Y/N), I want to thank you for being with me ever since we first met and until now. You've been with me through my darkest times and you've given me the strength to fight against it. You are the light that guided me in the darkness I faced. My life wouldn't have turned out this way if it weren't for you. I-I..." You could see tears welling Mikey's eyes as he stuttered, holding back your own sobs you waited for him to continue.

Mikey took a shaky breath as his words escaped him, he was feeling overwhelmed with feelings he never felt before. He swore he was going to make you cry with his awesome speech but the moment he started speaking the speech he prepared was gone and replaced with words straight from his heart.

"I...am really blessed to have you by my side (Y/N)-cchi. I-I love you more than anything else in this world. Would you please marry me...?"

A single tear rolled down Mikey's cheek as he smiled at you, awaiting your answer. Unable to hold back your sobs any longer, you cried-hiccuping as you tried to control your breathing.

"Y-Yes yes yes...!" You managed to croak out as you embraced your lover, wrapping your arms tight around him. Mikey used his free hand to place back against your head. As if all his emotions build up and released, like a single firework-fleeting. He glanced up at the starry sky as you sobbed in his arms. He wonders if they were watching, would they be proud of him?

Mikey smiles closing his eyes letting the gentle breeze pass, he hoped he made them proud.