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goat-guy-tm · 1 year ago

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Welcome to ANOTHER "Goat tries to write something small about void's rewrite but it turns into something terrifyingly long for no reason" post.

This is basically a fic talking about Kul'Zak (Modzilla) and Irene (Aphma)'s relationship, I am still gonna do the mini fic series going into MORE detail, but this thing....yeah

The divine are messy to say the least in my rewrite, but one of the messiest is Kul'Zak, which I will give small pre-needed context; in my rewrite world Kul'Zak does not (technically) have a decendent or reincarnation because Kul'Zak is still alive, he is actually Professor Modzilla from MMW/VP.

He was just a dimension hopping guy trying to have some fun only to hop into the Overworld (what I call the MCD dimension as it has no set canon name) during what is going to be one of the most turbulent times in their history for the next eon.

One day, some hunters from Scaleswind rush back into town, stating they had found an injured man in the woods, screaming and withering on the ground. They said he looked burnt, and badly. As if his body had been chared.

Being one of the sisters best versed in healing magicks, Irene had demanded they show her this man. It happened to be none other than Monty, but, at the time Irene was none the wiser to the man's name.

She had slammed healing spell after healing spell into the man, but none of them seemed to work, only seeming to for a small time alleviate the man's suffering.

At first, Monty had been, albeit weakly, fighting back the hunters and Irene, but for only a moment. Until he realized what the woman was trying to do. He couldn't stay fully still, but he tried to let her help him, the pain was just so much though.

He knew his face was badly burned, he couldn't open his left eye at all, it could be burned shut.

They had carried him back to the town, Irene scolding the men everytime Monty would groan or whine in pain.

He was placed in a room in the temple Irene was a sister to, mainly so Irene could try and look over him and help him heal.

Covering the burns didn't seem to help either. When wrapping a guaze over them, the bandaging stayed for a moment, before they burned and sizzled away into a purple mist of kinds.

Even though many of the other sisters told her they would be willing to take care of him every so often, as they did commonly take turns tending to the injured that resided in the temple, Irene had denined it, becoming somewhat fixated on figuring out who this man was and what was happening to him.

Monty had been in and out of consiousness for a few days, feverish and skittish anytime Irene tried to communicate to him.

Quite quickly it became obvious that there was a language barrier. Irene tried to make some kind of system, a series of taps for different things and needs Monty would have.

For a while, the sisters of the temple only refered to him as "The Stranger", which Irene didn't like. Everytime she had tried to ask the man his name, he would only look at her confused, which she put to his state of sickness and confusion.

So, Irene came up with a name for him. At least for the others to refer to him as, until she could get his real name out of him.

Now, she would not admit it to anyone else but Monty some time later, but naming him Kul'Zak was not entirely original from her mind. At the time, a romance novel had been getting quite popular, and one of the love intrests, Irene's personal favorite, was named Kul'Zak.

So when asked what his name was, Irene had rushed out that it was Kul'Zak. She was embarassed about it, and of course a few of the sisters she was closer with teased her over it, saying how convient his name was the same as her favorite fictional man.

After a few months, Kul'Zak had finally become more, aware. He had started to slowly piece some words together, out right asking Irene for water, in Ru'aunian, one day. Of course not fully asking, more so just saying "water" in a questioning tone. Irene had been admitingly very excited the first time he did, full on cheering.

She had been spending most her time with Kul'Zak, tending to the burn or more so researching it. Whether it be feeling how hot it was, as it seemed to generate it's own heat nearly 24/7, ot seeing what healing spells would affect it, if at all.

Thankfully, the burn was only on his face, and well a bit of his hand. It was more scattered on his hand, but he still seemed to express a discomfort with it, seething and pulling his hand away if she held it too hard or for too long.

After some time, they had sat down together and Irene tried to teach him Ru'aunian. He was picking it up quickly, but it was still a treck, especially because there was no way for Irene to figure out what his own language was.

When he was able to hold a conversation with her, she was estatic. She would take him outside the temple, walk around Scales Wind, and they would just, talk.

With this, she would learn his name was actually Monty, and when she asked if he'd loke her to tell others, he told her that it was fine. Kul'Zak fit their culture better, and with his status as a other-realmer, he'd rather not cause a rukus of any kind.

Their talks were about anything. Kul'Zak's life as a dimension explorer, Irene's life as a sister of their temple. Anything and everything.

She had asked him when he would be going back to his own dimension, and Kul'Zak only seethed, and said he couldn't go back, at least not for a while. The burns he was suffering from meant he shouldn't, not until he was finally healed. That coming here had put him in danger, and he was lucky he was still alive.

Void burns, is what he called them. One day, he had sat Irene down and went through the books he had held in his bag, that now Irene could finally understand with him translating to her.

Apparently, void burns were something anyone could suffer from, if they dimension hopped in an unsafe manner. And dimension exploring was still considered unsafe, but, he had wanted to do something big. To be one of the special members of his community to find a new dimension.

Irene had gotten him books upon books, journals, theological texts, mythology and folk lore, and even blank journals for him to write in. She loved watching him read, taking notes and writing what he called official dimensional writings.

Not many Irene believers knew of her life before her stint as a hero, hell 90% of books barley ever mentioned her life as a sisster of a now forfotten temple for a god no long known in Ru'aun. Because of this, people also never saw the relationship between Irene and Kul'Zak.

After some years, the two became much closer, Irene only really leaving Scales Wind after a time to accompany Kul'Zak on his adventure of exploring the realm.

The two had been deeply in love, yet according to the texts written of them years later, they were barley even more than just fellow Divine.

When she had decided to finally lay to rest, she entrusted half her relic to Kul'Zak, asking him to shatter it and spread it across the realms, to take her with him on those realm discovery adventures he had told her all about.

Modzilla was never truly a religous man. Ironic for a man that was basically a god. His adoration for Aphmau made him sick. She wasn't Irene, he felt like it would be overstepping to put himself in her life. Even though it's what Irene had asked of him.

He knew Irene, in her later years, had regretted acending to what they had become. He wanted Aphmau to be as normal as she could be.

When she put herself into his life though, even when he thought he had ran far enough away, he didn't know what to do. Especially when Tommy started to adore her, to see her as a mother.

Modzilla was, embarassed and ashamed of how much he had cried that night. He was admitingly cold to her at first. Only 'tolerating' her for Tommy's sake.

She became his lab partner, exploring dimensions for him when he was too sick or weak feeling to. Or tired. She paid attention to his health, so meticulously. It made him want to hurl. He kept telling himself she's not Irene, don't associate her with her.

After all nighters he would wake up with blankets over his shoulders, cups of hot coffee set out for him, even breakfast or lunch on a good day.

One morning, he woke up to a very special breakfast. A dish he had learned of his first few years in Ru'aun, that Irene had adored. Aphmau had told him she found it in one of those cook books, and that it was so well cared for so she assumed he liked it.

He wanted to cry over it, but he had just sighed and asked Aphmau to leave, that they weren't doing any tests today. A few hours later that day, Tommy had come to Aphmau's house and said his father had locked himself in his study and wouldn't be coming out, so he wanted to sleep at her's for the night.

On his bad days, Modzilla would lock himself in his study for, days, maybe even weeks depending how much of a spiral he would go down, where he would read and reread all the journals he had wrote decades ago.

During one of these spirals, he had left his study to go for a walk of sorts, and during that, Aphmau had snuck into his study and went through said journals strewn across the room.

She had been slack jawed at the whole journals full of passages of love, the descriptions of a woman named Irene. The name seemed to strike something in her in a way she couldn't explain.

Some of the pages had drawings of this woman instead of writing. She was, beautiful. Aphmau toom a moment, looking at this woman, till she realized she looked like her. Albeit a little different. Her hair was longer, she wore a hair covering that was longer than the more tied up one Aphmau wore, her clothing in most of the drawings was flowey and white.

Aphmau recalled pictures Modzilla had shared of Polly, she had a similar head covering and flowy clothing, but Polly was white and had blond hair. Irene, as she could see, had tanned skin and black hair. Plus, there were no photos of her, just drawings, some messily colored with dyes and patterned with stamped in flowers.

The journals were so well cared for. More so than the other books and texts Modzilla had in his library section. Aphmau started to feel, bad for looking at this without his permission.

When she intended to leave, she turned and was startled by Modzilla standing in the doorway, eyes locked on the journal she had in her hands. She didn't plan on taking it with her, she just hadn't put it down yet.

Modzilla looked, tired and sick, plus uncomfortable with the new information that Aphmau had been reading his journals.

The conversation was, like walking on eggshells. She asked about Irene, who the woman was, that if Modzilla was so infactuated by her, why was he married to Polly, a woman who seemed so close to this Irene figure.

Modzilla had shakily explained that him and Polly weren't married for love. They were very good friends, but it was common for his kind to not marry for love most the time. He told her about Irene. How happy they were together before their time as divine, explaining to her how Irene had asked to be reincarnated outside the realm she was born of, how Aphmau was one of those.

Then, he broke down. He sobbed and apologized to her, that he wanted her to go her whole life without knowing about it. That he thought that's what Irene would have wanted; to live a life of normalcy, save for the dimension exploring.

She knew now why Monty had become so choked up and emotional when she would try and take care of him when he was sick or tired. That she was unknowingly reminding him of the first times he ever met the woman he would come to love for the rest of his immortal life.

Aphmau wasn't all that young herself, she was already over 100 years old, but, most the time she chose not to disclose that to others. She herself had been overly puzzled by her lack of memories of a childhood, now knowing she never had one in the first place, but then even more confused by her not aging, and living so long already. She knew now why. Monty was obviously still older than her, and she would not be stopping the teasing of him for it.

She came to enjoy the dimension exploring just a little bit more. Sometimes she would find herself talking to no one, as if she was talking to 'Irene', even though she technically was Irene. Unbeknownst to her, she was one of the few Aphmau's to accept the idea so easily and fully. Knowing that she was living a life a her from before craved made her more happy for what Irene had done to give it to her.

Her and Monty's relationship had changed after what she learned. They seemed to flow better now, Monty having put down the wall he had built so long ago, at least a little bit.

When they had finally found Monty's home realm again, Aphmau had cheered for him, so excited he could finally go home. He was happy too, but bitter sweet about it. They hugged, and Aphmau gave him a kiss, which had stunned Monty in his place, face burning red and stuttering.

Aphmau promised to keep Tommy safe, and told Monty that he had to find a way to visit sometime.

Monty left Tommy in the care of Aphmau. He knew she would take care of him better than he ever could.

If fate wasn't so cruel, they could have a redo, but Monty knew that that was a pipe dream.

The void still called, it hungered, and Monty, Kul'Zak, Modzilla, whoever he was, he was going to do everything in his power to keep that thing at bay, to keep the realms safe, and if it meant being burned by it time and time again, he knew he had at least someone he would go to that would be his boulder to rest with. Just like she had all those eons ago.

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xerith-42 · 1 year ago

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What if I made a whole post about Blaze

Wouldn't it be funny if I did that?

Blaze MyStreet (that's his name now) is the gayest character in the entire aphverse and I am tired of him being slept on. That's not to say that people don't like Blaze, they do. He was a popular character, but not in the way other characters are popular. It's hard to find other people who have him as a favorite character, and if you're a fan of Minecraft Diaries, most people forgot he was in that series because he was in like an episode of Season 3 and even I forgot about Season 3 outside of that. He's liked, but not in the way people can really latch onto characters in this series. More passively liked, because it's really hard to hate him.

And even in MyStreet, his ultimate conclusion is just bad. It's bad. I don't have any other words for it, it just sucks. Blaze being mind controlled and then killed off right before the finale was just unnecessary. It didn't add anything. This season had already implied to kill Melissa, and made it clear it wasn't afraid to kill off characters. There was no reason to do this other than to keep people hooked and make them have an emotional reaction to the episode.

And it worked! Most of the times I look up Blaze fanart, I find art of him as an angel, or in heaven with another character, or just art of him dying. And I don't object to making fanart out of these moments it just... it sucks opening his wiki and seeing "Status: Deceased" every time. It sucks going to find content of this character only to find a majority of it is just angst around a death I've actively tried to forget.

SO LET'S TALK ABOUT WHY BLAZE IS THE BEST CHARACTER IN MYSTREET AND WHY YOU SHOULD ALL (yes even you) GIVE HIM MORE LOVE AND ATTENTION

Did you guys know Blaze is canonically not straight and probably polyamorus? That isn't my headcanons, that's in the text. Sure it's all in mini-games, but the mini-games are supplemental material to the canon work, and when Blaze gets so little actual character work, I am unashamed to pull from these sources. And in these sources Blaze has stated that he is very much one of the fruits.

In one mini-game Aaron says "You can't marry two people Blaze, you know that!" And Blaze's response is "I do?"

[vine boom]

In another that I am rationally normal about, Aphmau stumbles in on Blaze with his head on Garroth's lap in a closet, WHILE THEY ARE UNDER MISTLETOE! And Blaze says "Your thighs are soft" while Garroth comments on how soft his hair is?!

[vine boom]

And this is all in tandem with the fact that he at the very least canonically had a thing for Dottie, and it's very easy to say he might have harbored feelings for Daniel, Rylan, OR Aaron

[vine boom]

So, we've established Blaze as one of them queers, this is great. Aphmau series really struggle with having gay characters at all, let alone good ones, but there's a quality queer character just sitting right there! Blaze is charming, funny, doesn't take up more space than he needs, and while it isn't in the test of MyStreet, I'll take what I can get. And he only gets better from here!

Wanna add drugs and stoner stuff to your next rewrite? Blaze is literally RIGHT THERE!! He's been around since Phoenix Drop High, and his birthday is literally April 20th, the writers are not being subtle about it. And in MCD, he's technically been around as a misspelled name since episode 40, and if you're making a rewrite, just add him in sooner.

Oh, you want Aaron to have a bigger support system that isn't just Aphmau in earlier seasons? Blaze and the werewolf pups are right there and would totally all live together in a house on My Street or Lover's Lane! Just saying! You want these characters to have a vector to explore polyamory? Blaze is basically an open book and very much agrees with the "a friend of Aaron/anyone else is a friend of mine" and would be willing to share his experiences. You want someone for characters to confide in that they normally wouldn't under normal circumstances? Blaze loves getting high and having vent sessions neither of them will fully remember in the morning.

And if we take it to MCD, he can provide a lot of this and more. Fleshing out of the werewolf experience, an actual werewolf that's at least closer to a part of the main cast than any other ones, AND you get to have him smoking out the other characters. Why wouldn't you make MCD Blaze the inventor of the first bong in Ru'aun? Literally why wouldn't you do that? What reason do you have not to do that? That's objectively great.

Blaze is a character who easily lends himself well to comedy and emotional scenes by being vulnerable all the time, and having the ability to bring levity when needed. He knows when you need to just scream into a pillow, or when he needs to pass you a joint and put a movie on in the background. There's not a lot given for him, but enough to build a solid character out of. He's stated to have an extended family, and a lot of siblings. He was probably the oldest one and had to help raise them, and would easily be able to empathize with older siblings in this show, especially ones who may have had to take care of a younger sibling while growing up due to absent parents (cough cough Melissa).

He also stood up to bullies for Daniel and was willing to make enemies with his entire pack, even his Alpha, just to make sure Daniel wouldn't get hurt or harassed. He's fiercely loyal and absolutely willing to throw hands at a moments notice for the right reason. It doesn't take a lot to make Blaze a ride or die friend, you just have to not be a dickhead and show that you're actually a decent person. He's very sociable and outgoing, a bit of a loudmouth, but he's got a good heart and generally gets along with anyone you could think to pair him up with.

I'm serious, send me a character and I will tell you how they could have a beautiful friendship/romance/something else with them and how it fleshes out both their characters. Blaze just does that by being around people. I'm serious. Please do this.

I didn't make an Instagram account in 2018 titled "Blaze_Best_Werewolf" (or something like that) with a self-made profile picture of Blaze wearing a flower crown and actively get in fights with people over MyStreet season 6 for my boy to be slept on in this manner.

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laurancezvahlslefteyebrow · 1 year ago

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Y’all wanna hear something fucked up abt my mcd rewrite? Of course you do!

First I wanna start this off by explaining that dreams are very important in my rewrite. Dreams are somewhat prophetic, depending on the person and the context.

For example, relic holders, specifically descendants or reincarnates of the divine warriors especially experienced these prophetic type of dreams. These dreams are usually memories of the divine, or even messages from them to their current… replacement..

For some, these dreams only start after they’ve acquired their relic, like for Garroth and Menphia’s relic holder (trying to decide if I’d rather it be Katelyn or Lucinda). For some, the dreams only get more detailed, clear and frequent after acquiring their relic, like for Aphmau. And for some, the dreams begin even before acquiring their relic, like for Travis, Eseryt, Aaron, and Laurance. (I’m counting Laury even tho Xavier didn’t technically have a relic, not getting into that right now but i will at some point)

Well anyway, ever since Eseryt was a small child, she’s been having the same vivid dream, constantly on the last of the month. It started when she was 5, after being taken the Barton, and they ended when she was 18, after leaving Barton. She’d awaken in the dead of the night, someone calling to her, luring her away with the same gentle yet monotone voice. They’d call her up the mountains that surrounded Barton. She’d climb them half awake half asleep, following footprints in the snow to the same spot each time. A small crater in the ground. There she’d find a woman. She was shattered, unraveling, trying desperately to pull herself back together. She’d mutter to Es, begging for her to help. Eseryt wouldn’t go near her, she was too afraid. Then, the woman would scream and Es would wake up in her bed in next morning, covered in snow.

It was like this until she turned 18. The next time she found herself with the Woman who begged, something in her told her to finally help. She stepped closer, reaching out her hand, and when she touched the woman’s face, her body was suddenly pulled back together and she was whole. The woman then grabbed Eseryt’s wrist and looked her in the face. Eseryt noted her scarred over eye. The one eyed woman whispered “Find her.” and disappeared. Eseryt woke in her doorway this time, a single dagger in her hand.

Ok time to explain all that!!

The woman Eseryt has been seeing is Kul’Zak. Yes, in my rewrite Kul’Zak is a woman and Eseryt is her incarnation.

Her “Find her” is the reason Eseryt left Barton in the first place. For the next few months after that night, she’d wake in the middle of the night to whispers of “find her”. She had to know what it meant.

The “her” Kul’Zak tells Eseryt to find is Aphmau, and it’s reason the forest leads her to Phoenix Drop. Eseryt, however, always assumed the “her” was her sister Cadenza. However, Cadenza being in Phoenix Drop at the time Eseryr just happened to arrive but purely by chance. Probably.

Now, why was Kul’Zak shattered and why couldn’t she fix herself? Well, here’s where it gets fucked up!

In order for Irene to shatter Shad and seal him in the Nether, she needed to use the life force of her fellow Divine Warriors. She couldn’t sacrifice herself otherwise the spell wouldn’t last. Only thing is, she didn’t tell the others that sealing him away would kill them. She especially didn’t tell them it would quite literally rip them apart where they stood.

I should mention that the Divien Warrior’s mortality works slightly differently in my rewrite than it does in canon. I’ll make a separate post about that later :)

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mania-sama · 6 months ago

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for the ask game because i will NEVER pass up the opportunity for mania-sama lore;

20. Which work of yours have you reread the most?

27. What do you listen to while writing?

29. Favorite line/passage you wrote this year?

YESS thank you for sending in questions! in an effort to answer all of them, i will be taking creative liberties (since two of them have already been asked, but you couldn't have possibly known that, so trust that they WILL be answered).

➼ 20. Which work of yours have you reread the most?

This is HARD. I have a strong tendency to, after a month or so of posting, to go back and stare at a work until my eyes water. I will then repeat this cycle every time I get a comment. If I were to take a guess, it's most certainly a toss-up between hesitated all my life (but i'm all done running) and the difference between hurt and injured.

For the first one, it's mainly because I have NEVER gotten over how I managed to write 12 thousand words where almost nothing happens. It's a Haikyuu work where Oikawa spends 99% of it inside of a volleyball gym. The other 1%? The one to two minutes he spends outside of the gym. And when I say outside, I mean that he literally does not make it further than like two steps past the doors before he's held at gunpoint and kidnapped back inside the gym. 90% of the fic is spent in a 6 x 1 foot space underneath the gym's floorboards. Barely even enough room to WIGGLE. So I just. Sometimes I go in and admire how I wrote NOTHING. NOTHING for TWELVE THOUSAND WORDS. It astonishes me, really. It's just an internal monologue journey until he gets miraculously rescued. There's a fair amount of blood, injury, and starvation along the way as well. Fun stuff.

The second work is a little more complicated. I said it was my fic with the angstiest ending in the previous ask game, which is true. Every time I get a comment on it (usually complaining that they missed the MCD tag, which is fair), it prompts me to take an in-depth review of it. I have a lot of thoughts regarding this fic, namely in the ways it's good and in the ways it's bad, both in terms of the storyline and the writing. All in all, though, it's the first fic I wrote that had a somewhat high word count (relatively speaking. This is me, of course) with themes and morals that I wanted to try really hard to convey. So, I just like looking at it from time to time. It reminds me of who I was and of my writing goals at the time. I think I've met them. I think she would be proud of the writer I've become.

➼ 27. What do you listen to while writing?

My previous answer is that I do not listen to music or videos or anything with words or lyrics while writing. However, I suppose the answer can be a little more complicated than that. I do have a songfic that I wrote, is it me or the fear talking (what a dumb question), set to Intro III by NF. I listened to that song an insane amount in the process of writing that fic. Perhaps not exactly while I was putting words to the paper, but I did have the song up next to me at all times and pressed play when I needed to recapture the vibes and lyrics.

orange juice was also somewhat like this. While it isn't technically a songfic, it is HEAVILY inspired by the song Orange Juice by Noah Kahan. I was listening to it a lot around the time that I was writing that fic. I think the best reading experience for that fic is also to listen to the song while reading. I usually never do that, again because it's incredibly distracting. But for that fic? The vibes are REQUIRED.

➼ 29. Favorite line/passage you wrote this year?

I liked everything I wrote this year. Even though it wasn't a lot, it's quality of quantity, right? It would really easy for me to pick any passage from if you need me, dear, i'm the same as i was. I did that for my last answer, and I could do it again. Everything from that fic is, in my opinion, a certified banger. But again, I did write more than that fic. So, I will give a passage from a murder of crows in the lowlight of boston:

“His urn is broken,” Osamu whispers. It’s a shout, an ear-splitting scream with his brother standing next to him. The sounds of his brother’s murder case play from the television in his mind so clearly he nearly convinces himself of its reality. “Whose urn?” Atsumu gasps, his hand reaching out to touch Osamu but entirely falling through. Osamu tilts his head to look up at him. If Atsumu notices the way his entire form flickers, becoming transparent enough to see the black television behind him, he doesn’t show it. His mother cries more, and Atsumu tries to hug her by wrapping his arms around her shoulders, but she doesn’t react. “What do we do?” Osamu doesn’t know. The living room becomes brighter as a cloud moves out from under the sun, sending warm rays beaming across the floor and highlighting Atsumu’s ashes. Simultaneously, Atsumu becomes harder to see, as if the light itself is melting away his body. His face is still clear, standing at a height that protects his head from the sun. The color of his lips is impossible to make out behind the heavy coating of his blood, and his yellow hair is tousled and matted with dried bits of flesh and gore. Atsumu stares at him with hazel eyes that look terribly, horribly, sickeningly alive. For the first time in a month, since the day the police knocked on their door with the devastating result of their search-and-rescue hunt for his missing brother, Osamu feels like he can breathe. He takes in the crisp filtered air, smelling the faint traces of his brother’s scent from his spot on the ratty old couch. His throat cools and eases oxygen in and carbon dioxide out, as it was always meant to do. “We get the dirt devil vacuum,” he says. His chest tightens, squeezing around his heart as bile crawls up his throat. “Get all of the ashes out and into a new urn.” He’s killing Atsumu again, he knows. He knows it because Atsumu trembles, his head shaking and bright eyes betraying his hurt. “You’re ignoring me, too! You’re both ignoring me! What did I do? Why are you doin’ this?” Atsumu cries. Despite the anger lacing his words like poison, Atsumu’s words lay over Osamu like a thick, warm blanket. He missed his brother. He missed how he took up all of the space in a room, how he let his voice boom over everyone else regardless of the warnings he’d previously received. He missed his volatile personality that barely masked how much he cared for his family. But his brother is gone. Osamu covers his face with his hands and presses the heels harshly into his eyes, scattering thick black dots across his vision. There is a knife sticking out of Atsumu’s ghost. He ignores his brother’s burning remarks shot at the back of his neck and picks out a blue plastic cup and napkin from the kitchen. While his mother sobs, he scrapes a large clump of the gray remains into the cup and covers it with the thin white napkin. He watches as Atsumu bleeds out from his view, slowly, like the blood coming from his mouth and flowing over his orange shirt. His faint outline remains, and his noises — formless, wordless sounds — are no louder than the shutter of the wind against the bushes that brush against the outside of the trailer. Quietly, so quietly that only his brother could hear it, he leans in close to the cup, pressing his mouth against the napkin, and says, “I love you.”

The important context to this fic is that, 1. Osamu and Atsumu are twin brothers from Haikyuu, and 2. in this story, Atsumu was murdered a month prior.

There's a lot I could say about this fic. It's a complete exploration of grief and another example of how if you love someone, you let them go. With if you need me, dear, the "letting go" was in the past, and every aspect of it was voluntary. Iwaizumi talking to Oikawa again was voluntary. In a murder of crows, nothing is voluntary. Atsumu disappeared and then turned up dead. Their mother then accidentally knocks over and breaks the urn, which raises Atsumu's ghost. Only Osamu can see him, and apparently, Atsumu doesn't even know he's a ghost. He doesn't know that he looks exactly like he did when he died.

But here is the thing: Osamu misses his brother so, so badly. For sixteen years of his life, his small, poor family (fic canon, not actual canon) consisted of him, his twin, and his mother in a small trailer home. It was constantly loud and barely had enough space to fit them, but it was full of love and warmth. Now, it's just him, his mother, and the ashes of the once lively Atsumu. He feels like nothing is right. Everything is quiet. The trailer is suddenly too big for him and his mother. He spends all of his time in his room; he's losing weight from not eating or cooking or playing volleyball. He spends all of his time in the bottom bunk, waiting for his brother to come back.

So, he's in this awful position when Atsumu does come back. Even though the entire situation is stressful because his mother is crying, the urn is broken, and his brother is shouting at him, he feels warm. He feels some semblance of love and warmth he used to have when his twin was alive. He wants nothing more than to hold on tight and never, ever let Atsumu go. Because he's warm. His voice soothes the rush in Osamu's ears.

But.

"There is a knife sticking out of Atsumu's ghost."

He is dead, and he should remain that way. It is torture to keep his brother around when Atsumu could never understand why no one would talk to him or look at him, why Atsumu could never do anything. His mother couldn't see him; she would still remain in grief. Nothing would change for her. It isn't fair, Osamu knows, to keep him around.

And all of the weight of making that decision happens in a split second. He knows what he wants, what would make him happy, but he also knows what he should do, what will make no one happy but is better in the long run. He lets go. Because he loves his brother more than he loves himself.

That's the nature of family, isn't it?

#yeah grief goes HARD #ask game #answered ask #haikyuu #genshin impact #miya twins #yeah im a genius i know #IM JOKING #anyway #a murder of crows is like #my top tier exploration of grief i think #osamu just feels everything so quietly and so viscerally #so when his brother comes back everything is loud and soothing #and he feels that loudness and suddenly #osamu feels alive again #UGH

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reviiely · 6 months ago

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Fic Writer Review

Many thanks to @kings-highway for the tag! I haven't done one of these in a hot sec :P

More under the cut:

"How many works do you have on ao3?"

Well. In total, the number is 56. Five are from the account that shall not be named and 51 are from my main one. I only have 16 Haikyuu works but hey, I started like five months ago and that's already pretty good in my standards.

"Your top 5 stories by kudos/likes?"

Oof. I've been writing for marvel for ages but the top spot is a Haikyuu fic.

a chemical change in the brain- 271 kudos

this was my second Haikyuu fic on my main and the reception to it was so lovely and it really made me want to continue writing for this fandom because everyone was so so sweet

2. The World We Knew (Over and Over)- 261 kudos

one of my favourite ones that I've written and the longest running project I've ever attempted to write and it took such a ridiculous amount of time like tell me how I managed to write 2k+ chapters PER DAY while going to school and replying to all the comments and not wanting to give up like wow did this plotline have a grip on me

3. 7 Minutes In Heaven- 242 kudos

aha the... the fic that made me contemplate never making out with anyone ever seriously and I really think I might just... never do it because the way I described their tongues touching each other... shudders and shivers down my spine... it was an absolute nightmare to write but everyone was really nice and I got a new friend out of it so

4. pretty- 221 kudos

my one and only kuroken centric fic and it's like my third haikyuu fic ever and maybe it's just because I posted them in the summer but they were up there pretty quick actually but I don't have much to say about this one lol

5. "Tell me where it hurts."- 202 kudos

ahhhh the fic that started it all. literally the fic that made me begin my sunglasses series that I've heard praised so much and made me fall in love with writing all over again

"Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?"

Yes! Because I have no life and I love talking to people. Also I didn't used to but once I started writing more consistently, I also started replying more consistently. Mostly for sunglasses and the other stories. It really helped that I had returning commenters lol.

"What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?"

Uhhhhhhh. Ummmm. I guess it would have to be Out of Time or The Next Big Thing because those are both MCD, but both aren't angst angst I don't think? Out of Time's ending is technically a happy flashback and The Next Big Thing is a canon death but from the perspective of different characters after being twisted by my au... I guess it's up to the readers lol. I don't usually write angst but (shameless advertising) I'm writing this Iwaoi fic where some death happens and that counts as angst, right?

"What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?"

Shit y'all, all of my fics have happy endings (sans the MCDs)(one is an AU of an AU that I wrote to appease a fan and the other one gets brought back to life and gets together with his crush so like)... I don't know. My kagehina maybe. 7MIH. Take your pick. All of my Haikyuu fics have happy endings I think. My marvel stuff is a little iffy but I wouldn't read them anyway just for quality reasons.

"Do you write crossovers?"

Uhhhhhh... (checks my fandoms) no. Unfortunately, my brain doens't like to imagine cross-media (aka novel to tv series for example) crossovers and the ones that I could cross over already have too much going on (marvel). And generally... I don't really wanna.

"Have you ever received hate on a fic?"

Not that I know of. I've had spam comments and 'pls continue' comments but everyone in my works are pretty well-behaved and none of the fandoms I write for are active enough to be angry.

"Do you write smut? If so, what kind?"

... Looks away in minor...

................. yeah but just to be funny................... so crack... i guess.................

"Have you ever had a fic stolen?"

I've seen my stuff on random fic platforms but idk I don't care. Attention is attention and any publicity is good publicity or whatever.

"Have you ever had a fic translated?"

Nope but I've gotten comments in different languages once or twice that I had to put into google translate so I can respond exactly the same way as I do every single time!

"Have you ever co-written a fic before?"

Yes! One with my dear friend Anna a long time ago that we just kinda abandoned that I actually almost forgot about. And I'm listed as a co-creator on altruist but that's only cause I like formatting and I get a rush when I'm posting things.

"What’s your all-time favourite ship?"

Uhhhhhhh... daisuga...? They're the safest option to read usually and I'm more into them than most of the other ships I read (sorry to everyone who knows me from marvel but I don't read much from there and I haven't read much ushiten because I haven't been reading anything lately anyway)

"What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?"

Either the Funny Thing About Hope or Ushijima Wakatoshi Is Not Invincible. Planning both of those were so fun but my god I have not been able to get back into writing them. And also my aos rewrite but at least that one has a nice clean ending. Y'all can pretend that Wonderful World doesn't exist.

"What are your writing strengths?"

I talk a lot about nothing! But formatting, mostly.

"What are your writing weaknesses?"

I'd make a self-deprecating joke and say everything but I wanna be honest and say that it's probably anything physical whether it be the kissy-kissies or a fight scene. And volleyball matches, can't forget those.

"What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?"

I come from a writing background of Harry Potter fanfic so usually italics is fine for me. When I was younger and writing for Marvel (which was primarily Natasha Romanoff, featuring her fluency in multiple languages), I usually used italics and the script that google translate gave me, not the romanized version. Now that I'm older and having written for Haikyuu, I think it depends on who's saying it/ the perspective it's in. If I was writing in Peter Parker's pov and Natasha Romanoff said something in Russian, I wouldn't say what she said. I'd just say 'she muttered something in russian' or something like that. People can do what they want though and unless it's an important plot device I don't really care how I or anyone does it.

"What’s a fandom/ship you haven’t written for yet but want to?"

I was actually talking about this with a new friend of mine today! I want to write for Kyouhaba someday. They're so cute and I haven't been able to because I've been on a block and I gave my one idea for them to Iwaoi so. Yeah.

"What’s your favourite fic you’ve written?"

I don't remember writing most of my fics. Or any of them. Even as I check the list, I draw blanks. Whose fics are these? Not mine. I've never seen these fics ever in my life.

That being said, I really liked writing Dictionary, even if it's one of the darker things I've written. I also really liked writing to build a home because 1) that was a gift to my darling friend Val and 2) it was so cute and fluffy and daisuga and just asdfghjkdhsh

That also being said, I have high hopes for this iwaoi fic so maybe if I end up writing and finishing it, maybe it'll be my actual favourite lol

Thanks for the tag, and the next people I'm roping into this are: @bubbletealife, @sleepyricee, and internet wine aunt @gammacousin (sorry for the random tag lol)

#fanfiction writer #fanfic writer review tag #idfk how to tag this #haikyuu #marvel #tag systems suck anyway #on another topic #im watching yuri on ice rn and its really really gay like wow #tag and ask games

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midnightpink · 1 year ago

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27 club

read it here on ao3

Grief, James finds, is circular.

-- “Does it get better?” He whispered once he had cried himself out and the tears had dried tightly on his face.

“Better?” She repeated, and there was something anguished in her voice, a new and old grief twisted up together. “No.” Effie said, and Sirius’s heart dropped, but she quickly continued. “Though, it gets easier. Eventually, you’ll wake up and it won’t be your first thought every morning. It won’t shock you every time you remember that he's gone. There’s nothing better about losing somebody you love that much, but time will take the sharpness, and get you used to his absence. You’ll live the good parts of your life. You’ll get married, and have a family if that’s what you want. Whatever you desire, you’ll build it. And you’ll miss him for the rest of your life Sirius, but one day you’ll wake up and realize you lived through it.”

“What if I don’t want to live through it?” Sirius asked, his voice small.

by: rweoutofthewoods

Words: 27,728, Chapters: 3/3, Language: English

Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Major Character Death

Categories: M/M

Characters: James Potter, Regulus Black, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, Peter Pettigrew, Dorcas Meadowes, Euphemia Potter, Fleamont Potter, Barty Crouch Jr., Evan Rosier, Pandora Lovegood

Relationship: Regulus Black/James Potter

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Rock Band, Alternate Universe - 1990s, Inspired by Real Events, very loosely inspired by nirvana, Heavy Angst, Drug Use, Drug Addiction, Right Person Not Enough Time, Sirius Black & James Potter Friendship, Regulus Black/James Potter Angst, Post-Break Up, drug overdose, Grief/Mourning, Character Death, Past Character Death, Musician Regulus Black, Mental Health Issues, Recovery, Regulus Black and Sirius Black Angst, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, heavy focus on addiction, probably inaccurate depiction of the London music scene in the 90s, This will be dark, PLS Heed Tags, Implied Sexual Content, Minor Sirius Black/Remus Lupin, technically the character is dead when the fic begins but I'm still tagging MCD, this one is un-beta'd because I was too impaitent to wait, whoops, Unreliable Narrator

#harry potter #james potter #regulus black #sirius black #remus lupin #euphemia potter #fleamont potter #jegulus #james x regulus #fic rec

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mcd-incorrect-quotes · 2 years ago

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𝐀𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐨: 𝐘𝐨𝐮'𝐫𝐞 𝐚 𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧!

𝐈𝐫𝐢𝐬 𝐃𝐚𝐫𝐤: 𝐘𝐞𝐚𝐡, 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐈'𝐦 𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐡 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐲, 𝐬𝐨 𝐢𝐭 𝐝𝐨𝐞𝐬𝐧'𝐭 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫.

#occasional toxic yuri posting #they're enemies in this one #i love scp i can have a multitude of dynamics for these two nd they'd technically be right #mc&d #mcd #marshall carter & dark #scp #marshall carter and dark #incorrect quotes #incorrect mcd quotes #mc&d incorrect quotes #scp fandom #iris dark #alison chao #the black queen

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hislittleraincloud · 3 months ago

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I’m starting to believe the Mogwai is undergoing some sort of humiliation ritual. Either that or she’s starting to loose a considerable amount of brain cells. Frolicking in theater halls barefoot with very mussed up hair, playing dumb regarding her co-stars MCU movie, getting smooshed together with Kevin Costner, wearing McDonald manager apparel at premiers, and leaning into the innuendos for this movie promo. It’s giving, “I’m a cool girl too, don’t be intimidated by my brain”. I dread the promo for Hurry Up Tomorrow. Hopefully they filmed that one after the idol so he took into consideration all of the critiques of that awful show.

I don't think she deserves crit for running through the theater barefoot like a little Mogwai running from the Gremlins her body was responsible for creating.

I'm still 🤔🔍 her current promos to see just how dumb she's dialed herself down to. Smashing her face into Costner's sleeve was just a bonus for her (for any girl 🥹) and the McD's outfit wasn't her fault, that was Enrique...what're you tryna blame her for? She's brainwashed (literally technically groomed to believe in something). He's not the greatest stylist for her if he's gonna put her in ill-fitting shit all the time w/o alterations, but y'all just clapped like fuggin' seals whenever she wears anything, so y'all enabled that.

All of that said, do you think that someone with an ego who does massive, wasteful vanity projects learns from criticism? HUT was filmed in early 2023 when The Idol hadn't even come out yet, and when the latter was in its final post-production before coming out in June. I feel like it's pre-doomed because of that.

I know some y'all are trying to pick at things because I pick at things, but I don't pick at her things wholesale. We suspect she isn't that MCU dumb — she is Disney, Marvel movies are Disney, she's got nephews and siblings who probably watch them, she isn't fucktarded, so what's the deal with her not comprehending a theory about Ant Man shooting up into "the purple one's" ass (as if she doesn't joke about that kind of weird shit all the time).

She and Aliyah like to gaslight, so there's that.

Attention, probably. I'm not sure there's ever enough attention to be given, seeing how many times she goes Tits McGee. She seems like the type who complains about it while at the same time bathing in it. But I guess tits attention is better than Nazi attention, which she shouldn't tempt with anything remotely anti-government given the serious Nazi shit going on right now with the mfkrs attacking any and everyone who was ever pro-Palestinian and/or anti-Trump, and they're emboldened to do this across the globe.

One half of the team that won the Oscar for No Other Land a few weeks ago has been beaten and kidnapped. They don't know where he is.

#anon #anon ask #anon answered #but you won't hear anything from #jenna ortega #about it #as for playing dumb #maybe that's the safest thing to do right now #play dumb about everything #since people don't really give a shit about what's in her brain and instead just objectify the crap out of her #no other land #hamdan ballal

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quinnfebrey · 3 years ago

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this is where we start again [1/1]

pairing: Beatrice/Ava Silva words: 8035 tags: post canon (s2), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, 5+1 Things, i know it's technically a mcd but it's also not just trust me summary: Before she can stop herself, Ava reaches out as if to grab Beatrice’s elbow. She catches herself before she makes contact, knowing that while she’s in this stranger’s body Beatrice would probably have her flat on her back in two seconds, and not in a good way. But even as her hand retracts itself, words tumble from her lips.

“Bea, I—”

Beatrice spins around. “How do you know my name?”

Eyes wide, Ava stammers, “I—I don’t.” They stare at each other. Then, “Be safe. I was going to say, ‘be safe.’”

Or,

5 times Ava returns to Beatrice in this life, and 1 time they return to each other in the next.

excerpt:

The first time Ava takes a host form it’s for her own funeral.

She’s a nun, because of course she is, and if it wasn’t such an objectively depressing moment, she might laugh. When peering over the scene to figure out who she should assume the form of, she chooses a Sister she doesn’t recognize, hoping she’s not important enough to get noticed when she’s taken over. No offense to the Sister, or anything.

Beatrice sits in the back. This surprises Ava. Camila, Yasmine, Mother Superion, and everyone else that survived with them are at the front. But it also makes things easier, and Ava tears her eyes away from the portrait of herself at the front of the room to slide into the pew next to Beatrice.

She’s not sure if she should speak. At the rustle next to her, Beatrice offers a small smile, but then turns back to face front. Her back is rigid, and her hands rest neatly in her lap.

Ava turns to face the front too.

The speeches start, one after another. It turns out this is a combined funeral for all the Sisters they lost in the big battle with Adriel, it’s just that Ava gets to be spotlighted because she was the Warrior Nun. This makes her smile, but then she remembers that she’s only being spotlighted in the first place because she also literally died, and that puts a bit of a damper on things.

“You know, she would have hated this.”

Eyebrows shooting up, Ava turns. “Sorry?”

Beatrice turns to meet her, smiling a little. “She would have hated this. Ava, I mean. Four hours of sitting in a church and listening to speeches? Yeah, right.”

“This thing is gonna be four hours long?” Ava mutters. For a moment, her cheeks burn because God Almighty, what a very not nun-like thing to say, but it makes Beatrice smile, and that makes Ava smile too. The moment fades, but before it drifts too far to catch, she speaks again. “Were you close with her?”

“Yes.”

That’s all. Ava never realized how far Beatrice let her walls down for her until now, sitting in the body of a stranger, and being on the other side of them for the first time since they initially met. Beatrice’s face is inscrutable. It occurs to her that while she just thought she’d gotten good at reading Beatrice’s emotions, that can’t have been the case, or she wouldn’t be struggling so much to decode them now. No, Beatrice must have purposefully let her in.

READ NOW ON AO3

#sorry swiffers i'm back on my fic writing bs #warrior nun #warrior nun s2 #avatrice #ava silva #sister beatrice #avatrice fic #avatrice fanfic

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becca4leafclover · 2 years ago

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Aphmau/MCD/Void Paradox AU where after jumping into the literal Void to escape the spread of it in the overworld, Laurance ends up in the player multiverse. Not IRL, think how other MCYT fics have the players able to server jump, infinite lives, etc.

He's really, REALLY confused about a lot of things- how are there all these different styles and histories and technologies and cultures and species and people, all living peacefully together? For... infinity?

Where he's from different cities of humans could barely keep it together without bloodshed and the world he jumped to with the Void chaos, people died. These "players" don't.

:readmore:

A friendly player-person approaches Laurance

And then one day, some kids recognize him. Kids that are players, that Laurance of Meteli and Pheonix Drop has FOR SURE never met before. But they know him, and his story, and his secrets. He rightfully freaks out!

And so his friend shows him the old videos. Minecraft Diaries, in the early days where it was framed as a player exploring and building in a world that happened to be inhabited by a few people, but not enough to warrant the usual blending-in that players adhere to in isolated worlds. Then when Aphmau realizes how big this world is, she does start blending in. Pretending to be one of them, worming her way into places she shouldn't as an outsider to the world. Playing god where she has no rightful power. Where she starts pulling strings for the sake of these... stories. Videos. They're fiction, to these gods. Laurance's whole life, is fiction.

His friend knew. He says he didn't want to tell Laurance, because Laurance wanted to go home. People who find themselves outside their home worlds that are isolated, not part of the multiverse... they tend to not be able to go back to how things were. If they can even find the unmarked world, but the friend thought since there was evidence of it they could eventually talk to someone who'd been there and get Laurance home.

And also, his friend notes, something isn't right about all this. There's MCD, there's MyStreet, there's VOID Paradox. Three versions of Laurance- technically, maybe, three versions of Aphmau. That doesn't happen in the multiverse. There aren't "alternate realities" of people. There's separate people who can be similar or fulfill the same roles in history, maybe, but not two modern and medieval versions of the same person. The Universe loves you. YOU. No one else, not another version of you. His friend doesn't get it.

Laurance is, rightfully, angry. He's just found out his life is a lie. His world just shattered into a million unfixable pieces. The woman he LOVED and has RISKED HIS LIFE FOR was never in any danger at all, was she? She's MARRIED, she has KIDS! He's been lied to, so, so many times. Everyone has. Garroth, Dante, Evelyn, Nana. They'd been through so much- and are going to go through more, from the looks of the videos posted years ago? And when they end... there's no resolution. They're left in the dust.

Laurance never gets an ending. No one does.

He... doesn't know how to feel about that. He's just, hollow. The raging anger that was flooding his veins just disappeared when he realizes that nothing in his world amounts to anything, because the goddess telling the story of their fates left it unfinished. There's so much that is missing! Of the world, of Laurance, so many things that are just, poorly mentioned sidenotes in these stupid, STUPID videos!

Laurance may have broken the borrowed "phone" thing he was given in his metal gauntlets. After that, he took those gauntlets off. And his pauldrons, and his cape. He didn't have anything to fight for anymore, really. His friend was right- he couldn't go back home to Ru'aun. Not after knowing all... this.

His brothers wouldn't believe him if he tried to tell them all this. Dante would laugh it off that he had too much to drink when getting lost in the woods. Garroth would think he finally snapped. Though he's suppose that would also entail a firey column of anger in his eyes, as a Shadow Knight and all.

His friend finds him later, and asks if Laurance wants him around. He wants to hold a grudge, he REALLY does- but he did just do exactly what his friend thought he would if he learned the truth, and he honestly didn't want to be alone. His friend makes a stupid suggestion for an icebreaker: kiss, marry, kill.

Laurance laughed despite it. Aphmau, Garroth, or him?

#playerverse laurance au #laurance mcd #minecraft diaries laurance #minecraft diaries #minecraft diaries au #becca writes #becca rambles #i have more of this written and a whole plot laid out but this has been sitting in my drafts for too long since i forgot about it #if you cant tell laurance is My Guy^TM

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garrothromeave · 3 years ago

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“oh, right… i need to put aside my mourning for now… after all, if anyone is to mourn it is cadenza…”

this line from laurance literally shatters me every time. he’s referring to hayden’s “death,” a man who was very much so a father figure to him after the death of joh. it bothers me because it’s sort of pushed by aphmau that laurance needed to focus on solving the case, while cadenza was allowed to stay home and in bed all day as she coped with her father’s assassination. laurance wasn’t given that opportunity just because hayden wasn’t technically his father, adopted or not. which, y’know, is pretty bullshit.

this definitely didn’t help with his mental state, which was already in turmoil thanks to shadow knight stuff, so overall — during this arc, i don’t think he was given either proper justice in terms of his reactions, or i don’t think he was given proper justice in terms of how he was treated. either or, it was obvious this event impacted him emotionally, and jess didn’t focus on that as much as she probably should — or, hell, maybe she did, we just didn’t get to see it because the show isn’t from laurance’s perspective, it’s from hers.

but knowing jess, this probably isn’t the case. mcd season 1 is plot driven, not character driven — so instead of focusing on individual characters and how each event impacts them, we’re focusing on the event, and how is impacts the people around it. it might not seem like much a difference, but the priorities are very different, and that’s how it is in mcd. (this changes in mcd s2, where it becomes more character-driven than plot-driven - but i’ll talk more about how this affected the quality of the story + characters in another post.)

because of this, laurance doesn’t get that time to stop and mourn the loss of his father figure. he’s essential to the plot itself, and is needed there for it to continue forward. now, i’m not saying he has no reactions towards hayden’s death, because he certainly does. we see him lose his temper more over the course of the arc, we see that he’s tired, and that he’s just not his usual self. but he still doesn’t catch a break, because he’s obligated to solving this mystery.

in the end, if this was an intentional detail that laurance didn’t get to properly mourn or not, we’ll never know - mostly because it’s literally in his nature to keep pushing through. that, and well, hayden didn’t turn out actually dead, so we’ll never know. however, it’s also important to note that he was driven by revenge through this arc, not necessarily sadness. i’m convinced this is purely an act of the shadow knight in him - and i’m pretty sure we can all agree there - but like, if not for the shadow-knight-anger aspect… goodness, that’s just a whole other can of worms.

#aphmau #minecraft diaries #laurance zvahl #cadenza zvahl

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dhwty-writes · 4 years ago

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The Terribly Sad and Tragic Affair that Is the Fake Funeral of Shadowhand Essek Thelyss

Apparently, I am not only drawing for the Critical Role fandom, but writing for it, too. After months of nearly no progress I just vomited out 3k words this Tuesday and it only went downhill from there.

This fic is based on this post by @anne-o-nyme, I really hope I managed to capture the energy of it.

Have fun!

Summary: There were eight strangers in the foyer of his dead brother's towers and Verin Thelyss was slowly losing his patience.

After the sudden "death" of Shadowhand Essek Thelyss, it is his brother Verin's job to empty out his towers. The Mighty Nein show up to help (and maybe steal a few things).

OR: Verin is grieving, Essek just wants his stuff back, and the Mighty Nein are the Mighty Nein.

Warnings: I didn't tag this with MCD, because Essek is technically alive and kicking. Since Verin doesn't know that though, and this fic is written from his POV, this is dealing with grief and includes depictions of depressive thoughts as well as anxiety attacks. For more explicit warnings, please mind the tags on AO3. Take care of yourselves, and let me know if I forgot anything.

Read on AO3

There were eight strangers in the foyer of his dead brother's towers and Verin Thelyss was slowly losing his patience. "Listen," he said with what little calm he had left, "I know that by returning one of our beacons you became heroes of the Dynasty and were placed under Es— My bro— his stewardship. But this here—" he gestured vaguely at the interior of Essek's towers that had always been too cold, too empty, but not like now, never like now— "This is a very difficult situation for me, so if you could please leave, that would be greatly appreciated."

"Yes, yes, it's very sad that Essek died," the blue tiefling said—Jester, her name was Jester; she had given him that already as she had offered him her condolences with a hug—and Verin could barely contain his anger. After the funeral he had quite enough of lying dignitaries, nobles, and heroes currying favours with him. That had always been Essek's thing, he would know what to do, how to make them regret even daring to speak up; Verin had never been any good at it.

"But we're his friends!" He grit his teeth at Jester's blatant falsehood. Perhaps his anger showed on his face, since the tiefling faltered. "And, uh— Fjord?"

"It's true," the half-orc with too-smooth words and too-smooth voice lied, too. "We spent quite some time with your, er— your brother here. Made some good memories. We thought we might take this as our chance to say goodbye, too."

"We are here to help as well. We wouldn't want to infringe upon your grief, though," the tall firbolg added. "So, if you'd prefer us to return at a later point, we'd be happy to."

Verin was still trying to process everything—from these strangers showing up unannounced to their overwhelming presence to the fact that his brother was dead—while simultaneously trying to keep an eye on the halfling who looked like she might have sticky fingers. So, he latched onto the word that stood out the most to him: "Help?"

"Right," Fjord said, looking slightly embarrassed, "we probably should have led with that..."

"We should have called ahead, too," the scary-looking human in blue—they didn't even wear white for the funeral—added. "We always forget to call ahead."

"But Beau, how should we have called ahead?" Jester complained. "We didn't know Verin yet."

"Well, Essek—" the human was interrupted by the even scarier-looking woman next to her stepping on her foot unsubtly. She at least had the decency to act embarrassed. "Right. Sorry 'bout that."

Awkward silence fell across the room, the Mighty Nein looking anywhere but him. It took him a few moments to realise they were waiting for him to speak up. "Help how?" Verin could have kicked himself. By the Light, he could do better than that. He had to do better than that.

A beat of silence followed, then everyone seemed to talk at once. Verin wanted to weep. How was he supposed to deal with this? How had his brother dealt with this? 'He probably hasn't,' he thought. 'They're probably all liars, probably—'

Someone cleared their throat and all eyes turned to the other human who hadn't said anything so far and who looked properly miserable. Immediately, the Mighty Nein fell silent. "Word has reached us that Den Thelyss ordered these premises to be vacated as early as possible," he said quietly with an accent Verin has been taught that belonged to the enemy. "And while some of us may not look like much, I can assure you, we are quite capable."

His eyebrows shot up to his hairline. "I supposed such menial tasks are beneath the heroes of the dynasty. There are servants—"

"Well, sure," the halfling with the probably sticky fingers interrupted, "but we know him. Knew him, I mean; sorry, force of habit."

"Besides, there's a lot of stuff," the lavender tiefling, who Verin was pretty sure was a known pirate, piped up. "Looks like you could use the help."

"If you want to, of course," the sad Empire human added.

Verin only wanted to scream, to give room to the torrent of thoughts raging in his head. 'My brother just died. My brother just died and he wasn't consecuted, so he's gone for good. He's gone for good and I didn't even know him; I didn't even know about these supposed friends he had because he didn't allow me near him in decades. I was a horrible brother and so was he, but I can't even be mad at him because he's dead.

'And now these liars show up and talk about friendship and knowing him, but those are all lies, horrible ones, because Essek had no friends. Essek was cold and cruel and lonely and do you even know how horrible that is? Dying alone with no-one who mourns you, just the favours you still owe them? Do you? I don't even know, and I'm his brother.'

Were he a weaker man, a less disciplined one, he might have said so. But he was Taskhand Verin of Den Thelyss and he had learned discipline before he had learned to talk. So, he said: "Your help would be greatly appreciated, thank you. I'll have the servants bring up some tea. There are, uh—" He straightened his back, summoning the composure that was befitting a Taskhand, even one with a dead brother. "There are boxes up there, they've been brought to the rooms already. Anything of value will be sold; the rest will be given to charity. The things— Well, if you find anything that might have sentimental value, something in his handwriting, perhaps, I think I should like to keep that, please."

The firbolg nodded sagely. "Of course. We will be careful with our selection."

With that, Verin turned around and— froze. Where was he even supposed to start? The towers had always seemed to huge for just Essek and he knew that there were very few personal belongings in them. Still, they would have to be scoured clean within the fortnight.

A large hand on his shoulder made him jump, although he'd never admit it. "Sometimes, when a task seems too large, you should start with the smallest part," the firbolg said. "If I were you, I'd start with the smallest room."

"Thank you, that, uh— that seems like good advice," Verin replied, still a bit startled and confused. "I, er— I'm afraid I didn't catch your name."

"Caduceus Clay. I live in a graveyard, so I'm used to this," Clay said, as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

Verin furrowed his brows slightly. A graveyard? It seemed highly unlikely to him that one of the heroes of the Dynasty would live in a graveyard of all places. Perhaps they were not only liars, but impostors too? But they had the symbols of the Bright Queen, so there wasn't much that he could say.

"Right," he mumbled. "I believe the smallest room would be the closet. Although it might be tied with the bathroom..." He trailed off again. He had never seen Essek's bedroom in his towers. Judging by how many times he had even seen the inside of the building; he could count himself lucky if he even found the way there.

"Why don't we split up?" Clay suggested. "One group takes the closet, one the bathroom and one the bedroom. We'd get done sooner that way."

"That is a great idea, Caduceus," Jester said excitedly. "I'll take the bathroom; I promised— er, I'm curious if I can find more of that hair oil, I got for Fjord that one time!"

"Ohhh, are you saying this is... an investigation?!" the halfling joined in.

"That's exactly what I'm saying, Veth!"

"Seems like a case for Wildemount's best detectives!"

"Bye, Verin!" Jester called and he blinked and they were gone. Fjord joined them as well, muttering something about having to supervise them.

The purple pirate-tiefling shrugged, heading off in the same direction. "Well, I wouldn't mind rifling through some drawers. I'll have a look at that bedroom."

"Yeah, I don't need to see Essek's underwear, so I'll pass on the closet," Beau added tactfully—Verin was getting the sneaking suspicion that manners were not really her strong suit. She linked hands with the large woman at her side, pulling her along. "Come on, Yash."

"I'll go handle the tea," Clay said. "Don't worry about it." He vanished in the direction of the kitchen, his steps accompanied by the constant tap tap tap of his staff.

When Verin looked around, he realised that only the sad Empire human was left with him in the hallway. "If you wouldn't mind," he said, pointedly avoiding eye-contact, "I would love to have a look at the closet. I always, ah— appreciated your brother's sense of fashion."

Verin blinked at him a few times, then shrugged. "Sure." He began heading up the stairs.

"My condolences," the human continued. "I realise I didn't speak up earlier, but— I am sorry for your loss."

"Thank you," he said, letting the same numb feeling wash over him again that he had embraced since the news of Essek's death had reached him.

"I know that we seem like a bunch of, ah— forgive my language, but assholes, but we're really here to help. I will tell the others to tone it down a bit."

"Thank you," he repeated.

"If you'd prefer that we start in, ah— less personal rooms, we can do that also."

"If I'm perfectly honest, I don't even know what I should be doing there."

"Neither am I." The human laughed nervously. "I have dealt with grief before, but I've never had the, ah— how do you call it? Hang on." He pulled out a copper wire and whispered: "Beau, how do you say zweifelhafte Ehre in Common? You can reply to this message." A moment later he straightened. "Right. I never had the dubious honour of emptying out a deceased person's house before."

"Neither did I," Verin admitted. 'Usually, the deceased person comes back,' he didn't say. Instead, he opted for: "You're, er— What's the word in Common? You're weird? I'm sorry if that's insulting, I just— waele xanalressen [stupid languages]."

"I don't understand your words, but I think I understand the sentiment." The man grimaced. "And I've heard that one before. I hope we're not too much of a... too much."

"It's alright," he lied and opened the door to Essek's bedroom.

It wasn't alright; Verin wanted to weep again.

The door to the bathroom stood ajar, as did several drawers and cabinets, although he couldn't glance inside. Considering that he heard glass shatter and a quiet "oops" followed by a hushed "Jester!" he was rather glad about that. Besides, what he saw was already quite enough to handle. Beau was currently rifling through Essek's nightstand, the tall woman tossing unread books on the bed carelessly, while the lavender tiefling seemed to make his way through his brother's collections of make-up and jewellery alike.

They froze when they spotted him and the sad human in the door. "Heeey, Verin," Beau drawled.

"These were all still closed, I swear," the lavender tiefling said immediately, gesturing at the jars in front of them.

Verin just sighed in defeat. "I don't wear any make-up, I don't care; you can have it. Put the jewellery in the box to be sold; the books are for charity if he hasn't read them. Just leave the earrings in front of the mirror, please. Those were his favourites."

Without another glance at them, Verin headed straight to Essek's closet, desperate to get some quiet. He took a few moments to collect himself, before closing the door and leaning his head against it with a heavy thunk.

He stayed like that for a minute or maybe two until he heard someone clear their throat. "I have been debating for the past fifty-five seconds, if I should just Dimension Door out," the sad human said and Verin very nearly jumped out of his skin, "but that would be loud and I didn't want to startle you. Not that I didn't startle you like this but—"

"Vithin shu," Verin cursed.

"Vithin shu ke," the sad human agreed, his accent in Undercommon even heavier than normally.

For a moment, they both stared at each other, equally startled by the course of events. Then, the human looked away again. "I, ah— have started learning Undercommon before, um— well, before." Verin tried very hard to focus on the way the human was scratching at his forearms; that way he had something else to focus on besides his nearing breakdown.

"This is a bit embarrassing, but, ah— I believe I forgot to introduce myself," the human continued. "I'm Caleb Widogast. Essek and I were... friends, yes, and ah— colleagues, of some sort. It's... complicated."

He scratched at his arms again before turning towards the shelves and pulling out a stack of tunics. He unfolded one, looked at it, then carefully folded it again, cast a cantrip to smooth out the wrinkles, and put it in the charity box. Then he repeated the procedure with the next. And the next. And the next.

Verin frowned, thinking for a moment about his words. There was something about them that seemed painfully familiar, although he couldn't quite remember. Then: "The transmutation specialist."

Widogast looked up in surprise. "Yes."

"Essek told me of you," Verin admitted.

The last time they had seen each other had been here, in these towers, just a few months ago. He had found his brother in his office, pouring over notes for a new spell, alive and healthy as ever. As always, he had entered without knocking. As always, he had pretended to read the notes. Not as always, he had noticed something wrong. "Whose handwriting is that?" he had asked.

"What?" Essek had snapped, his head whipping up. Then, however, his expression had softened. "Oh. A friend's. A colleague, of sorts. He's helping me out, a bit."

"With the spell?" Verin had asked incredulously.

"Yes. He's a transmutation specialist; you know that's not my forte. Now give it back, will you?"

"A colleague, huh?" He had grinned and held the paper out of Essek's reach. "Are you sure that's all?"

Perhaps Essek had been sick after all, for the strangest thing had happened: instead of using his floating cantrip to snatch the notes back, he had gotten a dreamy, far-off look in his eyes. He had even smiled with an expression Verin might have called dopey, if it weren't his brother they were talking about. After a few moments, he had snapped out of it, sighed, and said: "It's complicated."

"Did he?" Widogast asked tentatively. "Did he, ah— did he say anything else about me?"

Verin pinned him down with a glare, sizing him up. In hindsight, he should have noticed the thick spellbook at his hip earlier; judging by his slim frame alone, he should have known the man was a wizard. He supposed Widogast was handsome enough, although his brother had never cared much for that, with his copper hair and his striking blue eyes. Blue eyes around which crows' feet were gathering, as he noticed to his dismay. 'He's human,' Verin reminded himself. He might have a few decades left, maybe, whereas Essek had centuries ahead of him. The thought why his brother might condemn himself to more loneliness crossed his mind, though it hardly mattered. His brother had been the first to die, after all.

"Verin?" Widogast inquired quietly.

"I'm sorry," he answered with a thick voice. "I got lost in my thoughts there. He, uhh— he said that he trusted you." That didn't even begin to cover it, but these Mighty Nein had been lying to him since the moment they got here, so what was a little lie by omission? Besides, there were some memories that he wanted to keep just to himself.

"Essek," he had teased, still waving the sheet of paper out his reach. "Come on! Aren't we brothers?"

Essek had crossed his arms and pouted. He hadn't done that since they were both little. "Unfortunately. You are a menace. And a child."

"If you tell me about him, I'll give it back. Is he handsome? Is he a drow? Where's he from? How did you meet? When will I meet him? Can I promise to kill him if he hurts you?"

"Verin!" Essek had groaned and hid his face in his hands.

"What do you do when you meet? I bet you stay up all night, talking about 'arcane research' or something."

"We do, in fact. Are you done now?"

"Oh, is that what young people call it these days?" He had cackled at his own joke.

"Evidently not," Essek had muttered. "Might I remind you that you're younger than me?"

"Might I remind you that you're a buzzkill?" Verin had shot back and placed the note down. He had gotten bored of his own game.

Essek had taken the sheet of paper almost reverently and thanked him. "I would have hated it to rewrite that page." He had smoothed it down, stored it safely away in a folder, silent for a long time. Then, he had said: "Caleb."

"Excuse me?"

"That's his name," Essek had said. "Caleb Widogast."

Verin had frowned. "Hey, Essek?"

"Hm?"

"You must trust him a lot, to share a spell with him."

His brother had taken a shuddering breath and closed his eyes. Verin hadn't expected him to answer, yet he'd said: "I do, actually. It's not the first spell we've created together and I would be honoured to create a thousand more with him. I'd trust him with my life, my death, and beyond. I think—" He'd huffed. "I think I trust him almost as much as I trust you."

Verin watched Widogast as he was looking through his brother's tunics, placing most of them in the charity box, and he wondered. Wondered if the trust Essek had obviously put in Widogast had been misplaced. Wondered if it had extended to his friends, as well. Wondered if ultimately trust had been his downfall, as he'd always feared.

Then again, if Essek had trusted him... perhaps that trust had been mutual. Perhaps they had been friends. Perhaps there was another person mourning his brother after all.

"Do I have something on my face?" Verin had given up on counting how many times Widogast had now startled him out of his thoughts.

"No, no I—," Verin stammered. "I'm sorry."

He tilted his head to the side. "For staring?"

"No, er— For your loss." Liar or no liar, it only seemed appropriate.

"Oh." Widogast turned back to the tunics. Verin probably should get started, too, shouldn't he? "Thank you. Though I'd wager your loss weighs heavier than mine."

"Probably," he agreed and turned to the task at hand. At this point, Widogast had moved on from the simple tunics to Essek's court regalia. After a short moment of consideration, Verin decided to look through the pants; he also had no interest in sorting through his dead brother's underwear.

Out of the corner of his eye he kept watching the wizard, pulling out one cloak after the other. At a few he wrinkled his nose, at others he just stared before putting them with the tunics. After a while one made him pause; an elaborate, beautiful robe in deep purple. "This is what he was wearing when we first met him," he said.

'He hated that one,' Verin thought. Not that he could say that out loud. Instead, he cocked his head and asked: "Are you sure? He has a lot of those. Had, I mean. Had a lot of those."

"Yeah, I'm sure." He tapped his temple with a faint smile. "I have a good memory."

"As does Essek," he snapped, suddenly feeling very defensive about his brother's capabilities. "I suppose most wizards do."

Infuriatingly, Widogast only nodded. "Indeed. Or they're not very good ones."

Silently, Verin turned back to the trousers. The sooner he got done, the sooner he got these people out of his brother's towers, the better. He didn't know for how long they worked in silence, Verin reminiscing about the times he had seen Essek wear the clothes and wondering about those he didn't know. Eventually, he folded the last of them and forced himself to return to the present. "I think we're done here," he announced. "Do you have a preference for a next room?"

"Perhaps the library?" Widogast offered a tentative smile. "I think I might be of more use there than folding clothes."

"More use than I will be, surely."

"I take it the wizardry doesn't run in the family, then?"

Verin only scoffed and opened the door to the bedroom again.

He immediately spotted Beau leafing through one of the books Essek had never read, while the tiefling was chatting amiably with the aasimar while braiding her hair. He also noted the boxes neatly stacked in the middle of the room. Besides that, he noticed with a heavy heart, the room looked much the same. If anything, it looked less orderly and empty than before. Except for—

"Where are Essek's earrings?" Verin demanded to know.

"What earrings?" the lavender tiefling replied with a too-wide grin the same moment Beau said: "Dude, there's tons of them, why don't—"

"No," he said decisively. "Essek's favourite earrings; they're always up here. I told you about them. Where are they?" His hands curled into fists, his neatly manicured fingernails pressing almost painfully into his skin.

"Perhaps you should look in one of the boxes," the aasimar woman suggested "I'm sure they're—"

"You're lying," Verin interrupted her, barely containing his anger. "Why are you lying? If they're in one of the boxes, then only because you put them there. So: where are they?"

Widogast only now stepped out of the closet, wearing an amber necklace he hadn't noticed before. "Verin—" he said tentatively, but he'd had enough.

"Shut up!" He startled himself with how loud his voice was. But he was beyond caring. "I know they're not in there, because the only ones to put them in there would have been you. So, either you're lying about having them put in there, or you're lying about stealing them, I don't care. Just— please. Please give them back."

The four of them passed a guilty glance. "We can't," Beau replied finally.

"The fuck you can't," Verin spat. "Give them back!"

"Verin, love, we would really love to," the tiefling added, "but we can't."

"I don't understand; is it precious things you want? Here, have some!" He strode over to the boxes and ripped the first open, tossing the lid towards the bathroom door Jester was peeking out of. He reached in to grab a necklace—an ugly one, he had always thought, with a stylised beacon—and threw it in their direction.

Beau caught it. Of course.

"Have a whole box, actually, if you like them so damn much." He reached inside and pulled out a jewellery box, tears prickling in his eyes. He threw one of those, too, just for good measure. It gave him some satisfaction that Widogast had to dodge it. "Just give me back the bloody earrings that my brother wore at my fucking consecution!" He was properly crying now and could only imagine the mess he looked like, but he had reached his limit. And, in his opinion, he was allowed to with all that was going on.

At least they looked a little bit guilty. "Fuck man, we didn't know," Beau mumbled.

"It's just one pair, Beau," Jester called over from the bathroom. "I'm sure it will be alright."

"Yes, there's no need for this to escalate," Fjord agreed and strode over to them, his hands raised innocently.

"I don't even know you people," Verin muttered, looking at the people crowding into his brother's bedroom. "Why did I even let you inside?"

"Do you want the earrings back?" the aasimar woman asked, reaching into a bag at her hip. Had she been carrying a greatsword for the whole time? Verin suddenly noticed how overpowered he was, were he to face all of them. "You can have them back if you want. Here, you can have them back."

"For a moment," Widogast added, slowly drawing closer to him and taking the earrings from the aasimar. He held them out on his flat hand, almost like he had seen soldiers offer treats to horses. His whole demeanour reminded him of someone trying to calm a spooked animal. For some reason, that seemed hilarious to him and he couldn't help the hysterical giggle that escaped his throat.

"Verin, I need you to calm down," he continued. "I know that's easier said than done, but you need your head."

"I think we should all calm down," Clay said from the doorway. And despite being surprised again, he did. It didn't make any sense, but few things these days did.

"Did it work?" the halfling asked. Verin wasn't really sure what she was talking about.

"It did," Clay confirmed.

"Gut," Widogast said and pressed the earrings that had seemed so important a moment ago into Verin's hands. "I think we should maybe go somewhere else, ja? Will you come with me?"

Inadvisable as it might be, if Essek had trusted that man, he should, too. And out of all of the Nein, he seemed to be the most normal one. The one he could see Essek with most. So, he nodded.

"I'll get us back to the kitchen, quickly." Caleb held out his hand and Verin closed his eyes, steeling himself. 'I hate Dimension Door,' was the last thing that crossed his mind before the teleportation spell ripped him away, together with: 'We haven't been to the kitchen, yet.'

Evidently, there went something wrong with the spell. Verin didn't know much about magic, but he knew Dimension Door couldn't transport more than two people. So, when he heard Beau groan and say "Fuck, dude, warn us next time," he knew that something wasn't right.

"You knew about the plan, Beauregard," Widogast replied.

"It doesn't matter," Fjord decided. "Caduceus, do you think you could make tea again? I think the Calm Emotions is about to wear off."

Cautiously, Verin opened one eye, then the other. They were, in fact, standing in a kitchen, as far as he could tell. All of the Mighty Nein were surrounding him. The furniture seemed to have been made for people taller than them; Essek probably would need to float in order to avoid awkwardly climbing onto the chair. The firbolg, however, who was fussing with a teapot, seemed to fit right in. All in all, the interior was very rustic. And very much not in Essek's towers, not that he had ever seen that room, of course.

The panic hit him once more. Verin whirled around to the wizard, instinctively grasping for his sword. "Where the fuck—" he faltered, finding his hip bare. Of course, he hadn't brought it for the funeral. Instead, he opted for just grasping Widogast by the lapels and lifting him up a bit. It was supposed to be menacing, which surely would be more effective, were humans not so annoyingly tall. "Where the fuck are we?!" he spat out.

A lot of things seemed to happen at once—he heard a "Fuck, man, what-" from Beau, a "Well, Mister Thelyss" from the pirate, several hands trying to tug him away from the weak wizard—but he didn't pay them any mind. He just shook Widogast, who looked entirely too calm for his liking, and demanded: "Answer me!"

"Leave him," was all Widogast said. "He has every right to be angry."

Indeed, the people grasping at him retreated, still on guard and surrounding him. There was a creak outside the door and Verin desperately wished for his sword once more. Then, a voice cut through the tense silence that had descended over the kitchen: "Caleb, is that you? You're back early."

"Yeah, there were some complications. Best come and look yourself, Schatz."

There was a sigh that was entirely too familiar for Verin's liking. Then, the door opened with a creak and in walked a dead man. "Complications," Essek Thelyss said with a fond smile. "I was just a Sending away, what did you come here fo— oh."

The person wearing his brother's face stopped in their tracks as they saw him. A couple of complicated emotions passed over his face—confusion, surprise, regret, guilt. If he hadn't known before, Verin was certain now that they were impostors, all of them. His brother would never tolerate such a display of weakness. Still, the impostor said: "Hello, brother."

Verin whipped his head back around to the wizard in his grasp. "What the fuck are you playing at?" he hissed.

"I- what- Verin!" the Essek-impostor sputtered. "What are you doing; put him down!"

"I would appreciate that, yes," Widogast added.

"Not before you don't tell me what's going on."

"Going on?" The impostor sneered and shook his head in a perfect imitation of his brother. "Nothing is going on, Verin."

"You died," he accused him.

"Evidently not," Essek scoffed.

Verin narrowed his eyes, looking from the man claiming to be his brother over the other too calm wizard to the rest of the Nein, seemingly perfectly happy to let this play out. "Prove it," he demanded. "Tell me something only my brother would know."

"You've become paranoid," he noted and Verin couldn't decide if it sounded proud or disappointed. "Alright. When you and I were in our early thirties, you once got in trouble for scaling the outside of mother's mansion. Rightfully, I should have gotten in trouble, too, but I was hiding on the attic. And the reason you never told anyone, is because then you'd have had to explain that I, the wizard, had somehow outpaced you, the fighter, in a climbing competition."

Verin wrinkled his nose at that. "Well, my brother cheated."

"I did not cheat, thank you very much!" He huffed indignantly and crossed his arms. "You didn't say 'no magic' before we started."

He stared at Essek for a few moments. "It's you," he whispered.

"Obviously."

Verin dropped the wizard on the ground and looked over at his brother; really looked. The man looked nothing like the one he had known for most of his life. His hair was longer than it had ever been since he'd cut it off and his bare feet were touching the ground. His clothes were casual, a simple tunic and trousers. After this day, Verin knew for a fact that not even Essek's trancing clothes were that informal, and yet his brother looked more comfortable in them in another's house than he had in decades. On top of that, he kept glancing over to Widogast. And smiling. Essek was smiling.

No, this man looked nothing like the one Verin had known for nearly a century. But he looked a lot like his brother.

"You're alive," he said stupidly.

"Yes, of course I am," Essek said, as if Verin hadn't just attended his funeral.

It felt only right to tell him so: "Why are you alive? I was at your funeral."

"That's a long story," he sighed and floated onto one of the chairs that were slightly too tall for him. He accepted a cup of tea from Clay with thanks and turned back to Verin. "Why are you here?"

"Well, that's a pretty long story, too," Jester spoke up. "He kind of started freaking out about your earrings, I think? And he was crying and looking pretty awful and everything, right Caleb?"

"I, ah— didn't think he'd believe us if we told him about you," Caleb said. "So, we had agreed beforehand to bring him here, in case of an emergency."

"He thought we were lying," Clay added.

"I suppose it is my story to tell," Essek said. "Earrings, Verin?"

"They're your favourite," Verin said stupidly and held them out to him.

His face grew soft. "Oh," he said as he took them gingerly, "I didn't know that you kne—"

Before he could overthink and do something stupid like stop himself, he surged forward and enveloped his brother in a tight hug. After a moment Essek closed his arms around him, too.

It seemed so unreal, to be able to hold him after mourning him for what felt like years. All the worries, all the grief and anger that had crushed him in the past few weeks and for what? For the bastard to still be alive after all. It wasn't fair. Why had he had to go through all of that? And why did he feel the pressing urge to start crying again? He should be happy, shouldn't he, that his brother wasn't dead. So why did it make him feel so awful?

"I think this is our cue to leave," Fjord said. Verin felt his brother nod and heard the Mighty Nein shuffle out of the kitchen, the door closing behind them with a creak.

Only then, Essek spoke up. "Verin," he asked quietly, "are you crying?"

"Shut up," he mumbled through the thick fog of tears and snot, definitely not crying. "I hate you, Essek. Do you know what I went through?"

"Meeting the Mighty Nein? Yes, I can imagine."

"They're horrible," he complained. "They're loud and they're rude and they had absolutely no respect for any of your belongings! I thought I was going mad."

"They are. They also are my friends, you know."

"How?" he asked agonised.

"I know they don't look like it, but they are surprisingly capable. And I am sure that you've noticed most of them to be annoyingly charming. But I think their absolute worst traits are their infinite stubbornness and perseverance. They quite literally did not leave me alone until they had befriended me."

Verin glanced up at him questioningly. "And were half in love with the wizard?" he guessed.

Essek scowled darkly, a faint blush colouring his cheeks. "Perhaps."

He snorted and disentangled himself from their embrace. Very calmly he said: "You're a liar."

Essek looked genuinely startled at that. "What?"

"You said, you trusted me more than him. Why then, did he know and I didn't?"

"It's... complicated," he said.

"You wizards say that a lot."

"Verin." Essek closed his eyes. "I trust you. Implicitly. And I care about you. Which is why I chose not to burden you with the knowledge of my misdeeds. I didn't— I didn't want to put you in an impossible situation to choose between me and our queen."

He laughed nervously. "What on earth are you talking about? I mean, you didn't commit treason or anything."

Essek didn't answer, avoiding eye-contact instead.

"Right?"

Still, Essek kept stubbornly quiet.

"Oh," Verin breathed. He took a moment trying to reconcile what he knew about his brother with the fact that he was apparently a traitor. It all fit together ridiculously easy. "The beacons."

Essek looked up at him in shock and he knew he had hit the mark. "What?"

"You stole the beacons." Now that he thought about it, it made perfect sense. Essek had been studying them at the time, one of the only people with frequent access to them. He had always been fascinated by them, yet his theories had been rejected for their heretic nature. As Shadowhand, he had also regular contact with counterparts from the Empire, albeit not officially. Then, a few years after Essek’s research had been denied, they had vanished. How had he never seen this before?

"Oh Essek...," he said softly.

"No, please— I don’t—Please don’t—” He seemed to deflate, curling in on himself. “I'm sorry. I shouldn't have told you, I—”

"I don't care,” Verin interrupted his frantic ramblings.

"What?" Essek looked up at him, looking just as shocked as Verin felt.

“I don’t care,” he repeated, realising that it was true the moment the words left his mouth. For how could he care about something as trivial as treason when Essek was sitting right in front of him, alive and well. "You're my brother, I don't care. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe in a year. Maybe in ten. Right now, I only care that you're alive."

“I—What—I don’t—” Essek stuttered, lifting and then lowering his hands a few times. “I don’t know how— If I can—Fuck.”

There was a joke on the tip of his tongue, but even he knew that this wasn’t the right time for it. Essek was obviously trying to tell him something and it took him a minute to decipher that strange behaviour. “Are you asking for a hug?” he hazarded a guess.

An agonised expression passed over his face and for a moment Verin thought there were tears gathering in his brother’s eyes. Surely not. “I don’t know if I may. I don’t mean to overstep—”

Without further ado, Verin stepped forward and gathered a yelping Essek up and squeezed him tightly. “Of course you may!” he assured him, awkwardly patting his shaking shoulders. “I love you, Essek. I am very glad that you’re alive.”

“I’m very glad to see you, too,” Essek answered and squeezed him a little tighter.

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