#the mice come out at night wip

[gummybugg]

Find the Word Tag

Thanks for the tags, @writernopal, @lena-rambles, and @digitalsatyr23! It took me a Hot second to get Around to this, unfortunately. Check out each of their posts here, here, and here, respectively!

<<Check Warnings in the tags!>>

I'm going to pick 5 words Between all 3 tags: scream, candle, faint, blood, and heart.

scream (The Mice Come Out at Night)

Honestly, Morgana had grown used to tuning out screaming by now, only deciding to tune back in just in case he missed something incriminating about himself like how he always records the highlights of his day each night before bed or that he was technically still on parole.

candle (IBT)

“Once you complete your task, are you then transported back?” Jemmah asked.

“Yeah, I suppose I could hitch a ride back using a few cheap candles and salt packets. I go back on my own terms,” Silas repeated. “Hell doesn’t offer you a free ride unless you’ve earned it, I suppose…”

faint (Crater City, Elijah’s POV)

“You ask too many questions. You should be resting right now.”

“I fainted, didn't I, Blair?” I caught his gaze.

He hesitated a moment before responding, “Yeah.”

blood & heart (Crater City, Blair’s POV)

I fumbled to unlock his ribcage. Once I was granted entry, I reached deep inside his chest. His heart beat, alive, and I stroked it, wiping away the excess blood.

Out of Comfort, I will Not reveal any more than this :')

✨Under the Break we have our (optional) Tagees & their prompt!✨

@sabels-small-sphere, @sender-paulson, @moonluringfrost, @acertainmoshke, @indigowriting, @sergeantnarwhalwrites, @zestymimblo, @rhikasa, @frostedlemonwriter, @aether-wasteland-s, @charlesjosephwrites, @new-royston-cursebreakers, @jasmineinthenight, @boundedsea, @wildswrites, @sam-glade, @detectiveashthemfer, @airic-fenn, @aberooski, @lalalovezfrenchfriez, @lyutenw, @faelanvance, and anyone else who wants to Hop on in because this is an Open tag!

Your words to find are mean, close, lead, minute, lie, and object

[seireiteihellbutterfly]

Everything has been appropriately labeled, please do not read the ones marked 18+ if you are a minor

Multi-Chapter Series:

HEART OF THE FAE: The forest is full of mythical creatures, and you unwisely trespass on their territory. What happens when you become the ward of a handsome, blond, high Fae? Teaser Chapter 1 - The Forest

SECOND CHANCE SORCERER: After surviving Mahito's Idle Transfiguration in the Shibuya Incident, Nanami finds himself in an unknown realm between life and death. Will he escape? Chapter 1 Chapter 2

One-Shots/Scenarios/Drabbles:

Hell Hath No Fury (18+ #bhmf event) A night of lost tempers leads to Nanami contemplating certain (sexy) choices. Braiding Nanami's Chest Hair (13+) Basically the title. Fluff. Lipstick Test(18+) Reader gets creative when showing Nanami her different lip products. Vacation (18+) Nanami and a balcony in Paris. When The Cat's Away(18+) The mice do not come out to play as the reader patiently waits for Nanami to come home and relieve her from his previous edging. Can't stay away from you (13+) Ask box prompt. You can't stay away from him, no matter what. Lazy Saturday Mornings (18+) Morning sex with Nanami. Nanami's Baby Photos (E) Reader and Nanami are moving in and she finds a cute surprise when she opens one of the boxes. Promise Me (13+) Teen! Nanami. Reader is Nanami's high school sweetheart. When faced with a solo mission, she contemplates her life and choices as a Jujutsu sorceress. Angsty, fluffy. Nanami x Clueless Virgin Reader(18+) Ask box request. Shy!Virgin!Fem!Reader. Nanami introduces her to first orgasm. Secure In Your Lap (13+) Implied Desi!Asian!Reader, but good for anyone with difficult family dynamics. When reader gets an unwanted phone call from her mother, she's reminded of all the ways Nanami has made her feel loved and secure. Bridal Shop (18+) A final dress fitting leads to something else when the bridal shop owner, Nanami Kento, takes over your appointment. I’m Never Too Tired For That…( 18+) Fem!Reader. Reader is frustrated when her husband keeps coming home too tired for intimate activity. His Perfect Girl (18+) Fem!Reader. You'll do anything to be his perfect girl. Slight praise kink. A Little Jealousy (18+) Fem!Reader. You find out what happens when Nanami gets jealous.

Nanami Thoughts/Headcanons:

Nanami Secretly Dances Teen Nanami's Favorite Songs Fae! Nanami Nanami Needs Advance Notice Me Flirting With Nanami as a Barbie Doll Nanami as a minion Nanami Loves it When You Annoy Him Laughing During Sex Nanami is Bad at Showing Interest Nanami Hates Libraries Me Flirting With Nanami as a Biotechnologist Nanami as a kid Nanami is a polite lover Nanami's housewife or an independent sorceress Nanami Soft Lover Original Post Nanami and boobs ask box Nanami X Desi Reader Nanami Kento Headcanons(partially MDNI) Random Nanami NSFW Thoughts Pt 1 If I was dating Nanami 1 If I was dating Nanami 2

Ask Box/Conversations/Misc:

Calling Nanami a Dumb Blond Nanami MBTI Ask Nanami is Nurturing Nanami's Lap Nanami Soft Lover Ask Box

WIPS/Requests:

Fae! Nanami collab with @actuallysaiyan (multi-chapter)

Entry for @/ bleach-your-panties Blondes Have More Fun writing event

Second Chance Sorcerer Chapter 2

Nanami somno (ask box request)

Husband Nanami fluff/smut

Reader getting attacked by a Taylor Swift curse now can't stop singing her lyrics (include Shake It off)

[another-heroine]

WIP Wednesday

And who could say that I would post another The Windmill wip? lol

No Lights Out

Luis' eyes were getting heavy, but the little boy refused to sleep. Listening to abuelo reading for him was always soothing and exciting; the old man used to tell stories about princesses and dragons, shiny armored knights, greedy goblins and trickster witches. Sometimes he read, sometimes he narrated by heart. But every night, it was special and full of adventures.

“After his master’s wedding, Puss in Boots decided to put his gloves down. Or better saying, his boots. He lived for a long time besides his family and helped the kingdom to flourish. And even after many years, everybody knew about his legend. The End.” Abuelo closed the large book, leaving it on the bedside table.

Luis yawned, “Having a talking cat must be fun. Can we get one?”

“Well, if I find one out there, I'll let you know, niño. Now, come. It's too late.”

The grandson agreed and crawled under the blankets. The man covered him properly, puffing his pillow and making sure he was comfortable.

“Did you brush your teeth?”

“Sí, abuelo.”

“Did you pee?”

“Sí, abuelo.” Luis frowned, embarrassed.

“Um, you better have done it, boy. Buenas noches.”

“Buenas noches, abuelito…”

When the boy noticed Old Serra reaching the switch of the table lamp, his voice cracked, “Could you please let the light on?”

The grandpa tilted his head, but there was no mockery in his voice, “I thought that you already got used to sleeping with the lights off.”

Luis hid his nose under the checked blanket, gazing at the projected shadows. “I... I think there are monsters inside the walls.”

“What? Why?”

Luis muttered, “Every night I hear something scratching them from inside. And when it’s dark, it’s worse.”

António looked at where the boy’s fearful eyes were pointing. Everything made sense; there were a few days when he was woken up in the middle of the night by an anxious child. He stated, “Oyé, niño, there is nothing to worry about. It must be some mice. We will get rid of them soon.”

Luis didn’t look convinced, but he swallowed hard and insisted, “But... can you still let the light on?”

“Of course.” The man patted his head. “Until you feel more confident, ay?”

Luis nodded with a coyly grin.

...

There he was again, surrounded by familiar faces, feeling the roaring voices echoing inside his chest. The crystal chandeliers shimmering in gold lights, and while the music was playing out loud, waiters were passing by him, carrying silvery plates full of delicacies and the finest drinks.

Another enterprise success to be celebrated.

Luis was tapping his foot on the floor, feeling uneasy. Usually he was among the crowd, being the party heart, but that time was different…

How could they celebrate after that incident? It was their fault and, if they were in Raccoon City that time, they would surely be eliminated like their co-workers from the other side of the ocean.

Such greedy hypocrites.

The music started to change to a strange tune, but it didn’t seem like anybody cared about it. Luis looked at his side and froze in spot; there were dozens of red eyes lurking the drunken elite from outside, their bloody hands scratching the windows. Before he could react, they heard screams and glass shattering. The party has been invaded by zombies, a crimson wave seizing everything on their way. The crowd spreaded, some people were trampled to death, while others were preyed on by the ferocious invasors. Luis couldn’t move but watched the slaughter with horror, until he woke up sweating profusely.

The room was dark. He flickered the switch many times, but it looked like the lamp had burned out.

“Joder…”

He stumbled out of bed, groping around and avoided hitting any furniture. Luis touched the switch of the ceiling lamp and it lit on. He sighed, relieved.

Meanwhile there were zombies scratching walls in his nightmares, there were a couple hitting the headboard against their party wall.

It was 2 a.m, Luis was restless, that motel bedroom smelled funny and the lovebirds next door couldn’t drag the bed from the wall. Lovely.

[milfjensenackles]

new chapter of my wip is up !!

the haunting of castiel novak

read it on ao3 | chapter 3/?

“Do you always talk like that?” Dean says while he slips his shoes off in the doorway.

“Like what?” Castiel asks, tipping his head to the side.

Dean rolls his eyes. “‘Hello, Dean’ in that deep ass voice. We just met. No ‘hey, nice to meet you?’”

“I apologize that my introduction left much to be desired. Let’s start over. My name is Castiel Novak. That was Jack. The cat’s name is Oliver,” Cas reaches his hand out, “It’s nice to meet you.”

Dean leans over to watch Jack play with the cat. A pink feather flies six feet through the air followed by a large orange blur and a thud. He couldn’t help but smile before turning back to collect Castiel’s palm in his for a perfunctory handshake. “That’s more like it. I’m Dean Winchester. Novak, huh?”

“Yes. My family is originally from Poland,” Castiel releases Dean’s hand and ushers him inside while he talks. “Can I get you anything? Some water, a beer? I appreciate you coming out here on such short notice.”

“It’s not like I had a choice,” Dean says with a smirk.

Castiel looks away sheepishly, busying himself in the kitchen with glasses to avoid Dean’s eyes. “Perhaps I took things a little too far. But you still showed up.”

“Yeah. I did.”

Dean wanders toward the living area of the house. It was small, but comfortable and well-loved. A white-tiled fireplace took center stage with photos of Castiel and Jack lining the mantle, some more recent and some from when Jack was much younger. He seemed like a happy little boy. One of the photos includes a young woman who held a baby Jack in her arms. She had long blonde hair and a pink ribbon pinning it back behind her head. Castiel’s wife?

“Ah, that’s my sister. Meg,” Dean jumps at the sudden presence of a figure right next to him.

“Does Jack have a mom?” Dean asks, still looking over the photos.

Castiel squints. “Of course he does. How else would he be here?”

Dean rolls his eyes. This was going to be a long evening. “I don’t need the full birds and bees story, dude. I was asking if she’s still in the picture.”

“Oh,” Castiel says quietly, “She passed away giving birth to Jack. Jack isn’t mine, in the biologic sense. I adopted him. His mom, Kelly, was a very good friend of mine. I have some photos of her around the house, but it’s still hard.”

Oh shit. One second, you’re messaging a stranger online about ghosts, and the next you’re learning their tragic backstory next to a crayon drawing of a dragon. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

Castiel nods. “It’s okay. Jack is the best thing that’s ever happened to me, even though he came to me at a cost.”

Jack chooses that moment to wrap himself around his father’s calf and squeal something about Oliver swallowing the pink feather toy they were playing with just a minute before. Castiel rolls his eyes and picks Jack up before walking over to the cat and quickly pulling the obstruction out of his throat. “Sorry. It’s kind of chaotic around here.”

“I love chaos,” Dean says.

Castiel gives him a small smile and a wink. Dean grins back.

“So where have most of these incidents been happening, Novak?” Dean asks. He’s writing in a small notebook, trying to look more impressive and well-versed in these kinds of things than he feels right now. Without Sam at his side, he feels vulnerable. Scared, almost.

Castiel gestures widely. “Any and everywhere within these walls. The worst offender is the kitchen, but the cat has been thrown around, glasses have been smashed, and windows and doors will slam throughout the night. I just can’t take it anymore.”

“How are you sure it’s a ghost?”

Castiel looks exasperated. “Well, I tried mouse traps and calling the police, and they just laughed in my face. The mice, too.”

Dean holds his hands up in surrender. “Alright, dude. Got it,” Dean taps the end of his pen against his upper lip. “Have you recently gone on a trip and taken anything weird home with you? Any history of murder? Just to cover our bases.”

“Do you really think I’d be asking for help from a stranger on the internet if I had murdered someone?” Castiel asks with a huff, crossing his arms over his chest.

Dean barks out a laugh. “To be honest, with your track history, I wouldn’t be surprised.”

Dean stands up and turns his back on an offended Castiel. He wanders into the kitchen, looking for any signs of disturbance. The back windows are locked tight, with a rope connecting the handles for good measure. A cabinet is open, with a small assortment of mugs sitting inside. Dean could tell it wasn’t the original number that lived there. One of the mugs had been secured to the floor of the cabinet with duct tape. It was handmade, with ‘I love my dad’ carved into the side in a child’s handwriting. Jack’s work, Dean assumes.

Dean looks outside from the kitchen window. The leaves are trying to change color with urgency, even though September had only just begun. A small playset lives in the middle of the sparse green lawn, tracks of dead grass littering the space around the slide and the swings. The combination of the mug and the backyard and the photos are almost too much for Dean, and it knocks the wind out of him.

BANG!

The backyard view immediately turns into that of a pale white kitchen ceiling. Dean can feel a hard floor beneath him, but he doesn’t know how he got there. He can hear someone saying something but doesn’t understand what it is. Novak, he thinks lazily. The last thing he’s aware of is a strong hand on his shoulder.

Dean wakes up on a couch that isn’t his own.

He jumps up, immediately on red alert.

“Hey, whoa. Take it easy.” Castiel says, coming closer to him with a concerned look on his face. He sits next to Dean and presses him back down into the pillows under his head. “You took a hard fall. I think the kitchen windows got you pretty good.”

“The kitchen windows? You mean the ones that were hog tied shut?”

Castiel nods. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. Nothing stops it. At this point, I’ve just gotten really good at dodging. Jack’s short enough that most things just swipe right over him, thankfully.”

Dean opens his mouth to reply, but he realizes that his head is cold. He grabs at his hairline. An ice pack. Castiel must have put it on him after he knocked out.

Castiel shrugs. “You had a nice bump on your temple. Figured it couldn’t hurt.”

No one’s ever taken care of him after an attack like this. Usually, he was the one stitching wounds closed and making sure Sammy was okay.

“What time is it?” Dean asks groggily.

Castiel checks his watch. “10:07 PM.”

Fuck. Ava was going to kill him. He checks his phone.

100+ new messages. The notification lights up the screen. Castiel purses his lips. “Can I give you a ride home?”

Dean shakes his head. “No, no. I’m fine. I’ve had worse.”

Castiel looks at him in a way that was hard for Dean to describe. Sympathy? Concern? Dean didn’t really want to stick around to find out. He stands up and hands the ice to Castiel before reaching for his jacket and tugging it on. Suddenly, though, Jack comes shooting out from the dining room and shoves a piece of paper into Dean’s hands. It’s a drawing, colored in haphazardly with bright colors that don’t come close to staying inside the lines. It’s a drawing of himself, he realizes. He’s lying on the blue couch with his dirty blue jeans and black t-shirt and a plastic ice block on his forehead. Castiel and Jack stand over him.

Dean squats down to get on Jack’s level and pats him on the shoulder. “Did you draw this? It’s amazing.”

Jack nods vigorously. “Thank you for helping us, Mister Dean.”

Dean closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. “I haven’t done anything yet, Jack. But I’m sure gonna try.”

He stands up and turns back to Castiel. “I’m going to go home and do some research. On this house, on the area. We’ll see if anything interesting turns up. For now, I want you to put salt around the perimeter of the house. Doorways, windowsills. Let’s see if that calms things down for a little while so we can figure this out.”

Castiel looks down at the drawing in Dean’s hands and smiles. “Jack likes you. He doesn’t like everyone.”

Dean chuckles. “He’s a good kid.”

He and Castiel make eye contact for a moment. It’s a second too long for Dean’s comfort, and he breaks it to shove his shoes back on. “Well. Thanks for fixing my head. I’ll reach out if I find anything. I’ve gotta get going or it’s my head.” Dean gestures absently to his phone.

“Significant other?” Castiel asks.

“Girlfriend, yeah.”

“Ah,” Castiel replies.

Dean stomps out the front door into the autumn night. Stars fill the sky above him. There are never any stars where he and Ava live. Too many streetlights. He’s always wanted a quiet house further away from the city, but Ava wanted to live in a luxury complex with all these boring houses that looked exactly the same. As Dean sat down in the Impala, mentally preparing himself for the rampage awaiting him the second he set foot in his home, he realizes that he feels… excited. He hasn’t felt that way in a long time, not since the last case Sam had gone on with him.

With that realization pushing him forward, he puts the car in gear and drives home.

[chronic-ghost]

WIP - Wow it’s actually Wedneday!

I was in the shower actually mentally making some changes to this fic and came out to find I was tagged by the lovely @sleepswithvillains! If y’all haven’t read her Midnight Mass stuff, y’all are missing out - but might be able to sleep at night without being haunted by her beautiful smut - so honestly it’s a lose-lose if you’re not reading her fics.

This WIP comes from my new John/reader that was actually inspired by some tags I read awhile back. This takes immediately after the end of the series -  the opening scene is the last shot of the island on fire. You are a reporter in the port city of Crockett and as Erin Greene was your beloved cousin, you are determined to find out what the hell happened on Easter Sunday. But from your emotionally-distant father who is chief of police, your monstrous ex-fiance who is determined to make your life unbearable, to the new mysterious drifter in town who suffers from terrible burn scars and whom you can’t seem to stay away from, solving Erin’s murder is shaping up to be a lot harder than you first suspected. 

And because Henry doesn’t have a kind bone in his body, it’s not. It’s not the end of your suffering, not by a long shot. 

The rumors start that you’ve been seeing another man and poor broken-hearted Henry knew about it but let it continue because it was your dying mother’s wish that she see you taken care of. But now with her gone, he simply couldn’t continue the charade and gently broke off the engagement. 

The rumors mutated, growing and morphing like great throbbing pustules. Now you slept with every man in town, twice on Sundays, and sent them nude photos at dinner. Now you liked being fucked upside down with cords around your tits and warm leather spanking your ass. Now you were pregnant with the mayor’s child or maybe the postman’s or maybe the local priest’s. Obviously that one fell by the wayside fairly quickly but still the women and men in town watched you like you had indeed fucked Father Malcolm and the devil before murdering babies in their sleep.

You walked around with words like, “slut” and “whore” hovering just a few steps behind you like angry hornets. 

Without hesitation, the town chose Henry and the rest of the Tylers in the break-up. And you could have withstood it all — the death of your mother, Henry’s utter betrayal, Johanna’s horrible mouth twisting when she said she never wanted to see you again after what you did to her brother — all of it, if your father hadn’t chosen to abandon you. 

He was already long gone from being emotionally supportive by the time you arrived back in Hubbard, but after the break up with Henry, he never once asked for your side of the story. He never once asked what it meant to you or how you managed to keep it all together. He took the lies and the poison and the hate Henry spat out and accepted it. He listened to what they called his baby girl around town and swallowed it down like rotten milk. 

And so this grief and this despair and anger that had been festering like an infected wound since you were sixteen finally settled and hardened over, a black chrysalis around your heart, around anything soft or nice or gentle. Because if you didn’t, you wouldn’t survive. You wouldn’t survive this town or its people. You could either kneel before its gnashing jaws, break beneath the weight of its teeth, or you could fight. You would be swallowed in the end — you all were — but at least you would make it choke.

*~*~*

Night has fallen on Crockett Island and on its sister city in the east, Hubbard Bay. The water laps against the beach south of Hubbard, near the woods and hidden from view by any late-night trespassers. Here the wildlife surges — flies buzz near dead things, and frogs bark in their holes. Owls dive and flutter from tree top to tree top, eternally curious. The mice on the ground of the forest scatter from the swooping shadows. A wolf lets out a howl to find its pack. 

A deer near the water lifts its head, the flight instinct waking its legs to run. The rest of its small herd freezes and listens for more howls, but one of the deer looks away. It smells something in the water and, intrigued, it approaches the black husk thrown onto the beach by the waves.

It smells like smoke and death and immediately the deer knows to run, to get away, because whatever this thing is, it’s dangerous.

But it’s too late. 

A burnt hand grabs the deer by the throat and drags it to the ground. It lets out a surprised yelp as it falls, the rest of its herd flying into the forest, knowing there is nothing to be done. 

Ash-covered teeth tear into the deer’s throat, the arm pinning it to the ground unnaturally strong. And then the figure drinks the flowing blood like it’s salvation. The deer struggles, its hooves stroking uselessly against the sand, but the creature attached to its throat is feeding far too fast, the body losing blood too quickly for it to fully comprehend what’s happening. 

Blood runs black in the shadow of the body of the deer, down the cool sand and into the lapping waves, staining the crests pink. The creature feeds and feeds and feeds, the deer going still beneath it. Beneath the white light of the moon, the black, burnt skin sloughs off like a snake shedding its skin. Inch by inch, white skin emerges beneath the layers of soot and dried veins, dried organs, dried fingernails. Hair sprouts up the back of the black skull as eyelashes spring out of dark sockets. What washed up onto the beach south of Hubbard Bay has become a man. Or at least something that mimics one. 

Gasping through a bloody mouth, the man sits back on his heels, panting into the moonlight. He stares, horror-struck at his hands, now caked in blood and viscera, at his thighs, his legs. The blood, only that of an animal, hasn’t performed a perfect miracle: the skin in some places is still gnarled, white, scars of sunlight still visible and painful in a dull sort of way. 

Half his face hurts. He reaches up and touches it and feels that warped skin beneath his fingertips. With a gasp, he yanks his hand back and the weight of what he has done collides with his every atom and he leans forward into a sob. 

No. No, no, no, no.

He cries for what he has lost. He cries for what he has become. He cries at the idea that he always might have been this horrible monster, one who feeds upon the living, and it was only in the past few months he finally became what he was always meant to be. Naked and covered in blood, at the feet of a corpse, this is who he really was.

The heat from the blood of the deer is fading and the man realizes just how cold he truly is. Sniffing and wiping his eyes, the man looks into the darkness of the forest, his eyes flashing a monstrous silver. In the distance, he sees a cabin with the lights off. His sense of smell tells him there are no humans around, so he struggles to his feet, arms wrapped around his chest to preserve some sense of warmth. The man takes off into the night, towards the cabin, towards Hubbard and into a dawning new world.

I tag @stormikins @taxontaxoff @femalecynic @agirlinherhead @myletternevercame and @fortysevenswrites​ and anyone else who wants to share their progress!

[arbor-blessing]

aftermath

hi this is baby's first itty bitty piece of writing. :]

i just wanted to get my thoughts down and try out a new hobby in the process

very much a WIP or just a very small "part 1." i haven't decided yet.

-----------------

The moon hung heavy in the night when the Inquisitor finally came back to Skyhold. The celebrations for her achievements were dying down, and she wasn’t even a participant. Servers were taking dirty platters and empty bottles of wine to the kitchen, nobles were saying their farewells and good wishes, and Inquisitor Atheva was making her way up the steps, leaning heavily on her staff.

...

Her hood shrouded her face, eyes down, walking as fast as her exhausted and injured body would take her. Her armor was dented, muddied, and still plastered with dried blood. Undesirable trophies from her victory days ago. She had no interest in conversation or congratulations– and anyone who insisted upon it was promptly ignored. Their eyes burned into her, and she could feel it. Just as everyone remaining in the hall could feel the magic radiating from her. Purple sparks popped around the elf’s hands, crawling up the conduit of a wooden staff like mice up a tree. People backed away, as they should, as the Inquisitor made her way to her Quarters. The heavy door closed behind her, and the dull, loud thunk of the lock echoed through the quieted hall.

After a moment, the heaviness in the room faded, and whispered conversation struck up between the remaining guests once more. Her Advisors found each other, wandering over with concern written on each of their faces. It seemed like they were all thinking the same thing.

“What happened to her?” Josephine questioned in a hushed tone, not wanting the remaining noblemen to catch wind of their worry. Her eyes were stuck to the Inquisitor’s door, in small and fruitless hope that she’d see her come back out of hiding. “She seemed excited to hear that I was planning to host a banquet for our victory– she encouraged it, actually. And now she decides to skip it altogether?”

“I would assume that she’s simply tired from the battle.” Cullen said with a shrug, “Anyone would be. It was hard fought and hard won. It’s understandable that she would be exhausted and want some time to herself.” He took a sip of his wine, the only glass he had allowed himself, “Though admittedly, it is out of character for her. Do we know what she was even doing out there for so long?”

Both of them looked at Leliana expectantly. It was only natural, since the Spymaster’s eyes and ears were everywhere, and the Inquisitor venturing off alone was a red flag to be watched carefully. “She was searching.” She answered, her eyes cast down to the wine glass held delicately in her hand. She swirled it gently, “My scouts had their own task of looking for our disappearing apostate, but Inquisitor Lavellan decided to take a special interest in it herself. And,” Leliana sighed, her thoughts interrupted by creaking walls and the sound of crackling electricity. She grimaced, “Clearly, her search was in vain. As is ours.”

“Should we go check on her?” Josephine blurted out, covering her mouth with a hand. A yell muffled by wood and stone made its way to the main hall. The sound of what can be assumed is the Inquisitor’s bookshelf being toppled over easily bypassing the lock on the door. The patrons’ gasps could be heard, and all three advisors cringed at the vague noises of destruction.

Josephine’s question was an easy one to answer, “No.” Leliana and Cullen nearly said it at the same time. Cullen shook his head, “I believe she needs to do this. On her own.”

For once, the trusted advisors had a unanimous agreement. In the meantime, they tried to lessen the damage to their public image by politely nudging the rest of their guests out. The celebration was over, that was clear enough to anyone with ears, and everyone was hoping that Skyhold would remain standing by morning’s light.

[suoyou]

[wip] 一日三秋; one day, three autumns

1633 words, rated t.

a complete chapter 2 in an incomplete series of oneshots titled 一日三秋; one day, three autumns, in which wwx is the autumn king and lwj is the winter prince.

ch 1.

they say that missing someone is the most powerful force of pain a person will know. a pain that can wilt the heart. a pain to carry. a pain that can turn one day into three autumns.

In the middle of Lan Wangji’s left thigh is a scar, round and hollow in the center, like a coin. It had been a burn once, angry blisters deadening into a purple keloid into, now, a little white moon on his skin. 

Of the five floors of the castle, Lan Wangji is only allowed in three. Evidently, little does it matter that he is the only other heir to the Winter Throne should his brother ever be incapable of holding it; he’s often pictured how woefully unprepared he would be should the Kingdom of Summer ever revolt again, or, as the Defectress Luo Qingyang had promised, if the Autumn King showed up seeking revenge. 

For what, Lan Wangji doesn’t know. 

“You don’t need to know,” has always been his uncle’s reply. 

“You won’t need to know if I have any say in it,” is what his brother says, kind, still double-edged.

“You should know,” said the Defectress Luo Qingyang, over her teacup, and jade has never looked so threatening, “that your kingdom is still carrying out the crimes of war right under your nose, and if your family does not wake up, the Autumn Kingdom will leave the decade-long peace treaty in the dust the same way you have.” She said it all like she was simply commenting on the races. The Jin Imperial Family was winning. 

“How do you know? What kind of war crimes?” asked Lan Wangji. He’d spoken too brusquely, but Luo Qingyang hadn’t been fazed. All around them, the Dragon Boat Festival surged on, air humid and painted green-red-blue, an overfull tea kettle of a day. “Why is it your concern?”

“That you think it shouldn’t be my concern is the same line of thinking that got your Kingdom into this mess,” she said, and her words have been ringing in Lan Wangji’s ears ever since, an unwelcome jabber of sparrow song and raven squawks that won’t leave him hours later. The telltale signs of spring. She holds her position well. 

“What kind of war crimes?” he repeated.

She’d taken her time sipping the rest of her tea before placing her empty cup on the table to be taken away. “Do you recall, when the Wen Imperial Family went rogue and the Snowfire Wars tore the lands apart,” she said, “there was a division of mages known as the Core Reapers?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t really believe, do you, that they simply vanished after those wars?”

Lan Wangji had stared at her. 

The Core Reapers had vanished after the Snowfire Wars. They’d ridden through the war-torn battlegrounds after blood had been spilled like red ghosts, gathering the dying bodies of civilians and mages alike to, as Lan Wangji had heard, harvest their cores. Word was that the Wen Imperial Family was creating elixirs, weapons, medicines out of them. Hearsay had it that they were creating monsters. 

He stares at his scar now, where his jade pendant had burned him through three layers of clothing thirteen years ago, and had never lit up again. In the dusk of the evening, it’s almost invisible, as if it had  never existed—vanished, like the Reapers, after the war. 

Lan Wangji stands up and shrugs his outer robe back on. Unthinkingly, he opens the drawer where he keeps that pendant, like it’ll have answers for him. It doesn’t. Jade does not dull with age, but in the red velvet of the drawer it could be leached bone. A small one—a skull bone. 

Lying beside it is its bonded match. Once they had been identical, though Lan Wangji’s pendant was wrapped in blue ribbon. The other is broken on one side and missing a segment, red knotting and tassels unraveled, the jade circle incomplete like a horseshoe. When the Snowfire Wars raged around him, Lan Wangji wore his half of the pair with more attention and care than when he carried his sword.

“Wangye,” his attendant inclines her head when he opens his pavilion doors. 

“I have some personal work to attend to. Can you see to it that, if any of my family seeks me, to let them know I will greet them accordingly when I return?”

“Yes, Wangye.”

So he goes. 

Three of the Kingdom’s floors are aboveground. Two are below. He’s been to three in the middle—never the topmost, never the bottomost, and he’s not sure what he’s looking for. He has to look, to be sure, or else it will be another evening of Luo Qingyang’s voice in his head, jerking him awake long before dawn.

Strange dreams have been plaguing him since the Dragon Boat festival, the sorts of dreams that someone would tell themselves didn’t mean anything. The night of the festival Lan Wangji had gone to bed and found himself in a place where the sun never set, simply bobbing up and down in the sky, turning from green to gold and back again as the days and nights passed. Then, the next night, the scar on his thigh had opened up and begun bleeding afresh, and no matter what magic he used, it would not stop. The more magic he used, the more blood poured down his leg. 

Last night, he dreamed of Wei Ying. Not in the way he’d been in life, so bright that Lan Wangji couldn’t bear to look at him sometimes. 

The Kingdom of Winter had been blanketed in snow for their cycle, and Lan Wangji was in the woods outside the royal walls alone. A dark sweep of Core Reapers had passed by. Their hoods had been drawn over their heads. It looked as if the entire forest was bleeding. 

One of them in the center of their tight pool of red had paused and turned their heads, and under the scarlet, mink-lined hood had been Wei Ying’s face. 

Lan Wangji shakes himself as he greets the guards that stand outside the gates into the Kingdom’s undergrounds. A question floats through their expressions but they open the gates for him without question, bowing again as he passes. 

He picks his way through the first underground level without wasting his time. Here they keep their forbidden texts, their spoils of war, here they hold sensitive political meetings. A damp, sweet smell of soil clutches fat little hands at his robes, happy for visitors, and he raises his hand to upright some of the overgrown vines and planters that line the walls. His hand glows a dim blue, and the drooping foliage picks its flower heads up again. Blooms are coming. 

Even if he’s never made the descent into the lowest floor of the Kingdom, Lan Wangji knows there are two ways to get there—the prisoners’ entrance in the Pavilion of Discord, and the one he faces now. The jailers’ entrance, through the Hall of Justice. 

He doesn’t feel particularly just, facing the round door that he knows will take him down the staircase into the Kingdom’s dungeons.  

Blue fires light his way. 

In times of peace, there aren’t many prisoners to speak of. The few that the Kingdom of Winter persecutes are petty thieves, suspected spies, and the occasional revolutionist, all of which are bent into fearful submission before they ever even make it to the dungeons. Lan Wangji knows it. He’s seen it. 

And he’s right, almost, for at least part of the dungeon. It’s bright and clean, with mainly empty cells, but the blue fires end abruptly in the middle of the long walkway between the rows. There are scuffles, noises of things living, hushed in the gloom. He pauses and strains his eyes. Then he lifts his hand, summoning some of the fires in the torches to his palm to light his way. 

He doesn’t know what he expects to see. Prisoners, perhaps, curled up like hungry mice. 

The icy sheen of his fire falls over the bodies in the cells, and Lan Wangji frowns before he steps back, breath stuttering in his chest. 

They are prisoners. It’s the most human thing left about them. Some of them have lost all their hair, ragged clumps gathering in rolls thick as dead cats beside them. Others have clawed their own backs bloody, as if they’d been trying to dig their own spines out of their bodies, and still others were covered in a thick, tarry ooze, as if blood and lymph had leaked out of them and gained its own sentience. One of them lay in silence with a stained white strip of cloth over his eyes, a line at his neck like his head had been stitched back on. 

Lan Wangji’s stomach writhes, hot and sick, in his belly. 

The end of the walkway widens into a larger chamber where no one is kept, but as he passes his fire over the space he can make out the outlines of odd contraptions—long rods with fluted holes, boards with three holes in them—one larger, two smaller, for a neck and hands. A splintered wooden gurney like a rotting log. Old blades sprout off of it like oyster mushrooms. They blink sleepily back at him, eyes in the night. A bizarre device like a chair, outfitted with two horns on both sides. Anyone sitting in it would have their head position between the mouths of both. 

He frowns. A long skein of red fabric has been tossed carelessly over the back of the chair, wrinkles rounded and warm. A cloak. Someone’s just taken it off. 

“Wangji,” a voice comes from behind him, “what are you doing down here?”

[peralta-guaranteed]

last line tag meme

well dang, I was contemplating doing this with my many wips but now I got tagged by @dolston17​ so I can’t say no can I???

post a sneak peak from a WIP (favorite/last line/almost abandoned, dealer’s choice lol)

okay so yeah I got... 3 actually active WIPs that I’m working on and one that is... absolute crackfic but I’ve put 5k words into it so I have to finish it someday? so you’re getting a snippet from all of them

1 - Better Luck Next Time, Johnny (not really the title)

(can’t give you the last line of this because it’s uuuuh filth but there is some silly flirting before that I really like)

“Didn’t I tell you this isn’t a good place for you last time?”

His voice is far more teasing and playful than it is worried and reprimanding, and she understands that they’re probably being listened to. She tries to put the same amount of flirting into her answer.

“I really don’t like being told what to do, Johnny.”

There’s a twitch in his eyebrow she knows all too well, and the smallest hint of a smile as he bites his lower lip and leans over a bit more, his eyes raking over her in that dress, and maybe Kylie wasn’t quite so wrong to convince her to buy it.

“I highly doubt it, Dora.” His low voice isn’t at sultry-level yet, but it still has her squeezing her thighs together without even wanting to. “I rather think you like exactly that. Which is why you came back, hm?” He twirls a loose strand of her hair around his finger and pulls ever so slightly, and she has to bite her lip now to hide her smile.

“So you’re going to be a good girl”, he continues, and he’s definitely at sultry now, “and go get yourself out of here.”

-+-

2. - I’ll worship like a dog at the shrine of your life (yeah I’m that song-line kind of writer bitch)

(this is the start of the WIP but there’s actually a lot happening before it that I haven’t written yet)

"What are you thinking?"

"It's cheesy."

"Lemme be the judge of that."

A pause. Amy is smiling at him, softly, but with the slightest hint of mischief. It will never not take his breath away, that particular smile. He knows exactly what it means.

"I was thinking…" he begins, and his voice is raspy, far too raspy for only a few kisses. But he finds that he doesn't mind, as his hands stroke down her sides so tentatively he can see her shiver above him.

"Goddess." he finally whispers in that same raspy tone, and watches Amy's eyes grow wide and her body still. Only for a few seconds, before she catches herself and smiles again.

"Definitely cheesy." She judges, but leans forward to kiss him all the same, and the kiss tells him she's happier about it than she'll admit. "Which one?" he hears her mumbling against his lips, and he hums while thinking.

-+-

3. Five things I can’t hate about you (yes I am also that bad movie-reference kinda writer bitch)

this is a long last ‘line’ but it’s also the most active WIP I have and I really like this whole scene

They don’t speak for the maybe ten or fifteen minutes spent sitting in the darkened room. He doesn’t ask - doesn’t prod - doesn’t demand an explanation or more information or anything, really, not the way she’s used to from anyone else who’s actually figured out that she’s having some sort of attack, and she’s glad for it. She will explain it all, later, probably alongside the written thank you note he’s definitely going to get because that is the proper way to do it, even if he will make jokes about it. But right now, she’s thankful for the silence that doesn’t feel threatening at all, for the warmth of his hand and the calm of his thumb still rubbing across her skin. 

They let go when she stands up, squaring her shoulders as he rises next to her. 

“Ready?” He asks with his usual grin and she returns it with a small smile and a nod before he opens the door for her and sneaks her out unnoticed the same way he brought her in.

She mingles. She makes connections. She even gets to tell a few stories that make a group of captains laugh around her, but the laugh she hears the most is right next to her and very familiar by now.

He keeps handing her canapés from the trays of passing waiters (he’s a pro at spotting free food, obviously) and makes silly jokes next to her without ever stealing the spotlight or embarrassing her like he usually would. She notes a glass of orange juice in his hand whenever he hands her her own refill, and when Terry leaves early to see his family and asks if he needs a ride home, he declines.

And when the evening finally slows and the hall begins to empty, she walks with him to his dingy old car in the garage and gets in without another question, falling half-asleep during the ride back to her place.

She puts a coffee down on his desk with the thank you note tucked underneath it the next day, and tries not to blush when he comes in 15 minutes late with her coffee order in hand. The day is spent teasing her about the note in between his actual work, of course, but she sees it pinned between his knicknacks when she actually leaves on time in the evening.

It’s surprising that besides his actually funny jokes, he can make her smile with the strangest little things.

-+-

4. The Florida Menagerie

(a crackfic turned emotional turned back to crack and I genuinely have no plan how to end it so it’s been sitting for months now.. if you can correctly identify the ‘pets’... go you, I guess? there’s not really a prize I can offer.)

After that, the code was well-established. They met at their fences far more often while watering the lawn or, in Jake’s case, enjoying the hot tub the way it was meant to be enjoyed, without tears or burritos in sight. They would greet each other, maybe exchange pleasantries for a moment, and then Holt would inquire about his pets. And Jake was more than happy to answer.

“Oh, god, Goose and Foxglove got into such a fight last night. I almost thought I had to save Goose from it. But they made up this morning, I think.” “Big Bird isn’t really used to the new cage he got. Might be a bit too big for him, even. But I keep the door open and everyone’s been keeping him calm.” “The Nomster has found a new favourite food. He keeps trying to share it with the Pizza Pockets, but no takers. And I mean, they will eat everything.” “Foxglove and Peanuts keep bringing in so many dead mice and birds. Just, constantly on the hunt. It’s like they have a competition going.” “Stilton’s doing okay, I think. Getting used to me still. He keeps quoting my classic movie collection, so I think he’s learning from the best.”

It wasn’t much, it never was. But it was more than enough. 

And as he watched Larry muse about the wonderful feeling of Peanuts cuddling up to him when he felt bad at night, or sniff a little about how she was so smart and always knew how to make his day better, he could see Jake Peralta come back into his own again, and he felt as if Raymond Holt was right there to join him, hearing about Stilton and Goose getting along so well they often shared a cage and their meal together, or Stilton throwing his pebbles at Peanuts who was apparently happy to snack on them. 

It wasn’t much, but it was all they could get, and as such, it was wonderful.

Until it stopped.

[themurphyzone]

3, 4, 13, 26, 27, & 34!

Thanks for the ask @plutonis! I’m sorry this is gonna be long cause I’m gonna rant about a WIP concept that may not ever come to fruition. 

3. What do you think makes your writing stand out from other works?

I honestly don’t know. I think it’s just easier for my work to be noticed in a small fandom than a larger one. 

4. Are there any writers that inspire you?

I borrowed a lot from skimmingsurfaces and SylviaW1991. I was inspired to write my first PatB story last year from their works. 

Pluto listens to me scream about torturing mice, plus her works are always great if you like that bittersweet/downright tragic vibe. 

@deez-art for kickstarting the PatB Disney AU trend. 

Big shout out to everyone in Air Mice Nyoom for the mutual support!

13. First fandom you ever wrote for?

My first posted fic was for Phineas and Ferb way back in 8th grade, but I did fill up quite a few notebooks with Pokemon stories. My writing has improved a lot over the years, mostly because I never attempted to post my Phineas and Ferb/Sonic Underground crossover on the net. I was in middle school and we were all dumb at that age XD

That one still haunts me...I think I still have it somewhere in a notebook. 

27. What’s the nicest comment you’ve ever received?

Can’t say. Everybody in this fandom is so nice and I love hearing what people love about my stories.  

34. Copy and paste an excerpt you’re particularly fond of.

From the ending of Eurydice:

"Just say narf, just say narf.

We're alright, we're okay, so let's say narf.

You and I will have tomorrow nights again.

No matter what happens, I'm always your friend…"

I’m proud of my happy ending okay they needed it.

26. Is there anything you’ve wanted to write, but you’ve been too scared to try?

I have a WIP concept for a 101 Mice based off 101 Dalmatians, which would’ve involved a number of OCs (yes, including a group of OC Brinky kids.), but it might not get anywhere tbh. Mostly because I don’t really deal in OCs unless they’re minor characters.

The concept: The villain would’ve been an OC named Malicia de Vil, who’s a niece to the original Cruella. Basically she’s an eccentric rich woman who became interested in breeding mice to create fur trimmings for accessories and dresses (since the story takes place in southern California, an entire fur coat would be impractical), and ACME Labs took the generous funding they were given by her to create Project Gloss, which would’ve raised hundreds of baby mice to adulthood until their fur was ready for collection.

To accomplish this, the gene splicer from the failed Project BRAIN would be reconfigured to splice genes that favor long, lush fur, and sentience was just a throwaway side effect this time around. However, the mice subjected to this experiment were much younger than the ones used in Project BRAIN, and many didn’t survive.

Brain is in the middle of his usual plans of world domination when someone brings in 2 survivors of Project Gloss just after the gene splicing. They’re left in a different cage across the room and are squeaking from hunger and cold. Pinky is immediately drawn to the babies since he’s got a bad case of Empty Nest Syndrome since Romy left home, and so does Brain but it’s not like he’ll admit it. Brain warns about getting attached, but nope these are Pinky’s babies now, so Brain unlocks the cages for his friend so he can go care for the babies.

Still trying to salvage the plan, Brain goes into the gene splicer room to obtain a few spare parts for his machine...then he hears a tiny, weak squeak, and discovers a small, barely alive, gene-spliced mouse baby. Brain tries to steel himself against it and tries to gather what he needs first then retrieve the baby immediately afterward, but the squeaking suddenly stops and Brain panics, immediately dropping the plan in favor of warming up and reviving the baby. Thankfully, she survives.

Pinky is confused when Brain shows him the 3rd baby, but he quickly accepts her along with the other two. Brain is highly emotional at this point and just plops against Pinky, and he finds that Pinky has already named the two babies he was taking care of Colby Jack and Pepper Jack.

Pinky asks what Brain named the baby he’d brought in, and Brain tells Pinky he can name her if he wants, but Pinky says it’s only fair if they get to name 2 kids each, and Brain’s only named Romy so far.

So Brain concedes and after some deliberation, settles for calling the infant Amygdala (nicknamed Amy for everyday use), after the portion of the brain that controls memories and emotions. Pinky accepts the name and they sleep the rest of the night.

Brain researches the details of Project Gloss soon after the babies’ adoption and realizes that their new charges will be raised only for their fur and will be killed for it once they’re grown. So the mouse family stow away with a young intern couple who are essentially this AU’s versions of Roger and Anita so the babies can be protected. The interns, while they don’t speak mouse, care deeply enough to allow the mice to hide in a purse so they can be smuggled out of the lab and into their home. A hidden camera catches them at this though, and Malicia de Vil is highly displeased and orders the interns’ positions terminated, though neither of them are particularly upset about this.

3 months later, Colby, Pepper, and Amy are thriving, and their big bro Romy even drops in for a visit every now and then, much to Pinky and yes, even Brain’s delight. While Pinky loves his family, he also craves a date night with Brain, and they go out to dinner. Romy is having a movie night with Bunny at their own place. The babies are tucked in and asleep, and the interns are just cuddling on the couch.

Then somebody breaks in, non-fatally injures the human couple, and steals the mouse kiddos. Halfway through their dinner, Pinky is overcome by panic and thinks something is terribly wrong. Brain tries to reassure him the kids are just asleep, but Pinky won’t listen and rushes out the door in the direction of home, so fast that Brain can’t keep up. Brain stays behind to get the half-eaten meals boxed up and paid for, annoyed with Pinky for breaking the date night. 

By the time Brain gets back, Pinky is a complete mess, the humans are just calling 911 to report a break-in and injuries, and the kids are nowhere to be found. 

Eventually Brain finds a lead that points to the de Vil mansion, and the two set out to rescue their kids. They also recruit Romy and Pharfignewton’s help in the journey. 

This took way too long to type lol XD 

[goonlalagoon]

Drawn to fall || Leagues and Legends

A series rewrite AU for @ink-splotch​‘s fantastic Leagues and Legends books.

This has been sitting as a 90% finished draft for...a while, but talking to @soundofez​ about WIPs the other day prodded me to actually finish it up

Spoilers for the whole trilogy below

Read on Ao3

It was the Piper who fell first, a ricochet and a song vanishing from the world. Jack and George limped home, but the fight didn't stop with a round of prisoners stolen from the Seeress' grasp, with one more body laid to rest and another widow weeping.

The mage traders didn't get George. The Graves family and their guards were a constant threat, a blight, but the mountain vigilantes had plenty of other dangers to throw themselves in front of. It wasn't a bullet or a gun that slew the Dragon Slayer, but sharp claws and sharper beaks.

Jack never really made it home, from that. He walked through the bakery door and he held Bea as she wept, but he was burning and lost somewhere inside himself. He looked at Bea's maps, her petitions, and he threw himself into saving everyone he could reach with a manic desperation.

It was the Rangers who brought the news to Bea, when they lost the Giantkiller. Jack had been shrouded in good fortune, unknowing, for his whole life, but luck can only take you so far.

The bakery was cold and quiet. Beatrice Jones felt like she had frozen all the way through, turned to stone, and thought she might never thaw again. 

(Bidi would wake in the night for weeks, tear stains dried into her cheeks, and crawl into her mother's arms. Bea would curl close around her and remember that she had felt this cold before. She would live through this.)

The news of their falls reached Rivertown, through channels both official and hidden. Rupert mourned the loss of an idol, and didn't know that the revered Rangers, far off in the mountains, were standing with red rimmed eyes at the grave. The Farrises didn't know what their wandering son had been up to, but Jack's mother woke one day to the aching certainty that he would never be coming home. She watched the horizon anyway.

 Lanetia Jones heard stories of a mage who had whistled magic out of the air, of his fall, soon after she became acquaintances with the blue blooded hero in her second year study group. She would hold her back straight and clasp her hands neatly on the library table, and ask in a steady voice if he knew anything else about the Pied Piper. Rupert knew stories, legends, Bureau reports he technically shouldn't have seen - but he didn't know the name Liam Jones except from Laney's own tales, so they couldn't be certain.

 They couldn't be certain, but neither of them had heard of any other mage who pulled magic into the world with a whistle, and Laney was a pragmatist. The numbers tallied up, the arrival of a dark skinned singer in the mountains and her brother setting out from home, never looking back. 

(Liam had looked back for years, his mother's best recipes simmering on the hob, his daughter stumbling through songs a slightly older Laney had warbled terribly on his heels, old familiar stories ready on his tongue - mice and lions, thunderstorms given tongues to shriek, a stubborn kid with her hair scraped into braids by their mother's patient fingers ignoring scrapes and scratches until she could reach the top of the tallest palm tree, because someone had told her that she wasn’t allowed to.)

In the Academy library, warm golden sun spilling over her table and the back of her chair, Laney held herself tall and still because Rupert was neither friend nor enemy, just a classmate, but she would not let him see her weakness either way. She would not. 

Rupert fetched slim volumes of legends, dispatches from the past seven years of Vigilante activity in the mountains, and a glass of water. He ached and didn't know how to help, stuffy with it, so when she got carefully to her feet he didn't follow. He re-shelved the books and checked that they hadn't left anything behind, and then he went to do his Uncle's paperwork, burying himself in it until he felt useful again.

They had barely interacted in their first year, but Rupert had known her name and a few other things about the desert-born mage that weren't common knowledge before they were assigned their second year projects. He arranged for them to go to Sally-Anne's for their first meeting, because it seemed like the kind of place that would help everyone relax - would help him relax, really. Sally-Anne gave him a reassuring wink and a bonus plate of chips, on the house, and he sighed pointedly at her transparent attempts to Help Him Make Friends to make her laugh. 

When he got back to the table Clem was awkwardly trying to flirt - or possibly just bond, it wasn’t clear - with Laney, who looked stunningly unimpressed. The pipsqueak Sage that Rupert was keeping an anxious eye on while he tried to formulate a discreet way of sneaking numb tea to was buried in his book, slowly demolishing a plate of plain fries without looking up. Heather was rolling her eyes at Laney whenever Clem said something particularly demonstrating an inability to read the mood, and the rest of the time scribbling notes in the margins of a scientific journal she'd brought along with her. Annals of Botany, Rupert thought, because he'd seen her with it in the dining hall on a monthly basis all of the previous year and it was about the right time for a new issue to have been sent out to subscribers. He didn't square his shoulders, because they were already carefully level, posture already perfect. He took a steadying breath before setting down his purchases and trying to drag things back to the agenda he'd planned out the evening before. 

Rupert's agenda had included contingency plans, of course. What really had to be covered first, in case someone needed to dash off and hadn't thought to warn him. Who could pick up the slack if their combat spec decided he had more important things to do (Rupert), who could keep their squeaky sage on track (also Rupert), and who would cover what as a back up if someone fell ill (Rupert again). 

He hadn't planned what to do if armed men walked into his friend's shop and fired a gun in the air. He had no precise strategies, no intel whispered in his ear by Sez, just his Academy study group and their homework assignment clutched in Grey's trembling fingers, just a room full of frightened civilians.

Clement went down with a bullet in his shoulder, and a bricklayer hit the ground with one in his gut not long after. Laney and Rupert held a hissed conference, and Heather weighed in to point out that official witnesses were probably not part of the thieves' plan. He'd seen gunpowder dusted on Laney's fingertips at breakfast for months, so he wasn't surprised when she fired off perfect sniper shots with the gun that fell within reach. Grey pressed himself back against the wall, pale, quiet, eyes wide over cheeks lit up gold, and that wasn't a surprise either. Heather sitting on one of the fallen gunmen and threatening to force feed him the poisonous plants she was casually carrying around with her was, though mostly because he'd thought she had a basic grasp of health and safety.

Laney trailed him as he went to find Sez, and he would berate himself for carelessness later, but - men had broken into Sally's shop with guns, and the streets were never still or silent. She would know soon, and she needed to hear that Sally was okay from someone she trusted, someone she knew wouldn't have left if it wasn't true.

She dropped her tray down next to him at breakfast the next morning and said she wanted in. Heather and Gloria joined them while he was still blinking and sighing, considering, and he looked around the half empty mess hall with confusion, because he wasn't entirely sure what they wanted from him. He thought maybe Laney was after some excitement, a sharpshooter mage feeling trapped by petty class politics and Academy expectations, but he didn't know about the other two. They asked him for the salt shaker, his opinion on Professor Rhones’ lecturing style, and nothing else.

He let Laney help him with his next Rivertown job, and they patched each other up afterward, discussing strategies and critiquing their own form. They sat together in the library later that week and she asked politely about his essay, on vigilantism in the Mountains and how to effectively combat it - and in the warm, golden light of the afternoon sun, he told her about the Pied Piper and broke her heart.

When Sez next contacted him, he knocked politely on Laney's door, braced for it to slam in his face and holding his shoulders carefully relaxed so it wouldn't show. She didn't shut the door on him, but she did demand to know, on their brisk walk back to the Academy after eliminating a Thing that had taken up residence in an alleyway, if this was pity. She didn't want to join him on these tasks because he felt sorry for her, or because he felt guilty - she wanted to help because she wanted to sink her teeth into something real. 

Rupert blinked at her, and began patiently dissecting their joint performance, gave a litany of tactical reports of earlier jobs where a sharpshooter or a mage - or both - would have made things much more...efficient. Laney listened suspiciously for any hint that she was being coddled, but her stomach settled. She had a bruise the width of her palm on her ribs and a stinging burn starting to blister on the backs of her fingers, and she felt a fierce joy welling up through her chest. Laney had learned to fall, true, but that was only half the battle - she'd learned to stand, too, to hit the ground and push herself back to her feet, to decide what was worth falling for, over and over. This, the safety of these streets and these people - this was worth standing for.

Gloria and Heather cornered her one afternoon in the room she and Gloria shared, and demanded to know what was going on. Laney had been slipping out and sneaking back with bruises for over a month, and they were worried. Laney looked at the earnest concern and said, with perfect honesty, that she was doing some extra curricular self-defence training. This had the unintended side effect that Gloria and Heather both wanted in. Rupert sighed when she reported this, and she raised an eyebrow. 

"You'd prefer that I'd told them we're Rivertown vigilantes? I can, you know, I think they're both capable of keeping a secret, but I figured you'd rather I not make that kind of decision on your behalf." Rupert sighed again, but he did suggest that the stables would be an okay venue for self-defence classes, and he got her to set up wards so that if anyone came looking they could very quickly pretend to have been doing homework. After all, they were a study group.

The first time the wards went off, they actually just switched to doing core circuits because honestly nobody who'd be checking would believe four people in training gear and somewhat out of breath had been doing their homework in an out of the way corner. Circuits probably still wouldn't be strictly approved of, but they wouldn't be disciplined for breaking Academy rules. 

But it wasn't one of the Academy instructors checking for misbehaviour. It was a rather surly combat spec, who seemed quite surprised to see them and immediately asked if Leaf had invited them. Rupert blinked.

"Hello, Francis. No, I haven't spoken to Leaf about...much of anything, really. Laney and I have been using the space for some fitness training, and these two decided they were also interested." Francis gave him a considering look, and nodded slowly, glancing over the rough straw pallets they'd set up to cushion their falls. He gave them a flicker of a smile. 

"Leaf and I were planning something similar, actually. Mind if we merge?"

Their study group met in the library or dining hall, after that first foray out into the city, but Laney and Rupert were frequent faces at Sally-Anne's. The growing stable loft gang started dropping by too, laughing over in-jokes and nursing bruises, grinning brightly. Red would claim a corner seat and relax into it like the noise and bustle were a second skin, like he was more comfortable with a floor strewn with straw and fish scales than the polished length of the dining hall at the Academy.

Rupert started watching Francis, quietly and from the corner of his eye, during the handful of classes they shared. A few months into their extracurricular training began, he would suggest that Red join them on their hunts in Rivertown, and shrug when asked why me. It was a decision he had hesitated over, but not one he regretted, after the first alley they raced down, side by side, chasing a wounded manticore into Laney's waiting shields, Red adapting almost instantly to the strengths of his allies. 

He had a wealth of knowledge of the things that crept through the dark, though he shone most when it came to creatures of the deep. Soon after the winter break a (small) kraken made its way up the river, and Red barely hesitated before calling out instructions, demanding supplies from the terrified crowd of civilians, not needing to think about what weaknesses were there to exploit. As they bandaged themselves up, after, Laney caught Rupert's eye and raised one eyebrow a hairbreadth. He blinked solemnly in agreement, and they waited patiently until Red was ready to tell them what they'd already guessed. 

When Sez handed Rupert a piece of paper scrawled with yellow crayon, he and Laney poured over it for days. Laney dragged out book after book, picking the curse to pieces with a steady determination until she knew how to burn through it. Neither of them knew enough of the shape of this, yet, to know that there was a warning they should offer in turn.

Over the years, Rupert had fought a lot of battles in the name of Rivertown and its inhabitants - in back alleys and warehouses, shin deep in the river and slipping on the muddy banks (in the quiet of his private Academy dorm, the rustle of paper and the scratch of a pen). He had tackled petty thieves, thugs, monsters who went after human bones and Things in the dark. He knew he didn't know all of their victims' stories, but Sez was pale with fury when she told him a child was missing, door broken down and a terrified sibling hiding under a bed. The mother was wringing her hands at a table in the back corner of Sally-Anne's, bent double with grief and anger.

"Should have been more careful," she muttered, "we should have - we thought we were safe, so far from the mountains but the Seeress - everyone knows she doesn't like competition, but we thought we were out of her sight, so careless, so careless..."

Laney's face had gone still, carved from stone, and Rupert's heart was frozen in his chest. Someone had dropped a curse diagram in their pocket, and they hadn't thought about how. This was his city, and he hadn't known there was a risk, that there was any kind of warning needed. Red stepped forwards, reaching out to squeeze the woman's hands.

"Breathe. The slavers took her, you think?" She gave a harsh, sobbing laugh, and he nodded sharply. "Sorry. But we have time, then, because they have to get her to the mountains first, and she has to be alive when she gets there. We have a chance." He didn't sound hopeful, just determined, but she took a shaky breath and squeezed his fingers back. Laney wasn't moving, wasn't saying anything, and Rupert knew she was as puzzled as he felt. Red looked at them sidelong as they slipped out onto the street, and frowned. 

"You don't know? In the mountains - there are people who steal mages and drain the power of the Elsewhere out of them, process it to make electricity. Mages have been fleeing the mountains for years, now."

 Once, Rupert had broken Laney's heart in the Academy library, unknowing, with reported stories of a lost vigilante. There was so much that they hadn't known, then, and now they were floating on the edges of it. Rupert had known there was a Piper, that he had fallen - but he hadn't known who. They hadn't been able to guess at why.

Laney was thinking of her brother's smile as he poured golden fire into her palms to drift through her fingers. She was thinking of all she had done, to feel that fire on her skin, and of the things she would never have thought of. She had wanted to walk alongside her brother, so badly, but she’d never once thought to drag him down for daring to be something she wasn't.

Red had no idea of the blow he had just delivered, unknowing, in the afternoon sun outside Sally-Anne's. He knew only that there was a child in a lot of danger, and not much hope - but that any hope was still something. 

They didn't have supernatural good luck on their side, but they had Sez and all of her contacts, so they found the warehouse. The slavers were waiting for them, forewarned, and they woke in the locked cellar. The child they’d been searching for was curled in the corner, eyes wide and face pale. Laney had expected her to be weeping, but she seemed to be frightened beyond even tears. They were all bound, but their captors hadn't thought to check Laney as thoroughly for weapons as the others - because she was an Academy mage, because she was a girl, because everyone underestimated her at first - so she had a knife tucked into her boot that they could use to cut the ropes. A glowing stone was hung around her neck, casting warm light and harsh shadows in the otherwise dark room. Elaine's wide eyes tracked it, but Laney didn't know what the point of it was, and she had other priorities, here, than asking.

So did Red and Rupert, so they didn't tell her until later, when they had bandaged wounds and finished their homework. They had her set up a careful silencing ward around Rupert's unofficial single room, and explained why the slavers had dropped a fracture in the fabric of the world around her throat. Laney didn't flinch, because no matter how much she trusted this friendship this was not a weakness she was ready to show them. But she trusted them enough to tell them the story - skinned knees and golden fire, her palm pressed up against the endless desert sky, splitting it open.

The Rangers came to visit, sending Red into fits of hero worship - Rupert was almost as bad, except he also remembered seeing half of them as students. Laney and Leaf exchanged long suffering looks full of affection. Gloria and Heather snickered and pretended not to know any of the names being gleefully praised at breakfast, seeing how much of Red’s breakfast they could filch off his plate while he recited heroic deeds before he realised what they were doing and snatched theirs in retaliation.

When the legends of the Bureau arrived, they immediately slipped cheerfully into the back of a lecture, hiding nostalgic giggles that they were too well trained (too used to ambushes) to let slip. They listened to lectures the material of which they'd learned and lived by for years, looking over the assembled students with interest and an unvoiced shared feeling that they were all so very young. They hovered around to chat, to officially mingle and inspire, and Sarge froze when he heard Laney's name. He'd known an L. Jones, mage, once upon a time, and never known how to reach the next of kin without getting tangled in the official channels that they couldn’t afford to get involved.

Rupert followed along when Laney was invited to a private meeting with Sarge and May. They both had their suspicions about what reason these two legends could have for wanting to speak privately with Miss Jones, the very first time they met, and he wanted to be there for her if they were right. He had planned to wait outside, patient as stone, the way she had over their months of friendship when his uncle was giving him frantic hushed reminders about status and reputations and not sneaking out of the Academy in the middle of the night to do freelance vigilante heroics in the back alleys of Rivertown. Laney caught his sleeve briefly as he went to lean against the wall, a brief unvoiced request for company.

 May and Sarge didn't know what a concession this was, for Laney to guess what grim news they held out to her and to invite someone else to witness it. They didn't know anything of her but stories, and Liam had never been someone Laney was afraid to see her bruise.

They had guessed, over a year before this otherwise unremarkable evening, that the Piper had been Liam. Red had told them what monsters lurked in the mountains, and they had guessed why. But there is a difference between guessing, between cold logic and lining up the pieces, and confirmation. There is a difference between guessing that the rumours of a distant fall are of your brother, and being told where to find his grave by friends who know his widow. There is a difference between knowing your brother had years of his life away from you, and being told by his grieving friends that he had a wife and child, names you never knew and faces you can’t imagine.

The walls seemed too close when she slipped back out with Rupert steady at her shoulder, eyes dry and back straight, so they made their quiet way to the familiar streets of Rivertown. She was staring at the distant mountain peaks when an explosion split the night, fire blooming on old wooden rooftops behind them. They called their friends to arms, marshaling Academy forces and rapping out orders in practiced partnership. Sarge stepped forward to object - he knew them only as Heads' stuffy nephew and Liam's beloved sister, not tested heroes in their own right. They didn't have a looming redhead vouching for them with years of shared experience they were still only grasping the edges of. Sarge knew them only as children, and he had buried too many of those. Laney froze him in his tracks with her mother's best icy look, and didn't know whether it was that effective or if it was just how unfamiliar that face would be, to someone who had only known Liam and his easy smiles.

Their city was on fire, and it all led back to the same warehouse - faced with a fire demon, Laney slipped by in the harsh shadows to find the rift, while Rupert stayed behind as a distraction, a barrier. He was a paper pushing hero, and the sword in his hand had seen active duty than some of the Bureau Leagues could claim. The flames bore down at him in roaring symphony, and as he adjusted his grip he politely asked it to go back to where it came from. He gave it a chance, a choice, and when it shrieked threats instead he killed it without a second thought.

Rupert had killed more often than some active Leaguesmen, too.

People started to whisper about Laney, after. They called her the Lady of the Lake reborn, and Laney raised impassive, mysterious eyebrows and privately snickered over the abrupt about face of her fellow mages. They whispered about her and so they came down from the mountains, hunting for a golden goose and taking a girl who was barely even a sensitive. Thorne wasn’t trying to trap a Giantkiller, this time, but he was trying to test his potential recruit - and he wanted to get her out of the influence of her far less interesting classmates. Laney didn’t know this, not yet; she only knew that these were the people who hunted mages for the sake of the fire hidden under their skin.

These people had hunted a Jones before, and Laney was going to make them bleed for every heartbeat she had lived without him. She had an elsewhere crack around her neck, and it faded in the golds of the elsewhere as she told an exasperated, understanding Rupert that she wasn't running from this.

Rupert followed shortly after on a surprise internship, a desk hero out to get some field experience. Laney wasn't running, but she also hadn't been sitting around doubting this friendship, so she'd known she wouldn't be doing this alone even before she slipped away to speak to him. Gloria, Heather and Clem went North too, because someone had taken their mage (their sharpshooter, their friend) and they were going to get her back. Sarge frowned over the paperwork, but they were a close-knit group, and Rupert had forged the paper trail too convincingly to stop them. Sarge scowled and scowled, and was uncomfortably uncertain whether he would have stopped them if he could. He had known another Jones, once, with golden fire like that in his veins. He knew what they did to mages with a legend that spread that far, in the mountains.

(A squeaky sage named Sanders Grey buried his nose deeper in his books and pretended fiercely that it was nothing to do with him - that he didn’t know why, that he didn’t know where, that he didn’t feel guilt pooling in the pit of his stomach. He pretended that the headaches were from reading in the dim light, and some days it was even true. He would spend a grudging season after he graduated at the Waypost in the Forest, then move to the library in St John’s Port to embark on a happy lifetime organizing books and scowling at visitors. Spider had left a letter and a parcel of books for him, as he slipped into the Academy to steal away one of their students from down the hall, but hadn’t tried to tempt him home; he trusted Sandry’s chances without her brother’s help, in a world where their three most visible opponents were years dead and buried)

Laney fled the slavers in the middle of the night and was dragged back by the next morning, unknown trackers hidden on her skin. Spider hauled them all before the Seeress, a useless clump of people who held no value or interest to her except for that one of them was the Piper’s sister, an amusement to gloat over. She sat Laney down for a polite chat, to detail how her brother had been a thief and a fool and how he had died.

She did not mention how bright that light had burned, how she had felt it snuffed out. Laney kept her face smooth but the Seeress read her feelings in the flickers of gold around her shoulders, her unclenched fists, her smooth brow - despair, hatred, and a furious broken love. Cassandra wasn’t quite sure, yet, what she planned to do with these interlopers, but killing Bureau Leagues, even trainee ones, was not a sensible course of action, so she shut them in the cells until she had time to calculate her angles.

Laney broke them out instead, and they fled. It was sheer luck that led them to find the shallow cave with supplies and wards to hide them from the sight of even Cassandra Graves - an overturned rock that exposed a hint of a rune, a scuff mark at the back that suggested where to stand to complete the ward. Laney and Gloria pieced it together, and if either of them thought it odd that it should be both so secure and yet coincidentally left open, they did not voice it. In the morning, they stumbled down a valley into a sleepy village that held a statue and a grave that Laney still didn’t quite believe belonged to the same man.

(Spider did not linger to see if they found the shallow hiding hole - he had done his best, and he could not afford to be discovered. He had given them a chance, which was more than he could give most. Thorne had sent a letter North with quiet instructions, and this had been one of them. He had given no reasons why, but Spider was well used to this)

But there was more to this village than the ghost of Laney’s older brother in a village the Rangers had told her how to find. Sarge had told her about Beatrice and Bidi, too, and he’d sent a message North to the Baker, telling her to be on the lookout. Laney recognised the wards pressed into the bones of the bakery, stopped short with her shuddering breath caught in her throat, and Bea stepped forward to pull her into a hug.

They stayed a few days, until they woke one morning to a flag on the hill declaring that an informant had come visiting. Bea took Rupert with her when he offered, but left the others behind. She recognised the resigned pragmatism in his shoulders; she knew he would understand bargaining with almost any devil for the sake of fewer names on a list of the dead. Rupert would understand taking information from the Spider, but she thought the others might object on principle, and the Baker’s network wasn’t so widespread that she could afford lose any threads no matter how little she liked them. Laney was busy teaching Bidi some of the stories from the desert that her father hadn’t gotten the chance to tell her; Gloria, Clem and Heather were keeping carefully out of the way.

They had no link to the Merry Men to earn safe passage through the Woods, so Bea sent messages to Little John through other channels and gave them directions to Challenge instead. Rosie scowled and watched them warily, but Laney was a Jones, and they all remembered Liam. Laney listened to them whisper, to the grief tinging unfamiliar voices, to the echoes of a hero she’d thought only she knew. Rupert had helped a mage in the mountains to heal, unknowing, and now he slipped from bed to bed, trying to use a gift he hadn’t known lurked in his skin.

It went the same as it would in a world where there were different friends here - a collapsed mine and a missing hero; slipping in Spider’s wake into the depths of the Graves’ lab. There was no pipsqueak sage to light the bombs, but Gloria and Laney figured out how to tie the necessary enchantment to a bullet when Spider flagged the issue in their planning session, a joint invention that would have been gleeful were it not for the circumstance. Clem went down under falling rubble and propped himself against a wall to wait while Laney ran towards the sound of danger - Heather and Gloria had followed Spider to the upper floors, met Cassandra Graves and been dragged before the Mayor.

There was no squeaking sage to have secrets torn out of him and laid bare, but Laney still went down with every knotted cord burning, still pushed herself to shaking knees to aim a gun into the golden light of every scrap of power she had wrung from the world and take her best shot.

They were looking for Rupert, and the Bureau was their best chance. Laney signed onto Thorne’s gleeful payroll, while Heather took up her delayed position at the university and Gloria joined her old classmate Grey in the library archives (and badgered Laney into both eating regularly and porting her out to hidden shooting ranges so that she could stay in practice).

Rupert broke himself out of a prison, the Seeress at his shoulder, and met them outside. Laney had been furiously planning a break in from the moment she’d put together where he must be, but Heather had befriended a Bureau lab tech while searching for interesting plants in the market stalls that lurked off the beaten track of St John’s Port, an acquaintance solidified in the frantic rush of triage in a soup kitchen turned infirmary, a mutual seething rage at a disease spread not by chance but by carelessness. Jillit Chu had passed a message on, quietly, a few days later, and one of the things Rupert had said was to wait.

He’d also had an informative discussion with Jill about the germination period of certain plants, which she hadn’t thought anything about mentioning to his friend when she asked anxiously how he was doing, not content with just he’s alive. Heather had nodded, thanked her, and gone back to the flat she shared with the others (and their uninvited but not unwelcome guest of Miz Eliza, when she wasn’t calling in favors and collecting resources to help retrieve her son) to give them a time frame. They were waiting with a getaway car, Laney using careful tricks picked up from the local hedgewitches to open a door, Gloria standing guard with a pistol their sharpshooter had pressed into her plump hands because she couldn’t trust her own.

Thorne wouldn’t know until hours later that there had been a security breach. They would have long since left St John’s Port behind, abandoning the truck somewhere for one of Miz Eliza’s associates to pick up while Laney ported them down to Rivertown - they had no mages with them to worry about the rift, though Laney held a quiet hope that the Seeress would be dragged into the fires instead of making it through with them. Cassandra saw this in the level set of Laney’s chin, the way her face was held perfectly smooth, the disdain in the flick of her eyes. She kept her own face still and expression disinterested. Neither of them were interested in letting an enemy see their flaws and weaknesses, even if Laney was bitterly aware she couldn’t truly hide them from a seer. Cassandra was safe in the knowledge that only two people had ever known of hers, and that neither of them would be telling anyone.

(Sandry didn’t know that her little brother had been only a few streets away, sleeping safe in the spare room the head librarian had been kind enough to let him rent cheap because he didn’t know anyone else in the city to share the rent of a flat with (because the lad was obviously years too young to be out on his own even if he furiously pretended otherwise) - she would have seen him if she’d been looking, but there had been other things to keep her eyes on, and she had long since trained herself out of wondering where Sam had gone.)

Rupert stumbled into Sally-Anne’s to be met with Sez’s fierce grin and a stern admonishment from Sally-Anne to never do that to us again. Laney lurked in the background, retrospective guilt pooling in her throat. It hadn’t occurred to her to let them know - that Rupert was missing, that they had leads, that if he was alive they’d find him and burn down any prison that tried to hold him, that they’d bring him home.

She wondered if they had figured it out somehow, or if they had been clinging to a desperate hope, a denial. She remembered sitting in the Academy library, learning that her brother was dead from whispered rumors, a full year after the fact. She remembered learning that there had been people who knew Liam had a family still in the desert, but hadn’t found a way to tell them they’d lost their footloose child.

(She remembered - she hadn’t found a way to tell the rest of the family yet, either, and shoved the thought back where it had come from. There was a revolution to win, first.)

 Sez had been building plans for years, and Rupert wasn’t the reason for it but he was the spark to set it in motion. There was no-one left in their chosen battleground but those who’d decided they wanted to fight for this; Thorne tried to claim the town and Sez brushed away the dirt he was sneering down his nose at to show the lines already drawn. Golden walls rose, the careful work of patient hands, and Laney’s fingers itched to pick apart how it had been done.

None of them had lived through a siege before, but they knew enough from history lessons to know that Laney’s ability to port people out and supplies in were a lifesaver. Sez assigned her an assistant to track supplies and routes, a cheerful burly lad who joked about being a glorified scribe and went still and silent when they mentioned the forgetting field. He wasn’t much help with the technical work on Rememberer, or Laney and Gloria’s private project to see if they could build a device to extract energy direct from the Elsewhere, but it turned out he had a knack for spotting patterns and sifting through data, so they gave him the records of fire demons Red and Leaf had been compiling to filter through. Laney spent a tense few days wondering if she was the cause of things, until their stand in sage pushed pages of annotated maps at her and pointed out the total lack of overlap, chattered ideas for experiments at her to see if she might be strengthening the fabric of the world as she went. If he saw the way her shoulders settled, a tension she’d been hiding as best she could, he didn’t mention it.

Gloria had liberated plans for the machines from the Mayor’s ruined lab, correctly guessing that they wouldn’t be the only copies, knowing that even if not now that it had been done once it would be discovered again. She and Laney had spent scattered evenings pouring over them, figuring out how to modify them - if Laney could wring power out of the sky, they could find a way to make the machines work without draining a mage for power.

The Seeress had smuggled out her own copies of plans from the Bureau lab, parts of machines bundled up under her skirts - it would be their trainee sage who showed her the results of Laney and Gloria’s experiments, cheerfully oblivious to her history. He’d spotted her peering over the blueprints, and just thought that maybe she was helping the other two out. He didn’t understand why she burst into tears when the lightbulb flickered on, knees hitting the ground hard enough to bruise. If he had ever known her name, her reputation, he didn’t remember it to begin to guess at what this might mean. He figured that she must have lost a mage to the machines, and he wasn’t entirely wrong.

When she wiped her eyes, Cassandra looked at him, at the ripples of gold around him, and told him who he was. She watched the bubbles pop around him as the knowledge faded as soon as he heard the words, and she hesitated. There was a cruelty here that she had delighted in at first, a delicious irony, but here was a compassion as well that she would never have thought to look for from this quarter. She looked at the machine, it’s low hum and the cold electric light, the lack of residue, everything she’d never let herself dream was possible, and thought I wish I could show Sam. I wish Spider was alive to see this.

Rupert didn’t question her, when she gave him suggestions on the rememberer. She didn’t challenge him on it, needling at loyalties and looking for a reaction, kept the barbs that sprang to the tip of her tongue locked behind her teeth, and reached for the wrench to make the adjustment.

Laney was on a watchtower when the floor rose to meet her, memories slamming back into place with an abruptness that sent her to the ground, that felt like it should have hurt. She fell more than climbed down the ladder, leaving her station to a confused second in command. There were furious shouts on the other side of the wall, and the part of her than wasn’t reeling guessed we weren’t the only ones they hid things from. Her heart thudded in her ears as she ran for Sally-Anne’s, guilt choking her as memories slotted back into place. She slammed into the doorway, stumbling to a halt - Gloria and Heather were already there, crying in belated grief, slumped either side of their cheerful trainee sage - their battered combat spec.

~~~

Clem had been required to repeat a year at the Academy to make up the work missed with his run of bad injuries, a broken arm in the first battle for Driftwood Island and a leg crushed in the fight at Gravestown. He’s called Gloria with regular updates on what Red and Leaf’s band of hooligans was up to that week and to talk about the mathematical puzzles they sent each other. Sometimes Heather stole the phone to tell him about her research, and he doodled out trend graphs on scrap paper while he tried to figure out what she was talking about. They talked about Rupert, a little, but none of them were so naive as to think that it safe to share their suspicions aloud.

A careful few days after Rupert’s memorial service, Clem had wandered down into Rivertown to have a quiet chat with Sally-Anne about a missing friend. He’d waited to see if there were any patterns to watch out for, any hints to send back to the others, to make sure that if any of the Bureau were watching saw just a grieving schoolmate who had accepted his loss. They weren’t sure if the Bureau were responsible for Rupert, but at the end of the day that just meant they weren’t sure they hadn’t been. Clem didn’t mention to the others that he’d made the trip - it didn’t occur to him that they hadn’t thought of it; he figured they’d rightly assumed he would handle it.

He kept his head down at the Academy as much as he could, though he couldn’t escape notice as one of the sort-of ringleaders of the new Stable Loft Crew (Red and Leaf ran it, but they’d figured out the year before that Clem wasn’t a bad support instructor). He couldn’t help search for Rupert, but he combed the library for information on Walking Stars, for statistics on the mountain’s energy supplies. He stepped in when he saw people being bullied, tried to see the patterns in the Academy Rupert had woven himself into and pick up the slack, and tracked down reports of shady Bureau dealings of the past, trying to see patterns in those as well. He called Laney more rarely than either Gloria or Heather, because they’d always had very little in common at the end of the day, but they were still part of a team, and at the end of the day that mattered to both of them.

Clem had been on the watch for the Bureau, but he was only a student, and one unused to politics. The Quiet Branch had always kept an eye on the Academy, and they noticed the way the young combat spec was acting. He broke the arm of one of the agents who came for him, and gave the other a black eye. He woke up in an alleyway with bruised knuckles, and didn’t know why.

Thorne was always watching for people who might hold some sway over any of his prospects, and he had needed a test subject.

~~~

It felt, later, like that flick of a switch had set it all in motion - as though when one of Thorne’s plan’s unraveled they all did.

Jillit Chu turned up on their doorstep, grimly relieved and determined to finish what she’d started. Rupert welcomed her gratefully, and she eyed the impassive Seeress the way she had in the hidden lab. Some things had changed with the flick of a switch, but the weight of those years failing to save the Seeress’ victims hadn’t. Cassandra looked coolly back, and pretended that she wasn’t reeling herself, that the ground below her feet was still the steady ground of what we do is right.

In this world, there was no squeaky sage sharing a room with his big sister to make Wren hesitate. She slipped into the Seeress’s room with a knife to hold a blade to the throat of a monster. Cassandra hissed all the bile she could, every weakness she could see spiraling around them, and Wren’s smile was colder than anything the Seeress had ever managed. She left Cassandra alive, because this wasn’t about revenge, about paying in blood for what the Seeress had wrought. This was a shaking woman proving that she could face down her monsters, that her nightmares had no hold over her. That she could choose to let the Seeress live because it wasn’t worth killing her, because the Seeress was just a young woman who couldn’t harm her again.

She left Cassandra alive, and Sandry shook through the night. Many people had cursed the Seeress’s name over the years, hissed threats, but few had ever gotten close enough to lay hands on her. She remembered making hot cocoa for her brother after bad dreams, remembered telling him he wasn’t allowed to be afraid like that would be enough to keep him safe.

Thorne went after Bea, after Bidi, and Laney ran for the mountains with Rupert on one side of her and Clem at her heels - it took only minutes to port through, but the dragons were quicker even than even that. Bidi had screamed for help, and they had answered. Clem spent an hour in delighted conversation with them via Bidi, scholarly glee and childish enthusiasm, while Laney did her best to comfort Bea for the loss of her home while her daughter was distracted. Once Bidi was asleep, Clem helped Laney dig out the remains of the attackers from the bakery rubble and bury them so that Bea wouldn’t have to - he also collected what scraps of identifying possessions he could find, tucking them carefully in a pocket in case there was someone who would want them back.

They returned to Rivertown exhausted, and woke to a renewed assault, Thorne’s death twisted to a rallying point. Shay cursed her mentor’s shining recruit, wanted to shriek why - but if she questioned his decisions, she did it so quietly even she wasn’t aware. She scowled at maps and reports, tried to pretend her steps weren’t haunted by her losses. She told herself her decisions were rational, that her choices had always been hers even if she didn’t remember making them.

The Bureau managed to splinter their golden wall, and as Laney moved to repair it Cassandra slipped from the shadows to dart through the crack in their defences. Laney watched her step through, and thought about how laughably easy it would be to put a bullet in her back, for all that her hands trembled with old wounds. Liam had fallen for the last time rescuing those who would have been burned to nothing in the rooms below this girl’s home. Mages had been fleeing the mountains for years because of the things this young woman saw.

Laney closed her hand around the grip of her favourite pistol, and handed it over through the shimmering curtain. She wanted to say so many things - I do not forgive you, I could kill you but it wouldn’t be enough, so what would be the point?  I hate you but you gave us our friend back, so here you go, a life for a life. I will live all my life hating you, but I will not be haunted by you. She said none of it, because if she tried she would break. Cass saw it in the swirls of gold around her, and gave her a grudgingly respectful nod. When Laney looked up from closing the gap she was gone, slipping away through the streets of Rivertown like a ghost.

It was Laney who strode into the negotiation room when Shay called for a truce, because she had the Quiet Branch’s respect even if she didn’t have their affection, and Sez trusted her to fight for the right things, these days, despite the Academy badge. She had Sez and Sally’s long thought out demands, their plans, her own hard won lessons and Rupert’s deliberate morality - and she had a secret waiting on the tip of her tongue.

In the dark of a hidden lab, Cass had whispered stories, clinical and aching, not sure if she wanted sympathy or just a reaction, and Rupert had passed them on. Shay snapped accusations, dismissals, grief - and Laney she remembered sunlight, warm on the back of her chair on a long ago day when Rupert told her the truth and broke her heart. She took a sniper’s steadying breath, and looked Shay in the eye.

“Do you know how Spider died?”

Falling is the bravest thing I know, Laney whispered at the funerals, at graves old and new, in the doorway of a cottage where an old woman wept like broken glass with old, delayed grief as Jill held her frail hands and Rupert hovered, stuffy with sympathy. She had broken like that, once, something jagged sitting under her heart that she wasn’t sure would ever go away even if the edges could be smoothed over time. Liam had fallen, hit the mountain stone and not gotten up, but the impact had shattered Laney too.

I will be brave, she whispered to herself, and Rupert squeezed her hand gently as she got to her feet. The desert sand shifted under her boots and she stood firm, bracing herself to deliver a blow she had never stopped reeling from. She watched the expressions around the fire twist, grief and mourning, bittersweet stories, and thought about the ripples that had spread from every fall in this fight. She would try to map it out, on sleepless nights - the way strangers whispered her brother’s name and murmured about the Dragon Slayer and the Giantkiller, the steady promises of the mountain folk: we can’t let their memories down. Laney wondered if they’d known how they would shake the world when they fell, but they weren’t the only ones.

Spider must have known that Thorne wouldn’t let betrayal live, but he’d taken the shot and hit the polished floor because he refused to watch more children burn for the sake of another man’s ambition. Bea had woken in a cold house, twice over, and hauled herself back to standing because she refused to let the monsters win, kept a map of every victory, every loss, every bitter step of her quiet war. Jill had gritted her teeth after every failure, every fading patient a new reason to keep trying no matter the weight on her shoulders.

Rosie and Susie had built Challenge from the wreckage of their home, an old mining village digging deep and refusing to be driven away, turning every broken family and nightmare into a rallying cry. Maid Marian had put her back to the mountains and walked away, the memory of smoke and snow on her heels until she forged something new in the back streets of St. John’s Port, had dared to invest her broken heart in a new set of faces and carve out support for the people the Bureau didn’t care about.

Rupert had been buried in the rubble of a cave in, been dragged out and lost months to Thorne’s secrets, taught himself to wear a civilian sweater like a uniform while they scrambled to find him, had stumbled through the door of the fish shop and been the spark that Sez turned into a beacon. So many people had come to the defence of Rivertown, against fire demons and Bureau soldiers, names Laney had known over Academy tables and ones she hadn’t, and some of them hadn’t gotten the chance to deal with the aftermath.

Laney had hit the plush carpet of the Mayor’s office, every limb burning, and pushed herself as close to standing as she could get and taken her best shot. She was long, aching years from the time when bravery meant bruised knees and scraped palms, dragging herself inch by stubborn inch up the tallest palm tree, meant letting herself fail a hundred times to learn to do it right.

Sometimes the bravest thing is falling, letting yourself try and knowing you might not succeed, that you might hit the ground hard enough to bruise, pushing yourself back up after to try again.

Sometimes it’s to keep breathing - to put one stumbling foot in front of the other until it feels like you’re filling your lungs with air not choking on ash.

I will be brave, Laney said, and breathed in.

[gummybugg]

i keep seeing you post about the mice come out at night but i still don't know what it's about

As a joke I was going to put "even I don't know what it's about" but that won't due since I began writing it yesterday hehehe! There's no excuse not to give a serious answer!

It's a wip still in its baby stages, but I can give it all I got for a solid rundown! ✨️ (btw it's very scarcely mentioned in my pinned post, but I can elaborate a bit more)

So strap onto your seat belt and grab an unalcoholic beverage because I'm about to go on an incoherent ramble about mice, men, ghosts, and cajun culture:

Also, there is an intersection between Cajun culture and queerness. They are both things Morgana is ashamed of. He wants to fit in, get rid of his "embarrassing" accent, and just live his life under wraps. But that's kind of impossible when he finds a family of ghosts haunting his home. Through the tragic telling of their deaths, they help Morgana realize that he must cherish what little time he has to live and to live his life unabashedly. And keep telling stories. Be the person younger You needed. Don't hide yourself/don't be embarrassed. You're not living life for others, but for yourself. Stop appealing to those in charge. Do what makes you happy and you will find your company.

Morgana is a closeted trans guy living in Louisiana who drops out of college because it makes him depressed af. He needs a change, so he decides to move out into this conveniently affordable haunted home with what little funds he has left until he can make a living. But it's a *haunted* house (you know, typical spooky Louisiana lore), and he must find a balance between the spirits and finding meaning in his life.

It's a coming of age story but lowkey the plot of a Christmas Carol if you turn your head 90 degrees and squint really hard. Like the ghosts go "Morgana stop being an idiot and just live your life already" but he's like "but everyone will hate me and ill probably die or something" and they go "then it's a win-win for us."

We also get featured scenes/themes such as: Morgana's clown-core clairvoyant sibling Tooth, who can actually see what tf is going on (Morgana can't, he didn't get the ghost-seeing genes); a gay ghost wedding between the two father figure ghosts (Addison and Vincent); found footage of a broken household (relatable things); sibling power; gender euphoria; funny trans moments such as a pun about "dead names" (come on, it's FUNNY); acceptance; and found family.

For now, though, the story is on hold until I can get a better understanding of it and the direction I want to take it. I'm also writing it now, but yeah! Thank you for asking, this really helps me get a better picture of this project!

I plan to expand upon the Cajun culture as it is the entire reason I began this project (to not let the culture fade away). Culture, along with identity, go hand in hand with how we should be proud of our backgrounds instead of shy away from it to conform. Go and learn about those before you, and you will feel less alone instead of brooding in your college dorm, counting down the days until graduation!!

I think this sums up the premise, but I can keep going if there are any questions. I am always eager to share about my stories!

I have huge aspirations for this (and many of my other projects), as I plan on implementing many forms of media into this story (if the stars align and this takes off). Such as photographs, audio files, journal entries, blah blah. I was also thinking of being fancy and dropping a few lines of poetry/literature that inspired this story at the start of each section if this story goes anywhere.

But yeah, so thanks a lot for the ask! I really appreciate it :')

[sunlightwoo]

tag games ✰

here’s just a long post of me continuing on tag games that i’ve been tagged in but haven’t had the time to answer hehe

however if you see this, you’re tagged by me if you haven’t done it already :) and thank you @hyunjaethereal​, @timextoxhajima​​ , @sankyeom​​ , @viastro​​ , @bbangsoonie​​​, @wavesmp3​​​ and @shionwrites​​​ for tagging me ily guys <3

✰ element writer tag ✍️

what element writer are you?

magma writer

Molten rock that still has to surface. You're the perfect mix of fire and earth, and your story shows it, having the best of both worlds. You're the writer that holds fire on their fingertips and kisses their lovers goodbye in the most painful way. You're able to build long stories that burn on the inside. You break the human soul, touching with infinite grace the right cords. You are an artist of the elaborate pain and heavy angst only a constructed and long story can give. If i could see in your eyes, i would be looking at your soul dancing on an unstable floor, flames all around it, to protect it and to forge it. Your love burns hot and infinite inside of you, and sometimes, when it slips out, you're afraid that it could burn too much. But the right people will know how to love you, and every bright tongue of fire your soul is made of. Your stories are the ones that make the world change.

damn no need to hurt me like that

✰ what is your unorthodox love language?

for this one i took it with my friends and it was sharing foods with your loved ones!!

and this really hit home <//3

✰ playlist tag

rules: we’re snooping on your playlist. put your entire music library on shuffle and list the first ten songs and then choose 10 victims.

flag by tbz

sit down by nct 127

after school by weeekly

come back home by 2ne1

good to me by svt

from by ateez

secret story of the swan by iz*one

she’s in the rain by the rose

shoot by itzy

asap by stayc

✰ writer positivity tag 🪴

rules: bold the things that apply to you

I am a talented writer | I have a way with words | I can plan my stories really well | I can improvise my stories really well | I am great at writing realistic dialogue | I can really paint a picture with my words | My writing is very atmospheric | I am great at descriptions | I am great at action | I am great at touching people with my stories | the backstories of my characters are all diverse and I feel like I truly know them | I am great at making a realistic and complex personalities | I really enjoy the character dynamics and relationships in my wips | my main characters aren't always the same | I am great at coming up with gripping beginnings | I am great at coming up with gripping endings | I am great at coming up with titles  | I am in love with my characters and would die for them if they were real | I love how I write animals and mystic creatures | I am great at world-building | I have intriguing and gripping plots | I write amazing character-driven stories | I am great at capturing and keeping the audience's attention | I am persistent even when I want to give up | I'm very organized with my writing notes | I am constantly learning from every story I encounter | I devour books

✰ this or that intimate moments (bold what applys)

love at first sight or slowly growing fond of someone | love letters or mixtapes | hand kisses or kisses on the cheeks | understanding each other without words or finishing each others sentences | gazing into each other’s eyes or looking away blushing | longing to be with someone again or spending every second together | laughing together or crying together | someone run their fingers through your hair or gently playing with your hand | surprise kisses or long tight hugs

✰ aesthetic tag

➼ 𝐒𝐎𝐅𝐓 13/20 (had a hunch)

baby pink | iridescent | glitter is always a good option | no bra | minimalistic tattoos | cherry patterns | sweet scented perfumes | wearing generous amounts of blush | doodling hearts | getting excited to pet an animal | fun nails | re-watching old barbie movies | hair sticking to glossed lips | heart shaped sunglasses | taking pictures of the sunset or sunrise | stuffed animals | protecting nature | stickers everywhere | teen movies | the light rain that falls from a clear sky at the beginning of the night |

➼ 𝐃𝐀𝐑𝐊 𝐀𝐂𝐀𝐃𝐄𝐌𝐈𝐀 7/20 

neutral tones | masculine outfits | studying languages | worn down copy of books | grey skies | turtleneck sweaters | loose fitting pants | hair tied with a silk ribbon | trying to remember a cool difficult word you read somewhere to use in a convo | thick belts | minimal makeup | windows fogged by rain | vintage jewelry | blouses with cuffed sleeves | reading a murder mystery and trying to solve it | oxford style shoes | sweater vests | subtitled old movies in a language you don’t speak | leaves crackling as you walk | annotating books to express your emotions about the story |

|➼ 𝐄𝐃𝐆𝐘 4/20

closet full of dark clothes | fishnet tights | makeup sweating off | neon signs | searching for unknown songs | chokers | band tees | doodling on old converses | finding smoking aesthetically pleasing but not doing it | weird humor | accidentally very dramatic | dim lights | layered outfits | chain belts | chipped nail polish | messy hair | low quality pics | piercings | combat boots | scribbling on desks |

➼ 𝟕𝟎’𝐒 5/20

colorful wardrobe | doodling flowers | wearing short shorts | using a bikini top or bra as a normal top | listening to ABBA | flowers in your hair | DIYing everything | jamming to songs alone in your room | drunkenly telling your friends you love them | patterned bandanas | mid heeled shoes | messy braids | flared sleeves | walking barefoot on grass or sand | bold sunglasses | the good kind of tired you get after doing something you enjoy for hours | feeding stray animals | fun patterned socks | room decorated with succulents and other plants | likes to go roller skating or skateboarding |

➼ 𝐏𝐑𝐄𝐏𝐏𝐘 𝐂𝐀𝐒𝐔𝐀𝐋 4/20

collared clothes | drinking juice out of a champagne glass | getting excited to see the met gala looks | thick headbands | small pastel cardigans | making your friends take your ootd pics | plaid mini skirts | tweed two pieces | watching reality tv to pass time | frilly tops | watching old hollywood movies | academically driven | long manicured nails | new year’s eve fireworks | colourful tights | layered golden jewelry | yearns for luxury brand items | decorating your room with fairylights | cursive and neat handwriting | lace details |

✰ zodiac this or that (i’ll do my big three)

Pisces sun: Aquamarine or Amethyst. Sea Green or Ocean Blue. Tulips or Carnations. Turmeric or Willow Herb. Surfing or Water Skiing. Ocean or River. Poetry or Painting. Dolphins or Whales. Pineapple or Watermelon. Telekinesis or Reality Warping/Illusion powers. Zinfandel or Spiked punches/lemonades. Starfish or Seashells. Healing Crystals or Dreamcatchers. Psychic powers or Water bending/manipulation. Coneflower or Iris. Lighthouse or Watermill. Baby’s breath or Waterlily. Taurus or Capricorn.

Taurus moon: Green or Pink. Malachite or Emerald. Roses or Violets. Thyme or Brasil. Vanilla or Chocolate. Candles or Bath bombs. Painting or Jewelry making. Seduction powers or Enchanted jewerly, treasure, or gemstones. Foxglove or Larkspur. Chocker or Medallion necklaces. Apples or Grapes. Singing or Humming. Elephants or Turtles. Gardening or Shopping. Having a homebody day or Taking a walk in nature. Pinot Noir or Bourbon. Precognition or Manipulating life force. Violin or Lute. Cancer or Pisces.

Virgo rising: Navy Blue or Olive Green. Peridot or Sardonyx. Peony or Sweet Pea. Hops or Rosemary. Chess or Checkers. Carrot Cake or Fig Bar/Cakes/Cookies. Knitting or Crocheting. Grammar Checking/Quality Assurance or Critiquing a piece of work. Golf or Tennis. Buttercups or Morning Glory. Herbs magic or Earth and plant bending. Mice or Bees. Cabernet Frank or Micro-brews. Enchanted Garden or Magic that can perfect skills. Bunnies or Deer. Cancer or Scorpio.

[ancientstone]

Fic Questionnaire

Thank you @fudgemutt for tagging me! Sorry it took me a couple of days 😅

How many works do you have on AO3?

I have....70.......Sweet lord above when did that happen?

What's your total AO3 word count?

580415

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

oh jesus this will take me a hot second to type out. According to my dashboard I've written for 18 fandoms, which are:

The Umbrella Academy, Detroit: Become Human, Guardians of the Galaxy, The Witcher, Thor, Avengers, Gravity Falls, Kuroshitsuji, Over the Garden Wall, Ducktales, TMNT, Roman Mysteries, Coco, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, BBC Ghosts, Spider-Man, Deadpool, and Undertale

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

1. There are Stones in my Stomach and Worms on my Plate

2. Asteroid

3. Bolt from the Blue

4. Reconstruct

5. Along the Corridor and Up the Stairs

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I do! I just think it's polite to, y'know? Plus it's fun to joke about with people and tease what will happen next! I only ignore them when I'm a) being insulted or b) getting demanded to do something, but thankfully that's not too often.

What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

....I mean take your pick at this point. I've killed Five a couple of times now, so probably that. Maybe Sand Timer? 😅😂

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

I'll never forget that "I'm so disappointed in this fic" comment I found about one of my fics, I literally couldn't write for the rest of the night, cried, and thought about straight up deleting the fic halfway through because of it. And it was pretty clear, even when I said a few times that I was struggling to end Along the Corridor well and it was stressing me out, that everyone hated how I closed it off. I think about removing that fic fairly often tbh

Do you write smut? If so what kind?

Nope!

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not as far as I'm aware. But I only post on AO3 so if you do come across my works elsewhere, then they've been stolen.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

I've had people ask, but because of above I'm pretty protective about my works so I don't like the idea of someone else uploading them (even with credit)

Have you ever co-written a fic before? 

No I haven't, but I don't think I'd have the time to manage that anyway! 😂

What's your all time favorite ship?

I won't lie, ships aren't my biggest thing. I'm much more a familial bond person. I don't think I have one!

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

*aome glares at me from the corner of the room*

*my gravity falls werewolf au peers over my shoulder*

*in the company of mice clears its throat*

*asteroid looms on the horizon*

They're all just.....so time consuming and energy draining. I'd need a good chunk of time to finish them, no distractions, and no guilt that I'm wasting time when I could be doing other, more productive things...They take a lot of brainpower, especially something like aome when multiple things are happening at once which the audience don't fully know about.

What are your writing strengths?

*Gestures wildly at the angst and hurt/comfort tags* 😈

What are your writing weaknesses?

Romance. Comedy. I literally make annual sacrifices to the writing gods to get me through action scenes.

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

I've not encountered it so I don't know, but I'd probably try to avoid it knowing google translate's track record!

What was the first fandom you ever wrote for?

Kuroshitsuji, I'm pretty sure. My first introductions to fanfic were kuro fics on deviant art

What's your favourite fic you've ever written?

Don't make me pick between my babies!!

(Honest answer: Whichever fic I'm currently working on!)

Tagging: Anyone who wants to join in!

[jonah-aesthetic]

Patronus  Jonah Marais/ WIP

Jonah Marias X Harlow Darling 

Plot: Having mutual friends doesn't mean they're friends. Although after helping his sister out of an unfortunate situation. Jonah offers her a deal she couldn't give up. 

A/N: Since the only thing on my Tik Tok fyp is Draco Malfoy. I thought of continuing this fic. although the Why Don't We boys are on hiatus at the moment so I dont know if I should. 

The corridors of this ancient school gave me a sense of safety and home. At least I think this is what home felt like. My black robe flowed around me in almost angel like wings, as I carried out my Prefect duties. Night patrol Just past curfew to see if anyone dared to disobey the time. 

Both of my parents came from wealthy pure blood families. Because of it my family has been well known throughout the wizarding world. The name Darling had been carried out for centuries. It didn't exactly mean I despise the name, just that I wasn't proud to have it. For decades it has been an excuse to gain disgusting power. 

The name Darling meant I had to chose every decision I make carefully. I usually keep my image clean for my family, but for some damn reason it’s hard for my younger brother to do so. Hunter needed a leash quick or we might just end up on the daily prophet soon. 

With the way my father had presented our family you would’ve thought we belonged to a Slytherin family. Pure bloods who were overly formal and sleek, who happen to have high jobs and connections with in the ministry of magic. I didn't enjoy portraying myself as one of them but at the end of the day I am one of them. It ran through my blood with each heart beat.  

Night patrol was a fairly easy job, make sure no students we out after curfew and reported anything out of the ordinary to professor Mcgnagall. On a good day it took an hour to cover the school grounds with my best friend Jack who just happened to be the 2nd prefect. Now it took 30 minutes since we decided to split up, cutting patrol in half for us. After the Griffindor prefects complained we were goofing around and not caring enough about prefect duties. 

I didn’t see the big deal, there wasn’t much to patrol. Unless you wanted to yell at some mice who most definitely belonged a couple Hufflepuffs. Gabbie was a high tailed pure blood who should’ve been in Slytherin anyways. Well it’s that or she’s jealous of how close me and Jack are, after all she does fancy him to a great extend. 

Although I think it’d be easier to ask Jack and Daniel, the first prefect from Griffindor to switch places. Slytherin and Hufflepuff swap quidditch players often for practice when one has class or detention I don’t see the harm in it. 

Hearing younger voices grabbed my attention, with quick feet I walked towards the commotion. Coming up to the corner I block myself from view trying to get a better sense on the situation, peeking around I could see 4 younger students cornered a timid girl with wands held out towards her. They smiled with confidence as they watched her tremble.  

“..It’s funny how you think you're one of us mudblood.” 

“You know it’s unheard of for Slytherin to have non-magical parents right?” 

What surprised me most was the ones holding the wands were ravenclaws. I remembered them from the ceremony and I’ve seen them around here and there. This behaviour was an automatic detention, students were forbade to threaten each other with magic. 

Pulling my dark mahogany wand from my boot I uncovered myself. shouting “Expelliarmus!” an almost effortless defence wand cast. Several sparks ignited from the end of my wand, knocking theirs out of hand and clanging to the other side of the hall. startled, squeaky gasps fell from their lips right before the attention was on me. I watched as the potential alpha’s eyes flicked from villain to victim in 0.2 seconds.

The thing with self-absorbed pure bloods was you had to hold higher authority or they’d eat you for breakfast. I know because I was one. I held that high-tailed blood in my expression before. I only had acquaintances then, most students feared me. After awhile I began to dread the feeling.  

“We know the rules, we’re defending ourselves.” One of the Ravenclaw boys spoke up, his eyes holding so much promise I almost believed the kid. The timid Slytherin looked at her shoes not daring to look at me. Telling me that the boys got away with this often. 

I laughed at them humorously, “Detention all of you, I don’t believe your pity act. I witnessed what you did and frankly I’m not gonna let it slide.” I said with smooth tongue as I shrugged my shouldered at them. 

Their faces dropped as they looked at me in shock. “B-but we didn’t-”  

“Drop the act, remember your blood Isn’t gonna take you that far. 50 points from Ravenclaw for each of you. Don’t bother arguing and head back to the common room.” 

The shock was noticeable through their body language. One opened their mouth and then closed it again not daring to say anything. One soon scurried to their wand and took off into the direction of the Ravenclaw's common room. The rest followed in a matter of seconds. I smiled to myself, mission accomplished.

The Slytherin girl finally looked at me, Her eyes full of fear. “I get detention as well?” her voice was so soft and timid I almost didn’t catch it. With a warm smile I shook my head gently. “Oh god no, Honey you didn’t do anything wrong.” 

Her expression was soft as a small smile reached her lips, as she breathed in a few sniffles. She had been previously crying, causing her green eyes to dull. 

“What’s your name?” I asked her with a brighter smile. 

“Svea Marais” Her tiny voice more audible then before. 

“I’m Harlow Darling” I responded. 

Her eyes lightened up, matching the colour on her headband. “Like the Darling Royal Family?” She asked with fully curiosity. I kept smiling at her even though I was reminded of something I wasn’t fond of sharing.  

“Yeah” I replied knowing she was getting more comfortable with me. Letting her focus on me rather then the Ravenclaw’s words. 

“You seem different then them.” 

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” I ask her playfully, knowing the answer

"Definitely  good." She responded with tiny giggle that made me adore her.

I continued to smile at her as a comfortable silence came over us. We looked at each in an almost admiration. I felt the need to be someone she would look up to, like I couldn't let her down. As if she were a younger sibling. 

“Come on Svea, I’ll walk you to Slytherin dungeon.” I spoke softly after awhile,

“Okay” She had said following behind me. Slowing my steps slightly so she would catch up and walk beside me rather then behind me. The corridors of this massive castle were long and dark, lit only my torches on the sides of the walls. Our detestation wasn’t too far from where we had been. 

“Wanted to thank you Harley, for not choosing their side. It happens often you know, being a mudblood and all.” Looking at Svea I caught a sad smile graze her lips. My heart wrenched at the sight. 

“Svea It’s not right nor was it okay what they said to you. You’re a witch just as much as I am, your blood doesn’t make you anything less.” 

We were coming up to the dungeon quickly, as she stopped a few feet away. “Thank you, I appreciate what you said.” Her green eyes sparkled as her frame became less timid. “Don’t be a stranger, come to me if you need anything.” I started stepping away, putting distance between us. 

“I will.” and with that I turned away, heading back to Ravenclaw tower. Which had been across the castle, but at this moment it didn’t bother me. 

Walking into the common run I come to discover my best friend since we were five, Jack. He sat on the royal blue couch his head rested on the back of it. His attention on the charmed ceiling. Which represented a set of constellations somewhere in the world. The stars would instantly connected after he named them off silently. His Corgi Companion Lucifer was fast asleep in his lap, light snores emitting off him. I couldn't but awe at the small pooch. 

“Hey dork” I spoke playfully. He whispered a startled ‘Vanish’, and the charmed ceiling began to scramble for a fresh collection of constellation. He looked at me in relief, “What took you so damn long?” It was more of a whine more then a question. As if he was bored for the last hour rather them 20 minutes.  

I sat down on the left of him as the right was already taken. I sighed, “Well lets see, I gave detention to a few Ravenclaw boys. As well as took their wands out of the kindness of my heart.” 

“Finally putting your foot down huh?” He teased raising his eyebrows at me. 

“Hey I Can bite back, for your information” 

“I know, I remember that time last year. All I’m saying is you don’t like to, because you're the Ravenclaw princess.” I rolled my eyes at him cause I wouldn’t exactly use that word, but he was right nonetheless. 

“What was so ‘horrible’ that made you go all Royal blood?” 

“They were threating a Slytherin Muggle-born, wands held to her throat. Poor girl was trembling, I would never stand for anything like that.” I said my breath a little shaky as I was raddle about it. 

“Hey It’s okay.” Jack says reassuring me, his eyes go soft as he reaches for my hand and squeezes a pulse. He’s done that ever since I could remember every time he senses my nerves going haywire. which wasn’t too often. It never failed to put me at ease. 

“You did every thing you could.” 

“I know, I just feel like I could do more, I mean they called her a mudblood for god sakes.” He pulses again, his hand in mine was comforting and warm. More platonic than romantic. 

A beige blob in the distance take my attention from gentle brown eyes. It was Denrick my Siamese cat, my companion, and my support. a tiny meow rumbles through this body after I make eye contact with his piercing blue eyes.  

  “What was her name?” Jack’s voice become more tender towards me. 

“Svea Marais.” 

Jack is quiet for a little bit after that, like I had done something wrong. The feeling of Denrick’s soft paws in my lap made me jump a little. He wasn’t fazed by it was her curled up and began to purr. I petted him subconsciously, It’s almost therapeutic.

“Did I say something wrong?” I asked cautiously,  Jack looked away suddenly entertained by a bookshelf. 

“No, Um She’s Jonah’s younger sister.” 

Of course she is, how the hell did I not put it together? They had the exact same eyes, the bright green intensity. 

“He’s gunna come and look for you.” 

I swallow Thickly, “I Know” 

--------------------

All I could remember was the red bird that caught fire. Flying over head screeching before soaring through the sky graciously. spreading it’s wings full and bursting into flame. 

It was a dream, because I was sudden heaving in bed as Christina, one of my first friends at Hogwarts. Looks at me with full concern and worry. “Phoenix” My voice raspy. 

“I don’t understand.” 

Catching my breathing, I choked a little. “I saw a phoenix in my dream, I think it was a sign or a symbol. Do you know anyone with a Phoenix Patronus?”  

Patronus guardians take the shape of an animal the castor shares the most resemblance with. In a sense it’s kind like a spirit animal. If the castor had the skills to become an animagus their form and patronus guardian would share the same animal. Which is by far the best part of being a witch. 

“At the moment, I have no idea. Although I do know we definitely should prepare for breakfast.” She holds out a hand for me to take, “What time is it?” 

“6:50″ 

“Guess you were right.” I said placing my hand in hers as she pulls my tired ass out of bed. 

--------

 Christina walks ahead of me into the great hall as I fall behind fixing the blue and bronze tie. The loud chatter from inside made me miss my bed. Although the delicious scent of pancakes made my stomach growl.

“Darling what the hell is taking so long!” It wasn’t a question, but a demand. 

“Calm down I’m fixing my tie, it was lose.” 

Christina looks at me un amused and rolls her eyes at me dramatically. I shrug at her before grabbing her arm and began to kidnap her to the Ravenclaw table where I saw a certain curly headed boy. “Sucks you can’t sit with your boyfriend today.” I say taking a seat in front of Jack. 

[theladydrgn]

WIP Wednesday

It is technically 2AM on Thursday morning, but time is currently meaningless so I do what I want.

Please enjoy this snip of a Nightmare Before Christmas AU me and @sylwritesstuff are writing together <3

Sometimes, Aziraphale wondered if fear was all there was. Or if it was all there had to be. The Angels would, and had, told him yes in many different ways, and his infrequent visits into the town proper had shown only a bit more than that. There was enjoyment in their terror, hidden behind their snarls, but surely there could be enjoyment in other things? He couldn’t be the only soft thing in Halloween Town.

But like this and any other night wherein he had the opportunity for escape, he didn’t search. He journeyed across foggy streets, under flickering street lamps, beyond eerie shadows which stretched and formed shapes like claws. He strode across creaking wooden bridges over swampy waters, frowned politely at the few beings he came across and was frowned at in return. Street musicians played something morose and slow, instruments tuned either too sharp or too flat. They were very talented.

“Dreadful,” he complimented, tamping down the smile that tried so hard to make itself known, and the saxophonist sent him a small salute of acknowledgement. 

Finally, a terrible abandoned-looking building came into view. His frown turned into a delighted gasp, the heels of his brogues clicking over cobblestones as he added some pep to his step. The doorbell hissed and rattled when he reached it, Aziraphale’s polite frown unable to hold against a bright, far more sincere smile when the click of far too many locks reached his ears.

He wiggled when the door swung open, creaking on its hinges. “Hello, my dear!”

“You’re late, angel. Kept me waiting almost half an hour here. What were you doing? Replacing your stuffing?” Crowley said as he swung the door open, leaning against the frame and crossing his ankles. A lazy grin spreading across his face at the sight of Aziraphale.

It was the sort of smile that made beings feel as if they were unfortunate mice before a predator, his fangs glinting sharply. Aziraphale found it charming. “Pish-posh. I'm sure you kept yourself quite busy. Sandalphon had me greasing his wheels again.” He shuddered, the chore truly unpleasant since the often flaming things were attached to the wicked creature. “I brought a lovely vintage to make up for it, though.”

Crowley gave a mock pout at Aziraphale’s complaints. He often thought the horrid creatures who'd created his friend ran him a bit too ragged, but Aziraphale expressed feeling indebted to them so he kept his mouth shut. Even if he didn’t want to.

“Well don’t just stand out here, then. Night’s a wastin’,” Crowley said and ushered Aziraphale in with a dramatic flourish.

“I was waiting to be dragged in against my will,” he teased, passing Crowley the wine as he entered. The exterior may have looked one strong wind away from collapsing, but the interior was sturdy. Largely barren and quite cold, dark walls and heavy velvet curtains - it all added up to a rather dramatic setting, in Aziraphale’s opinion. The parlor they usually settled in was no different, though there was at least furniture. None of it was even moth-eaten. 

He settled on the edge of a stiff black armchair, beaming as he watched Crowley step out to fetch glasses. In this home, they likely wouldn't even be chipped. Not since his jaw had come off, anyway. It was nice not to fear catching a stray string on sharp edges. “Have you got something truly wicked in mind for tomorrow night?” 

Crowley took the time it took to retrieve his best wine glasses, only the best for Aziraphale, to get the blush caused by his teasing under control. “You know how it is,” he called from the kitchen, “Everyone loves the ‘Big Evil Snake’ act.”

He returned to the parlor with two fresh glasses dangling precariously from his long fingers. Glad to see Aziraphale already getting comfortable.

“Not that I want to ruin the surprise,” Crowley said as he poured for the both of them, “but I was thinking I could pop out of the fountain in the square this time. What do you think?”

[awesomehoggirl]

it’s wip wednesday so i thought i’d share a quick writing wip from my multi chapter fem howince fic which will maybe be done in 20 years ! it’s got 8 chapters and i am still on chapter 2 if this gets finished it’ll be a miracle. the fic is called eau d’bedroom dancing because i love le tigre and imagine how fantastic riot grrl vince would be ...

mentioning before hand that i write all my first drafts and oneshots with no capitals because i find it a lot easier but with this fic when i go back over i’ll put capitals in :) (also this is a section from chapter one not the opening)

—

her name is vincenzia mirabella lucie-marié le manteau rafflesia vaisseau-spatial noire (the longest name in the class, and the only one never written up on the ‘star student!’ chalkboard) but everyone refers to her as vince. she’s new to the school, and seemingly england, but her accent is pure south london. two teachers have quit because of her already. holly moon has never been so interested in a person in her entire tiny life.

oh, she’s read up on musicians, heard their stories, wished ever so slightly that her life would someday be just as interesting — did you know nina simone had seven siblings, that john coltrane was in the navy? but the weirdness that seems to just bounce off vince’s tongue beats every story she’s ever read hands down.

it quickly becomes apparent that she’s borderline feral: if the staff-room murmurs of the teachers are to be believed, she came from a ‘neglectful home’; if vince’s own word is to be accepted, she was raised in the jungle by a cast of rock stars, animals and french nobility. holly is sensible enough to doubt her at first, but before long (and after many demonstrations of her ability to talk to animals) she’s genuinely on board. they sit behind the ash tree at lunch time, out of sight from dribbling boys and disapproving teachers, and holly figures out that through half a chocolate bar vince can be coaxed into revealing all sorts about her unorthodox childhood.

‘dunno why you’re so desperate to know about my life,’ vince complains once, when asked again to tell the story about the great order of frogs and the backwards waterfall. ‘why can’t i hear stories about you for a change?’

‘all in good time,’ says holly, whose mother is a tax attorney married to a geography teacher. ‘plus, i know you love the attention.’

and so vince sits there and talks until she goes hoarse, or loses interest, or feels like changing the subject right at a crucial moment, or the school bell rings and they have to go inside. she talks about her house made of bus tickets and her animal friends, her french duke uncle who would come down on bank holidays and teach her table manners, about joining the jackals for hunts, about skimming the treetops in the claws of squabbling vultures, about the hoots and screeches of the monkeys as they chased her through the undergrowth on the back of a hippopotamus. and holly will listen breathlessly, trying to seem nonplussed when in reality she is clinging to every last word. (tell me again about the paper-mache tiger and the rhinoceros’ game nights. tell me again again again.)

because no matter how hard her sensible brain tries, she really can’t prove them wrong. vince is hopeless at all forms of spelling or arithmetic. she is genuinely flabbergasted when explained to that, in fact, biting and shoving are not always seen as ‘playful’ in the human world. she swears like a sailor (or perhaps a rockstar) would, until the little old lady vicar gasps, snaps her bible shut and refuses to read to the year six class ever again. idioms are beyond her, let alone algebra, and the teachers insist there’s no hope — but they can’t help liking her, despite it all. there’s something so genuine about her ever-present toothy grin, her bubbly demeanour, that they soon allow her to get away with anything.

and yet holly is her best friend. and the only person (maybe in the world) vince will tell her stories to.

‘once upon a time,’ she begins one lunch break, dipping holly’s generous sacrifice of a curly wurly into her pocket for later, ‘i was out with jahooli the leopard, who was my best friend — he’d give me rides on his back when i was really small, swattin’ the bloodsuckers away with his giant tail. he’d catch me fish in his big strong jaws, crush ‘em up so i could eat ‘em right, i was just a nipper, i’d not got all my teeth in yet, but he was a right sweetheart about that sort of thing. on the surface jahooli always seemed to be a reckless character, a real rough-and-tumble kind of cat, but i knew the reality: he’d lost his mate and his litter and he was gettin’ on a bit, i was all he had left in terms of fatherhood. it meant he did get a bit invasive at times, yeah, he could be real clingy. i didn’t mind though, see, i’m wise beyond my years, so i was quite good with all that stuff, i let him vent to me when it all got a bit too much for his poor leopard heart to handle. anyway, this one day he was lookin’ after me, on account of my foster father bryan ferry being away on tour. and it was a hot afternoon, this one. really hot.’ she sinks down on her heels. ‘the kinda hot that drenches you in sweat no matter how still you stand. the kinda humid that makes your palms slick and your eyelashes heavy. most of the animals were tucked away underground by midday, but the bigger sorts like me and jahooli, we couldn’t exactly join them. so jahooli said, why don’t we make our way down to the river?’

holly feels her spine prickle. it is eerie, the way her friend’s stories pull her in.

she follows vince along to said river, feels jahooli’s long speckled tail curling round her shoulders, bumping against her collarbones, keeping her close. feels the slick wetness of the air, feels the burn of her lungs as they work in shallow pumping gasps. breathes in the hot dark of the bush, the low chatter of the canopy. soon the lumbering gait of the leopard slows, the river is in sight — the banks are busy with boars, bucks and buffalo, sunning lizards and mice. slow-blinking crocodiles cruise in the shallows. vince is not afraid of them. (holly would be.)

‘is it true if you’re being chased by a crocodile you should run in a zig-zag pattern?’ she interrupts (not because the story is getting a little too tense for her or anything).

vince rolls her eyes, makes a face as if holly has asked her the stupidest question in the world (considering just yesterday she asked holly whether all numbers bite or if the three digit ones are just especially fiesty, they clearly have different opinions on what counts as a ‘stupid question’). ‘if a crocodile were to haul its fat arse out of the nice cool water just to give you a bit of trouble, you probably did something awful to deserve it. why? are you plannin’ to go pokin’ sticks at ‘em? cause if you are, insult their music taste, they’ll go absolutely mental. most crocodiles are obsessed with alice cooper, so there’s a good starting point, have that one on me.’

‘so what’s—‘

‘oi, hush! do you want this story or not?’

holly shuts up. vince lowers her voice.

the jungle is sweaty now, the riverbanks a dripping piccadilly circus. jahooli has left vince’s side, gone to make conversation with ranbir the great panther, so she ventures alone to the water’s edge (the animals watch over her, they all like her, tiny and pink and strange as she is) and dips her feet in. the water is so clear and cold it hurts, but soon the pain ebbs and gives way to a calm coolness. she sits down, slides in up to her knees, lies back against the soft mud

the jungle is treacle now, bubbling and pooling, thick. vince soon drifts off and the leaves behind her eyelids are red. the stars are wheeling gulls, the air is thick with salt-spit, her eyelashes tangle and she slips down into the mud. somewhere else, the dulcet waves begin to lap. the elephants have arrived. jahooli and ranbir share a look before they approach, hackles raised (they are not mean-spirited creatures, but they do like to play a prank).

the jungle is long gone now, and vince dreams of strawberry ice cream. somewhere else, jahooli and ranbir wind around each other dizzyingly, teeth flashing slick and sharp. somewhere else, the elephants are fussing, distressed by their feline dance, their ashy trunks whirling as they back up their feet. pelts twist and brush together before the big-cats turn, open their jaws and let out a combined roar that wakes vince, sends animals scattering, splits the sky in two —

and the jungle rumbles. and the elephants charge.