#the shadow academy just stinks

[textsfromthepraxeum]

[xbadgerbearx]

chapter 1: perv

summary: When a new serial killer prowls the streets of Gotham and murders politicians in Gotham, Batman is forced into unraveling the city's dark secrets. Only, he didn't expect to team up with you. What an unlikely duo...

pairing: Batman x Reader

word count: 2k

warning: spoilers for The Batman (2022)

note: no use of (y/n) and enjoy!

Sonata in Darkness: ... [2]

“Thursday, October thirty-first…

The streets are crowded for the holiday, but hiding in the chaos… is the element. Waiting to strike at the decent… the vulnerable…

But I’m there too. Watching.

Two years of nights have turned me into a nocturnal animal. It’s a big city, I can’t be everywhere… but they don’t know that.

We have a signal now. When that light hits the sky, it’s not just a call… It’s a warning.

Fear is a tool.

They think I’m hiding in the shadows… 

But I am the shadows.

I am vengeance.” 

———————————————————————————————

“Watch where you’re going, pipsqueak.”

The man who backed into you spat, grumbling as he stumbled away. Sighing, you rolled your eyes but kept your composure and continued on your way with a covered tray in your hands. Luckily the bastard didn’t make you drop it. 

The dim club obscured most features of a person, but the colorful lights revealed everything with a flash or blink. You were dolled up in your work attire: glamorous makeup, a slutty dress, heels, the whole works. Men and women alike found you irresistible—a real catch. 

You approached the table with a friendly smile as you set the tray down and revealed its contents: drops. The partiers cheered and clamored to get their hands on the drugs presented before them. With a wink you left the group, all while ignoring the stares and occasional whistles. Slipping behind the bar you saw the bartender waving to get your attention.

“What’s up?”

“Drops. Mr. Cobblepot wants these—“ He pointed to another tray, this time with a thick envelope and a fresh drink, “—delivered to him upstairs.”

“Sure thing,” you said as you gathered the item and sauntered out of the underground club. The almost calming blue light of the 44 Below was immediately erased by the harsh, flashing red lights of the club upstairs. If you weren’t so used to it, it would have given you a headache. You were almost there when suddenly-

“Selina?”

“Oh hey, my little mouse, haven’t seen you all night,” Selina purred with a smile. “Where’re ya off to?”

“Oz. He requested some samples from below.” 

She hummed in understanding. “Want me to come with? I’m not doing much.”

“Yes, please.” 

Your night just got slightly better. Selina was a friend of yours—your best friend, actually. You guys were sharing an apartment at the moment to save on some cash, but you didn’t mind. The only thing that drove you a little crazy was that she’d seemingly turn up with a new stray cat almost every few days. As long as they didn’t start stinking up the apartment, you didn’t really care. At least they were cute.

You guys linked arms and laughed as you made your way past the crowd and to his office, heels clicking on the cold metal floor. Selina took the tray from you to hold it herself—how sweet. Getting closer to his office, you could hear men talking in low tones. Making your way inside, the men silenced themselves. Oz was sitting on his couch while a man clad in a black suit stood in front of him. He looked very… menacing as he stared you and Selina down.

“Hey, it’s okay, baby,” Oz thankfully interrupted. “Mr. Vengeance don’t bite.”

Recognizing the man as the one and only caped crusader did not calm your nerves in the slightest. ‘The Batman’ was only a slightly new figure in Gotham, known for taking justice into his own hands—his reasons unknown. ‘Maybe he flunked out of the Police academy,’ you had thought humorously at one point. Figuring it was only a matter of time before he tried to involve himself in Penguin’s business, it was still surprising to see him in your boss’ office. 

 He was still staring at you—no—into you. His harsh blue eyes never wavered from yours, even as your friend gave him a pointed look and delivered the tray to Oz. He finally looked away when he heard Oz ruffling through the money in the envelope and setting a stash of drops on the tray. As Selina set down the drink onto the table, you too had looked away from the dark man, and your eyes fell onto the photograph before her. It was Annika being escorted by Mayor Mitchel, no doubt, but you could also make out you, Selina, and Oz standing behind the couple talking. Selina gave you a look.

“Thank you, honey,” Oz said, breaking you out of your spell. You smiled hesitantly and turned to leave, daring to look back at the black crusader, but he was already looking your way. Linking arms with Selina again, you hastily made your way out of there and back into the main club area. Before you could though, she yanked you back and pressed herself against the nearby wall, urging you to do the same.

“That was Anni.”

“Yeah, I saw. Why’d he have a picture of her?”

“I’m not sure,” Selina said. “But it can’t be good. Shh, now listen.”

You couldn’t see what your friend saw, but suddenly she gave a sharp turn and started rushing away. 

“Go, we have to leave. He saw us.”

An indescribable feeling swelled inside you, but you obediently slinked away after her. After grabbing your belongings and coats from the locker rooms, Selina grabbed your hand and led the way outside.

“Taxi!” 

However, it wasn’t long after when you clambered in the backseat of the car that Selina got a phone call. “Hey, it’s me. What’samatter, baby? Slow down, I can’t—on the news? No, wait for us, we’re on our way home. We’re gonna get the hell out of here, I promise…if we have to go sooner, we’ll go tonight!” Selina gave you an uneasy look. “Look, sweetie, we’re just a block away, I‘ll be there soon. Love you.”

———————————————————————————————-

The rain pelted against the man’s back as he peered into some windows with his binoculars atop a nearby building. A woman with short, blonde hair was a wreck and sobbing at the TV. Not long after, two more women, the very same he saw earlier in the club, rushed in to comfort. The dark haired one stayed behind to reassure her as he watched you slip into the back rooms to pull out a bodysuit. You looked around, paranoid in your own home but saw nothing, so you hastily shimmied out of your club dress and into your new apparel–a catsuit. The man moved to get a better look; his eyes lingered a little too long before jumping back to the two other women. By the time you finished getting dressed, the other woman he saw you with was gearing up and you two were sliding out the window. The now-pixie haired woman flipped over the railing and onto the ground while you slid down a nearby pole. Reaching the bottom, you made your way to the garage and hopped on a motorcycle that the woman was operating. The man rushed after the pair, worried that he’d lose them. Climbing onto his own bike, he pursued the women and gave chase.

————————————————————————————————

The rope was thin and light, but just sturdy enough to carry a person. Once your partner in crime made it down through the skylight, you tossed down the lock picking kit to her and lowered yourself down. It took some investigating, but after a while Selina ran her hands along a rather large painting and managed to find a button. Pressing it made the painting retract and allowed the safe to eject. 

Silently working as one, you assembled the tool until it was completed and Selina could look through the scope. As she was deep in concentration, deciding to look around the room wouldn’t hurt. It was a nice, big office, only fit for a mayor. As your eyes wandered, you couldn’t help but notice a shadow flicker overhead. “Cat?” you whispered.

The split second it took to look over at her gave the shadow enough time to materialize just as Selina cracked the safe.

“You’re pretty good at that.”

Instantly your body went into fight mode. A flurry of kicks and spins forced the stranger to make space between you and the safe. As you were fighting, Selina rummaged through the iron box until she found what she was looking for—the passport. Interested in what was in her hand, the man made a bold move and grabbed your leg that was coming for him, twisting the appendage and throwing you away as he stalked after her. Leaping to your feet, Selina called out, “Catch!” 

Smoothly catching the book and zipping it away in your front breast compartment, you joined your friend in attacking the assailant. With his back facing you, you jumped on top and wrapped your legs around his face, choking him between your thighs. His breath turned ragged and he wheezed frantically; his hands went straight to trying to get you off. In return, he took multiple blows from Selina from the front. Finding it almost impossible to knock you off first without dealing with your partner, he delivered a calculated punch that rendered her breathless before he flung her across the room. Gasping, he finally got a hold and heaved you over his head and onto a table. One of his hands immediately went to your throat to hold you down; your hands met with it at once. His grip was strong and unrestricted; it felt like he could kill you if he pressed down a little harder. Seeing the fight leave your body as your eyes bulged and glistened in fear, he took a moment to examine you. Your hands were still furiously pawing at the glove around your throat as you struggled to gasp for breath. He wouldn’t budge.

Giving you a glare as he drank in air, his gaze fixed themselves onto the front of your suit. Sliding his free hand down, he unzipped the breast pocket and fished out the little passport. He struggled as you fought for breath. His hand on your throat disappeared, leaving you gasping as you collapsed to the ground, body hunched over itself as you started a coughing fit. He flipped open the book.

He stood in front of you, panting, “Kosolov, Annika… He hurt her? That’s why you killed him?”

He gave you a while to respond. Rising to your feet and rubbing your neck, you choked out, “What? We didn’t kill anybody.” Selina rose to her feet. 

A door creaked open just as you went to swipe the book in his hand. Effortlessly, he pulled you into his chest and spun around the corner, his hand covering the lower portion of your face. Panic swelled inside of you; was he going to choke you again? But the pressure remained consistently light as he shushed you, so you took the chance to take deep breaths to calm your racing heart. You could almost feel yourself melting into his embrace. Echoing footsteps slowly paraded around the room you had previously occupied—Selina must have hid. Thoughts trampled around in your mind until the sound of the door squeaking shut awakened you. You broke free from his grasp.

“Rat?” Selina whispered out as she crawled out of her hiding space. Whispering back, she slinked into the room.

“I swear, you’ve got the wrong idea, okay? We didn’t kill anybody-“

“He thinks we murdered someone?” Selina asked, even more pissed off at the accusation

“-We’re taking back what was stolen. Mayor Mitchel took it from her when all she’s trying to do is leave this dump of a city.”

“What does she know?” The Batman asked, face highlighted by the skylight from above. 

“Whatever it is,” interjected Selina, “it’s got her so spooked she won’t even tell me.” 

“She did seem upset.” Your eyes widened, ‘What?’

“Back at your place,” he continued. “Let’s go talk to her.” Meeting hesitant looks, he offered the passport back to your friend who gladly snatched it out of his hand.

Sneaking out of the apartment undetected, he followed behind to where your bike was—his was parked right beside it. Climbing onto the passenger seat of Selina’s bike, you called out to him. “Hey…how much did you see at our place?” His eyes darted to your figure but failed to meet your eyes before busying himself with his own bike. Was that…bashfulness?

“Perv.”

[askauradonprep]

Hertz family

Red and her siblings in the main timeline where she was born on the Isle and there is no Merlin academy (Merlin verse Red is an only child).

She has three older siblings. Quinn, King and Quinlin.

Now, my version of the Queen of Hearts is honestly not AS different from ROR as it could be. She owns a hair salon on the opposite side of the Isle from the Tremaines. She also still has her card army so if anyone does anything to annoy her, well....off with their head. She puts the heads on wooden stakes outside her home on the outskirts of town. There's so many, it's been dubbed 'The Queen's Forest'. It is generally advisable not to be IN the Queen's Forest, lest you be ADDED to the Queen's Forest. She doesn't like to be disturbed.

Her children are pretty much left at home because nobody else is worthy of interacting with the royal children. Except other royals but the evil royals have lost so much of their edge that the Queen of Hearts doesn't really want them to stink up her kids either. So, honestly, Red's life isn't all THAT different. She still sneaks out, defies and argues with her mom all the time. Yet, it's Red's continued defiance that pushes the Queen of Hearts to pay the most attention to her and try to bring her into line (maybe she sees some of herself in Red, maybe she just wants the satisfaction of forcing her to obey, who can say?)

Quinn, her oldest sister, is EXACTLY like her mother. She's imperious, snobby, and has an awful temper. She will not interact with anyone but other royalty. She's left 'to rule' their little territory when her mom is at the salon and has most definitely started to add to the Queen's Forest. She doesn't understand why Red has to act up and she's definitely absorbed her mom's philosophy - love ain't it. The sad part? She will NEVER be enough for her mother. Her hair is blonde and her eyes are blue, like her father's - and like Alice. And her mother will NEVER forgive her for that. She gets dismissed and put down for everything she does while RED gets their mother's attention. She is MAD.

King and Quinlan are the middle siblings. King is Quinn's younger twin and therefore has always been in her shadow. He tends to believe she's more important than she's often treated as and he's kinda like a sadistic version of the King of Hearts. He might not be the one doing a lot of the violence but he LOVES to watch Quinn work. The Queen of Hearts doesn't pay much attention to him, but she thinks he's at risk of becoming 'soft' because of his caring about his sister. She might need to make them compete over something they both care about to hammer that lesson home.

Quinlin as the other middle child, pretty much does whatever. If mom's too busy worrying about King and fighting with Red and pressing Quinn to do things, she can pretty much get away with anything. She gets to leave the castle the most because her mom makes her help with the hair salon. Somebody has to help and that someone is her child who doesn't otherwise do anything. On the bright side, it means she gets to see more of the Isle. On the other side, well....it's the Isle and mom only wants her as a worker. Par for the course, she guesses.

[eorzeashan]

Minder, Minder

“Ensign, why don’t you go run a systems check– I need a minute with the agent.”

Raina turns to leave. “I’ll chisel the ice off the pilot’s seat for you,” She says, good-natured and obedient. Eight watches her form disappear up the ramp of the shuttle. She’s young, sweet, and terribly fresh: green in a way he hasn’t known since his Academy days. He’s not sure how she survived in the frigid wastes so long with such a chipper attitude.

Hunter seems to share his sentiments, judging by the slight disapproval in the fold of his arms and the impatience rooting his back foot to the ice floor. He’s at a crossroads for a decision, and Eight zeroes in on the words hanging off the thick of his lips. 

“Ardun Kothe’ll be happy,” He starts, his commander’s opinion relayed first, and Eight patiently waits for the relevant information that comes after the but. 

“But the girl…” There it was. “We agree that she needs to die, right?” Hm. Brutal as ever.

Not that he was complaining. They did agree on that. It was standard procedure; saw too much, heard too much, not useful enough to me, a liability– all judgements that usually ended with new blood buried somewhere deep underground. He knew it by experience and the intimate familiarity of being one such liability in a long age past. You’re a weakness, his mentor had said to him without an ounce of warmth in her voice, looking down on him wheezing for breath on the cutting board floor, unless you become a knife in my belt, I’ll leave you with all the rest.

She’d then extended a blue finger to the misshapen trash bags piled up along the wall, where the remains of her ex-lovers sat in neat little pieces, stinking of chemicals that stripped the hairs from one's nose.

He learned his lesson quickly.

People weren’t people to agents. They were loose ends. Trash to be discarded. Tools to be used. Mouths that talked too much, and eyes that watched too closely. It went the other way around, too.

Which was why Raina Temple could not suffer to live– yet against the voice of Nosta that lived eternally in the cracks of his soul, Eight found that he did not want to sink her body beneath the ice floes with rocks in her gutted stomach, a meal for the fish below.

“She’s not a threat,” He decided, not a retort, his words paced and even.

Hunter doesn’t look convinced. His fingers tighten on his forearm. There’s an unamused twitch in his second eyelid, and his shoulders are set square– relaxed from the outside, bordering on tense from within. Ready to act, while trying to play off that he is. More words stand to crawl from his throat, just above the bulbish shape that is a feature in his species. They called it an apple, like the fruit. Eight lingers over how much force he’d need to break the skin when biting it.

“She’s Imperial, she knows about the Starbreeze, she’s seen me, she’s seen you…” Hunter trails off, and Eight can see the metrics ticking in that wound brain. Eight wouldn’t call it nervousness, but Hunter…is cautious. Too cautious in all the ways he is not. Hunter skims just past paranoia and into the territory of bad faith; good for a classical agent, but too much fear begets no rewards– and jumping at shadows opens just as much room for mistakes as excessive trust.

“If she becomes a problem, I’ll take care of it,” Eight answers with a quirk of his brow, as if the danger she poses hardly warrants a second thought. To him, it doesn’t. She’d never last against him. No reason to send her back to Saganu in a body bag, and he suspects the Aristocra would be less than pleased if he did. 

Hunter’s eyes dance over his face, searching for the source of his confidence with pinpricks of wariness in the minute twitches of his face before he visibly relaxes, taut muscles released from their focus. Like a sigh, his readiness dissipates…but Eight is staring at the intent rolling up from his throat’s apple to his chin, resting on the bottom of his lower lip, weighed with purpose and a bit of that high that all with even a hint of power relish in before the utterance. Something animal in him rises to its hackles. It smells of the leash, the gentle tug before the pull. The freedom with which cruelty is spoken and the safety his prey finds in it. 

Eight has waited long enough.

“Just to be sure, though,

I’m putting a command in your brain. 

O n o-"

Eight lunges forward. The hut is small. The distance is laughable.

"M a"

He sees the shock bleed into Hunter’s eyes as he automatically falls backwards at his sudden advance. His back hits the wall, Eight’s hand fisting his collar.

"T o-"

He slams him against the slope of the hut. The impact rattles Hunter’s skull to an explosion of dancing stars, interrupting his verbage–it happened in the blink of an eye, and before he can so much as get another sound out, the Cipher’s moving again. A bit of spittle escapes Hunter’s mouth, mixed with blood. Too fast. Far too fast. What the hell?!

He’s not going to make it. No room to reach his blaster. Nowhere to get distance. The word, idiot! He tries again, fury welling up in his chest for being played a fool. 

Hunter blinks. Eight’s lips are on his, hotter than a molten star, softer than synth-silk.

His brain shuts off. He feels the other’s tongue slip through, wet, mixing with his saliva.

It takes him a second to register it probing the walls of his mouth, his senses overloaded with fever. He’s struggling to catch up, but he does, and a fierce hunger overtakes him as he claws at the Cipher agent’s back and pulls him closer into his space, their mouths battling for dominance, searching for just the right way to lock together as he eats him alive for more, more, more. His fingers trail down his nape as he bites his lower lip, tastes the wetness there and Eight moans into his mouth– the sound shooting straight down to his hidden pistol. Filthy like a whore.

Yeah. That’s more like it, Cipher. 

Just as he’s in the throes of kissing him senseless, the small part of his brain that has been screaming warnings at him breaks through the haze of his desire and he’s hit with remembering exactly what he’s here for.

The keyword! 

Hunter’s glazed eyes shoot open, the cold shock of recollection assaulting him like water dumped over his head. He shoves the agent away from him– did he really think he could seduce him out of a command? Cheap trick. He sneers.

…Only to find that the agent wasn’t budging.

Eight’s formerly closed eyes are wide open and staring straight at him. From here, he can see the wild glint in his eyes, light reflecting off the obsidian edge of his irises, dizzy with carnivorous desire and a gut-plunging intensity that makes Hunter think he’s been stabbed. Those dark eyes are the black rocks dotting the bay above a sea cliff, and he feels their pull keenly, the call of their void. 

It takes Hunter a moment to find out why.

A white-hot pain overtakes him. He tries to scream, but it doesn’t make a sound besides bouncing uselessly around in his throat. Iron, wet and heavy, gushes forth inside his mouth. The knee jerk reaction of pulling away from Eight sparks even more of that terrible pinch, the stretch of ruined flesh and his tongue alight with the kerosene of suffering– 

You bitch!

Eight’s cheeks are flushed now, and he can see the shy grin that extends from both sides of his face, painted with driblets of red.

He lets go after what feels like an eternity, taking one step back to admire his handiwork. Hunter falls to his knees, gagging and choking, blood leaking out of his ruined mouth. His tongue lolls, swelling with the inflicted bite mark of the other agent, flopping uselessly to the side as he tries to hurl swears at Eight but can only mush malformed invectives together that feel as mutated as his damaged digit.

His eyes spell of murder.

Eight wipes the runoff from his lips with the side of his hand, smearing it with red.

Amidst his rage, he hates himself for the arousal that emerges seeing him so bloodstained. The pool of want settles within the acid of his stomach.

He wants to kill him. He wants to kill the girl in front of him. He wants to have him choke on air for a week. He’s never wanted so badly to drag someone to a closet and lock them in there with him until they beg to do anything but know his touch. He still can’t say the word, and he wants to yell and scream for being in this position. 

Eight’s expression is orgasmic. 

“Mind your tongue,” Eight purrs with as much satisfaction as an overly-fed vine cat, “Minder Seventeen.”

—--------

Kothe confronts him about it later.

“Did you do that to Hunter?” It’s an innocent question, posed with that no-nonsense tone of a father trying to parse who took a cookie out of the jar. I’m not mad, just disappointed, says the stern set of his jaw. Eight doesn’t turn around to look at him from where he’s sitting crosslegged atop an empty weapons crate that Saber emptied. The spymaster waits for his answer.

He slurps a mouthful of instant MRE. Chews the noodles a little. “Dogs will bite if you pull the leash too many times.” He explains, in between a cascade of pasta falling from his mouth. Sluuuurp.

Ardun sighs. “I don’t understand why you boys are fighting, but I trusted Hunter with the codeword for a reason. If there’s a problem, I want you to tell me, Legate.” He says firmly, with a tired air to his stance. “We’re a team. We don’t hurt each other.”

“Already told’ya.”

Another sigh. “Because Hunter hasn’t talked to me either, I’ll let it go– but only this once." Ardun's tone is deadly serious. "I won’t tolerate dissension or hurting the other members of this cell. Time’s short and there’s too much at stake for in-fighting... I hoped you'd understand that. We’ll discuss this again another time.” Eight feels the air waft off the swish of Ardun’s cape as he exits the room, left alone with his lukewarm noodles.

Hm. He sips the broth thoughtfully. He didn’t use onomatophobia this time either. 

Out of the corner of his eyes, he spies something orange around the corner. He felt it before, staring at his lips. Eight smiles and wipes a stray bead of liquid from his mouth, smearing it across the back of his hand for his secret voyeur. 

The visitor quickly disappears. It’s fine, though.

He always comes back. 

[onedaughterofman]

You, forever (Chapter IX: Waiting for the night)

Pairing: Papa Emeritus IV x g/n reader

Summary: The Clergy takes something from Copia, but he refuses to let go.

Warnings/tags: descriptions of corpses, death, blood and violence. Biblical references and Satanism. Emotional hurt. Psychological horror. Copia straight up not having a good time. Around 5.5K words.

A/N: Shit got real.

PREV CHAPTER HERE

ENTER APOCALYPSE.

“The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up”

A perpetual smile is plastered on Mary Goore’s face.

It’s rare. In old pictures, faded away by the passage of time and corroded by the sun and water, Goore consistently had a frown on their face. From Academy portraits to concert photos on an underground metal magazine, there was only a scowl, furrowed brows and thin lips in a line.

Now, Goore smiles. The corners of their mouth are lifted, stretched out almost to the maximum as their head moves to follow the lively rhythm of a song. Papa Emeritus stands in the middle of the rundown studio, not daring to take a seat anywhere. From the walls to the floor, everything appears to be covered in a dense layer of dust and gravel, dirty and corroded by time.

This studio, as much as Goore seems to appreciate it, is in ruins. A long, long time ago it was a mausoleum, part of the ancient chapel’s private cemetery. No one in the Ministry cared about it, which made it easier for Mary to naturally take it.

Muscles stiff and fingertips cold, Copia desires nothing more than to exit this place. It’s freezing between these stone walls and the humidity clings to the surfaces, rendering them sticky. Even the ghouls would prefer to be anywhere else but here, judging by their rigid shoulders and flickering tails. This space stinks of death, wet soil and decay.

“I thought you said three weeks,” Goore speaks up for the first time since Papa Emeritus set foot inside the mausoleum.“I still have time.”

“I know,” it’s the reply. “I’m just here to oversee the process.”

A short, bitter chuckle is all the answer he receives. Mary’s fingers toy with a small bone, cleaning the carcass of something that might have been a crow during better times. Now, the remains are almost unrecognizable. “It’s okay,” they state, after a beat. “As long as you don’t wish to see them.”

“Why not?”

Goore’s eyes are too dark to be read. Face obscured by shadows, they look more like a corpse than a living person, all pale skin and gaunt cheeks. “It’s ugly,” they explain. “Messy.”

The sound of a Ghoul’s tail flickering swiftly cuts the air. Papa inhales, gathers a shallow breath before speaking. “Am I supposed to trust in your words only, then?”

“Yes.”

A loud crack reverberates on the walls when the bone on Goore’s hand snaps in a half, bending between their fingers. Mary stares at the pieces, clicks his tongue before tossing them at the table.

“It’s better not to distract me,” they continue, turning around to face Papa Emeritus. “I’m not very good at multitasking. Had a hard time playing guitar while singing on stage, that’s why I planned to get another guitarist.”

“Couldn’t you find another one of your corpse puppets to play around?”

A laugh, short and hollow fills the air. Papa Emeritus still hears that sound often, when he’s alone trying to sleep, fingers reaching out to the side of the bed you used to rest in. “Not necessarily. I didn’t have the time to search for a good one, that’s all.”

Silence falls deeply into the room. Papa Emeritus takes one step, then another. His mismatched eyes inspect the bird carcass, note the way Goore is cleaning the bones and peeling away the flesh from them with an almost clinical care. “Tell me,” he commands. “What’s the process?”

For a moment, Goore stays silent. Then, his fingers pick up another bone. “Once you find the soul and guide it back to this earthly realm, you must make the body a suitable vessel for it again. Much like summoning a Nameless Ghoul and giving them a human carrier, the soul must accept the old receptacle. To put a soul infused with life essence into a dead container is complicated. They don’t want to remain there. It feels wrong.”

No, wrong is not the right word.

It’s pure horror. A painful, traumatizing, unforgettable process. It’s torture, visceral and profound. Regardless of how much time has passed since their demise and return to life or how well their body was preserved thanks to black magic, Goore still remembers the agonizing pain, desperation and gut wrenching fear.

“A soul brimming with life energy will stop the decomposing process. In this case, since they have been embalmed, I need to perform a few other modifications here and there.”

Over the distant low whistle of the wind, Papa’s voice sounds harsher, stronger. “Explain.”

“Blood.” Goore says, fluttering a hand in an empty gesture. Their fingers are coated with a dark, thick substance. “They need fresh blood, organs, entrails… I need to reverse the embalming little by little, step by step. It’s a bit more complicated than reversing natural decomposition.”

“I assume you have found a way.”

“One or two,” Goore smiles, cracking their knuckles before continuing.“It’s not my first time working with something like this. I had some practice before getting kicked out from the Academy.”

Moving even closer, Papa Emeritus peeks from behind Goore’s shoulders. As messy as it might seem, their work is careful and curated. Those long fingers move deftly, minding every individual detail. Goore may have said they are not fond of multitasking, but Copia notes the way they clean the skeleton with natural ease, almost on autopilot.

“I read your file,” he comments, tongue poking out to moisten his lips. It’s hard to speak when it’s so bleak. “You stole a Papa’s corpse from the mausoleum.”

The file was very explicit. Whoever wrote it didn’t spare details and curses on Goore’s figure, cataloging the incident as something “never seen before” and “overly blasphemous". To tinker around with a sacred body, with a relic no less, must have been heavily disapproved of.

“Well, yes. Where else would I have found an embalmed corpse? You have an idea of how much money it requires to embalm a body?” They ask, before another smile stretches their lips.“Sorry. You do, after all.”

Even if Papa Emeritus feels the anger rise from deep within his guts, he remains calm. There’s no use getting upset at this moment, not when your return hangs from Goore’s fingers. “What I don’t understand is what you were trying to achieve. You knew you were risking it all with your stunt. Were you studying so you could bring a loved one back?”

This time, Mary’s slow laugh echoes around the corners. They stand up, so fast the chair drags on the floor and almost falls to the ground. The bones are thrown on the table, landing in a series of horizontal lines.

“Is that all the motivation you can think of?” they snort, a hand darting up to move away a few strands of hair from their eyes. Then, something in their expression softens, temporarily filled with melancholy. “If you want to know, I loved a guy once. He was hot but stupid, and I liked him because he reminded me of Jim Morrison. Later, he left me for some woman whom I’m pretty sure had something to do with my death.”

Surprised by the sudden display of emotions, Papa struggles to continue. Goore is a mystery, an eccentric figure never understood by anyone in the Ministry. “Then, why?”

For a long moment, Goore remains silent, reflective. Images of blood and bones, of funerals and burials pass in front of their eyes, misty like forgotten memories. Decades ago, the Ministry was an extremely sinister place.

Well, it is possible it has always been that way.

“Lots of kids died in the Ministry years ago, did you know?” They start, fingers blindly reaching to collect the bones back up. Even though they are clean, their nails still scratch the surface trying to wipe off a spot of dry blood. “I was young, but I’ve been told The Clergy was growing desperate. They wanted to force the coming of the Antichrist by any method.”

Dozens of babies and toddlers died as a result of those rituals. Parents were assured it was an honor to surrender little children to their hands, that from their suffering the Evil One would cast incommensurable rewards their way. Turns out, blood infected the ground and the rewards never came.

After lots of failure, those old men and women were forced to stop.

“The grass over those graves never grew right. It looked all burnt up, dead. I used to play a lot in the graveyard, until one day somehow I woke someone up. Kid rose from the grave, walked out of it all the way back to her parents. That was my first accidental necromancy.”

It was a mess. The screams from the parents could be heard all around the Ministry. The thing with the dead is, they are angry and confused. Without their brain controlling and limiting their bodies, they are capable of amazing things they couldn’t perform during life. That little girl tore the scalp off her mother without blinking.

What a fucking mess. Naturally, that’s not something Goore can tell Papa Emeritus IV.

Fortunately, Copia doesn’t press on that issue. “How did you do it?”

“Natural talent, they said. Everybody praises you the first time, but soon the same trick grows old. I got tired of simple rituals, so I searched for ways to use my power. Obviously, there were some setbacks.”

At the beginning, the empty corpses roamed the Ministry seeking a soul. Once they found one, they tore the flesh from the living trying to get it out. Then, once Mary managed to fuse both soul and body, the corpses started moving by their longing for a future.

Brought back to life, they regained some memories from their final moments and recalled their wishes for the future, the one they were to have had. The holes between their memories and their life plans became an incomplete, confusing puzzle. It got them crazy.

“The Clergy began to worry,” Mary continues. “They saw me as a threat. I had the power to set foot in the cemetery and raise an army of undead detractors they put underground. That’s what happens when you build an empire over the blood and flesh of your enemies, it’s easy to make it crumble.”

Beyond a few threats Mary sputtered here and there during lengthy discussions with the higher-ups, they never planned to actually take the Ministry by storm. Goore never wanted the responsibilities that came from it, never desired to be the one in command. They merely wanted to perform, to live their life to the fullest.

Achieving the perfect reanimation ritual was the only interesting enough goal they had. Just to see if they could do it, to prove… To whom? To whom did they want to prove themselves? Mary can’t remember it anymore. Death always takes something from you, even if it’s only a few memories.

”I thought a dark, powerful being with deep connections to the occult like an old Papa would be a good subject to try something new. Who knows, maybe that one would have been a perfect resurrection. I was wrong. My only perfect resurrection has been myself.”

Another sharp flick of a tail slashes the air. Goore’s black pupils focus on the ghoul, observe the way his shoulders are tense and teeth poke out from behind his lips. To the ghoul’s right, Papa Emeritus nods his head solemnly, eyelids pressed together. “You will succeed again,” he says, but there’s no encouragement in his tone.

No, that’s not meant to be comforting or kind. It’s an order, a command.

“You will succeed, or else,” Papa doesn’t say. He doesn’t have to.

Behind Goore’s back, the mix of black blood and putrid flesh begins to ooze from the bird’s corpse and drip from the corner or the table, tarnishing the ground. No grass will ever grow there.

“The second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood, and the third part of the creatures which were in the sea, and had life, died; and the third part of the ships were destroyed.”

“Did you finish?”

The Nameless Ghoul nods. Standing right in front of Papa Emeritus IV, the creature is tall, taller than most humans on earth. To its right, another Ghoul stands still, gaze obscured behind the opaque glass of the mask. There are red splotches on the surface, coating it with an acidic smell.

Outside, the water runs in a crimson color. Papa said not to make a mess, but creatures like the ghouls are hungry and wild. They don’t know how to control their most primal instinct, how to resist the deep yearn for hot violence and tender flesh.

There’s no use reprimanding them. “Take the blood to Goore,” he commands, instead. “Make sure it’s still fresh.”

“As you wish,” the smaller ghoul replies. “Anything else?”

Shaking his head, Papa turns around. “Tomorrow,” he states, extending one finger in their direction. The creatures follow it with their heads. “Go for another hunt tomorrow. It’s better if we take precautions, just in case Goore requires more materials.”

“Yes, your Dark Eminence.”

Without any more words, they leave. Outdoors, a crimson sea of dead bodies covers the earth, soon to become nothing but embers that will feed the funeral pyre for long days and nights.

“The third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters; and the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.“

It never rains anymore.

Still as death, the sky remains gray for most of these days. The dark clouds float gracefully in the horizon, immobile, waiting.

Just like the sky has stopped and the clouds have decided to halt too, Copia’s heart lays still most of the time. The pain has subsided, leaving behind nothing but a never-ending emptiness. Hollow as he is, he craves. The hunger is constant, a dull ache that eats and eats and eats whatever it can find in its way.

Unforgiving, the emptiness is maybe indeed worse than the pain. Copia misses it, sometimes. He misses the sweet relief of being able to feel, of experiencing dread and sadness, endless anger or, long ago, happiness, bliss.

Oh, how much he misses the sound of laughter and talking echoing through the Ministry’s halls. The songs, the music, the sweet whine of the guitar or the deep rumbling of the drums he misses too. A core part of him has been clawed out of his chest, forcing him to become a vacant puppet.

No, not a puppet anymore.

Not a copy, either.

Copia doesn’t know what or who he is anymore. Someone who wants blood and glory, maybe? Blood, he has it. Now, glory…

He can’t fool anyone. This is not a matter of glory anymore. At first, he thought by avenging you he’d find peace and bring justice to your feet. Hell, he wanted to put the whole word right below you if you only hinted of desiring so. Now, it doesn’t matter anymore. Copia no longer recognizes himself in the mirror most days, and a part of him doubts if you’d recognize him.

For all one knows, you wouldn’t. Maybe you would see right through him, or look into his eyes as if those were the eyes of a stranger. A part of him wishes for that to be the case. He knows someone as divine as you, as full of joy and beauty would only be tainted by him, stained with pestilence and decay.

A heavy book is set on the coffee table in front of him. There is a dense layer of dust coating the velvety binding, obscuring the golden letters. “Should I bring anything else, Sir?”

It smells like rain when the ghoul leans in closer, perhaps to listen to the faint words that Papa mumbles under his breath. “No,” he whispers, before repenting. “I mean, stop. Take a seat with me.”

Full of reluctance, the Nameless Ghoul obeys. The chair lets out a harsh screech when it’s dragged on the wooden floor, before the creature sits at the edge of the seat. He seems wary, confused even. There are no signs of aggression in him, but Copia can see the dark red splotches dirtying his mask.

Over the cracking of the fireplace, Copia struggles to recover his voice. He has no idea why he ordered the creature to stay, if it’s because he seeks company or because he has an undying curiosity. And so, he asks. “Tell me, how is Satan?”

“How?”

The uncertainty coats that word. The ghoul’s head leans to one side, motionless mask conveying the feeling. Copia himself feels disorientated, hazy. His mind is everywhere, haunted by lack of proper sleep and ghostly nightmares. Some days, he dreams and hears voices; he sees the sky breaking in a thousand pieces and the ground shattering under his feet.

Absent-mindedly, his gloved hands reach for the book. His fingers open it on a random page, tracing the edge of an image painted in black ink. There are some annotations made on the corners of the page, on neat cursive handwriting. Time has made most of it fade, melt into the yellow paper.

“Yes, how is he?” Papa repeats. “Have you ever spoken to him?”

In front of him, the Ghoul doesn’t laugh. Still, a weird rumble escapes his mouth. His shoulders relax only a bit, but the air of perplexity remains. “You must have a strange conception of Hell if you think I have. We ghouls belong to the upper circles, and someone as important as a King of Demons belongs to the lower parts.”

“So you don’t know him.”

“I’ve seen him a few times. Heard stories here and there, but I must not speak of them.”

As always, no matter how hard Copia reaches for the truth, he never finds it. It reminds him of his time as a student, of spending long afternoons in the tunnels underground with his nose buried in a book, being interrupted only by Imperator placing a cup of tea or hot chocolate next to him.

Copia doesn’t want to think about Imperator anymore. He’d rather not recall her at all, but it’s hard when her handwriting covers most of the margins of the book, filling them with comments and highlights.

“Satan, Adversary, fire illuminated spirit of darkness and light, whose touch illuminates clay, who is the ancient serpent, rise up in me father!” She underlined. Copia’s pupils focus on it for long seconds. “I will ascend to Heaven. Above the stars, I will raise my throne. There is no God beside me.”

“Sister Imperator used to say I had Satan’s eyes, whatever that meant for her,” he utters, at last. “She said He would listen to me if I spoke to Him, for we were connected.”

“You are Papa for a reason, after all.”

“I have doubted it, lately.”

He has grown sour, resentful of these worn books that lay on his lap and of humanity in general. He has become a poison that sweeps on the ground and infects the water, condemning many souls to the lake of fire. If he was ever the chosen one, Satan’s favorite or whatever lie Imperator fed him for years, that is long gone. He has fallen from grace, a burning star turned meteorite, ready to destroy himself and implode the earth in the process.

Copia will burn, sooner or later, but the whole world will accompany him.

A smidge of bitterness coats the air. Sensing the conversation has died, the ghoul stands up slowly before speaking up. “As blasphemous as it is, I must admit you remind me of Him.”

“Is it the eyes?”

“No. Satan was also bitter and covered in blood.”

“And the fourth angel sounded, and the third part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars; so as the third part of them was darkened, and the day shone not for a third part of it, and the night likewise.”

Things go bump in the dark.

In the adjacent room, behind a heavily locked door, things bump against the walls before falling to the ground.

“Tell it to stop staring at me,” Goore orders, as soon as Papa sets foot in the mausoleum. He’s not accompanied by any ghoul, and the lack of guardians makes him look smaller, mortal. A mere man, old and drained, bearing a tortured soul.

“I commanded him to keep an eye on you.”

“Well, that it does.”

Another knock comes from the room. Then, scratches on the wooden door. The ghoul doesn’t react. His massive figure remains sat on the chair, barely fitting in it. He’s tall, almost a giant in human standards. Even if his presence is mostly calm, Goore can feel the intensity of that stare never leaving their back.

Under their breath, Mary curses. To have Papa Emeritus here can’t be good, not when the process had to be sped up this much. The ritual is complicated, messy, and painful for the recipient. If Papa loses it, if he witnesses something he mustn’t, then all their effort would have been in vain.

For the time being, Papa does his best to ignore the sound. If he’s intrigued, at least he doesn’t mention it. Those dark eyes dart to the doorway at the end of the corridor, focus on the wood before returning to the necromancer. “I assume you received my gifts, si?”

Mary’s smile is wide, almost sheepish. Their fingers smooth out a feather on the recently finished taxidermy crow. Half of it is skin and black feathers, while the other half is a skeleton. A reminder, perhaps, of the duality of life and death.

“You didn’t have to,” they reply, waving a hand. “It was put to good use. We are making progress.”

“If only I could…”

A click of their tongue kills any other words Papa might have wanted to state. “I already said no.”

Another impact. Goore inhales a deep breath, letting the air come out through their nose slowly. A constant screech fills their ears and mind, voices uttering one over the other in a never-ending buzzing. The damned souls ride Papa Emeritus’ shadow, stand behind him like a funeral procession, shrieking and crying.

Even worse, your own soul screams in the other room. Goore recognizes the pain and despair, the feeling of crawling around the dark while suffering from hunger and thirst, searching for any hand to squeeze. They understand, but wish you would simple shut the fuck up for a few minutes while they are trying to maintain a conversation.

A second loud bump echoes down the hall.

Well, you are a curse. You grant them no peace.

“What’s that?” Papa Emeritus inquires, hair moving to follow the shift of his head. His pupils finally shot in the direction of the door, squinting hard as if he could penetrate the walls.

Fuck. Here goes nothing.

“Your partner.”

Mary can recognize the shift in the air, the sudden cold atmosphere that dominates the mausoleum now. The ghoul seems to also notice the change in energy because his tail suddenly stills, flickering once before resuming a measured, careful pace. He’s alert, prepared to execute any order.

To Goore’s relief, Papa doesn’t command any violence. Quite the contrary. He looks overwhelmed, almost frail. His lids are wide open, pupils trembling inside the mismatched irises. There’s a severe semblance on his face, nearly mortuary, and his hands remain clutched in front of his chest.

“Are they… Is it…” Copia stutters, taking one step forward and two backwards.“Are they back?”

“Yes and no,” Mary replies, raising their voice when Papa gathers the courage to start walking towards the door.“I’m not done yet!”

“Are they hurt? Can I see them?”

There’s no sense in arguing with a man who’s spiraling into despair. Yet, Mary can’t risk the whole ritual just to accommodate his needs. Whole body pressed against the massive door, they raise one hand in order to stop the other in their approach. From the other side, Mary feels your nails scratching the surface and it makes their ears hurt so much they might bleed.

“You can’t,” Goore reminds, through pressed teeth and clenched jaw. It all hurts so fucking much. “You have to trust me.”

“I don’t!”

The ghoul abruptly stands up upon hearing Papa’s voice. The chair produces a thunderous noise when it falls to the ground, raising a cloud of dust. Goore knows their worth. They had years of stupid fights both inside and outside the Ministry, but they equally know there’s no way they could win against that ghoul.

It’s massive. Then, calling some corpses up to defend them would take too much time. Staring right into Papa Emeritus’ eyes, they lift both hands in a clear demonstration of peace. “I get it,” they affirm, softly. “But you have to. I’m not your enemy here.”

“You’re not a friend, either.”

No. Copia doesn’t have friends. He never had. He used to spend long afternoons sitting beside a large tree, feeding the stray rats and other vermin that roamed through the Ministry. Some people were kind to him, of course, but that kindness felt more like a formality than anything else.

Copia doesn’t need friends. Especially not friends like Mary Goore.

A smile is all they offer. Their body is still shoved on the door, raw wood biting at their back. “I said I’d do this and am planning on it. You know rituals like this are forbidden for a reason. There’s a price to pay.”

“I don’t want them to be in pain.”

“Too late for that. Both death and birth are excruciating, lonely processes.”

Papa yields. His hands remain clutched over his chest, but his head falls and the long strands of hair obscure his face. “Alright,” he nods.“Si, alright.”

One step, then another. Papa is half way into the hall when another crash vibrates against the door. His feet halt, before gradually resuming their slow pace.

Until the whispering comes. “Copia.”

It’s a screeching, guttural voice. It doesn’t sound anything like you, but Copia recognizes it anyway. He would recognize it anywhere, here and in the end of the world, dead or alive. His soul would heed your call anywhere, both heaven and hell, all the way through the purgatory.

Goore swallows once before the air is knocked out of their lungs. From behind Papa’s body, they distinguish the ghoul waiting at the end of the hall, debating whether or not to interfere. For the moment being, the creature just stands there, sharp nails and white fangs gleaming under the faint golden light. Behind the glass, those pupils are two reflective dots, emitting a glow on the otherwise completely obscured face.

Even if Goore doesn’t want to feel fear, they must admit the bile is gradually rising. They swallow once, then twice, but nothing loosens the knot in their throat. Papa’s body is a substantial weight on them, and his hands squeeze hard on their neck.

Fuck. Things are incredibly messy.

“Copia”

A clattering sound.

“Copia”

A hissing, gurgling snarl.

“Copia!”

Shit. They can be messier.

“Open the door, Goore.” Papa growls, quietly. Somehow, the serenity in his voice is worse than him yelling. There’s no emotion there, nothing but the promise of pain and violence. Even if Mary can find a way to come back, it would be wiser to avoid getting on his bad side.

“I’m not going to fight you,” they mutter. Quick eyes dart from one corner of the corridor to the other, analyzing the options. None of them is worthy. For now, the best is to comply. If hell falls over them, then Goore will welcome it with open arms and a beaming smile. “If that’s what you want, so be it.”

A key dangles in front of Papa Emeritus’ face. With unsteady hands, he takes it before Goore rushes out of the way. The trembling of his fingers makes it almost impossible to insert the key in the small lock.

One turn. Papa gathers in a deep breath. Mary’s pupils dwell on his back, staring with a piercing gaze. A step back after the other, they retrocede until their body hits something hard, big. The Nameless Ghoul stands before them, obstructing any exit.

Fuck.

Before Papa can complete another turn, a high-pitched, painful scream pierces the air. From sheer shock, the key falls from Copia’s hands as he jumps backward, almost tripping on his feet. The sounds are gurgles and growls, almost inhuman.

To his gut-wrenching horror, Papa fathoms he can no longer recognize any hint of your voice. No, it doesn't sound like a person. It's like a wounded animal or an ancient demon, something wicked and malevolent, an archaic curse.

The frigid breeze hits Copia’s face when he turns around, pupils desperately searching for anything to land on. His gaze hardens when it falls on Goore and, without any need to await for an order, the ghoul’s large hands are placed on their shoulder. Those long, sharp claws dig on the flesh, not strong enough to pierce the thin skin but still a bruising grip.

“Do something! You are hurting them,” Papa Emeritus accuses. A faint glow emits from his pale eye, casting shadows on his face. In the poorly lit room, he looks far much older than he is. The wrinkles are deep, full of worry, and his cheeks are gaunt.

“Me? You are the one who wanted this, remember? If there’s someone here who has condemned them to this, it’s not me. It's all you.”

For long moments, silence falls on the mausoleum. The muffled rumble coming from behind the door is faint, buzzing like a beehive. Goore lets out a hiss when the sharp nails squeeze his shoulders with barely more pressure.

Resistance is pointless. The ghoul doesn’t let him go. Those eyes, hidden behind opaque glass, remain on Papa Emeritus’ figure, waiting.

“But…I didn't want them to be in pain.”

It's pathetic. So pathetic, Goore practically feels like laughing in his face. Copia’s voice is a whisper, words mumbled together under his breath. There’s a helpless look on his eyes, a distant gaze.

“No, not pain. It's pure agony. Believe me, I suffered it. But this is what you wanted. We come to this world screaming and covered in blood, why would this be different?”

A sharp wail echoes in the hall, pulsating against the exposed stone walls. Copia’s hands immediately dart up to cup his ears, in a futile attempt to shelter himself from the sound. His lips quiver and his pupils are a dot inside the extremely big irises. The muscles on his neck tense when he swallows, falling back a few steps.

Copia’s legs tremble so hard it looks like he’s about to break down into pieces. He seems to be about to faint, and the ghoul debates whether to continue holding Goore in place or try to assist his master.

“What have I done?” Copia whimpers, at last. “Oh, Satan. What have I done?”

Collapsing on the ground, Papa’s body presses on the door. From this close he can clearly hear your screams and detect the way your nails relentlessly scratch the ground and wood. His whole body shakes when something, your head, bangs against the door.

“Stop it,” he whispers, through sobs. “Please, amore, stop it. I’m begging you. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

It doesn’t work. If the sound of his voice installs a new rage in you, he can’t understand it. The sole thing Copia is aware of is the way the banging becomes louder, faster, making the door violently rattle with each impact.

Yet, he tries to reach out to you. “Amore, it's me. I’m here now,” a long pause. He breathes in, but there’s no oxygen in his lungs. “Please, I’m begging you. Stop. I’m sorry.”

Feeling Papa Emeritus’ rage slowly die down, the ghoul unhands Goore. They move away quickly, rubbing over a particularly sore spot as they mumble curses under their breath. A sharp pain runs up their arms when their nails dig too deep into the palms, leaving behind red marks. On the desk, the taxidermy crow caws one time before the neck breaks and it collapses on the worn surface, nothing but a mess of bones and feathers.

Outside, the sun falls behind the horizon, plunging the world into darkness. The night has arrived, in the form of a vast starless sky. Copia looks out of the window for a few seconds, before his palms press on his face. Eyes narrowed, he allows his head to fall back and descends into a fake sense of tranquility. Not even the bugs disturb the quietness of the night.

By the time the banging stops, he’s completely numb. Goore is nowhere to be seen. Sat on the chair, the ghoul only stares.

“And I beheld, and heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, ‘Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabitants of the earth by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels, which are yet to sound!’”

Ps: I might share some fun facts/references later if you wanna. Guess who Mary Goore used to date or something ♥

[meowcats734]

[Soulmage] The house you just rented is beyond compensation - staircases and extra floors coming and going, rooms rotating and changing places. You just ignore it. On the fourth day, the eldritch horror informs you that you are the first to stay inside it for more than 72 hours without going insane.

There was a numb sort of peace to the aftermath of a cataclysm. I’d felt it before, at the raid that froze my village solid, when I’d stepped out into a world of white over red. Emerging from the cramped, stinking theater after what felt like years but was likely less than an hour felt the same way. Aimes’ lecture hall was leveled, the clock tower was a broken spire, and the once-gamboling hearth dragons littered the floor like fallen stars.

But it was over.

The teachers were already cordoning off certain areas as too dangerous to enter—here was where a riftmaw had scarred the face of reality, there was where Iola’s sickness-spell had poisoned the very land—but there was still plenty of room for the students to spread out. Still, Lucet and I held onto each other until we found a quiet corner with only a few blast marks and wearily collapsed.

“I’m numb,” Lucet finally said.

“I know.” I’d heard that battle-shock was the death of witches, and now I knew why: in my rattled, distant state, the emotions that normally swirled within my soul were a distant, ethereal thing, too thin to be touched, much less formed into a spell.

“They’re going to side with Iola,” she said.

“I know.”

“We can deal with that later,” she decided.

I leaned against her and closed my eyes. “I know.”

An Academy official who I didn’t recognize passed by, paused, then shook their head and kept going. I heard them calling out names—searching for students who had either been killed or taken, I assumed—until their voice was swallowed by the falling snow.

Somehow, we fell into an uneasy sleep, lying against each other in the shadow of a ruined building.

When I next awoke, Lucet was gone.

###

Rebuilding came slowly, and then all at once. One day, we were attending speeches and funerals and swearing we would never forget; the next, we were looking for housing and lining up for food.

That was how I found myself at the House of Warp and Weft.

The House of Warp and Weft had, if nothing else, good marketing. "Roomy, especially when you're not looking. 3.2 bed -1.3 bath, on average. Pet included." It made me feel slightly better about the whole situation. I wasn't exactly looking forward to staying in a house that had once belonged to a witch of space, but it wasn't as if I had a choice.

Rooms for rent near the Silent Academy for Witches were always a sparse commodity. Especially now that a demon had rampaged through the school, stealing a tenth of the students and destroying most of the dormitories, a good place to stay was in high demand. And since I'd pissed off the witch in charge of redistributing housing, I'd been shoehorned into getting what Witch Aimes lovingly and oddly specifically referred to as "a house suitable for hormonal boys who try poaching an elf's girlfriend in the middle of a demonic invasion."

So two days after the demonic attack had ended, I found myself with a suitcase of my clothes in front of the House of Warp and Weft.

"You know, you could always crash at our place," Jiaola said from beside me. The old man had one arm in a sling; he'd only survived the demonic incursion thanks to a last-minute warning from an oracle. "I know your soulsight is still developing, but trust me—there's a lot of magic twisting this place around."

I shook my head. "I like my privacy, and at least this place is dirt cheap. Plus, I'll be pissing off Witch Aimes for every night I stay in her pet hellhouse without going crazy."

Jiaola's lips quirked. "I may know a thing or two about making statements by where you choose to live," he said. He clapped my shoulder. "Stay safe."

I bumped his fist, wished Lucet was here, and stepped across the threshold into the House of Warp and Weft.

###

I could handle the infinite staircases. I could handle waking up in a different room than I fell asleep in. I could even handle the occasional time that I opened a door and saw myself from behind, looping off into infinity like a house of mirrors. I'd stared into my own soulspace and witnessed the Witch of Warp and Weft herself bending space into a weapon. The House was manageable in comparison.

But what I couldn't handle was the rift.

I'd grown up in the Redlands, where the rifts in the sky spat the very elemental destruction that had killed my father, and I knew the signs of a rift when I saw one. For one, the spell animating the house just didn't end. It had been twenty years since Witch Aimes had accidentally turned the house into a psychedelic nightmare land; spells simply didn't last that long unless there was a rift powering them.

And if I was living on top of a rift, I needed to know, now, before things started coming through the rift.

Then again, if the rift had truly been somewhere in the House for over twenty years, things had already had plenty of time to come through.

Great.

I'd already reported my suspicions to the Silent Academy for Witches, but they gave me the "that's nice, dearie, now go back to bed" expression they always had whenever an uppity Redlander thought they had a say in the workings of magic. So I took it upon myself to investigate.

I got utterly lost on the first day, walking for half an hour in a straight line without making any progress. On the second day, I brought snacks and a picnic blanket, and just waited for the House of Warp and Weft to rearrange itself whenever I found an obstacle I couldn't understand. By the third day, I was starting to see the familiar patterns of the magical energies around a rift—the constant, uneven spew of energies that twisted space had a source, and I was slowly but surely charting my way to that source.

On the fourth day, the source found me.

"Witch Aimes created this place through the sheer power of her arrogance," a voice from behind me mournfully whispered. "You must be her successor, if you believe you can reach its heart."

I turned around to see... it had to be from beyond the rift, because there was no way something with its biology could have been born in realspace. Its arms were noodly, elongated things that pooled around its hulking, tree-trunk legs. Its chest was bloated and twisted, and its bizarrely normal-sized head looked like nothing more than another lump of disgusting flesh.

It also looked inexplicably similar to my Theory of Magic teacher.

I snickered. I couldn't help it. The part of me that had grown up next to the rifts was screaming at me to run, but the disgusting, corpulent entity looked like Witch Aimes, and I couldn't stop myself from laughing.

"You really are a witch of arrogance, then," the entity said. "To laugh in the face of an angel."

Angel. For rifts' sake, it called itself an angel. That, too, was such a Witch Aimes move. I reined in my laughter, and the rational half of my brain kicked in. Well, maybe a rational third or fourth, because if I had a working sense of logic, I would've just bunked at Jiaola's instead of living in this nightmare plane to spite my teacher. Whatever the entity was, it was probably the "pet" that had been in the stupid little advertisement Witch Aimes gave me, so she knew it was here—and, as a result, that it wasn't going to kill me. Aimes' sense of morality was as twisted as her old house, but she didn't let her students die.

"Sorry, sorry. You just... reminded me of someone I know," I said.

The angel tilted its... wobbly-bits. "Interesting," it said. "I am comprised of the memories of the dead. For one such as you to know one such as me..."

Huh. I hadn't had permission to access the restricted texts on soulspace entities—but now that I thought about it, being able to interview one myself was a step above what I would've found in the Silent Library anyway. "What do you mean, the memories of the dead?"

"It is beyond your comprehension," the angel placidly said.

Wow, it even spoke like Witch Aimes. I rolled my eyes. "So was this clownhouse, but I still got used to it. C'mon, throw me a bone."

The angel hesitated. "You... are the first since the Witch of Warp and Weft herself to remain here for so long without being driven mad." It considered something, hesitant, then said, "Very well." The angel stepped to one side, casually twisting the floor into a blackboard, and once again I was reminded of Witch Aimes. Whatever else the angel was, it was also... a teacher, of sorts. "As you should know, all magic stems from emotion."

I nodded. "Happiness for light, passion for heat, freedom for wind."

"And arrogance to twist space," the angel added. It used spatial distortions like a stick of chalk, raising bumps in the floor-blackboard into the shape of letters. I suppose that made this an angel of arrogance, then. "But if magic stems from emotion, the question naturally follows: from whence does emotion flow?"

From whence. How annoying. In the spirit of that, I tried, "From... interacting with the world?"

The angel of arrogance clicked its many tongues in disapproval. "Close. Emotions come from how you perceive your interactions with the world. In other words, emotions stem from memories."

I nodded. That tracked with the kind of high-level witchcraft I'd seen Witch Aimes display, wielding the memory of a spear instead of the physical thing in combat with a demon.

"The collection of memories one accrues over a lifetime is the source of a witch's power, and is commonly known as the soul." The angel of arrogance created another blackboard, outlining a body with a core of thoughts and memories in its center. "But by the first law of thaumatology, souls cannot be destroyed. So the question then arises: where does a soul go when its body perishes?"

I am comprised of the memories of the dead, the angel seemed to whisper in my memory.

My eyes widened. "They go here," I said. "They become angels and demons and everything in between."

The angel... seemed to approve. Its mouths curved upwards, at any rate. "Precisely." It started to say something else, but then cocked its head, as if listening to a song only it could hear. "I must go," it said. "The rift at the heart of this house... disgorges entities. My duty is to unmake them before they can reach the world outside."

Of course Aimes had coerced an angel of arrogance into serving as a glorified watchman. I only half-nodded, my mind already racing.

Demons were comprised from the memories of the dead.

That meant that there was a chance, however slim, that someone who had died could be brought back. Someone who had been killed when I was just a child.

Someone who'd been killed with forgiveness on her lips.

I bid the angel of arrogance farewell as I retreated to my room, my thoughts racing.

They said the House of Warp and Weft drove its inhabitants insane.

But my mind felt the clearest that it ever had.

A.N.

Soulmage is a serial written in response to writing prompts. Stick around for more episodes, or join my Discord to chat about it!

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[rayshippouuchiha]

How does Naruto/Izuku meeting All Might and like getting the quirk go for the take two au? Because I imagine Naruto is now entirely confident in himself and his ability to become a hero so he doesn't need to ask if he can be one or even really possibly be saved from the sludge villain in the first place so how do they meet and how does AM decide "yes thats the one" (love this au so much btw!!)

So Naruzuku is, as I said before, still quirkless (and a prankster to those who are mean to him) so he's not burdened with any real kind of social life.

Which is fine with him. He has Inko and Kurama and he's got something to work towards in this life too so he's already ahead of the game as far as he's concerned.

Because, quirkless or not, he's obviously going to be a hero. It's the closest thing to a shinobi this world has that still lines up with his core ideals overall.

So his free time is spent training from basically the time he could walk. He's doing the basic Academy kata and then Toad Style Taijutsu to rebuild his strength/speed/stamina/etc even if he is already ahead of the curve for that too. He takes care of Inko as best he can and enjoys spending stress-free time with Kurama.

He also decides that, well, since he plans to be a hero he might as well get started now. And what better place to start than D-rank missions. His journey to Hokage had started small too after all.

So Naruzuku takes to the streets of Mustutafu. He cleans up trash from the streams, he walks dogs and catches cats, he weeds flower beds and carries groceries. A million and one little tasks that don't require him to out himself as quirkless and/or tasks that older people will give to him to do anyways even when word gets around. Eventually, he cleans a beach too because the smell is murder on his nose even from a distance, all rot and sea-salt stink.

By the time Yagi comes around? Well Naruzuku is 14 yes but he's not just 14. He's a 14-year-old who has been training his entire life, is a 14-year-old who had once been a shinobi who had defeated a goddess and who had lived lifetimes with a husband at his side and a village nestled and protected in the long shadows they had cast together.

When Toshinori comes up out of the sewer it's just in time to see Naruzuku dart forward and rip the sludge villain's eyes right out of their body with moves almost too fast for even him to track.

The sludge villain wails, surging forward blindly, and Toshinori moves, dispersing the attack instantly.

"All Might!" the boy practically chirps, still holding onto those eyes. "I'm a really big fan!!"

"You were very brave to face that villain as you did," Toshinori tell the kid. "And while I'd never discourage a citizen from protecting themself I'd rather you be careful using your quirk like that."

"Eh?" the boy, all long green curls and wide eyes blinks at him, head tilted to the side in an animal-like gesture. "Don't have a quirk to use, old man."

Toshinori stalls out for a second at both the casual address and the news.

"Are you sure, my boy?" He finally has to ask. "Your speed was ,,, impressive."

"Got to be fast if I'm going to be a hero," the boy shrugs just a bit.

"You know," Toshinori feels the need to say, "there are other, safer, professions for someone ,,,"

"Quirkless?" the kid finishes for him. "Maybe. Don't want any of them though. Heroics or bust, even if I have to claw my way to the top."

"It'll be hard," Toshinori tells him. "People will be cruel. Villains too."

"That's fine," the kid shrugs, unbothered. "People don't have to like me and there's no such thing as an uncruel battle."

And then the boy smiles, bright and bold.

Toshinori feels something inside of him go absolutely still.

'Nana,' something inside of Toshinori whispers with all the longing and grief of his younger years. 'Nana.'

"I'm gonna save them anyways."

And just like that Toshinori knows.

[jaskierswolf]

Hello wolfie darling, how about some hugs? Maybe Valskier, some 37. I almost fell but you caught me? <3 please and thank you?

Valskier!! My beloved 🥰 I love them.

CW: mentions of alcohol and sex work

_______

There were many things about Oxenfurt that Jaskier adored; the music, the dancing, the endless supply of fine wine and fine company. It made a nice change from walking the path with Geralt, a chance to stretch his wings and fly amongst his own people. The residents of Oxenfurt loved him and he loved being the centre of attention. It was a fucking delight! He could stride through the halls of Oxenfurt Academy, his robes billowing out behind him and both students and teachers alike stared at him as he went past; him- not Geralt.

Not that he minded his time with Geralt, no, in fact he truly loved it, but if he stayed too long he started to feel the darkness of the witcher’s shadow, and he yearned for the light once more. It was selfish, yes, but he never claimed to be perfect. Jaskier knew his flaws, he was even able to exploit some of them to his benefit.

Unlike Valdo Mark.

The bastard thought he was blessed by Melitele herself. He preened and pranced around Oxenfurt like a peacock with his stupidly handsome face, stealing Jaskier’s fans and his work. It wasn’t fair, but Jaskier just didn’t have enough evidence to get the git for plagiarism. So, naturally he stole Valdo’s work right back, and then edited the fuck out of it so that it wasn’t a complete pile of shit.

Which was why he was currently sneaking around Valdo’s rooms in the dead of night whilst the idiot was out whoring around. Jaskier had heard Valdo whistling some new tune over breakfast and he was out to claim it and pen the most exquisite lyrics that had ever been heard in the old drafty halls of the Academy.

He was too busy snooping to hear the footsteps coming down the corridor, a clear warning to fly through the window and back to his own room. Instead, Valdo came stumbling through the door, a bottle of wine in hand, and Jaskier bumped straight into him. If he’d been expecting it, he might have been able to steady himself, but as it was, he stumbled backwards and almost went crashing to the floor.

Almost.

Except deceptively strong arms wrapped around his waist as the bottle smashed onto the floor, flooding the stone pavings in a rich burgundy elixir. Valdo tugged him closer to stop him from slipping, and their chests were suddenly pressed together, Jaskier’s lips a breath away from Valdo’s.

“Julian?”

“Marx.”

“What the devil are you doing in my room?” Valdo slurred, his breath stinking of the definitely very expensive wine that was now staining the edges of the rug.

Jaskier panicked.

He really really didn’t want to admit that he’d been trying to steal Valdo’s work, especially after how many hours he’d spent dismissing anything and everything that Valdo had ever created.

So he did the only logical thing.

And kissed him.

[writersarchivex]

Old Friends- Kyle Spencer Oneshot

a/n: this is kind of trash but i thought it was kinda cute.

warnings: adult language, mentions of death.

Y/N has been attending Robichaux's Academy for a while now, and after years of being here she’s seen a lot. Death, mysterious accidents, and lots and lots of stupid witches doing stupid stuff.

When Zoe and and Madison decided to come running to her, asking for help putting a boy back together, she was sure she was high.

“Okay what the fu- what did you guys do?” She asked frantically getting her stuff together.

Y/N was a pretty sophisticated person. She did her best to not get caught up in the drama, but she knew she had to help. They wouldn’t have asked if it wasn’t important.

“There’s no time Y/N. Please just help. He doesn’t deserve what happened to him.” Zoe yelled.

Zoe didn’t exactly look guilty. Y/N felt that Zoe really wanted to help this man due to her own self preservation.

“Fine. Just get me coffee or something after we are done.” Y/N sighed, not really knowing what kind of mess she had gotten herself into.

—

Out of all places to preform a spell, the morgue is not ideal. First of all, it’s stinks. Death and bleach pretty much covers it.

She looked around at the discarded limbs and bodies, it was quite sad actually. They were real people, and whatever Madison did killed them all. Pretty painfully she could assume.

“Oh Christ almighty you guys,” She paused looking around the small room once more.

“Which one is it.” She rolled her eyes, taking out the supplies needed for the spell.

Madison pointed, and to be honest Y/N had already decided she was going to make the other girls do the dirty work. She might be okay with doing the spell, but she sure isn’t going to touch all over these five day old corpses.

“Get what you need and put him on the table.”

—

Y/N finally was ready. The other two witches had grown impatient, and they were ready to leave. At this point Madison had already mentioned ditching Y/N and just leaving to get lunch.

Thankfully, Zoe said no.

Y/N walked over to the body, already noticing a heap of blond hair.

“Oh my God-” Y/N gasped, placing her hand over her mouth.

She had no problem with death usually. To her it’s a part of life. This tough, shook her to her very core.

Kyle Spencer’s lifeless form stared up at her. Her best friend from back at home. She felt sick to her stomach all of a sudden.

“Oh just fix him already bitch. I have places to be.” Madison huffed, looking over her nails.

Y/N resisted the urge to kill her on the spot. That would certainly make waves back at the academy.

“I know him. Knew him. Whatever let’s just get this over with.” Y/N spoke sadly, before her eyes roamed over him once more.

——

After a long an exhausting process, she had done it. The spell was done, and all she had to do was wait for the boy to wake up. Unlike her fellow witches, Y/N was actually quite educated on the spell she had just done.

She knew quite well what was going to become of poor Kyle, and she hoped that she would be able to fix it. She didn’t want him to be cursed to a life like that.

Zoe and Y/N sat side by side. Madison had long since ditched the two of them.

“You can go. I’ll take care of him. I’m sorry, I mean it must suck to see someone you were close to like that.” She stuttered.

Zoe was always a bit intimidated by the other witches, except for Nan of course. Nan was such a sweet person, everyone loves her.

“I’m fine. I’m going to probably go. Good luck with him.” She smiled, standing up.

—-

It had been about a week, and Y/N had done everything she could to learn how to fix Kyles mind.

She was sure by now that she could do it, but she was surprisingly nervous that she would mess him up even more.

Y/N was sitting on her bed when the door opened up harshly, startling her a bit.

Zoe pushed a very much so zombied Kyle into the room, and locked the door behind her.

He was being surprisingly calm toward Zoe, as long as she wasn’t touching him, he wouldn’t get all freaky and try to murder her.

“He just- Just killed his mom. Y/N please I cant do this anymore.”

Y/N’s eyes widened.

She didn’t know very much about his mom, but she knew enough. She wasn’t a very good woman, and although Y/N hated to say this, his mom

deserves what she got.

It was now though, that she locked eyes with Kyle. She could’ve sworn she saw his body relax almost immediately.

“Y/N-” He muttered out before rushing to her feet.

He clung desperately to her jean clad legs, and Y/N dared her hand to move to the top of his head, gently massaging his scalp.

Then she saw the blood. He was covered nearly head to toe in his disgusting mother’s blood. This caused a bit of anger to well up inside her.

“First you kill him. Then you make me bring him back to life. Then you don’t even have the fucking decency to clean the blood off him. Get out please, I’ll take it from here.” Y/N stated sharply.

The mere sight of Zoey was beginning to annoy her deeply, and she knew that if the girl stayed much longer, it wouldn’t end well.

Zoe sighed and stepped slowly out of the room, leaving Y/N alone with Kyle.

He was still a mess. Latched on to her legs and whimpering, the man was completely broken.

Kyle must remember her from their childhood. They had quite a defining friendship, and she understood why he remembered her. She was glad that he could feel safe with someone.

He was probably scared to death. Well he’s already dead, but still.

“Let’s get you cleaned up.” She said softly to the boy in front of her.

She carefully took his arm, and led him to the bathroom. The last thing she wanted was to scare him more than he already was.

—-

She had been successful in cleaning him up, the blood was no longer under his nails and matted in his hair.

She gave him one of her bigger flannels, hoping that and the random pair of jeans she had found would fit him okay.

They are sat on the edge of her bed, internally she was trying to decide on whether or not she would try this spell or not.

She turned to look at him. His soft features resembled the look of a toddler at this point, he was staring into space, and he had been chewing on his fingernail intently.

She made up her mind, and she began to speak slowly.

“Kyle honey, i’m going to help you okay. Don’t be scared.” She said lowly, and he nodded a bit before looking at her.

Curiosity washed over his face as she pulled out the large book full of spells and other ailments.

“Let’s get started then.”

—

It wasn’t perfect, but she had helped. He still stumbled a bit over his words, and his feet but he was pretty much back to normal.

Y/N felt ashamed at how powerful she felt. She never knew that she could accomplish something so big.

She stuffed her feelings down, and did her best to explain everything to him. It was a lot to take in but he just nodded along.

“I’m so sorry this happened to you. I shouldn’t have let Zoe take you.” She said looking at the floor.

Kyle finally had a chance to look at her and really take in the sight. She had grown since last he’d seen her. Her hair was much fuller, and her eyes seemed to be a lot brighter. He had missed her. Every time something cool at school would happen, he desperately would want to tell her. She was gone though, and he had lost his best friend.

He had always loved her, and as the groggy memories came back, he new what he had to do.

He took a very slow and careful step towards the witch and placed his trembling hand on her cheek.

“It’s not your fault. You saved me Y/N.” At this point, he was sure her face was turning a dark shade of pink.

“Kyle I-” Y/N didn’t have time to finish her sentence before Kyle had placed his chapped lips on hers.

Everything she had wanted as a child was finally coming true. She had always loved him. Loved him more than best friends love each other.

They made each other’s lives complete. She was the only one that could rescue him from his mind in their teenage years. He was the one to comfort her when she was scared of the roaring thunder outside.

“I’ve missed you, Kyle. I’m sorry I had to go away.” The witch spoke, feeling tear pool in her eyes.

Her magic was starting to run kind of wild, and the candles in the room lit up, blazing fiercely and causing large shadows to appear on the bedroom walls.

He looked around in amazement, but turned his attention back to the woman when he heard a sniffle.

He wrapped his arms around her, and laid back so they could both look at the ceiling.

The two of them stayed like that, until the next morning. They were woken by a very confused Cordelia Goode.

[yoditorian]

lacuna- part 7

din/reader

cooking is my love language so i made it rebel’s too (as ever, thank you to my love my life @brothersdrxke for being my shara) 💛 there’s rly only two more parts after this huh

series masterlist // main masterlist

word count: 2.7k

warnings: i don’t think there’s any swears in this one but just to be on the safe side, rebel has PTSD although it’s more suggested than actually experienced there’s a couple of moments that are shaky, softness and domesticity or just sadness?, sadness, the usual type of smut, 18+ no babies thanks

“No.”

At least Colonel Cintass has the decency to look surprised, he blanches when you show no sign of joking and sits up a little straighter. 

“If it’s a question of pay or location, both are negotiable. There’s academies all over the Inner and Mid rim, you’ll have your pick of the lot and a promotion if you accept.” He’s clutching at all the straws he has at his disposal, but you don’t budge. He huffs when you say nothing and asks, albeit agitatedly, what your plans are instead.

“Maybe I’ll go private. Pays well, I can do what I want-”

“There’s no glory in the private sector.” Cintass interrupts you, and your eyebrows furrow further.

“And there is here? If you joined up for glory, Colonel, I don’t think you should be calling the shots.” You’re right and you both know it. You’re all too familiar with the friends who’ve retired to find something quieter, and with the officers who spent their Rebellion days discussing facts and figures with politicians. People who’d never been on the front lines in the thick of it, never even seen a firefight, now in charge of fresh faced cadets and veterans with too many demons to feel like they belong anywhere else. You won’t stay here, not for any longer than it takes to pack your things.

You pulled out of Green Squadron the day after Shara told you she was retiring, the last of the original crew, you hadn’t wanted to fly any more missions without her. At least the Colonel heard you out and didn’t argue. He’d let you stay on as a temporary mechanic, while you figured out what it was you wanted to do. Although, now it’s clear he fought to keep you so he could get things in place to offer you a teaching job. 

It’s a good position, in all honesty. Miles better pay than you’ll get for the same job anywhere else, the choice to relocate to any of the shiny New Republic Navy training centres across the galaxy. But you can’t look a bunch of teenagers in the eye and tell them that this is everything they hope for. Not when the war chewed you up and spit you out the way it did. The scars on your back ache at the thought of it. 

Shara finds you in the hangar, loading up a couple of bags into your A-Wing’s pitiful storage compartment. All your belongings, your whole life, packed up and ready to go wherever you decide to take them.

“I don’t think you’re gonna be able to live in there.” 

“Ah, I’ll get a couple of hanging plants, maybe put up some curtains,” You smile at her from the top of the ladder, “Could be cosy.”

You know why she’s here. Not to talk you into accepting the teaching job, she knows you better than that. The idea was one she’d had right after she and Kes had found the old farm on Yavin IV, in need of a little tlc and a lot of patience, it was the perfect spot for them to raise their boy. And the little house further down the track, right at the edge of their land, was the perfect spot for you.

“I’m not saying you have to stay there forever,” She starts when you open your mouth to decline again, “I’m saying that when you need some solid ground under your feet, you don’t have to go looking for it.”

“Shara-”

“We’re family. You will always have a home with us.” It’s final. Non-negotiable. And something about the look in her eye makes you want to cry just a little bit. You think about the collection of scribbles tucked carefully away in one of your bags, the more recent ones at least are a little easier to distinguish as people. Four multi-coloured potatoes with legs. As far as little Poe is concerned, he agrees with his mother. 

You hop down the ladder and pull Shara tightly to you, maybe tighter than you have before. Because you’ve never really had a home, not a place you ever felt was worthy of such a title. But here she is, offering one to you like it’s nothing. 

“So, where are you off to now?” She asks when you finally have the strength to let her go. Both of your eyes are a little watery, but neither of you mentions it.

“Well, I turned down Cintass so it's up in the air. I’ve got some old contacts, so as long as they’ve forgiven me I can get a little income before I have to make any concrete decisions.” You don’t tell her exactly who the contacts are. Something about the way she raises her eyebrow makes you wonder if she’s already guessed where you’re going.  

It feels strange, guiding your A-Wing out of the hangar for the last time. You hope it's the last time. At least you had enough put by to get Green Four decommissioned and released to you, it might have been a little more difficult than you’d initially thought if you had to leave the ship behind. She’s old and you’ve put her through hell, but she’s yet to let you down.

You’re not overly surprised that your comm signal goes unanswered. You weren’t exactly the most gracious guest on your last visit. But you don’t get shot up on your approach, so maybe your old friends are feeling a little more amicable nowadays.

“Impressive.” Ran says when you hop out of the cockpit, helmet under one arm and a sheepish smile on your face.

“She used to be.” You know he’s already calculating how much he can get for it, or whether he wants to strip it for parts. Your heart aches at the thought of it but there’s not a lot you can do. If letting go of your starfighter is what gets you back on the team, then it’s what’ll have to happen. Even if it hurts.

Ran gestures at a couple of new crewmates, a Devaronian and a human, and you selfishly hope you won’t have to work too closely with them. There’s an insignia on the shoulder of the human’s jacket, one you don’t want to examine too closely for fear you’re right. He’s about to offer you your old room when the shooting starts.

The men are taking turns at a set of old side panels, blaster bolts melting the old steel on contact, and you know that. You flinch before you can stop yourself. Ran watches you suspiciously, but he says nothing. Before the war, you would never have even batted an eyelid at a little target practice. You probably would have been in the thick of it, laughing and betting and not watching your friends die over and over in your mind.

“You stink of soldier.” Xi’an sneers, although she means it more as an observation than an accusation. You don’t disagree, only shrug, and your hand hovers warily over your holster as you watch the shooting competition. Just in case.

“Where’s Qin?” You ask once your heartbeat returns to normal. Anger flashes across Xi’an’s face as Ran explains he’d outsourced a job a few years ago, and Qin hadn’t made it back. It’s unexpected, the odd way you find yourself a little disappointed. Even though he’d been cold with you on your last visit, even though you’d bickered and been at each other’s throats more than once. Qin had been a friend once, a lifetime ago. You suppose that’s exactly the problem.

“Are you still terrible at throwing?” Xi’an asks, and the awkward tension finally melts away. Her wicked smile returns and you find yourself mirroring it.

“I’m a little better.” You say. Although you’re still certain she’ll wipe the floor with you, it’s nice to see at least somebody around here missed you. It’s about as close to a confession as you’ll ever get from Xi’an. You’d be an idiot not to take the olive branch she’s so selflessly holding out in front of you. Maybe you won’t be so alone on the station after all.

Din’s wondering about you, some part of him always is, as he looks at the new pucks in his hands. A couple of humans, a mythrol, and a chiss. None of them should cause him too much trouble, but none of their last known locations are exactly close. He settles on one of the humans, last seen in the Yavin system, and tells himself it’s because he can stock up on supplies for some of the more long haul flights the new assignments will take him on. Definitely not because he could stand to be around people who might remind you of him, even just a little. Definitely not because he misses you.

Din watches you from across the market, chatting animatedly with a dark haired woman he’s half-certain he’s met before. The way she leans so casually, so naturally, against your shoulder as she laughs makes his ribcage ache. He wants that with you, always has. He wants to be able to take you to places like these. To hold you close in front of throngs of people and meet your old friends. He shouldn’t even be here.

The Armourer’s words still echo in his ears. He is responsible for the covert, their hardest working hunter. He cannot, should not, waste thought on times past. 

He shouldn’t be here.

But it’s too late.

Your eyes zero in on him, abandoning the conversation, and your friend follows your gaze. Din takes that as an invitation, slowly making his way towards the two of you in the shadow of a baker’s stall. The crowds part, as they always do, and for the first time he finds himself wishing they wouldn’t. You might have a life here, for all he knows. It’s been long enough. You deserve one, really. To have a home. To feel loved all the time, to not have to wonder. And then he’s there, in front of you, just staring. What are either of you even supposed to say?

A small boy peers around your hip, looking up at him in wonder. Too old to be yours, if he remembers correctly, but for a moment his heart seizes. You rest your hand in the kid’s curls, absentmindedly ruffling them. You’ve always fiddled when you’re nervous. 

“We should probably get home, but I’ll see you tomorrow?” The woman clears her throat, snapping the sudden tension into shards. Din’s careful not to cut himself on the edges. 

You nod enthusiastically, every language you know still lodged uncomfortably in your throat, and wrap an arm around her shoulders for a brief goodbye hug. She calls the boy after her as she leaves, their matching black curls bouncing when she heaves him up onto her shoulders.

“Shara,” You say, watching the two disappear into the waning crowd, “She teaches some of the older kids piloting basics. I help out when I’m here, mechanics mostly.”

“You find somewhere to settle?”

You shake your head. Give him some vague answer about drifting where the wind takes you. He doesn’t need to know you went crawling back to the only thing you knew before the war. It’s quiet for a moment, and even though you’re standing in the middle of the market, it’s as though you’re the only two people on the whole street. Din’s floundering for something to say, something to keep you here for just another minute, until you break the silence and save him. Just like you always do.

“When was the last time you ate something that wasn’t a ration pack?” 

Even with the way he treated you last time, you’re still showing him the kindness you always have. He’s still not sure he deserves it. 

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. Come on.” You take his silence as an answer, and start towards an alleyway between two buildings. Din follows you without hesitation, and the path opens up to a small parking lot half-full of different speeder models. You lead him to an older one, yellow paint faded and scratched, and drop your bag in the backseat. He falters a little when you climb in and gesture to the seat beside you.

“Unless you wanted to sit in the back.” Your smirk is warm, familiar. It hurts to look at. So he hops in and settles on the front bench because he’s not sure he can bear to watch you look at him like that much longer.

The little home down the dusty farm track is not somewhere he ever expected you to call your own. You’ve always seemed like you should be on a background of stars, a hyperspace lane, not somewhere this domestic. At least that way he wouldn’t be consumed, so suddenly, with a very real idea of staying. 

You just look so comfortable, bathed in the low light of the afternoon sun through the windows, pulling vegetables out of a fridge covered head to toe in kid’s drawings. The little boy from the market, presumably. And it makes his ribcage ache to know that this too, is something that’ll always be missing from his every day. He won’t get to sit at your kitchen table and watch you fuss over a pot of stew, or have you slide up behind him and kiss his shoulder as he follows your favourite recipe. 

It’s the best stew he’s ever had. Easily. The sun has disappeared behind Yavin, bathing the whole moon in an odd red glow as he eats. The helmet seems to glare at him from the middle of your kitchen table. You’d ducked into the bedroom to eat before he could even suggest that you take the kitchen. Another sacrifice you’ve made for him. What does that make the number now?

His gloves stay on the table while he washes the dishes, at his insistence. Although you’d put up a little bit of a fight. Din doesn’t bother to pick them up when he passes the table, when he appears in your bedroom doorway and you look up from your datapad like it’s the most natural thing in the galaxy. 

You’ve pulled the curtains, shut the world out, and the room is plunged into darkness when you flick the lightswitch by the head of your bed. 

You’re expecting the warmth of his skin on yours when he finally finds his way to you in unfamiliar space. He always sheds his armour so silently. You don’t expect him to take your hands in his, and raise them to the sides of his helmet.

The breath catches in your throat, you know he can hear it. His fingers tremble slightly over yours but he doesn’t waver. He settles them both solidly on either side of his helmet, and guides you for a moment. Your hands follow the rest of the way when he drops his to your waist, you set it carefully on the bedside table and turn back to him. He’s not stupid. He knows you can’t actually see him. But it feels like every barrier between you is finally, melted away. And Din can lay you back on the bed as himself. 

It’s strange to have him in a space that’s become yours. Knowing that in the dark his helmet is sitting on a bedside table next to a picture frame of you and Green Squadron. That he probably saw every drawing Poe’s ever scribbled for you stuck to your fridge. But you force yourself to forget that. You shove it right down until there’s no room in your head for anything but the way he’s clinging to you. Until he is all you know.

“Tell me you don’t love me.” You’re almost asleep when the traitorous words slip out. 

Oh, you think you’re clever. You think you’re leaving him no choice but to confess. You think this is where things finally, finally, start to go your way. They don’t.

“I don’t love you.”

No differently than if he was recounting the weather forecast. And it hurts. But you don’t have it in you to run, to cry, to be angry with him at all. Instead, you fall back down to press your cheek against the warmth of his bare chest, defeated. He holds you there until you’re sleeping.

-

TAGLIST (add yourself here):

@brothersdrxke @rebloogggs @keeper0fthestars @remmysbounty @sirianisrock @thevoiceinyourheadx @firstofficerwiggles @1800-fight-me @ew-erin @chatterbean

[amchara]

Hospital / Bitten / Overworked / (Whumptober 10, 19, 29)

Ellie Harris, Ade Olawale (Original Characters), Kit Herondale, Ty Blackthorn (mention only)

Prompt: Hospital (Prompt 10), Bitten (Prompt 19) and Overworked (Prompt 29)

TW: swearing, canon-typical violence, sex references

Ellie has been bitten by a werewolf but she's currently not speaking with Kit, so she goes to their mutual friend Ade (who is a junior doctor) for assistance. Ade has his own ties to the Downworld...

Follows directly on from Talking Bodies

This is hmmm, how to describe? A few scenes featuring some of my OCs from other stories, namely Effortless and the London Files. It might eventually end up being included in a longer fic but it should read fairly well on its own, especially if you've read Talking Bodies- but also, even if you haven't. :)

--------

Ellie was 99% sure of her plan but that didn’t mean that she wasn’t nervous as hell as she laid out the various bits of Shadow Market paraphernalia on the scuffed table in front of her.

The werewolf pursed his lips as he looked them over. “And this is supposed to be enough to convince me to give you the bite?” He raised his pronounced eyebrows in scepticism.

“Those amber beads are perfectly cyclical and will net you a good price with any warlock or hedge witch looking for a catalyst. Plus, that’s pure silver tree extract,” Ellie said, meeting his unsettling yellow eyes. “You sell that on the black market and you’ll be able to buy enough yin fen for at least six months.” She tried to quash the self-doubt, alongside the acid that was rising in her throat as the strong smell of wet dog and old meat flooded her nostrils.

He leaned across the table and gave her the look she was unfortunately very acquainted with both as a young woman and as a mundane in the Shadow World. I have power over you and I’m debating whether I want to use it

“What’s to stop me from just taking this from you, hmm?” His grin was sly and Ellie could see his nails lengthening as he made a big show of clicking them on the table.

But she hadn’t joined the Downworld yesterday and while she knew she looked like a small, defenseless mundane, she had a few tricks up her sleeve -- she didn’t have the marks or the blood of the angels running through her veins but muscle memory from endless drills at the Academy didn’t exactly fade overnight.

“I wouldn’t,” she said evenly, meeting his eyes. “If you think I came here with those supplies and nothing else, then you’re the fool here, not me.” Her fingers closed on the silver blade in her pocket, alongside her wolfsbane-laced spray.

He walked around the table, and Ellie held her breath as he loomed over her. “Why do you want the bite so bad, girlie?” He eyed the darkening marks on her neck, even as she huddled into her jacket defensively.

“Personal reasons,” she said, tightening her grip on the knife and angling it out. “But I don’t think we have that kind of relationship, Jim, where we discuss our respective traumas? I’m not asking why you’re taking yin fen, am I?”

His yellow eyes, shot through with silver, looked at her with grim amusement. “Personal reasons aren’t good enough, not when I could have the Praetor coming after me if you decide afterwards you don’t want it.” He backed off, crossing his arms as he looked at her.

Ellie hissed in irritation. She strode over to the table and started gathering up her wares. “Why the fuck do werewolves care so much, honestly.”

He let out a laugh. “You’ll understand yourself, if you find a pack or a lone wolf willing to help you through the change.”

“If I live that long,” Ellie muttered.

Jim tilted his head as he took in that information and his mouth thinned. “As much as I don’t like them, that sounds like something you’d want to bring to the attention of the Shadowhunters, love.” He sniffed in the air, delicately. “And you stink of them, which is the other reason I’m wary of this exchange.”

Ellie bit down on the inside of her lip, to prevent the hysterical laughter from bubbling out. If he only knew how intimately she was acquainted with a couple of Shadowhunters. “No, I can’t take it to them,” she said, deadpan. She turned and looked him dead in the eye. “Look, I’m going to eventually find a wolf who will do it- are you sure you want to pass the opportunity for this?” she shook the bottle of silver tree extract.

The werewolf’s eyes were gleaming greedily and he looked uncertain.

Ellie waited a moment, and then shrugged- starting to pack it away.

“Okay, I’ll do it,” he said. “One small bite, in exchange for the extract and the beads.”

“One large bite,” she corrected him. “I need to know that it’ll take.” She lifted up her shirt, exposing her side. “I’ve heard this is the best spot,” she said, watching him carefully as he paced around her.

He eyed her, as if making a decision. “All right-” came his voice, even as it started to distort as his face elongated and his jaw grew. And though she knew what was about to happen- and had asked for it- Ellie couldn’t help but let out a scream when the wolf lunged at her.

*

Ade covered his mouth as he yawned widely, slinging his backpack over his shoulder as he walked out of the hospital’s sliding doors into the chilly early March morning. He could see the ambulances lining up on the road outside the hospital, unusual for the time of day, and crew walking around in paper masks, their quietness unnerving in light of their usual banter. The sight filled him with increasing dread.

The hospital was increasingly on high alert with this new illness and his mum had sent him a message earlier, including a link to an internet video from an Italian hospital, overflowing with patients, with a few pointed notes how the UK was only a week or two behind. I hope they’re providing you with adequate protection. Are you wearing masks? x

He hadn’t replied yet to her message, unsure of what to say.

Ade was looking up at the brilliantly pink sky that was peeking over the rooftops of the older brick buildings, making his way to Whitechapel Underground station, when he noticed a shadow fall across his path, and a familiar head of mauve hair approached in front of him.

He raised his eyebrows at Ellie. “You look like shit,” he told her, reversing the standard greeting she usually gave him.

She gave him a tired grin and started to lift a hand, probably to flip him off, but it was aborted, as a flash of pain crossed her face.

“Hey, hey,” Ade was at her side instantly, pulling off her bag and hiking it on his other shoulder. “You okay?” He gave her a quick up and down, the kind he was trained to do in A&E when he first assessed patients. He was instantly troubled. Her colour was the pale, mottled colour of someone who had lost blood or was going into shock, and he threw a glance back at the hospital entrance, which was less than 200 metres behind them.

“I’ll be fine,” she replied, as she turned away and started walking towards the station entrance. “But are you still doing those walk-in clinics for Downworlders at your flat?”

“Ellie…” Ade said, trying to keep up as she was walking. “Do you need medical help?” He remembered his conversation with Kit earlier. And the previous cryptic text he had received from her. Look kit might get in touch. Can u tell him i’m staying with a shadow market friend? thaaaanks!! Xxxx

She looked up at him, and he noticed the dark circles under her eyes and what looked like a couple of bruises on her neck, and he became even more worried, while also getting irritated at her evasiveness. She shrugged slightly. “Are you still helping Downworlders?” she asked again.

“Yeah- I still run them but they’re for Downworlders, and not after I’ve just done an overnight shift,” he said, a touch crankily. He loved his friends but he was not just a convenient in-and-out medic stop. He liked to sleep too. And they had no idea the risks he was taking operating a makeshift triage - although admittedly, it had gotten easier since he’d spoken with Catarina and she’d pulled some strings for him in terms of equipment and access to medicine.

Ellie blinked but then she gave him a half-smile. “I understand,” she said. “Thanks for covering for me with Kit. I owe you- let’s meet up later and I’ll buy you dinner.” She lifted her bag back off him, wincing slightly.

The stress of his previous shift and whatever the fuck was going on between his friends was weighing on him, but Ade wasn’t about to leave it.

She was determinedly plunging into the early morning crowd but Ade managed to catch her arm before she tapped through the gate to the trains. “El, stop,” he said.

She whirled around. “Nevermind! If you’re too tired, I can deal with it myself…”

“I can see you’re hurt… But you’re human, not a downworlder. So let me take you back to A&E. I can’t promise it’ll be quick but they’ll take good care of you there. I might be able to talk to the shift leader and--”

He stopped, as Ellie’s face crumpled and it looked like she was about to cry. “Not so human anymore- or at least, not for much longer,” she said.

And Ade stopped dead. “What do you mean?” he asked. “What the hell happened, Ellie? Why was Kit calling me, frantic and wondering where you were?”

“It’s not related to Kit- or well, not really. Can I come back to your flat?” Ellie looked like she was trying to hold back tears.

“Yeah, of course,” he said. Because what else could he say, to that?

*

“Holy…” Ade studied the bite, noting the long tooth marks, even as his mind was quickly putting together a treatment plan but also feeling way out of his depth. “You willingly let a werewolf bite you?” He wondered how much of the horror was coming through in his voice. He tried to keep his voice more even, more professional, as he rose from where he was leaning over Ellie, who was lying on his ratty Ikea sofa, and went to get supplies.

“Yeah,” she answered, long enough after his initial question that he thought she wasn’t going to answer.

Ade came back with the bowl of water and soap, along with sterile bandages. “Why?” He pulled on some gloves and started cleaning the wound. He tried to remember what Catarina had told him about werewolf bites. He had a sinking feeling that Ellie’s was too big for him to do anything but clean the wound…

Ellie eyed him, wincing and then she sighed. “Do you ever wish that you had never heard the name Kit Herondale? Or Shadowhunters? The Downworld?”

Ade paused. “What is going on? I know you and Kit had some kind of falling out…” he said, studying her. “Is it because you’re dating a werewolf? Is that how you got the bite?”

She flushed. “What? Why would you think-? No,” she finished. “It’s not that.”

Then his sleep-addled brain had a sudden thought that he hoped was not true. “Wait, did you and Kit-” he said, thinking about the hickeys he had noted on her neck. He looked up at her, and her guilty look confirmed his suspicions. “Does Ty know?” his mind was whirling- it seemed wildly out of character for both of them.

She flushed an even deeper red. “Ty knows. And erm-” she looked away. “It’s not what you think.”

And Ade’s jaw dropped and he let out an incredulous chuckle. “Oh my god- did you all-”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Ellie said. “Really really do not want to talk about it,” she said, glaring at him.

“Okay,” Ade replied. “But just so we’re clear- this werewolf bite is a misadventure not related to this whole- whatever thing you had with our Shadowhunter friends,” he asked slowly, now not sure what to think.

“Yeah, that’s right” Ellie answered. But her answer wasn’t convincing and Ade had enough. He set down the now red-soaked cloth. His head was pounding from tiredness and he didn’t know how to deal with the problem in front of him.

“Well, what the hell is it then, El? This isn’t some light bite- you might seriously end up Changing!” he said, frustrated.

“Good, I WANT TO!” she raised her voice.

“What?” Ade asked, dumbfounded.

“It’s NOT- it’s not what you might think. I just... arghhh,” she covered her face with her hands. “I don’t know how you - are you seriously okay with being involved in this world but just having your shitty human strength and perception and being treated by everyone else like you might break?”

“Yes?” Ade stared at her, confused.

“Didn’t you almost become a Shadowhunter yourself?” he asked. “Mate, that seems a hell of a lot safer than turning into a werewolf!”

She looked down at the wound and her mouth twisted. “They both had their risks but I promised my dad I wouldn’t go through with the Ascension and after my mum died.. I couldn’t put him through that.”

Her mouth set in a thin line. “But look- it’s also not that safe to be a Mundane with access to the Shadow World, haven’t you noticed? I have-- the number of hedge witches or sighted practitioners who have disappeared in the last six months, some other Downworlders too but not in the same numbers…”

Ade hadn’t noticed that or heard that but his blood ran cold at her stark look.

She gestured to the gold medallion that he wore around his neck. “I know that you have special dispensation from the London Enclave and that warlock protection… so you’re probably safer anyway. Plus you have your vampire girlfriend.”

Ade shook his head, trying to ignore the voice in his head that was screaming that he finally had the answer he had been dreading. “I haven’t heard from Maryam in almost six weeks,” Ade said, quietly, as he finished dressing her wound.

“Oh.” Ellie’s voice was sympathetic. “Maybe she’s just on… an extended holiday.”

“Maybe but I doubt it. She wasn’t my girlfriend, anyway,” Ade tried to keep his voice steady. He sat back on the coffee table. “There- that should keep you fine until- if, you turn furry,” he tried to smile but he was too shaken by all the news he had just absorbed.

“Why couldn’t you just keep your head down and just let Kit and Ty and the other Shadowhunters take care of it?” he asked. “You’re staying with them, right? There wasn’t a need to go so- drastic.”

“Oh you know me, I’m a dramatic bitch,” Ellie said, with the smallest smirk. “And yeah, maybe it’ll be dealt with quickly by them but I’m not just doing this for safety- although that’s a factor. But I’m tired of being half in this world- so I decided to commit, fully, to it.” She let the smirk grow briefly. “Plus c’mon- I’ll finally have an excuse to go full murder-psycho for more than one reason monthly.”

Ade shook his head. “Kit is going to murder you, when he sees that wound.”

“He’s not the boss of me,” Ellie said, breezily. She sobered quickly though. “I think he’s gotten so used to thinking of himself as my protector in the Downworld- yours too. But he doesn’t need to be now, anymore. For either of us.”

Ade considered her declaration. “Okay. I guess I kind of get where you’re coming from,” he said. “But officially- I don’t approve.”

“That’s fair,” Ellie said gravely but her eyes were dancing. “I’ll have your back when you go full vamp.”

“Never happening,” he assured her but then they both grew quiet and Ellie asked: “Do you want to check with the Centurions - with Ty- to see if they can track down Maryam?”

Ade thought about it. Maryam would likely go ballistic if a bunch of Shadowhunters showed up at her door- but also, six weeks was too fucking long without a word, even if she was a vampire and he was a human and they were… whatever they were. “Yeah, I’ll get in touch with him,” Ade said.

He stood up. “I’ll text him later today but right now- I’m going to crash.” He eyed her. “Do you need a place to stay?” he asked.

She shook her head. “No- I need to go back and talk to the boys.” she sighed. “Things got messy, which is why I sent you that message but hopefully we’ve all cooled down enough that we can talk about it.” She dropped her shirt down, frowning at the blood stains.

Ade reached over and handed her one of his freshly laundered hoodies. “Take this, so you don’t attract attention on the train.”

“Thanks, Ade. For everything” Ellie said, pulling it on. She also stood and came over to give him a hug. They stood like that for a few minutes and Ade let out a big sigh. “Good luck,” he said, as they stepped apart and she grabbed her bag.

She waved at him as she let herself out. And Ade slumped down into a chair, trying to process the whirlwind morning he had - that, as he glanced at the clock on the wall - had all happened before 8 am.

Tag List: @thechangeling @dontmindmyshadowhunting @kitheronthorn @mferraz @kestrafagnor @viv-and-books @angel-of-shadows-13 @kittyblackthonherondale (basically my list of people from the last Talking Bodies post) :)

[seostudios]

GEEK CHARMING: MARK LEE

pairing: mark lee x fem!reader genre: rom-com, fluff, angst, comedy info: high school!au, film-club-kid!mark, diva!reader, non-idol!au, mentions of other members (principle!sicheng, car!jeno, student-body-president!doyoung,  film-club-kid!johnny, film-club-kid!jungwoo) synopsis: You are Yonsei Academy's peachy princess, having the best boyfriend, the most fashionable friends of mos, always updated with the latest trends in fashion. But you come face-to-face with your own personal creature-self-professed film nerd, Mark Lee, when you scratch your Holli crystal-embellished ROSANTICA purse. In exchange for her purse repair she let Mark film her for his high school popularity documentary. Reluctantly, you let low-class Mark into your A-list universe, and you are stunned to discover that nerds can be pretty awesome at times. However when your pro-claimed, boyfriend charming prince dumps you flat, your life and social status drops. Would you still win Spring Formal Queen at Yonsei Academy now? Will Mark win the Annual Film Festival?  Could even you put together the pieces to bring back your happy-ever-after, with Mark 's help? warnings: swearing, mention of alcohol word count: 7.5k tag-list: @count-your-shadows​ @jimjamjaemin @minaczennie @renjunvinates @pervieve @rjoonie @marksrainbow@commentgirl @rarestgrace @08skrr @bangtanismylifw @traashytae @superheros-and-others @johnnysnipple @00-baejin-05

a/n: this is the longest writing piece i’ve written yet on this blog and it’s inspired by a disney movie?! behold geek charming starring mark lee. your local film club nerd entering the school’s prissy princess’s life but did that make her finally turn back from her arogant ways or did it make her more of a bitch!! >_< i’m actually so happy

"I'm proud to announce this year's Annual Yonsei Spring Formal Queen Kang-" 

"Hello? Y/n? Snap out of it." Your train of thought quickly crashed as you direct your attention to the student body president, Kim Doyoung. "Y-Yes?" You ask, straightening your posture. "I asked if you are applying for Spring Formal Queen?" He put a question to, waiting for a response. Viewing as you turn to Sooyoung, who delivers you a pen, jerking it out her hand, you grab the clipboard from the plastic table in front of you, signing your signature on to the paper. Making sure your sign was large enough to cover most slots of the page. 

"Toodles," You sang to Doyoung before you and the girls walk away. “Next!”

The three of you strut down the narrow hallway, Sooyoung and Yuna trailing behind you, "This year is going to be our year ladies," you look over on both sides to see them smiling wide grins enveloping onto their lips, as they stopped to walk at your pace, "Once I'm crowned Queen of the Spring Formal, it's guaranteed I'm the well-liked, prettiest and just overall the best here at Yonsei," you finish halting your steps at the door frame of the cafeteria. Looking over your shoulder, you make a gagging motion with your finger to the pack of hungry students. In front of you three, you decide to walk through the tables showing the two lingering behind how you'd win the students' heart if you already haven't.

Walking by a table with miniature stage set-ups, you see three students huddled together revising a script "Drama kids," You start "They'll be an easy vote seeing how they just adore my dramatic gestures," Making your way down a couple more tables "Film club nerds..." You start to roll your eyes coming up with a reason why they would vote for you. "You're like a movie star to them," Sooyoung quickly interjected watching as your flip your head to pose.

You stride down some more, "I can't believe you used to be friends with Shin Ryunjin." Yuna throws in as you walk by the stage crew table. "I know right," Sooyoung agrees. "It's a burden I carry, but at least I traded up to you two." You say earning beaming smiles on both sides.

"Y/n!" Someone called, skipping happily towards you. It was Jisoo. "I got bangs since you said they would suit me! I couldn't agree more, thanks!" She beams, "Of course, just want the best for you!" You smile, reciprocating the energy she gave off until she walks off to her friends. "See? People know I care. This will be a piece of cake."  You said before stopping in your tracks to see, Jung Wonyoung; your biggest competition at Yonsei Academy. Yuna and Sooyoung see you as someone superior to them (right?). As a higher-ranked princess here at Yonsei you shouldn't let such a wretched thing like Jung Wonyoung get to you, especially with that tacky head-band she decided to pair with her uniform. But what good candidate for Spring Formal Queen would you be without a little competition, winning was a given but winning unopposed is an embarrassment. The girls notice your stink-eye towards the table and rather than letting yourself get angered in front of your girls, you oppose chatting in the most unaffected way you could muster up. "Whatever, we all understand who's gonna be crowned Queen, why let someone who pairs blue polka-dot headbands with navy plaid uniforms get in my way?" They hum in response as you two make your way to the popular table.

Yuna and Sooyoung took their seats in front of Jihoon, your lovely, amazing, perfect boyfriend, as you walked around to sit next to him. "Hi baby," He said, which sounded scripted but, you paid no attention to since he was your prince charming! His looks over-looking his flaws, you leave a small kiss on his cheek before digging into your meal.

You are finished your meal, getting up and walking to the bin to throw. On your way back you- BAM! Right on the chest, you are greeted with the expired milk the canteen provides having it spill all over your chest,  drenched. "Ugh!" You cry, a boy in front of you with his lunch tray now on the floor, his hair scruffed up with a school-provided bow-tie. "You- You geek!" You bark as he is taken aback with his words, but he isn't afraid. "You are so gro-oss!" You shout emphasizing the word gross he's already tired of your shit and it hasn't even been a minute since your first encounter. Without hesitating he relates "Actually gross is one syllable-", "I don't care just go- just go read a book or something, you nerd!" You argue not wanting to hear what he has to say before marching away out the cafeteria.

The boy watches as you make your way out the commissary. He kicks his tray to the side, walking back to his table with a glint of annoyance struck onto him.

"Dark Victory of course. It stars Bette Davis, George Brent and most importantly Humphrey Bogart from Casablanca." Jungwoo said swiftly to the two geeks in front of him. Johnny, the only one of the three who could properly score a date with the popular kids started a debate on which film from the late 1930s to the early '50s was le Meilleur which is French for  'the best'. "Did you forget The Great Lie? Probably one of Bette Davis's only good films since she has co-starred with the one and only Mary Astor" He argues speedily. "Hello??" Nayeon says budding in between, "A Stolen Life will remain the best film from the 40s, 50s, and possibly forever I will and could go on about-", "Looks like Film Club's assistant president finally showed up," Johnny says cutting off whatever nonsense Nayeon probably had to add to their already ridiculous conversation. "Sorry, I got stuck in traffic with Yonsei's little princess," Mark says with an obvious eye-roll.

"Watch your words Markie,"  Jungwoo quickly told him. "Her dad-"

"Who funds 75% of the school!" Johnny added, Jungwoo turned to his side giving an annoyed stare before looking back in front of him to Mark. "Her dad who funds 75% of the school. Will ruin you if he gets notice of his daughter's uniform being spoiled with the cafeteria's milk from a film geek." He finishes sipping on his water. Nayeon turned to him, "He can get our club shut down within minutes Mark, watch how you talk to her." 

"So what? Like they'll even come close to us." Mark scoffs, "They're like a whole new alien species." The two in front of them nod, but Nayeon is a little too distracted with the tuna sandwich her mom packed her. "You guys is it just me or is the tuna moving..." Nayeon says slapping Marks forearm softly to grab his, then everyone else's attention. Just before she did Mark's attention was already taken by something- or should I say someone else. "Hey Ryunjin," He quickly says waving towards the girl walking by towards the exit, she turns around to wave before heading out. That's where Johnny inquired, "Face it. You and Ryunjin" He brings his hands up and around to make an 'x' with it, "Never gonna happen." He says watching his shoulders sag slightly, "You've been crushing on her since what? 8th grade, and having numerous occasions to ask her out and not doing so. You missed your shot awhile back unless we had a time machine you and name are a no-go." He finished now invested in what Nayeon's sandwich was up to.

"I-I'd go out with you!" Nayeon says dropping the sandwich into Johnny's hands. "Look, I don't even have time for dating why would I even ask Ryunjin out? I'm cool with being known by her. Plus there's no way I'd do it now, the school board's Annual Film festival is only a little over a month away, I'm our school's candidate how do I mess up because I was distracted by some girl with purple highlights" He said flat-out ignoring Nayeon. "That's true," Johnny says leaning in, "And you are our school best shot at bringing home that huge ass trophy, what's the other prize again?" Jungwoo said agreeing before taking a bite of his pasta. "It's a summer getaway to a Hollywood film camp, I gotta win," Mark said signing the application forms he had in his pocket. "I'm supposed to be a cinematic genius, so what better to do than murder the competition and bring home a trophy after going on a getaway trip to Hollywood to better my knowledge I'm gonna be like the Frank Capra or Victor Fleming around here!"

Johnny grabs Marks's application form to read the requirements, "You have to document something and make it worthwhile..." He read aloud, "What's the documentary about?" Jungwoo asked, "I have no idea." Mark said before snatching the paper. "He has no idea...." Jungwoo whispered almost inaudible in disappointment. Mark writes down ideas on the back of the paper while discussing it with Jungwoo, "So," Johnny starts, "Wanna go out with me?" He said. "No." Nayeon answers strictly as if she was waiting to reject the boy who's attention was back onto her tuna sandwich.

"Anyway, I gotta go hand this into Principle Dong." Mark said witnessing the awkward interaction before getting up and leaving the vicinity

He was playing with the hourglass on his office desk when a knock on the door was heard. "Come in!" He chirped and in came a student. "Ah, Mark." He sang motioning the boy to sit down while he took his legs off the desk. "Came to finally hand me those application forms I've been begging your little club to hand over I see." He said noticing the paper in hand. "Haha, Yea," Mark said avoiding eye contact as he brought his hand up to hand the paper. "Can't wait to see what one of my star students has prepared for the Festival." He said opening the folded paper reading aloud, "A documentary about how lunch ladies keep old food fresh, and our bellies full," His voice started off strong going quieter word by word, looking up at him. "Yeah, you know how the lunch ladies always give us the same green looking sauce every day, or the same batch of oatmeal cookies from months back, every time we sink our teeth into it. It tastes fresh! I've always wanted to know and I think it'd be a cool thing to find out" Mark your blabbering, Is what Principle Dong wanted to tell him so he'd shut up. He didn't want a lame documentary about something to make his school look bad in to be put out in front of dozens of other schools. "Mark." He stops the boy, "Your artistic vision is lunch ladies?" He asked. "Yes, NO! But yes? I'm struggling I can't come up with a good topic that's not gonna bore students and teachers." Mark said. Mr.Dong could see how strongly Mark expressed his struggles with a mere school contest, he probably wants that prize more than anything. He knows he shouldn't help him, since it'd be unfair but he wasn't gonna let him put out something that can ruin his reputation. "Stop playing safe Mark. Challenge yourself by widening your perspective maybe instead of documenting lunch and stuff that you know will bore people and try going after something to catch their attention." Mark's eyes slowly open as he looks up to Principle Dong nodding understandingly "Alright I get it, I get it" He says before clasping his hands together. Mr.Dong sees his improvement and instead of picking another student to compete he can rely on Mark who's now being ushered out the room by him, "Now don't forget I need a new proposal by tomorrow." He said before shutting his door.

"Dude I know exactly what Mr.Dong was getting at,"  Jungwoo tells him. Their school day was over about two hours ago and now they were at their part-time job, at Yong's, a popular little cafe in the middle of a jam-packed shopping mall. "Something challenging...like I don't know maybe a certain diva you encountered during lunch?" His eyes lit up, looking over his shoulder to look at a grinning Jungwoo who flipped his non-existent long flocks of hair like he was the diva. "You're a genius!" Mark said now ecstatic, but quickly going back to his little stressed self, "No, but then how am I gonna convince her?" He said placing his hand up under his chin. 

The bell rings by the entrance, which meant there was a costumer quickly brushing off crumbs from a cupcake he snuck in he turns around to see his proposal for the Film Festival itself. You looked different, you were wearing a pair of plaid pants with a tightly fitted black turtleneck, accessorized by dangling earrings, a heart pendant necklace and a simple gold chain. Your face was quick to cringe after seeing who was about to take your order, "Ugh It's you." You spit looking him up and down, he doesn't look too bad out of school you thought before handing one of the many many bags of clothes to your father's butler. "Here Minho, get a seat for us, please," You tell him watching him rush to one of the many empty seats. "Hi, Welcome to Yong's what can I get for you today?" Mark asked, tone sounding uninterested. "Shouldn't you be happy to see me? I am a miraculous sight for sore eyes," You said getting a half-suppressed laugh from Mark. "Anyway, I would like a grande green tea latte. one pump classic, nonfat, 6 enormous scoops of matcha, 195 degrees, and ABSOLUTELY NO FOAM." You finish, right before starting back up again, "And,  I would like a venti caramel frappe with extra caramel drizzle." You finish finally reaching into your purse to pull out your (dad's) card. When you go to hand the card you see not only Mark but also Jungwoo looking at you, mouths open, jaws almost touching the floor. "Did you not get it? Do I have to repeat my order or something?" You say with a hint of irritation, "Ah- No. Sorry it'll  be 15.50" Mark said averting his gaze from you.

After paying you, tell Mark, "bring it to my table will you?" before walking off to Minho.

"Dude go," Now's Mark's time to actually shine. He makes sure the drinks are perfect knowing ruining them could ruin his entire attempt. ��He strides along between the tables finally towards your booth handing you both your drinks. But Mark just stood there, you motioned with your hand as you would to stray animals. "Why are you just standing there, go do your job?" You said already bothered, "Nope, I have a proposal for you.", "Whatever it is, No." You said not even wanting to hear what he's got to say, "I'm gonna ask anyway." He said towering over you and you seated butler. "I want you to star in my movie for the Film Festival this year," You look up, surprised an obvious smile dancing over your lips. "What's it about?" You asked still not sure, "You! I'll have to document your lifestyle til the Spring Formal." Mark said. You bit your lip not knowing to go through or not, but it was a nice ego boost, having someone film your daily life, letting everyone know you got the best friends and most fashionable friends, a prince-charming and a purse worth more than your teacher's salary. Jung Wonyoung, who's also a runner up for Spring Formal Queen having the football team paint her posters and make pins but what's that compared to a freaking movie documenting your life...Winning this year is gonna be easier than expected. "Deal," You said, Mark, cheers a little too loud before bringing his hand out to shake, you reject kindly before letting him know "Don't look like a freaking weirdo at school though. We can start tomorrow at lunch," You finish before seeing him run off to Jungwoo.

Finally home being able to rest from begin outrageously gorgeous today you skip down to your bedroom, hoping into the shower then changing into a more comfortable attire. As of now you were in the middle of your bed doing some homework before the phone went off, it was a notification from Ryunjin, she tagged you in an Instagram post of you and her when you were younger. Your mom took that photo on the first day of grade school back when you and Ryunjin were inseparable. Mom died later that same year and it was heartbreaking but you were stronger than that you knew you shouldn't pity yourself, or have others pity you simply because she passed away, she wouldn't want you to be like that. 

It was a brand new day and Mark was in the principle's office, don't worry this star is nowhere near in trouble when Mark hands in his proposal. "This is marvellous, I can see the growth Mark. Please keep me updated,"  Mr.Dong said watching Mark skip away cheerfully to lunch, where he'd meet you. Fridays at Yonsei were known as the only days of the week students didn't have to wear uniforms to school which often made them pull together a swagger (Johnny's words not mine) outfit for the rest of the school to see. Mark wasn't one to dress up on these days so today he decided to wear his black and blue striped t-shirt paired with black denim jeans,  his black hair parted in the middle this time. He did not look like a film kid. He looked like he belonged to sit beside you, "Hey" you were busy opening up your lunch when he stood behind you with his camera. "Oh-" In all honesty, you thought he'd be wearing baggy trousers and a worn-out shirt but you were filled with joy to see him looking presentable to you. "Hey, sit." You said to him, "I'm gonna just cut to the chase and record..." He said fiddling with the camera for a minute too long, "A few rules before you point that thing in my face," you started as he lifted his face to see you, "Absolutely no filming my left side, no hanging a minute later after filming I need you out of my sight when I hear you say cut." You were strict but not so sure if you meant it. He gave you a thumbs up before clicking record.

"So, Y/n why are you so determined to be Queen at the annual Spring Formal" Mark asked zooming in and out for a few seconds finally focusing, "Because it ensures permanent popularity and I can't fall from my throne can I?" You ask, "Aren't you already popular?" He asked looking up from the camera confused, "Companies at the top of the list don't need to advertise but they do it because..?" , "They need to stay at the top of the list," Mark says understanding where you were getting at. "Exactly, it's not easy to be popular like me nowadays," You say placing your hair behind your ear, "So not easy being like Y/n" Yuna said, Sooyoung agreeing. "Girls not now, this is my time-" , "Actually if they wanna add something they-", "Being popular isn't something you can just fool around with, it's like royalty to us hormonal teens. It's not easy, I gotta live up to these beauty standards, and be on my A-Game whenever." You finish. Not knowing what to say next you smile at the camera hoping Mark would do something- anything but suddenly your knight in shining armor is here- Jihoon takes a seat next to you. "Oh Babe!" You say kissing his cheek; making sure it was on camera. "Only 10's can get date 10's like Jihoon, we're perfect for each other!" You express, but Mark snickers to the scene unfolding behind you watching Yuna and Sooyoung roll their eyes at that certain sentence. "Are you coming to my game today?" Jihoon asked, before noticing Mark. "Why is there a fucking geek near us," He barks but you quickly come to the save. "Ji, we went through this. Mark here is going to be making a movie on how I win Spring Formal Queen." You say, gripping his hand slightly so he could get the memo. "He better not show up to my games", "Never, just eat." You said as he glares at the boy. "Alright, and cut." Mark said before getting up, "Thank you." 

"So...you don't have a job?" Mark asked filming you going through a bunch of clothes, you shake your head no. "You just shop til' you drop huh?" He asked amused at your simple lifestyle, "Of course, now don't come in here this is a school film." You said going into the change room. "Here she comes," You cheered (for yourself) minutes after changing into a short black skirt which was most definitely breaking dress code and a tight white long sleeve which had a deep cut in the back. Mark's mouth is slightly agape seeing you, you were gorgeous indeed he thought. "So tell me what it's like to be...." He trails off trying to find a synonym for the popular " Amazing? Well, there are levels of popularity, at the top moi, and at the bottom..you." You said giving him a grisly glare."Ou! Love these!" You acclaim to a pair of black heels, "Hate these." You say to a set of hot pink ones beside them. "I have two of these!" You declare cheerfully at a pair of white heels which shimmered with sparkles; definitely your style. "How do people get popular?" Mark asked, ignoring your admiration over ridiculously cruel footwear. "Well some are just born with it," You say then go in closer, covering your mouth in a whisper action, "But some gotta follow the diva's around for it." You said, clearly talking about Sooyoung and Yuna.

"Gonna try these on, out Geek," you said to Mark who was almost walking in there with you. "Oh- right sorry!" He said now moving over to your two (deemed) friends. "So, since she's not here... " Mark started  getting the camera up to focus on the two, "Do you have anything about Y/n you can spill?" He asked, "Like, does your popularity only come from following her around," Yuna was quick to fire back, "We may not be as popular as Y/n, but we do know some secrets..." She trails off letting Sooyoung start. "Like when Y/n doesn't get her way, she has the biggest hissy fit,", "And Jihoon is only with her cause he likes the attention, you know to she makes him feel better about himself," Mark couldn't understand how your two announced friends were fundamentally spilling everything about you to an insignificant camera and film nerd. "Behold!" You squeal opening the curtains, to reveal your outfit (which admittedly, had Mark's jaw drop). You were some-what dress shopping for the Spring Formal and you saw this magnificent dress, a silk orchid dress which fell all the way down to your knees frilling at the bottom. The right amount of skin and the right about of puff! You thought; pairing it up with black heels, "God, I look fantastic. What do you think?" You ask the three in front of you, "You-I think you look great!" Mark said the camera to his side, "Film!" You shouted suddenly, as he ponderously brought the camera back up. "Ladies?" You ask the two behind Mark, "You look so good!", "Agreed." They say. The four of you voted to get smoothies before departing and you were ever so willing to pay for all four, "So popular people can't hang out with... nerds?"  He asked filming you sip on the mango smoothie, "Of course we don't," He moved on, placing the camera down to take a sip out of his smoothie thinking there wasn't too much to embellish on, although you continue. "It's better that way, no interference. Why would a dime like me hang out with a nickel?"  You asked oh so wisely which made Mark mumble a WTF. "See, if you two were to go out... The school would go mad as a hatter and it's not gonna end well on both ends." Yuna adds you look to her in the seat beside you, giving her a warning look to 'not talk this is my movie' as she sinks in her seat. Mark sees the silence as an opportunity to ask a question from his cue cards filled with questions that would have something engaging, after finding something to grab not only your attention but the audience about to watch this's attention, he springs the question on you. What if you don't win Spring Formal Queen? "What if I don't? That's not a question, of course, I will? If I don't my life will be over!" You said sliding your drink aside stressing the word over. 

It was in the late hours of the evening and Mark was confined inside his bedroom, editing and stressing. How was this a high school documentary? She only cares about herself, 'fashionable' friends, and prince charming, in which two out of the three didn't even care about her. Maybe she's like this because of what it's like at home? He thought questioning about your at-home life was. Does she have a deep heart-aching past which makes her act like such a nuisance? Nah who am I kidding this isn't some movie. His night was mostly spent, under his blanket with a laptop screen shining into his eyes (probably the reason why he has contacts). 

Saturdays were beach days. That's what Jihoon always said. You'd meet him at the beach where all the (popular) kids from school would go on Saturday mornings, not to sun-bathe but to attend the main volleyball matches would be held. The teams were unauthorized, but for the student's entertainment, our Yonsei's official volleyball team would pick Saturday mornings for a friendly event against Joongdong High. You texted Mark beforehand to meet you there which took him a minute to agree on, but only if he brought his friends, Johnny and Jungwoo. "Hey, you're late!" You tell the boy who's jogging towards you with his tiny camera, you look behind him to see a taller fellow, "And you brought  friends..." You said uninterested and rather irritated, "I'm gonna help Mark, so you look extra beautiful today Y/n!" He quickly said chiming in; his effort in pleasing you was extraordinary. You give him a small smile before nodding. You look beside Mark to see a familiar face, "Johnny!" You cheer before embracing the boy, "Hey Queen Bee" He joked, as you slap his arm jokingly. You and Johnny's dads are business partners, which often made you two spend time together growing up so, in your world, Johnny was your only nerd. Mark just awkwardly stands the before Johnny scatters away with Jungwoo for soda cans, but Mark follows you. Mark was busy filming your little interactions with Jihoon before catching a glimpse of his Ryunjin. He thinks to himself, I can put the camera down for a second, before jogging to Ryunjin, who was getting a soda from the vending machine. "Hey," He said awkwardly. "Hi Mark, didn't come across to you being a beach guy..." She responded laughing at his getup in the hot climate. "OH, I'm just filming for Y/n." He stated catching 'O' shape form on her lips before they start talking casually. You back away, momentarily from the crowd to give yourself a little break, being gorgeous is a workout, you thought, before snickering. You look to your right to see Mark in the distance talking to a brown-haired girl, noticing the purple highlights, hidden between her locks, you realize it's not some rando,  it's Ryunjin. I have to get him out of there. You don't really think before grabbing a spare volleyball to flinging it over the crowd to Mark's head. Running over you ignore the girl aiding Mark, "Are you okay? You look okay. We don't have time for breaks." You said sternly before grabbing his arm and sprinting as fast as you could in a pencil skirt and orange stilettos.

"God, your so lucky I was your knight in shining armour out there. Saved you from your utterly wretched flirting." You tell Mark posing for the camera he set. "Flirting? What, no. Why would I flirt with Ryunjin?" He demanded panicked that you might do something knowing you. "Oh please, your crush on Ryunjin is way more obvious than Wonyoung's fake gold." You said adjusting the skirt you had on. "Can't believe I used to be her friend," You mutter, which he caught onto quickly, "Wait, what?", "Yea, in elementary but look at us now, way out of her league, she's almost at the bottom of the list with her, 'I'm in a rock band' getup." You spit before posing dramatically. 

You sit at the bench in front of the now, empty parking lot. Jihoon ditched you for 'pizza with the boys' to celebrate their victory along with the two friends who just needed to tag along for the sole purpose to tell everyone they hang out with the volleyball team during their free time. "Hey," Mark said sitting down beside you, "They left me and took my car." You say recalling Jihoon asking for your keys to drive to the pizza place. "Now I'm stuck here, do you have a car Mark, let's go somewhere." You whined quietly watching as Mark put his camera away, grabbing your hand to bring you away. "This is Jeno." Mark says, pointing to his Silver 1965 Oldsmobile, "He's getting old but isn't vintage a style you princesses adore?" He asked, chuckling before telling you to get in. "Spot on Film Geek!" You praise, before hopping in. You notice from the corner of your eye a group of kids from Yonsei walking by, you duck down, hiding from them "What are you doing now?" Mark asked confused, before noticing the batch walking down and taking a turn. "Okay Miss Popular, they're gone." He said a little insecure this time giving you a dry laugh. You notice from the corner of your eye a group of kids from Yonsei walking by, you duck down, hiding from them "What are you doing now?" Mark asked confused, before noticing the batch walking down and taking a turn. "Okay Miss Popular, they're gone." He said a little insecure this time giving you a dry laugh. The car failed Mark this time, and not wanting to break the already broken car he tells you "Let's bus it, this car isn't going to start anytime soon,", "What? No way I'm going inside a jam-packed van just for it to stop a block away from my place!" You argue. "God why don't you quit this diva act and just face were gonna walk back which is probably a little over two hours I know you won't ever do or take a thirty-minute bus ride which you should consider knowing your so-called prince took.", "What did you just call me? A diva? Hello?? I'm a star in your film!" You bark, now furious at the boy, "No. You are a stuck-up, arrogant, annoying brat who's in my film." He fired-back. No remorse at all. "You're-You're fired!" You shout. "No, this is my film you don't do the firing!" He said back, "Don't care, I'm the star here and I say you're fired!" You finish before he grabs your wrist, "Oh please I'm the only one who demands are going to be valid and I say you're fired." Mark finished walking away from the bus-stop down the street, leaving you alone and forced to call a cab.

Mark thinks he hit jack-pot, finally getting rid of you. "It's not too late to change projects right?" He tells himself on that gloomy Monday morning, combing his hair with his fingers in the mirror before going downstairs to eat breakfast. Here he was, eating a bagel in Principle Dong's office. "I'm afraid you can't Mark," He said towards the boy. 

"Hello! Yonsei!! It's me your future Spring Queen! Y/n! You want to better the halls of Yonsei? Vote for me, I'm sweet just like candy!!" You shout, the crowd you have in front of you, this was your way of campaigning. "Out of my way," Wonyoung says, grabbing the mic, to advertise and get people to vote for her. As per usual, she one-ups her opponent; you. "Oh my god, Y/n thanks for the advice on flirting, I finally got Wooseok to go with me for Spring Formal," Jisoo said, from behind making you turn with a happy smile, "So I can count on your vote?" Her smile faded quick, she mumbles a little something, before stuffing her face with the homemade cookie's Wonyoung provided, quick to run away.

It was almost the end of the school day and you were stuck in literature recapping on how to write proper paragraphs before your end of the year essay. You notice a semi-familiar face, Nayeon. You know she and Johnny are friends, so she must be close to Mark, you thought. You were gonna ask her to ask Mark to meet you but you'd rather not bring more geeks into your already geek-filled life. You read her phone screen that illuminated brightly in the dim-lit classroom. 'The Fifth Element is having a showing tonight,' A group chat called 'Hollywood's Trash' sent in, Mark would definitely be there. Writing down on a sticky note the address provided thankfully you slip it into your binder focusing your attention back on the lesson, this time with a smile.

You and probably the only other person you'd allow in your bedroom with you is Minho. He's been your family's butler for a little over 25 years now and has been with since day 1. Aiding since you unintentionally fell and cut a mark after attempting to bike without training wheels to strengthening you with your mother's passing. Minho was with you when he dropped you off at the very, very empty cinema. "They're probably inside, just wait until it's over which is..." He looks at his wrist, to his watch. "Another 10 minutes," He gives you an assuring smile before reaching over to open the door. "Knock em' dead," He tells you, before driving off. You sit on the sidewalk ledge with a soda in hand, sipping on it here and there until you began to see people walk out. Standing up, you pat down your skirt and look for anyone that resembles Mark. You see a short boy, black-parted hair and a graphic t-shirt paired with baggy trousers. "Mark!" You shout, he looks behind him to see your petite figure run up to him, "Hey," He said confused. "What are you doing right now?" you asked him eagerly, seeing him turn to Nayeon, Johnny and Jungwoo. "Yong's, we are totally digging sugar cookies," Jungwoo said before Mark could open his mouth, you smile leaning in a little closer to the odd trio,  "Mind if I tag along?", "No! Feel free." Johnny said, grabbing your forearm to drag you along. 

"God how can you guys drink those dreadful things," Nayeon said watching Johnny and Jungwoo gulp down smoothies. You and Mark already finished your drinks a while back, "Nayeon you do know, smoothies have a health glow about them? They’re often a fundamental part of cleanses, and they’re ubiquitous at health food stores and health-centric restaurants. And the smoothie trend is still going strong. Workout studios serve them up post-class, dietitians preach their powers and fit celebrities tout their nutritional prowess. The fruits used at Yong's are fresh and have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory benefits with low-sugar, employee's here have also learnt to provide fibre, calcium and vitamins A, C and K they add dark leafy greens like spinach or kale. "Y/n what the fuck??" Nayeon said. You stare at her dumbfounded... Have you said the wrong thing? Were you wrong?

It's still the early hours of twilight, and you are still wandering with Mark and his friends, roaming around the lit-up town. "So, since when did you get so smart?" Mark asked. The two of you were walking delayed to get a chance to talk after your dispute. "What do you mean I've always been like this," You said, a little offended he thought that low of your academic abilities. He mutters a 'wow' before continuing "Well I thought pretty diva's like you only cared about popularity and crowns," He said poking fun at our egotistic side. You gasp before laughing, "So you think I'm pretty?" You sneakily stated which made the boy stutter like crazy, he couldn't answer back without the rosy tint on his cheek growing so you continued on with a little heartfelt apology in hopes he'd continue the documentary. "Look I was hoping you'd let me hire you back to finish this stupid film," You started smiling eye-to-eye hopefully, "You mean, I could hire you back?" He said. "Yes, whatever. Just continuing this- whatever" you pointed at him, then back at you repeating his vigorously "whatever this is.", "Only under one condition, you being a little bossy duchess is not gonna be happening, I like the cool nerdy Y/n I saw at Yong's," He said, which you quickly fired back with 'I'm not a nerd!' You accept your mini defeat against Film Club boy, letting him know you need a ride home before anything. "Alright, get in."

"Wha-What are you doing?!" Mark asked, laughing so much he almost dropped to the floor. You invited him inside after he agreed to drop you off at home. "Making cookies duh!!" You cheer, grabbing all the chocolatey goods from the cabinet. He's quick to pull out his camera and hit record, "Welcome to my Y/n's baking show!" You sang, adding a  trumpet noise (with your mouth). "So, what's the new with you and Ryu?" You ask, sitting beside Mark diving into a very, very unhealthy mess you call a cookie, with Mark. "Nothing really, how are you and Jihoon." You sigh to look over at the spacious living room, Mark understands your silence and understands your having trouble in paradise. "How about I ask some of her band mates- who worship me. If they can ask Ryu to go on a date with you" You suggest to Mark with a soft smile. He looks at you, thoughtfully, "I got someone else on my mind nowadays..." He tells you with a crimson red colour visible on his cheeks. "I-I should get going now it's nearly ten." He says going to grab his things, you nod and walk towards the front door. Maybe some nerds are cool, you thought, before Mark went out. 

3 weeks. You've spent the last three weeks with Mark Lee. Getting to know him, documenting your- I mean our movie. He's been warming up to you, and you've been less of what he liked to call you; diva. You've started flaking out on some dates with the girls, just to film with Mark, you two have learnt more about him through the movie nights you spent over at your place after filming. He's really cool and you're grateful you stopped clowning around to know him.  Today you went over to Mark's place extra early since you wanted to give him a makeover. His dorky striped tees were getting old and you'd like to see him rock the nice clothes in his closet you knew he had. "Wear this, this and OH! Make sure to put these to use." You say handing him a pair of khaki pants, a yellow shirt, patch denim jacket and a beanie to wear. It was beautiful to see him actually clean up for once, he almost made you fall for his looks. "If Ryunjin doesn't ask you out, don't mind if I do," You said laughing "Aren't you too busy with Jihoon to look after me?" He said bluntly laughing before stopping to look for a reaction which was nowhere to be found, "Jihoon broke up with me because apparently, I'm a part of the geek team now!" You said chuckling, a hidden sadness underneath. "Hey, don't worry I've been a member of the geek squad for about my whole life I think we roll far better than rich snobs-", "Hey! Take that back I was one of them" You said punching his arm. "Don't worry you're good," He said laughing it off. To be honest his feelings for Ryunjin over the past few weeks have now shifted into distant memories after getting to know the real you. I think Mark's really been feeling lucky he's got you and he knows you're aware who he's got his eyes on now. You're parting his hand, in between his legs as he sits on the stool, his hands were sneaky to make their way to rest on your hips; you hum unaffected, but proceed to part it nice and neatly before ripping his hands from somewhere it shouldn't be.

It was D-Day. Spring Formal was no longer weeks away, it's hours. You had just recently gotten news that Mark's little documentary he's been making about and with you has won first place in the Annual Film Festival, due to this he had won the summer getaway to Hollywood film camp, which by the way, was exclusive. He was lucky, and he aspired and reached his goal like no other, you on the other hand... Let's just say Spring Formal Queen wasn't something you were looking forward to nowadays. But it did feel nice to win something at a party you didn't even bother to attend, you were too busy telling mark farewell at the airport to be at a function that was still being supervised by faculty. "Don't forget to text me, Mark," You tell the boy in front of you. Today Mark is sporting a red and black striped tee with an In The Row Leather Jacket (gifted by who else other than you!) and some dark blue jeans. "Can't believe you missed the fricken' Spring Formal to hang out with the film geek! Ah You really have evolved," He said standing in front of your hands reaching to nothing when he stuffs them in his jean pockets. "You make me sound like those Digimon characters you collect," You say ultimately making him facepalm at your words Digimon? Really Y/n? he thought before going into a fit of giggles, oh why should he correct you anyways you seem so cute."But no, I won't forget." He assures hand reaching out to rub your side. This time spent with Mark is something the old you would've retched at, but the current you? The current you are thankful, Mark helped you go back to your regular self, showing you that you didn't have to be some type of Barbie doll for some; what Mark called rich slobs. You were better than that now, and you had Mark. You've come to realize that Mark Lee isn't just that geek from the film club. He's above that. His place in your hear is indescribable. Who knew he would be the one to make your heart run laps from simple gestures. It's hilarious in a way, you'd be aggravated if he even came into your vicinity but now you'd be anticipating his visit.

"Mark," You start, watching his eyes light up at you call him. Your eyes meet, looking into one another's dark coffee bean orbs. Your gaze was sharp as if lined with shards of glass around the edges, his eyes. God, when your eyes met, you could see the glow in them, it was irresistible. That is when you finally realize, this newly discovered desire you found in yourself, is in Mark. He foresees your next moves bringing a hand up to your cheek, caressing it. "God, you're so beautiful," He whispers watching both of your arms trail up his torso to rest firmly on his shoulder. Leaning in, you finally taste his peach lips. His heart was racing, once he dipped his face down to you. He knew that once he places his soft pink lips on you, he wouldn't want to stop.  Breaking the kiss, you whisper, "Goodbye, Mark." Hand raising to ruffle his hair, "Make me proud out there," You tell him, leaving a less-heated peck on his lips. "Thank you, goodbye Y/n" He wanders off into his designated area before taking off almost immediately pulling his phone out. Is he really that addicted to elec- Oh, your phone rings. He's calling you, "I miss you already," he tells you the moment you answer. "I miss you too." You tell him. "I have to go, my Uber is here." you bit your lip, the words tangling up in the pit of your stomach, should you tell him the eight letters you've been longing to? "I love you, be safe." You look over the crowd to the seat to see him, looking for you. He brings the phone up back to his ear, "I love you too- Fuck so much," It looks like he's been waiting just as long.

Let's just say your happy ending took couple wrong turns but it looks like you finally reached your destination, in Mark's heart.

[wejusthereforthefanart]

Team BRNZ Oneshot

"I don't wanna be here."

With a sympathetic smile, Roy patted her back, "It's alright, May, we'll get through this together."

"Ugh, you guys are so dramatic!" Brawnz groaned, "Remember, we're here to build connections. Which means I want you--all of you--to socialize."

"Wha-I'm not talking to anybody here! I look absolutely ridiculous!" the girl lifted a section of her a-line dress, small sequins that covered its brassiere shimmering under the luminous chandelier before she unceremoniously dropped the hem with a huff.

Beside her, Nolan looked down at his own suit, "I don't know, I think we look pretty good." 

While Brawnz wore a standard tuxedo, the only splash of color being a faded purple bowtie, Nolan had replaced the rented white dress shirt with a maroon button-down and rolled up the sleeves of his blazer. 

"We might look the part, but we are hardly prepared," Roy said, "What exactly are we supposed to discuss with these people? They're in a whole other society from us." 

“Uh, just, you know, talk like Team NDGO. They go to these things all the time, somehow.”

May hunched over, covering her well-endowed chest behind her arms, “That’s because Gwen’s aunt is a higher-up in the Schnee Dust Company. She’s invited to Atlesian parties so she can promote their future business.”

“Oh.”

Nolan scanned the room, “Are we going to get kicked out when they figure out we snuck in? ‘Cause I saw some awesome finger food over there, and-”

“Alright, alright,” Brawnz combed a hand through his hair, slicked back with a sheen of gel, “Let’s split up into pairs. May, you’ll come with me while Roy keeps an eye on Nolan-”

“Hey!”

“-and works on his social skills.”

“I resent that, but won’t deny it,” the man frowned.

“I know you guys feel like fish out of water, but just think of these folks as potential clients after we graduate. We’re Team BRNZ, we can handle a party in a fancy mansion, right?”

By then, Nolan and Roy had disappeared, the former dragging his boyfriend across the dance floor to a long table covered in platters of food. Before him stood May, hugging herself uncomfortably tighter as a curtain of short purple hair fell over the left side of her face. His eyes softened, and with a gentle touch, he brushed it behind her ear.

“When we get back to school, I’ll let you play any game you want, okay?”

She glanced up at him, “Even two-player?”

“I mean, I don’t know why you insist on playing with us since you always win, but… sure.”

“I like winning,” the shadow of a smile graced her lips, and she lowered her arms. The pair stood in a comfortable silence while the music flowed in a soft, slow cadence. From the other side of the room, Roy watched Nolan devour another pastry until he heard an unfamiliar feminine voice nearby.

“Oh, hey, are you Vacuans?” a woman dressed in a strapless white gown walked up to them, “It’s just that I’ve never seen you before.”

Roy avoided the sight of her cleavage peeking out from the tight corset, his cheeks warm with a blush hidden under his dark skin. 

Nolan swallowed a mouthful of sugar, “Yeah, we’re students at Shade Academy, just a little ways from here.”

“Ohhh, you must be friends of little Gwen! Ms. Darcy is an associate of mine, with dust exports into Vale.”

“Gwen’s pretty cool,” he spared a glance at Roy, “We share a few classes with her and her team.”

“I see. Well, I hope you tell her that if she ever finds herself in Vale, she can just find me,” pulling out a small card from her clutch, she reached it out to Nolan. However, once she noticed the remnants of chocolate icing on his fingers, she swiftly passed it to Roy.

“And, if you boys really do know little Gwen, I suppose I can extend the offer to you.”

Roy turned it over to read her name and contact info under ‘Schnee Dust Company’, “Thank you, Ms. Linen, and you can call me Roy Stalli-”

“She’s already gone.”

He looked over to see her speaking with another lady, and Nolan licked his fingers clean before wiping them discreetly against his pants. With a sigh, he tucked the card into the chest pocket of his pinstripe vest before adjusting the ascot wrapped around his throat. Soon, the classical piece faded, and an upbeat rendition of some jazz song boomed through the parlor. A group of drunk patrons flailed about in the center of the dance floor, laughing as their drinks sloshed out of glasses and spilt onto their clothes. 

“We should find the others,” Roy took Nolan by the hand and led him along the row of tables, searching for their partners' red dress or gray locks. 

“I need to find a bathroom,” Brawnz said, “Are you okay waiting here?”

She nervously ran her tongue over the grooves of her molars, before nodding.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah… Yeah, I can do this,” May offered a small smile.

Her boyfriend returned it with one of his own, “Alright. Be right back, babe.”

She watched him weave around men and women to ask a server for directions when a low chuckle rumbled beside her. A man, who looked only a few years older than herself, stepped into her personal space with a cocky smirk and a tall glass of champagne. 

“Oh, dear, please tell me what such a beautiful young woman like yourself is doing with someone of his caliber? I hope he hasn’t been fooling you with that cheap suit.”

“Um, we’re, um,” she mumbled, too flustered to finish a single sentence. The stranger was far too close for comfort, and she could smell the stink of alcohol on his breath. She took a step back, but felt her rear bump against the table behind her, trapping her as he loomed over and shamelessly leered at her curvy figure.

“May-May!” Nolan called, “How’s it going?”

Quickly stepping behind his girlfriend to rest his arms over her small shoulders, Roy aimed his steely gaze at the newcomer, “Is this man bothering you?”

“Nonsense, I was simply indulging her with the presence of a true gentleman, after seeing her about to fall victim to one of the pathetic frauds that tend to sneak into parties like these,” the dirty look he shot Nolan was followed by another smirk, “My name is William Rudolf, a pleasure to meet you.” 

“Roy Stallion, of Team BRNZ at Shade Academy, and I believe the ‘pathetic fraud’ you were referring to was my team leader.”

His mirth simmered into a pert frown, “I see, well, perhaps you and your… befitting partners should take your leave back to school.”

Once he soaked up another eyeful of May’s body, he turned on his heel and sauntered off, leaving her with an embarrassed blush and a pit in her stomach. Brawnz suddenly returned from the restroom, confused to see his boyfriends with her. 

“Did something happen while I was away?”

She curled her arms to hook over Roy’s, trapping him close in an embrace while she stared down at her feet, “Can we just go now? Please?” 

He exchanged a look between the others, but took May’s shaky fidgeting as a sign not to press. He led his partners through the crowded ballroom, shouldering a surly woman who nearly spilled wine on her suit. 

“Hey, watch it!” she yelled, but a glance at the girl made her blink, “Wait, are you Team BRNZ?”

May turned her head, her shoulders relaxed once she saw the fascination in her eyes. 

“Um, yeah, that’s us,” she answered shyly.

“My wife’s a professor at Shade Academy, and talks about you all sometimes. You’re Ginger’s favorite students, you know.”

Nolan hip-checked Brawnz out of his way, “Aw, yes! Finally, I get to call a teacher by her first name. So long, Professor Goldgoose; hello Miss Ging!” 

“Here, I’ll give you my card,” she offered, “I’m sure you’re in Atlas to promote yourselves for future work?” 

“That’s right, but it hasn’t been working for us. Some people here are either creeps or uninterested because we don’t have any connections yet.”

She smiled at Roy, “Well, now you have me. That has to count for something, right? As for the creeps, you just have to point them out, and I’ll take care of them.” 

Watching the head developer of Human Nextwork chew out Rudolf was the highlight of their night. They were eventually escorted out of the party, however. Once they returned to their hotel room, the group took turns showering and Nolan reinserted his insulin pump as soon as he changed into his sleepwear. May played on her scroll until Brawnz wrestled it away from her, and hid it in his bag for the night. 

“Hey,” he said, “I wanted to apologize for leaving you alone like that. It was stupid on my part.”

She closed her eyes and stretched her slender legs under the covers, “Mmh, it’s not your fault. I just don’t like crowds.”

“But I should’ve been there to defend you…” 

“And you will next time,” she scooted closer and rested her head on his shoulder, “I still trust you, Brawnz. I’m not just going to lose faith in you after one pervert waited for you to leave my side for a few minutes.”

He smiled down at her, her damp hair sticking to his skin like a warm, messy kiss. When he planted one of his own on her cheek, she barely stirred, and fell asleep. Nolan soon followed after his friend, spread across the other bed like a starfish and drooling a puddle on his pillow. Brawnz had never seen Roy asleep, as he always managed to stay awake the longest, but no matter how hard to he tried to stave off sleep, it consumed him. 

And finally, Roy was alone. In the darkness, he rose out of bed, threw on his jacket, and slipped out the door. 

“Rudolph, you have no idea what you’ve just done,” he hissed.

[teacupsandwriting]

WIP Introduction

WORKING TITLE – The Onyx Fortress

GENRES – High Fantasy, NA Fantasy

STATUS – First Draft

THEMES – Friendship, Overcoming oppression/fear, Celestial embodiment, Breaking down class systems

WORD COUNT GOALS – July: 20k, Overall Project: 70k-90k, Considering multiple books.

POV - Third-person multiple (4 characters)

INCLUDES - LGBTQ+ romance subplot, disability representation, family healing

CONTENT WARNING - Violence, character death, torture, oppression, trauma

Photo Credit: @cocorrina.co on Instagram

SYNOPSIS

Magic is forbidden unless taught by the Magisters through the Lunara Academy of the Arcane—accessible only to members of the Paladin Order and the Priesthood. Justiciar Baeral—leader of the Paladin Order—is driven mad when he cannot contain the underground market of Magisters teaching the commoners magic. During an attack on the Haderys Kingdom, the Elder Council is disbanded, the sacred forest is defiled, and Justiciar Baeral immediately sets to work on a new arcane school in his image. Grand Elder Stravero is the only one to escape the attack on the governing council and seeks out Priestess Maevira Saphine, and her Paladin-in-training younger sister, Soluna. Together they must leave the kingdom and seek out Therris the Elemental—an exiled Paladin who formerly served alongside Justiciar Baeral. 

Creivan is the Archmagistrate at the Lunara Academy and identical twins with Maevira. When he is captured and sent to the Onyx Fortress, he learns of Justiciar Baeral’s plans with the Elder Council and the breakdown of the Paladin Order. Creivan manages to send word of his capture to Maevira, who travels across the Emerald Vale to rescue her twin brother and restore the Elder Council to power. Along the way, the tense bond between Maevira and Soluna is strengthened as they face the corrupted Paladin Order and the creatures of the Emerald Vale. The fate of the realm rests in the hands of Maevira and her company as they infiltrate the Onyx Fortress and face the oppressive force of fear in the ultimate fight for the magical freedoms of the people.

CHARACTERS

Maevira Saphine

Physical description: 27, Female, Identical Twin. Vellaidin (High Elf). Lapis skin, hazel eyes, waist-length straight white hair, loosely braided. She has a golden eye tattooed slightly above the middle of her eyebrows, as well as two thin, golden armbands on each arm. She is tall, around 5′10″ and full-bodied. Wears the traditional flowing, floor-length ivory mesh veil of the Priestesses. Tops it with a magic-binding golden circlet which resembles the sun. As well as a golden dress embroidered with a sacred prayer of the Dyad Goddesses in Vellaidian. The prayer is on the train of the dress which trails behind her. Likely barefoot and wearing golden ankle bracelets. Her hands and feet drip liquid gold constantly. The gold fades from the ground with the next step. When she casts and uses a lot of energy, golden tears shed from her eyes.

Personality: A highly devoted Priestess of the Dyad Goddesses. Nurturing and wise. Tends to the sacred tree of the Mirage Wilds which surround the Haderys Kingdom. Passionate about her spirituality and her family. Practices illusion magic and has an affinity for perspective manipulation. Highly resourceful. Can be a bit of a perfectionist and is known to be stubborn. Occasionally she is compulsive. Willing to fight for what she believes is right. Very close with Grand Elder Stravero and attempts to change his mind on the class system which prevents many people from having access to magic. Rough relationship with her sister, Soluna, but loves her passionately nonetheless. Incredibly close with her identical twin brother, Creivan. Together they raised Soluna, after their parents died in a shipwreck on the reefs of the Lucent Sea. 

Creivan Saphine

Physical description: 27, Male, Identical Twin. Vellaidin (High Elf). Lapis skin, short-cropped wavy white hair. Left eye is hazel, right eye is clouded because of an accident which left him blind in that eye. A scar cuts through his right eyebrow, upper lid, and resumes on his cheekbone. There is a tattoo of a serpent loosely draped on his collarbone. The tail on one side and trailing around the back of his neck with the head on the other collarbone. He is around 6′2″ and lanky, though stronger than he looks. Wears the steel gray robes of an Archmagister. The robes are embroidered with the motto of the Lunara Academy in Vellaidian. Always has his grimoire with him. He wears gloves to prevent others from seeing the transmutation marks on his hands which leave them textured with the last thing he transformed into. (Ex: If he morphed into a tree, his hands would look like his skin was made of bark)

Personality: A philosophical Archmagister at the Lunara Academy of the Arcane. Teaches and practices transmutation magic. Can morph into plants and animals, as well as morphing other objects/people into various things. Hosts a calming presence and is very centered. Cares deeply about the people of the kingdom and openly rebels against the class system. Can be a tad manipulative and obsessive. Very close with both of his sisters. Always trying to encourage Maevira and Soluna to get along.

Soluna Saphine

Physical description: 17, Female, Youngest Sibling. Vellaidin (High Elf). Stone Blue skin, Jade Green eyes. Her hair is ash silver and hip-length, shaved on the right side. The full moon is tattooed between her eyebrows and the phases of the moon are tattooed smaller on either side of it, waxing above the left brow and waning above the right. She is short, at just 5′2″. She is petite and wears a black, hooded cloak. An image of Falythriel the Blacktrill—the sacred tree of the Mirage Wilds—is embroidered in silver thread on the back of the cloak. Silver breastplate and dark gray, torn pants and black leather boots that go up to her knees. She carries an enchanted sword. The hilt is designed as a twisted tree trunk. Her shadow magic leaves her hands pitch black up just past her wrists and after she casts, they drip viscous, black fluid. When she walks, black smoke follows her trail. She is epileptic and can occasionally be triggered into seizures by her own magic.

Personality: A Paladin Trainee at the Tower of Elsdir. Though she is part of the Paladin Order, she does not always agree with their goals and opinions. Adventurous, bold, and spunky, she encourages her brother in his rebellion against the class system set up by the Paladins and the Elders. She can be highly impulsive and even reckless and has a temper. Her shadow magic makes her insecure as it is rarely practiced anymore and it is often equated with dark magic. Her magic is powerful, even for someone still learning. It can be unpredictable at times. She is an incredible fighter, using her size as an advantage. Her skill with a sword is known across the kingdom. She has a hard time being close with her sister. She would never tell Maevira this, but it is because Maevira reminds her so much of their mother. 

Grand Elder Stravero

Physical description: 82 but still kickin’, Male, Selanar (Wood Elf). Terracotta skin, gray and white hair in multiple thick braids pulled back into a ponytail. Cerulean eyes. One cream colored line tattooed coming out of each corner of his mouth, converging to parallel lines at the chin running down his throat and fading by the end of the neck. Stooped posture, uses a large staff to keep himself upright. Frail but still able to get around himself and is healthy. Can defend himself easily with his magic. Pierced ears. Wears a large green cloak with draping sleeves. The back of the cloak is embroidered in yellow with an outline of the Dyad Goddesses praying back-to-back. His hands flake off green leaves.

Personality: Leader of the Elder Council and oldest one of the 12 Elders. Wants to do right by the people but is very traditional and does not always agree with the desire to change the class system. Loves Maevira like a daughter and mentors her. Wields abjuration magic which allows him to form barriers, heal others and plants, and enchant items. He is disciplined, merciful, and optimistic. Occasionally, he is prone to hypocrisy and inflexibility. Very devout and a bit whimsical. Was a strong warrior in his past but is still one of the most powerful wielders of magic. 

Therris the Elemental

Physical description: Age is unknown, Male, Elemental (Ancient Elf). Sage skin, gray eyes. Medium-length, messy, curly black hair with a few locks always draped in front of his face. Charcoal smudged in a thick stripe going from ear-to-ear over his eyes and nose. Average height, stocky build. Scarification tattoos in his native tongue sprawled across his arms, chest, and back. Wears a dark brown hooded cloak. Ivy wraps around the hood and arms of the cloak. Black chest-plate and dark green pants with worn, brown boots. Wields a staff coated in vines. His hands and feet drip ash. Wears a golden circlet with a gilded beetle in the center of his forehead. 

Personality: Therris is one of the last Elementals left in the Emerald Vale. He was a high-ranking member of the Paladin Order before he was exiled to the Weythelin Mountains. He is focused and independent. An elemental is an extremely powerful being who is able to manipulate fire, water, and earth. Therris is a nature-lover, often seen in the Mirage Wilds gathering herbs and speaking with animals. No one has been able to get close to him since his husband was murdered. Very mysterious but has a wonderful heart. Uses a bow and quiver. 

Justiciar Baeral

Physical description: 50, Male, Selanar (Wood Elf). Sickly pale skin with rot set into it. The knuckles on his hands are becoming exposed and he has infected holes in his arms, neck, and face. Sunken eyes that are different colors, one is gold and the other is black. Literally stinks like death. His gums are blackening and his lower lip has a hole in it, revealing the rotten teeth barely staying in his mouth. His spine is deforming, revealing spike-like ridges that are beginning to jut out of his back. He only has four fingernails left, the others peeled off. Wears a full-body black set of armor to try and hide these new deformities which are a sign he is dabbling in dark magic. Wields a bone axe.

Personality: Leader of the Paladin Order. Hates the commoners enough to defile his body to do something about it. He is naturally inclined to wield conjuration magic but breaks the physical laws of magic to begin practicing necromancy which is what is destroying his body. He is callous and cruel with a volatile temper. His prejudice gets him into trouble with the Elders and the Lunara Academy quite often. He was not always this way, however. But after the death of his son, he morally shriveled up.  

[loopy777]

Potential outline/ideas/headcanons for an Avatar Ty Lee AU? (Also, for some crazy reason I like the idea that if Aang died in the Air Nomad Genocide, and we get a Water Avatar who lives to be in her thirties or forties, that the Earth Avatar is Long Feng, who makes no effort to go on the offensive against the Fire Nation, nor tries to learn the other elements, instead holing up in Ba Sing Se as the Fire Nation conquers the rest of the Earth Kingdom.)

(Wow, Avatar Long Feng? I can see him doing what you say, deciding to devote his power to protecting just Ba Sing Se, and I’m getting chills thinking about what he would do to make sure that no one knows that he’s the Avatar.)

Anyway, Avatar Ty Lee! Let’s make up something interesting…

Ty Lee has always paid attention to her dreams. The most frequent, one that has visited since before she can remember, has her standing in battle before a shadow shaped like a man, a wall of fire erasing the world around them. The sky above them bleeds as the shadow roars the sound of war…

Ten years before her legend begins, Ty Lee and her sisters were examined by the Fire Sages. It was entirely routine, something all children in the Homeland had to undergo by order of the Fire Lord, one part of an initiative to ensure the continuing health of the nobility. But Ty Lee was always been shy around authority, and something about the Fire Sages especially creeped her out. She persuaded her sister Ty Lin to substitute for her, a frequent trick the sisters used to play. Even Mommy didn’t notice Ty Lee slip out, and Ty Lin twice was poked and prodded and had a very flammable ball of tinder held under her nose. It became known that none of the seven sisters was a Firebender- or, of course, any other kind.

Nine years before her legend begins, she met Princess Azula and Mai. By this time, Ty Lee had gotten tired of how easily she was mistaken for one of her sisters, and the exclusive attention of the Princess seemed to be a gift from the spirits. Ty Lee was less sure of the quiet and gloomy Mai, but one time Mai protected Ty Lee from Ty Woo’s bullying so that was good. Ty Lee quickly learned, though, that she couldn’t fully trust her friends. Azula could be cruel, could be scary, and both Ty Lee and Mai would follow the princess’s commands if the alternative was worse. Plus, Mai blushed around Azula’s brother Prince Zuko, and for some reason that made Ty Lee’s stomach clench.

Four years before her legend begins, Ty Lee had become resigned to the fact that she would always be an outsider. She never quite felt like she could fit in, not even amongst her sisters. She felt like she was always holding a part of herself back, hiding something fragile out of an instinct for self-preservation. She dreamed, sometimes, of living amidst beautiful mountain-temples, but those dreams always ended in fire and pain and fear. So she tried to make the best of life, always chose to see the positive side of things, and took some solace in how Mai seemed to be just as much of an outsider but in completely different ways.

Four and a half years before her legend begins, Ty Lee decided one day to make a surprise visit to Mai. She skipped the front door and climbed in through Mai’s bedroom window, making use of the skills she was learning at the Academy’s Advanced Defense Classes. And so she saw Mai lounging on the bed, making a motion like throwing a knife except there was no knife in her hand. Nevertheless, the wooden target hanging on the far wall was sliced in half as though by a full-sized saber. Ty Lee’s gasp startled Mai, who ran over and dragged her in through the window and begged in a whisper to tell no one about this. It was only then, in a moment stinking of the fear of discovery, that Ty Lee realized Mai had been Airbending. Ty Lee still didn’t trust Mai completely, because Azula would always be in their lives and sometimes she blushed at Zuko. But having the power to destroy Mai by revealing such a dangerous secret was a kind of safety, one that made Ty Lee feel better (and feel a little bad for feeling better), and they grew closer as friends.

Three years before her legend begins, Zuko went away. Ty Lee never caught Mai crying, but no one caught Ty Lee crying either.

Two years before her legend begins, Ty Lee started making plans for running away. She was spending as much time away from home as possible; the mind games her sisters played were becoming intolerable. Their auras grew muddier day by day, and they were so good at tricking Ty Lee, at agreeing on things which weren’t true with such a sureness and solidarity that she sometimes wondered if she was going crazy. She told Azula, but the princess said that it was Ty Lee’s problem to solve and spent weeks teasing about it. Only Mai seemed sympathetic, but the advice to stab her sisters over it didn’t seem entirely practical. Besides, Mai’s aura was growing muddier, too.

One year before her legend begins, Ty Lee stowed away on a ship carrying a circus troupe to the colonies to find fame and fortune. This was not an accident, as odd as it sounded, because she knew that in the circus she could be herself. She could tumble, she could dance, she could be ignorant, and she could stand out as an individual and receive the acclaim of the audiences. There would be no sisters, no Princess. There wouldn’t be Mai, either, and Ty Lee was sad about that, but she told herself that it would be better if no one in the Capital knew Mai’s secret. Better for both of them. Probably.

50 weeks before her legend begins, Ty Lee was an official member of Shuzumu’s Traveling Circus and practicing her brand new routine. She was happy, cartwheeling across a rope stretched taught between two barrels just inches off the ground, happier than she had ever been before. Everyone here had such pink auras, and Ty Lee could do what she loved! The joy became so overwhelming that she turned her cartwheel into a dance, and she didn’t notice how the heat in her feet spread to light the rope on fire, nor how the motions of her arms summoned the winds to join her dance in a small tornado. She didn’t notice, that is, until the rope broke beneath her, and she opened her eyes to find all the other wind-whipped performers staring at her. She wondered if that was how she herself had looked when she found Mai, that time. The juggler called out that Ty Lee had been bending both Fire and Air. Ty Lee ran and didn’t look back once.

Six months before her legend begins, Ty Lee realized she hadn’t managed to stay in any town for more than a few days. Whenever she thought she might be safe, that this time she might be far enough away from the colonies, she’d start to feel itchy and the dreams would turn into nightmares. The man of shadows would loom over her, roaring like a storm, and the flames were so hot that she woke up screaming in a sweat. Even if the locals didn’t see her Bending, they’d soon talk of her as crazy, as spirit-touched, and it felt like being back with her sisters all over again. Ty Lee loved the places she got to visit, but she never stayed.

By the day her legend begins, Ty Lee is used to running, used to not having a home. She is more than eager to leave this Chin Village, where she thought she could maybe find something positive about her existence during their ‘Avatar Day’ festival. (She was very, very wrong about that.) She is passing next to a massive burning effigy of the Child Avatar, the flames consuming his grin and arrow tattoos, when she bumps into a soldier. But no, he’s not a regular soldier. He’s is far too short, and there’s gold trim on his armor. He scowls at her in the light of the flames with a hand-shaped scar twisting the skin over his eye.

She recognizes Prince Zuko and can’t help but blurt out, “What are you doing here?”

He blinks at her, recognizing her in turn, and says, “Me? What are you doing here?”

And so the Legend of Avatar Ty Lee begins.

[365daysofsasuhina]

[ 365 Days of SasuHina || Day Two Hundred Fifteen: Short ___ ] [ Uchiha Sasuke, Hyūga Hinata ] [ SasuHina ] [ Verse: A Light Amongst Shadows ] [ AO3 Link ]

For the longest time, she had no control over it. When she was young, much of her appearance was purely dictated by her father. For the few years, when her mother was given reign over her daughter’s outfits and hairstyles, Hinata was still too young to appreciate them anyway. But after Hanabi’s birth and Hanako’s death...everything concerning their mother was stripped away, too painful a reminder for Hiashi.

So, after a small time spent mourning and being too wrapped up in his own head, he ordered Hinata’s growing hair chopped to a hime cut. The same toned locks his wife had sported was just...too much to take whenever he looked at his eldest daughter. It was bad enough she had the same heart-shaped face and kind set to her eyes. So...the hair was the one thing he could control.

Short hair wasn’t too big a deal to Hinata at first. It made it all the quicker for her branch clan nanny to care for, it didn’t get in her face when running or training...it suited her just fine. So there was never any fuss whenever she was deemed ready for a new haircut. Instead, she wordlessly allowed it every time, seeing no reason to want otherwise.

Once she entered the Academy over a year after losing her mother, Hinata realized that many of the other girls had their hair longer than hers...even if not by much. At first...she was confused. Hiashi had told her that having long hair was a risk: an enemy could grab it, and hurt you! Why would anyone want to have their hair that length? And the older they got, the longer their hair grew, until those like Ino and Sakura had locks down to their back! And all the while, Hinata kept her hime cut, comforted knowing that it wouldn’t ever get in her way, or be a liability.

But then...she finally heard what all the fuss was about.

“Still growing your hair out, Forehead?” Ino asked as they met for the first day of their final year at the Academy. “Still think that just because Sasuke-kun likes long hair, he’ll notice you? He’ll be too distracted by the size of your brow to even see it!”

The rosette simply scowled. “As if Sasuke-kun could ever like someone with an attitude like yours! It stinks so bad, he’ll never get near enough to see all that hair you’ve been growing, Pig!”

“Why you -!”

From there, the conversation devolved into nothing but argument, and Hinata flinched away. Sasuke, of course, was the class heartthrob. Smart, handsome, and that silent, broody type. Apparently all of the girls found it interesting.

...and yet…

Hinata couldn’t understand it. They liked him for his quiet, cold nature...but didn’t they realize why he acted that way? He’d lost...everything. His family, his clan, his home...of course he was going to be hard to approach and distant! And they thought that was...cool, or something? How shallow…!

But at least now she knew why everyone was keeping their hair so long. All to impress a boy. Up until then, Hinata had given very little thought to her own appearance...at least, beyond keeping her outfits rather baggy. Her nanny had declared her an ‘early bloomer’...whatever that meant. But for propriety’s sake, she was encouraged to keep her wardrobe loose and covering. At that age, she really wasn’t sure why. But the notion of altering what one looked like for someone else was...strange. Hiashi had always been so strict about her appearance...was it really not normal?

The thought troubled her...but not enough, at that point, to try to change it.

Besides...she wasn’t one of the girls who chased after Sasuke. Not because she disliked him - she really didn’t have much of an opinion of him to begin with. But mostly...it was because she had her eyes on someone else. Someone who, unlike her, radiated confidence and energy. Uzumaki Naruto was a troublemaker, loudmouth, prank-pulling knucklehead. But Hinata couldn’t help but envy the way he seemed to carve his own path, not care what others thought, and simply did what he wanted to without doubt or hesitation.

So, while most of her class flocked after Sasuke...Hinata instead stared longingly after someone she knew would never notice her.

But after they graduated...things began to change for Hinata. Her team, though at first clumsy and uncoordinated, began to grow...and her along with them. She went from doubting her usefulness to her teammates to letting them bolster her, becoming determined to bloom into someone worthy of being noticed by her hero. For a few months, Hinata - slowly and surely - made progress in her goals.

...and then...Kurenai nominated them for the chūnin exams. The prospect had made her nervous, but her team was confident they would make it. And, until the third exam’s preliminaries, they did rather well for themselves.

But a roll of the dice pitted her against Neji: her branch clan cousin who hated her and her family for his father’s death, and his own sealed fate. Wanting still to progress, she refused to back down.

It almost killed her.

Then, while her heart was still recovering, Konoha was attacked by not just Oto, but Suna as well. Much of the village was left in ruins, many shinobi were killed...and the aftermath saw many of her classmates frustrated. Sasuke, many of his struggles unknown to her, fled the village. Naruto, after the failed retrieval, decided to leave with Jiraiya to train. Sakura and Ino took up apprenticeships under Tsunade.

...and Hinata realized something. She had to get stronger. Her weakness, up to that point, had cost her many things. But she had to do it on her terms. For herself. Not for Naruto, not for her father, not for anyone or anything but herself and her own determination.

So...she took up training under her cousin. And she began to let other things change. No longer did she cut her hair simply because it was expected of her. Instead, she retook the appearance that mirrored her mother so closely. It didn’t matter that Hiashi looked at her so painfully. She loved her mother, too. And she would honor her memory by relishing in how she inherited so many of her features.

By the time Naruto returned, it was nearly to her waist. Straight as an arrow, with a healthy shine. And with her taijutsu so improved, she no longer feared being taken by a grip to her locks.

An enemy would never get close enough to have the chance.

Even during the war, the lengths ran free and long. And after? Though part of her longed for a change...she refused to cut it again. Never would she go back to short hair. Even if it meant nothing to anyone else, having that heirloom of her mother brought her a kind of comfort.

And as the crossing paths of the Hyūga and Uchiha meant spending more and more time with Uchiha Sasuke, she realized...maybe his liking long hair wasn’t so bad.

Especially now, with the two of them having been going steady for several months. In the end, it wasn’t Ino’s beautiful tail of gold, or Sakura’s symbolic chopping of her hair during the exams that caught his eye. True, he saw the rest of her - the who, not the what - long before he paid her appearance any mind. But as it turns out...he really does like long hair.

...sort of.

He’s always finding excuses to run fingers through it, bury his nose in it, or even just idly play with the strands whenever they have quiet, still moments together.

“So...the Academy rumors were true?”

“Hm?”

“About you liking long hair.”

That earns a snort. “In all honesty? I didn’t have a preference. I have no idea where that came from.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“...huh…”

“But,” Sasuke then goes on, fingers threading through amethyst locks. “I do like yours.”

“...may I ask why?”

He goes quiet for a time. “...I think...it’s because it reminds me a bit of my mother’s.”

“...really…?”

“Yeah.”

After a pause, Hinata softens with a smile. “...that’s why I like it. It reminds me of my mother’s.”

“Guess we’ve got that in common. Just...please promise me you won’t ever cut it again.”

“What, you didn’t like my hime cut?”

“No, I just...like it better this way.”

“All right, all right...I promise. No more short hair.”

                                                          .oOo.

     I'm v tired so I'll be brief =w=      Just a lil drabble about Hinata's hair. While I adore her hime cut, I also like her with long hair...aaand I don't like her cut in next gen stuff. So my Hina keeps it long for Sasuke's sake x3      But uh...yeah! That's all for today~ Thanks for reading!