#the unending agony i went through when i realized i was going to have to learn how to draw a horse for this build KJLSFHKHSLFK | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

funkzpiel · 3 years

Text

Today on this episode of "I promise I didn't disappear off the face of the earth I've just been busy and totally lacking creative energy (or brain cells, for that matter) it's terrible, but hello, I did a thing" - I present this:

The Little Deaths of the Pining Flowers

For the Hades Big Bang, in collaboration with kowaiyoukai (their beautiful illustration featured here).

Fandom: Hades Game Pairing: Zagreus/Thanatos Featuring: Pining, Off-Brand Hanahaki Summary: “Does it ever get easier?” Thanatos finally asked one day.

“No,” Achilles said, the gentle hush of his words like the breath of the breeze through meadow reeds, “But it does get easier to hide.”

Death cannot die. No blade can pierce him, no hand strong enough to steal a final breath from the powerful column of his throat, no disease potent enough to mar his flesh. Death, like Time, was fathomless and unending. So long as there was Life, there was Time to observe it and Death to spirit it away.

And so long as there was love, there was pining – and all of its little maladies that follow. Death knew of them, these maladies, these “little deaths” that come before the final breath. Some fleeting, some spanning decades. The gods, in all their brilliance, creativity and cruelty, created love. Love, the painful precipice between life and death. Knit tightly between the two so that from the depths of it might bloom a beautiful, wretched thing: pining flowers . Life sprung from the ashes of despair, fertilized in love and hope unrequited. In doing so, pain became love and love became pain, death and life a reflection of one another more intimate than the eternal dance of the sun and moon itself.

Thanatos had watched these slow, curdling little deaths before. Had watched them ferment into heavy, cloying things that stole the breath from mortals’ chests. Flowers making beautiful wreaths of their lungs, thick with life borne from a love so fierce it could suffocate. Thanatos had watched men and women alike grow frail with it, their bodies made into gardens as they coughed fragile bulbs and blooms from their lips. Thorns were always the worst: roses and the like. Lips turned red, and yet these mortals who simply loved and feared too much could not find it in themselves to cure their aching chests. Could not simply let go of that impossible love – or confess it – to end that prickling, weed-like pain.

He had heard, once, that the gods could fester such illnesses; though flowers could not create homes of their flesh as they did in mortals. Rather they instead bloomed from the excess of the wealth of their power made unstable by their want. Made helpless to the source of their own gifts. But Thanatos had never seen such a thing. Thanatos had never understood. Not until Zagreus left without so much as a word of warning. All at once, it was like the Underworld had been snuffed of some great light. There was no sun beneath the surface of the earth, and yet the darkness and chill felt suddenly so much sharper, keener, without the warmth of Zagreus’ smile. Everything darker, every mercy suddenly harder to reach for, every hope dashed across the rocks like the surf wrecking a ship to ruins against the coast.

Zagreus was gone. His home, his family, his friends – Thanatos – none of it had been enough to keep him here. Thanatos had not been enough.

When the next death bell tolled, Thanatos did something he never did: he hesitated. Struck suddenly frozen by the realization. He had not been enough. Of course, he hadn’t. Zagreus was born of the Underworld, but he was also born of the surface – of life and blood and all things that breathed . Of course, death and darkness had not been enough.

Of course, Thanatos had not been enough.

He slipped from the Underworld to collect the soul the death bells tolled for and as he did, he felt something slip deep into his chest. Some foreign, alien thing; so unfamiliar as to be written away as imagination. Like a seed splitting the soil and roosting beneath.

*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*

Thanatos did not know what was worse - trying to cast Zagreus from his mind, or being constantly reminded of the man every time the death bells tolled for him. For every toll, whether Thanatos went to him or not, was another failed escape attempt and the beginning of yet another. He knew Zagrues must think his plight for the surface cursed - it was he after all who kept experiencing the relentless grip of the river Styx - but it was Thanatos who felt truly cursed. For every escape attempt was another reminder that Zagrues desperately wished to be free of them: his home, his family, Thanatos.

But the bells tolled and tolled, singing a symphony that drew Thanatos a little nearer and a little nearer each time. Like the moon, he found himself in Zagreus’ orbit - at first not at all, then from a distance, and finally passing him by, feeling the warmth of Zagreus’ being shining upon him, lighting him up. Even now, lighting him up.

He watched from the edge of the clearing as Zagreus dodged the molten depths of Asphodel, his weapon of choice - this time Varatha no doubt to spite his father - cleaving through the various shades hellbent on keeping him here per Hades’ bidding. The prince was tired. Not yet strong enough to survive his fight with Megara and continue on at full strength. But it would come, Thanatos suddenly realized with the same casual understanding of fact as one might recognize that the lava around them was hot .

But he would not survive this run much longer. And unassisted, he might not even survive this chamber. With a weight growing in his chest, Thanatos realized he might witness Zagreus’ fall for himself this time. Not second hand through rumor or one of his brother’s reports or the tolling of the bells, but first hand with his own eyes.

Thanatos couldn’t have said what made him step forward to help - not because he didn’t know, but because he couldn’t admit it. He blocked all thought out, pursuing just one goal: I can’t watch Zag die...

All he knew was that when the death bells tolled his reveal from the shadows of death into the realm of awareness in which all could now see him, the sound caught Zagreus’ attention and time stopped for just a moment - giving Thanatos the luxury and agony of seeing first the surprise on the prince’s face, then the relief that followed. Relief, as though Zagreus had been waiting at some fathomless horizon for centuries, simply hoping for Thanatos to rise above its edge and greet him.

“Zag,” he growled - voice rough around a strange feeling in his throat. He couldn’t find it in himself to dig for any other words. He barely pried the man’s name out as it was. It was easy to hide that fact between a cleaving swing of his scythe, cutting the battlefield down into a group of straggling shades that were much more manageable between the two of them.

“Than,” Zagreus wheezed, the name cut short beneath another shade’s attack.

Zagreus sounded bad. Even with Thanatos’ help, this particular escape might not last much longer, Thanatos mused. He could hear the man’s breath. A thready, wheezing thing that slowly but surely worsened. Loud, almost in Thanatos’ ears, in his very chest and he could not take it. Not here. Not from Zagreus, who would have been safe and whole if he had simply stayed home. He ground his teeth, cleaving shades with a growing eracticism unbefitting of the quick, efficient stroke of Death. Felt every swing release a little of that anger and confusion into the depths of Asphodel and the flesh of its shades.

His gaze tore to Zagreus as the last shade fell, the fire-tongued soles of his feet simmering against the punishing stone floor of Asphodel as he leaned against his spear like a crutch and caught his breath. Those feet duller than they should have been. In that moment, Thanatos felt an urge to follow Zagreus to the end. If he saw the surface, would it slake his thirst of the unknown enough to satisfy him? To draw him back? It was a weak thought, one that made Thanatos bristle madly at himself. It was becoming increasingly obvious it had been a mistake to draw this near to Zagreus. Death was obviously not as strong - or as unbiased - as he thought he was.

Zagreus had just managed to turn to Thanatos with a smile and a thank you when that expression fell - like sunlight disappearing beneath a cloud - for Thanatos was gone, a bell moaning in his absence, and in his place: a centaur heart.

“Oh Than…” Zagreus murmured softly, eyes locked upon the heart.

Alone, Zagreus hobbled his way to the heart, stopping short of grabbing it when he saw something strange on the ground beneath its floating weight. Here - in the fiery grip of Asphodel - a single petal simmered on the ground, curling fraily against the heated stone. The prince grabbed it with shaking fingers, thumb brushing over petal’s delicate length. Red as blood, thin and reaching. Soft as velvet and utterly lost here in this world of fire and death.

How in the world had anything grown here, Zagreus wondered, as he slipped it into his tunic above his heart, red like his eye and his feet and so much of his namesake. Flush against his skin, as though it had belonged there all along.

*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*

Persephone walked amidst her garden as she often did, greeting the great flush of her gift upon the soil with gentle hands and a smiling heart. At her touch the foliage seemed to bloom all the brighter. As she neared, it appeared to lean toward her like a flower reaching for the sun, following it’s daily axis.

Everything was much the same. The trees, the bushes, the crops, the flowers. Everything, she realized, but one. A new bloom, there much without her design or intention. Slender stalks rising up from the ivy and shade of a nearby willow, unfurling into magnificent red tongues and curling petals.

“My, my, what have we here?” She mused, tender and kind as she greeted this new bloom, just as she would have an old and familiar friend.

A spider lily, she realized with raised brows. Here, in her garden. Slim fingers stroked the nearby bloom - only a few and yet startling all the same. She had not planted these. Had it been her heart that drew these lovely blooms? Her unrequited regrets beneath the simmering hurt of her past? The red spider lily - the final goodbye. A blossom said to guide the dead. No, this wasn’t hers. It had been too long, the scar of that time too old, for it to have suddenly appeared by her doing.

Strange, to say hello to the final goodbye here amongst her carefully tended garden. She watched it shiver in the spring breeze, frail somehow in its little wind-drawn dance. With a frown, she felt something heavy stir within her heart. A longing and a worry.

Somewhere, she realized, someone was mourning. She watched a petal drift upon the wind and disappear. She wondered who the goodbye was for or if, like many things, it was even a goodbye at all…

*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*

The first full blossom that appeared grew in the hair of a young man’s corpse. It had not been there when he arrived. It had not been placed by the loving hands of family or kin. It had not been until he reached for their soul that it grew, crimson petals splaying out like a corona - thick and full. There, among death and the dying, Life grew as Life often did: against all odds, rebellious and unapologetic.

He wondered if this human had been watched or favored by some god or goddess. It was easy enough, back then, to think nothing of it.

Easy to miss that it had not grown until he had thought - quite by accident - how similar the man’s hair had been to the prince’s.

*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*

Death’s chamber - moreso a place of enforced rest rather than necessary rest - was a cool, dark place carved out of the fabric of reality. A place made for him by the Night herself, speckled with twinkling starlight and furnished with all the trappings of comfort any entity might desire. It was not, however, a place of light or Life. There was no facsimile of sun, no warmth. It was a reflection of his very identity, and therefore the opposite of Life; and yet when he opened his eyes after a short, restive doze, it was to petals on his pillow. Not just petals individually, but a blossom. Stalkless, and yet full and lush. Large enough to fill his palm with curling petals, reaching like red tongues from its core. Death blinked and rose upright, staring down at the bloom.

The same bloom that had wreathed that corpse.

What might have been the favor of a god upon that human felt decidedly less possible now. Had it been a trick from Hypnos? From some other shade or god or goddess? But from the bloom, he could sense himself . As though it were a part of him as much as his room was a reflection of himself.

Which just… couldn’t be.

Death could not make Life .

He brushed the flower away with a faint, confused frown, only to turn to rise from his chaise and find more blooms. One atop a nearby book. Another on the floor, in a blanket, on the rug, beside a goblet. Flowers. Life. All grown here in the dark grip of Death.

This, he finally accepted, was a problem.

*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*

It was definitely a problem.

Death did not know who’s idea of a sick joke this was, but he found the flowers blooming positively everywhere now - slight at first, but growing. It had begun as something almost ignorable. A blossom tucked in the crag of a stony wall. Red petals peeking out from the centerpiece of a table. Once, appearing what would have been a shade’s hair, were they alive.

But now they trailed him in obvious patches, suddenly crowning the heads of nearby shades and growing atop the slender rails of passing balconies. No one suspected him. It was a miracle, but it was hard to assume Death had any hand in Life. Yet still, the sudden growth of spider lilies among the courts of the dead was on everyone’s lips. Where were they coming from? Why had they appeared?

Was Persephone somehow responsible? How could she not be? Yet… she was not here.

It made the Lord of the Underworld more brittle and eruptious than before, a feat no one truly thought possible. It fostered an even greater divide between father and son as well, for the more the court wondered about how the flowers might be tied to Persephone, the more Zagreus asked after her. And the more he asked, the more the prince realized he needed to leave if he was ever to get answers.

The more he tried - and died - in the pursuit of being anywhere but among the dead, the more the flowers grew.

*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*

Even knowing that every attempt took Zagreus further from him, Thanatos found he could not stop thinking of it - the attempts, Zagreus’ failures, the repeated destruction of his- His prince. That was a safe term, yes. His prince.

He laid awake in his rooms, crimson flowers rising like the depths of the river taking Zagreus all too often, and found he could not spare his mind of thinking of him. Zagreus bleeding, pale flesh bruised like soft fruit, yet so determined to be gone.

Just because he was no longer part of the equation of his prince’s happiness, could he truly continue to just watch this happen? Or perhaps true devotion, true service, was assisting even when it reduced his existence in the man’s life to irrelevance.

He’d help, he decided, because Zagreus was his prince, and Death was nothing if not faithful and reliable. No sooner had he decided it, a blossom appeared over his heart. Large and heavy, every petal weighted like stone, driving the breath from his lungs.

Yet he didn’t have the heart to move it.

*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*

The prince of the Underworld was special in many ways, no one could argue that except, perhaps, his father. And one such way was that when the bell of death tolled for Zagreus, it was rarely with the intention of taking him away. Thanatos arrived, his motives hidden beneath a well placed challenge of who can kill more shades here in the depths of Asphodel?

A game, just a game. No one could get hurt, if it was just a game. And goodbye would not hurt so much, if it was on Thanatos’ terms… Or so he hoped.

Death’s blade swung, cleaving shades in two. Souls upon souls, ushered back into the depths by his hands, just to spare one man the journey home. It was illogical. It went against his lord’s wishes. And yet, Thanatos knew there was no other option, not for him.

He could not be an instrument in caging Zagreus if it meant having him near would only make him unhappy. He cleaved men from their families, wives from their children, mortals from dreams left unspent and unfulfilled. Here, he had a choice.

Now, he wanted to see someone grow.

“That was something, Than,” Zagreus said as the last shade fell, wiping his sweaty brow with the back of a one bloody hand - making the mess on his face worse. Yet it did nothing to diminish the sheer Life of his smile as he turned to him. That smile - so full and unapologetic - was like the sun turning its face upon Thanatos, reaching his skin in a way it never had topside. Warm, making his belly flutter. Foolish and childish, he scolded himself. Made worse when that smile suddenly faded before Thanatos could answer and Zagreus said with a soft, perplexed frown, “What’s that?”

He followed the gaze of his prince to the ground at his feet - or rather below his feet - and there mere inches beneath the floating drape of his toes, a bed of flowers began to bloom. Spears of grass rising and charring in tandem to the merciless heat of Asphodel, and yet the flowers heartily remained untouched among the thicket of rising and dying green. Bloody red flowers, reaching up - not to Thanatos , but to Zagreus - as though he were the sun.

Lost in his grasping for explanations he simply didn’t have, all Thanatos could do was quickly retreat a few floating steps when Zagreus suddenly started forward and, using his blade as to help himself down with a grown, knelt to observe them better. He had one thick, tanned finger delicately beneath one of the lilies reaching tongues as his brows raised and he mused, “I’ve seen these around my father’s court but I didn’t ever imagine I’d see them out here . What could they possibly be?”

But when he looked up, Thanatos was gone. Gone, leaving nothing but a sudden crown of blooms in Zagreus’ hair to remember him by. Gone, because that touch - so delicate and gentle beneath the petals’ reach - had felt as though Zagreus had touched him.

And it hurt down to Thanatos’ very bones, stealing the very breath from his lungs, to know it was a touch he’d never feel for himself. Not when Zagreus wanted nothing more than to leave.

*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*

It got worse. Much worse. He stopped visiting his brother after Hypnos once woke - bewildered - in practically a carpet of red blooms, right in plain sight of their lord. He made his reports as brief and efficient as possible after he once saw Zagreus dash by during one of them and the feeling that had arisen in his breast at the sight of him caused Cerberus - right at Hades’ side - to suddenly tilt each massive head as all three were suddenly crowned in thick, growing lilies. Hades had erupted, his gaze cast upon the shades, looking for a culprit. It was luck alone, or perhaps the heat of the god’s rage, that prevented those blooms from growing on him as well. But Achilles had seen.

With eyes so old, and so lonely, he had seen.

*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*

“If I may be so bold, Master Death, I am here if ever you need a sympathetic ear,” Achilles once said, somehow managing to sneak up on him at his balcony. By the skin of his teeth, Thanatos managed not to startle visibly. But he could not hide the spider lily that was in his hands, the very cause that had left him so lost in thought as he had braced himself over the balcony that hung above the river - waiting, though he refused to admit it, for Zagreus’ return.

“There is nothing to be sympathetic for,” Thanatos forced himself to say simply, turning back to the river.

“There is always something to be sympathetic for,” Achilles had said in that soft way he said most things - so soft in death for a man so coated in blood in life - and came beside Thanatos to deposit something on the rail before he left with a gentle, “The offer stands, when you’re ready.”

Thanatos waited until the warrior’s quiet footsteps receded before he looked. There, upon the glittering marble of the balcony, was a tiny flower. Purple and plain, easy to hide.

A forget-me-not.

“Does it ever get easier?” Thanatos finally asked one day.

“No,” Achilles said, the gentle hush of his words like the breath of the breeze through meadow reeds, “But it does get easier to hide.”

*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*

“Than, wait!”

The pleading urgency in those words were the only thing that stayed Thanatos’ retreat. More and more, Thanatos realized he could deny the prince nothing. His only hope was to remove himself before Zagreus could ask anything of him. Today, he failed.

He turned only so much as to peek at Zagreus from over one cloaked shoulder, waiting. It was much as he could offer without that telling pang marching through his heart and wreathing them all in flowers. But he was learning, at least, thanks to Achilles.

“Yes, Zag?”

“I… I know there’s a lot unsaid between us. A lot to make up for. I… I know,” Zagreus said, elegant, and yet stammering. Endearing in that earnest way of his, so much so that Thanatos could not prevent the single bloom of red that began to grow in a nearby crack in Elysium’s walls, hidden in plain sight by the moss and tiny fragile flowers already native to the place.

Zagreus’ words slipped to silence, broken only by the sound of glass settling gently atop a nearby grassy, broken pillar. Thanatos turned slowly to regard it. A bulbous bottle, bottom heavy and filled with glittering amber liquid: Nectar. His gaze turned from the bottle to Zagreus, a frown so easily slipping onto his face to hide behind as he said, “Really, Zagreus? Nectar? As though that suddenly fixes all that lies between us? This is, what… a parting gift? The goodbye you never bothered to give me?”

His scorn made Zagreus wilt - the soft sunshine of his demeanor fading as though behind thick clouds. In the craggy wall, the spider lily wilted somewhat, shivering delicately.

“No, of course not. I simply found this and thought of you. Think nothing of it,” Zagreus said, his tone carefully masked and distant now. Further from him, just as Thanatos had planned, and yet this climb to their eventual final goodbye felt hollow, forced. Forced, because Thanatos had forced it.

“I never do,” he said, the death bells tolling his retreat as the flowers he left behind - spotting the walls of that chamber Zagreus lingered in - mournfully wilted around him.

*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*

“You are hurting, my son.”

Nyx’s voice was always a balm to him. Gentle and cool, like twinkling starlight. Not too harsh, not too loud, as living things were. Cold and distant, like himself, because he had been carved from her.

“I am fine,” he longed to say - but when had he ever been able to lie to her. But he couldn’t admit it, either. He merely looked away, hiding his grief behind sideways looks and long lashes. She reached for him. Her hands chill and welcome against the stony arch of his jaw and cheeks. Nyx’s thumb ran a smooth line over his cheeks, her face still and poignant, but her eyes telling.

“Just because you are Death, does not mean you cannot host Life within your heart, dear one. None of us are spared from feeling. It is perhaps the strongest force on this world - the bit of Life that nothing can wring out.”

“I do not wish to feel it, when it changes nothing,” Thanatos croaked, furious as his lashes grew misty without his consent. He had accepted what was to come, damn it, so why did the grief still feel so smothering?

“Grief changes nothing,” Nyx nodded solemnly, “But… It lets us know that if something can be changed, it is worth trying to change it.”

Thanatos leaned his jaw into the cup of her hands with a conflicted little frown.

“And if that change is not good for everyone?”

Realization bloomed in Nyx’s face like the flowers he could not prevent from growing to crown her starry head.

“Ah,” she said softly. “I see… Sometimes love is letting go…”

He wilted in her hands. A final confirmation, until her fingers went to pinch his chin lovingly and draw his gaze up to hers. Her eyes long and fathomless like the night sky, twinkling and watching.

“But usually... love is asking first, before those pains that go unsaid smother you both.”

Her pale hands rose to pick a red-tongued blossom from the crown that had grown in her hair and placed it delicately in the bowl she made of his hands; as though it were a baby bird. It glittered with fresh dew, with the tears he couldn’t quite stop from falling. Not here, in the safety of his mother’s arms. His tears were always safe in the cloak of night.

“Spider Lilies… It is said they grow at the site of final goodbyes,” Nyx intoned gently, “Others say they help Death guide spirits that have just passed into new lives.”

“The death of the past,” Thanatos said, each word carefully clinical and cold, as though distance could blunt their meaning.

She curled her own hands beneath the bowl of his and said, “They are also a symbol of rebirth, my child. Or perhaps more importantly, they are an opportunity, as everything is.”

Thanatos frowned lightly, his gaze rising to meet hers once more.

“I don’t understand.”

Nyx smiled a soft, tiny smile - as bright as any moonlight - and leaned forward to kiss his forehead tenderly, lips brushing against his skin as she spoke onto him, “Life, and all its decisions, are merely a matter of perspective, my son. It is not too late to change yours.”

*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*

Before, it felt naive to hope. Hope was a foolish, mortal feeling; Thanatos knew better. Hope always faded in Death, so how could Death ever possibly foster it? And yet, his mother had never once lied to him. Beneath the light of her moon and her stars, all was made plain.

So when he tolled the bells to go to him, Thanatos allowed himself to look at Zagreus the way he had not allowed himself to before. With hope.

Zagreus had grown. As they faced off in the halls of Elysium in a quest to one up the other in battle, Thanatos found himself willingly distracted by the developed grace in Zagreus’ fighting. His posture had changed. He no longer zipped blindly across the field in a rage, trying to win by brute force. He was calm, calculated. He had changed.

Zagreus marked every trap in his mind. Every swing of his blade - new, now, one he had unlocked and partnered with - brought the shades of the underworld to heel. He marched them where he wanted them, whether that was to a swift death beneath his swing or onto a trap. He fought with a tactician’s coolness. He no longer wasted his energy. He no longer showed up to these battles covered in foreboding wounds.

He was growing. Getting closer to his goal. Which meant Thanatos, of course, was running out of time. And no one understood the gravity of the hourglass’ shifting sands quite like Death. Time, as always, was of the essence.

“Zagreus,” Thanatos said, hovering near the heart that he normally tended to simply leave behind as a parting gesture ever since Zagreus’ attempt to treat him to a gift. It was obvious the prince had not been expecting him to stay, reaching as he had been immediately for whatever god’s boon had been promised in this chamber. But the moment the prince heard his voice, the man had all but sprinted to him, and the eager warmth that had inspired in his chest caused a red blossom to bloom at Zagreus’ feet when finally he stopped before him.

“Than? I wasn’t expecting you to stay,” Zagreus said, all eagerness. Always eagerness to move on - to the world above, to a world beyond their fight.

“I wasn’t either,” Thanatos agreed, overwhelmed by the discomfort that immediately began to rise in him. He had known it would come. It had fueled many of this retreats. But nothing would ever change, if he continued to allow it to smother him. He just had hoped knowing that would make it easier , somehow. Yet he felt he could barely breathe, let alone cherrypick the words he wanted. Silence hung between them. Flowers pebbled the ground that separated them. But patiently, Zagreus simply waited. As though time were no burden to him. As though the hourglass of fate was not an enemy, but a friend.

“I know you intend to go to the world above,” Thanatos said, searching desperately for the words and finding every single one lacking. “I… I know you intend to stay there. You need answers, I know that… But before you do, I just wanted to say… She abandoned you, Zagreus. But we never have. We are your family, if you ask me. I won’t stop you from going, but… I just felt it needed to be said.”

“Than,” Zagreus started slowly, and Thanatos waited for the blow: you are not my family. You are not important. You are my past. This is not my home.

He had told himself to hear Zagreus out. He had told himself that this closure - however painful - would make everything easier. Clearer. Yet faced with this final stroke of fate, he found he couldn’t bear to hear it. Before Zagreus could collect his thoughts, Thanatos placed a crystal butterfly upon a broken stone pillar just as Zagreus had once done and said in a quick murmur, “Let it never be said that I don’t repay my debts,” before he left, like a coward.

Death, cowed by the thought of love spurned. Or perhaps, cowed by the thought of living. His offered keepsake framed in a lush bloom of red spider lilies, kept company by Zagreus’ soft, regretful sigh in Thanatos’ absence.

“Oh, Than…”

*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*

Zagreus made it topside. Thanatos could feel it in his bones, a soul that had forever been below the earth suddenly above - in his domain, among the fields of souls he was meant to reap. He felt him there, fragile after his fight with his father and yet soaring like an inferno with his victory.

Thanatos pulled down the bottle of Nectar he had kept for this moment. It had felt right to save it for this occasion, the gift a goodbye and yet also a salute to his prince’s victory. A victory he had helped the man achieve. He poured an ample glass, the liquid shimmering like a child of sunlight and starlight both, but as he rose the glass to toast Zagreus’ achievement, a soft and confused frown began to mar his lips.

Above, with every step and every second spent there, Thanatos felt that fire waning. The glass of nectar trembled lightly in his hand as his gaze became distant, his awareness fully above. Zagreus, stumbling through the world of Light and Life. Zagreus, reaching another soaring source of power - Persephone. Zagreus, waning. Zagreus, yearning, straining. Zagreus, breath stuttering.

Zagreus, dying.

The glass crashed to the ground without a hand to hold it, shattering, Nectar pooling.

*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*

Dead, as the boy had been dead. Thanatos did not wish to go to him. Did not wish to see him dead, here, among the place his prince had so dearly dreamed about. Did not wish to see him still and pale as only mortals deserved to be. Zagreus was a being of light and power and determination. He could not bear to see him beaten down to nothingness, just a husk of flesh and nothing more. Not here. Not in his mother’s garden, so close to the answers he had sought for so long…

But to love was to suffer.

He went to him. Kneeled beside the prince, allowing his own body to touch the earth, unheeding of how it killed the very grass he touched. His fingers went to cup Zagreus’ face. To prepare him for the journey home again, and as he did, the man’s body became haloed in deep, crimson flowers. Sprouting, uncontrolled and thick. Thanatos could not stop them, could not be bothered to stop them. It was effort enough to see him like this, let alone hide his own weakness.

He had forgotten there were still eyes there to witness it.

“Thanatos,” Persephone said, appearing from around the corner of the house with a death shawl for her son and coins for his eyes. She froze, her eyes not on him or her son, but on the flowers that surrounded them.

“Oh Thanatos ,” he whispered thickly, brows twisted. Looking upon them mournfully - she, the woman who had abandoned her son and then somehow enticed him away from his family below.

“Don’t worry, I won’t touch your garden,” Thanatos said stonily, thinking she feared the spreading of the dead grass from his knees.

“Thanatos, wait--”

But they were gone, he and Zagreus both, leaving nothing but a patch of dead grass and the outline of her son in bloody, crimson flowers. The blossoms trembling in tandem with the spatterings of red that had begun to grow uncontrollably throughout her garden.

“It was you,” she whispered to no one. “They’re yours.”

*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*

Once, of course, was not enough. There are still questions that need answering, and Zagreus has nothing but time to throw himself at the mercy of the gauntlet between the Underworld and the mortal realm above again and again and again. Every victory means only one thing: another tragic death so close to his goal above. And yet, Thanatos cannot help but assist him. Even if it means cradling that larger-than-life body suddenly made so small by death and escorting him back down below. Even if it means being the very vessel that takes his prince from his goal, he will help him get there once more, once more, once more.

The hourglass has been refilled, if only for a while more. If anyone can figure out a way to stay among the Living, it will be Zagreus. Zagreus, who did the unthinkable and escaped the underworld. Zagreus, who found the mother that had abandoned him. He’ll do it, Thanatos knows it just as keenly as he knows the last beat of a mortal’s fragile heart.

But he’ll gladly cherish every extra grain of sand in the hourglass he’s been given.

*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*

“I’ve missed this,” Zagreus says after one of their dual bloodbaths in the halls of Elysium. This level of the Underworld is his favorite one to go to Zagreus in. It means their momentary glimmer of peace after the fight is flush with soft grass and pleasing greens and all the Life that Zagreus deserves. And perhaps, when Zagreus is gone, Thanatos can enjoy a sip of the river to forget. He never will, he knows. It’s selfish, foolhardy and probably impossible for someone like him. But sometimes, he likes to entertain the idea that he could forget, and be free of the blossoms that constantly remind him of what he cannot have.

Thanatos turns to him, taking his time to take in the lines that make up the nostalgic expression of Zagreus’ face as he catches his breath there, sitting among the white flowers of Elysium’s fields. White and nearly like his own.

“Missed what? We do this all the time, how could you have missed this?” Thanatos asked.

“Not the fight. This . Us,” Zagreus said. “This just reminds me of how we were before I began my escapes.”

“Simpler times,” Thanatos frowned, unable to swallow the bitterness that suddenly rose in his throat. “But you chose to complicate them, Zagreus.”

He understood why, now; but that didn’t mean he didn’t resent it in his weakest moments. He waited for Zagreus to defend himself. For that bitterness to rise in Thanatos to ruin the moment, as it often did. He’d flee, and he’d waste his precious remaining grains of sand - he could see it all already, unfolding, until Zagreus brought a halt to his spiraling thoughts as only he could.

“I don’t know why this has turned into picking who I love, Than. Wanting to find my mother doesn’t mean I love anyone else any less. Everyone acts as if I’m choosing my mother over everything and everyone else. Even you.”

“Are you not?” Thanatos asked, dreading the answer.

Yet Zagreus simply looked at him, red flowers blooming in his hair, and said, “If you’re asking me who I’d choose between you or my mother, Than, my answer is this: I never intended to settle for one at all.”

Thanatos blew out a frustrated breath even as his heart soared in a way he hadn’t thought Death’s heart could, trembling like a rabbit against his ribs.

“That’s naive to say, don’t you think, Zag?”

“Says who?”

*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*

It’s all a matter of perspective, my child.

*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*

One day, Zagreus went topside. Thanatos prepared to go to him, to collect him, but the moment never came. Death felt the prince’s heart begin to flatter as mortal hearts did, and yet the final throbbing beat never came. In fact, it stabilized. It stabilized and grew nearer. Nearer and nearer still, adrift on the river with his brother. Not just his brother, but another too. Life was flowing down the river to the Underworld.

The Queen was returning.

Thanatos leaned bonelessly back into his lounge, feeling shaky with stunned, overwhelming relief as spider lilies rose around him like a cushion because Zagreus was coming home with Persephone.

Zagreus was coming home of his own free will.

*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*

Life in the Underworld improves. As though Persephone were a sun and the Underworld a withered garden without her, things steadily improved with her return. Cerberus pressed eagerly into the touch of her hand. The halls seemed brighter, warmer. Even Achilles seemed a little less sad, and Hades - oh Hades - it was as though he were steadily becoming a different man altogether. A softer man, gentled by her touch. His thorns shorn short, his rough and callous words turned to roses lush and hearty; though suddenly kind was a stretch to say, he was certainly safer to speak to now.

The court was alight with how Persephone’s presence was changing everything for the better. But all Thanatos could think was that none of this would have been possible if not for Zagreus, who had lassoed the sun herself and brought her back to them against all odds.

If Persephone was the sun, Zagreus was the lifeblood of this place.

*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*

The hourglass had been halted. There was no beginning, no end, and once again Death was no longer shackled by the wasteful ticking of time. But the flowers did not lessen, did not disappear. They trailed after him, and though he had gotten better at hiding it, he knew that Persephone knew. Flowers were her children, after all; how could she not know?

“You should talk to him, Thanatos. If nothing else, Zagreus has taught me this: what you assume will happen is never definite,” she said to him one day, cradling a wayward spider lily that had suspiciously grown in her garden - startlingly white. He wondered when that had started or why.

“Perhaps I will. Thank you, my lady,” Thanatos said gently.

She smiled at him, her thumbs so gentle with the bloom’s petals, making the little flower shiver happily, and said, “I hope you do.”

*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*

Thanatos had paced the length of his balcony many times now, each with a stumbling aborted attempt to head in the direction of Zagreus’ chambers. He tried to ignore the knowing weight of Achilles’ watchful gaze by the mirrors. Tried to ignore the thunderous fear of his heart or the way the lilies just kept blooming around him in fitful bursts.

Go to him , his heart said.

But what if you ruin everything , his mind howled, Now, when things are finally peaceful.

But is peace the same as happiness? His heart asked. Is that all you wanted? Could it be enough?

It certainly hurt less than being wrong, his mind said.

If that were true, then why are the flowers still blooming?

Little Deaths, the Pining Flowers. Could he truly be content, if they still found the soil of his heart so rich to bloom in?

*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*

“Take it from a fool who waited,” Achilles said as a tiny purple blossom grew in the tuck of his hair behind his ear, “Nothing risked, nothing earned.”

*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*

This time, when Thanatos went to Zagreus in the fields of Elysium, he cleaved the souls of the dead down in one impatient stroke - knowing that if he did not act fast, he would not act at all.

Zagreus let out a startled huff of a laugh, his hand son his hips as he turned to Thanatos with a confused, if amused, “Well that was hardly sporting, Than! Have you been going easy on me all this time?”

But that expression fell, muted and worried, when Zagreus finally caught sight of Thanatos’ face.

“Than?” He asked.

“Please, don’t--” Thanatos said, holding up a hand to halt the prince’s words, “Just… listen. I… I’ve been trying to figure out how to say this for some time, but the words elude me, even now.”

Zagreus brought his blade down into the grass and let it rest then, his full attention him upon Thanatos in a way so direct, so overwhelming, Thanatos felt that urge to run rise in him again.

It was the memory Achilles’ gaze - heavy and knowing - that held him fast. Sympathetic, envious and frustrated. Frustrated, because Zagreus was within reach, and Thanatos risked nothing.

He did not want to have eyes like Achilles had. He wanted to Live.

“I hate you, when you first left,” Thanatos blundered forward. “I thought you were done with me. That I wasn’t good enough. I didn’t blame you either. What could I offer you, that you couldn’t have up there? What’s Death to Life?”

“Than--”

“Please, Zag… Let me finish or I never will,” Thanatos whispered. “I hated you. Or I thought I did… but these… All of these?”

He held up a hand, a red lily immediately blooming at his call to hold between them.

“These are yours, Zagreus. All of them, every single one. Because I missed you. Because I could not stop thinking of you, worrying for you, wanting you.”

Zagreus stilled, and something akin to paleness stole over his tanned flesh. Thanatos knew, then, he’d never have him. How could Life love Death? But he continued onward, if for nothing but closure. If for nothing but to say he risked it all, he tried.

“It’s childish, foolish, reckless even - but I… I’m utterly helpless, Zagreus. You’ve made me, made Death , helpless in want for you. In loving you, I…” his breath left him in a soft, rattling wheeze as finally he admitted - with the certainty that the sword cleaves flesh - “I love you, and… I’m glad you came home.”

He waited for the blow. Waited for the moment that would wring that last breath of hope from his lungs, and he wondered if this is what mortals felt like, waiting for him. For Death.

But he waited, and waited, and it never came. Zagreus merely stood dumbfounded, something wet growing on his sooty bottom lashes, before finally he stepped forward and did what Thanatos had always been too afraid to do.

He kissed him.

Perspective, his mother had said. He had thought she meant decisions, but it was so much more than that. This moment was a perspective he thought he’d never have - could never fathom . Life, warm and bright against his lips. Flowing through him in a circle, like a cycle that never ended, life and death and life and death. He closed his eyes and Zagreus reached up to bring him down, closer to the ground - to him - and wound gentle fingers into silver hair.

Around them, flowers bloomed in the hall of Elysium - blood and bone, red and white, cascading in a sheet to cover the chamber around them. Pushing out and out and out until nothing was left but the Spider Lilies singing brilliantly in the breeze around them. Zagreus drew Thanatos down like an anchor, floating feet brushing finally against petal softness, but nothing wilted from his touch. It was as though those flowers had always been waiting for both of them, every petal glimmering and shining now that the cycle of Life and Death had finally been made whole.

“I love you,” Zagreus said between desperate presses of chaste lips, speaking against Thanatos’ surprised mouth as though the words might possess them both, “And I’m so grateful you waited for me.”

Without Life, Death does not exist. Without Death, Life is not Life at all. For one is needed for the other to exist. Otherwise, there is Nothing.

*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*:–☆–:*

Zagreus had hidden all of his blooms in his chamber, of all things, knowing that no one went there. Not even Dusa, who was not allowed to clean Hades’ “ungrateful mongrel of a son”’s room. So there, they had remained safely hidden. Bone white blooms, ivory tongues drooping in such familiar ways to the crimson petals that followed Thanatos everywhere.

“Why did you never say?” Thanatos asked one day, as they lay side by side in a carpet of their flowers, fingers entwined together, nearly nose to nose.

“I did not want to frighten you away,” Zagreus laughed.

“And how did you prevent them from growing on me? I can’t stop the blasted things from appearing everywhere?” Thanatos asked.

Zagreus laughed again and repeated, “Because I did not want to frighten you away.”

Thanatos turned to him, arm braced so he could hover over Zagreus face with a gentle smile.

“And now that I am still here?” He asked warmly.

Zagreus reached up to brush a lock of silvery hair behind Thanatos’ ear, held back with a white lily to keep it in place, and said, “I’m glad that I was wrong.”

Thanatos smiled as red lilies bloomed to frame his prince’s head in a crown. Thick and regal, as he deserved. His mark upon the man. His prince, his love. It stirred a primal satisfaction deep in his belly as he leaned down to kiss Zagreus and say, “I’m glad we both were wrong.”

So they were reborn, there in a bed of white and red spider lilies - flowers that had guided them to new Life.

#thanzag #hades big bang #zagthan #zagreus #thanatos #hades game #pining #hanahaki #my writing #long post

39 notes · View notes

fireladybuckley · 3 years

Text

Before the Demons Drag You Back

Fandom: 9-1-1 Pairing: Post-Ali, pre-Buddie, none Word count: 3,730 Warnings: Alcohol abuse / alcoholism / substance abuse

In the wake of the intense loneliness and distress Buck feels during the lawsuit, he turns to drinking to numb his mind in the unending, agonizing evenings alone. However, even once everything is resolved and he is back with the 118, Buck finds he can’t stop, spiraling deeper into a hazy pattern of denial and drinking that leads to a culmination involving the entire firefam.

Read it on Ao3

Buck wasn’t sure how it had come to this.

It had started during the lawsuit. Everything was so painful during those days, and he’d been so alone. Only Maddie was around to talk to, and Buck didn’t want to dump it all on her. He spent days on end alone in his apartment, unable to figure out what to do with himself. The minutes, hours, days dragged on, impossibly agonizing to bear. He couldn’t go to work, to the 118, pretty much his favourite place, his home. He couldn’t even call Eddie, his best friend in the world, the best friend who, at the time, was so pissed at him that Buck was sure that Eddie hated him.

So he’d turned to the only thing that made the bad feelings go away. Or as near to making them go away as possible; even numbness was preferable to those horrible emotions, the nights alone, lost in his misery. At first it was just a six-pack of beer in a night. That quickly turned into one and half, and then two six packs. Soon, beer wasn’t cutting it any longer and he changed to mixed drinks, rum and coke being his go-to.

He wasn’t sure when he switched from mixed drinks to drinking straight from the bottle; hell, he couldn’t even remember when the mixed drinks had stopped being mixed and become just rum. All he knew was that at night, when things became too painful to bear, the alcohol brought him a sense of numbness and detachment from his feelings, and he was extremely grateful to escape from them for a few hours, even if it meant a wicked headache or dry heaves the next day.

Presently, Buck was back with the 118. Things had been rocky at first, but eventually everyone had forgiven him. Even Eddie. And yet; Buck couldn’t help but feel like his luck would reverse once more. The weight of this anxiety pressed on him, combined with unpleasant memories and flashbacks, and more often than not, Buck returned to the bottle at night.

At first, it had just been after shifts or between days off, to make sure he wasn’t hungover for work. But eventually, the anxiety keeping him up at night, Buck started self medicating even on nights before shifts. He grew quieter at work, irritable, nursing a bottle of Tylenol and anti-nauseants on the really bad days. People noticed, but he played it off like he was just feeling under the weather, or that he’d been sleeping badly, which wasn’t actually far from the truth. He was pretty sure some of them didn’t buy it, but he maintained the lie obstinately, and most let him be. He started avoiding situations in which he was alone with Eddie or Hen, feeling like they were moments away from interrogating him but didn’t want to do it in front of the others. He avoided Bobby’s eyes as often as possible as well; considering his background, Bobby was sure to catch on sooner or later. Buck knew he needed to stop, that what he was doing was not the right way to deal with his anxiety and worries, but it was just so effective. And who was it hurting, really?

But then there came a day where it went too far. The night before a shift he’d had an argument with Maddie about something stupid and inconsequential, but it had riled him up. In an attempt to work off the feelings, Buck had gone for a jog, and somehow tweaked his previously-crushed leg in such a way that it sent pure agony through him, to the point where he’d had to stop and order an Uber to take him home. After limping inside and taking one of his old pain pills, Buck lay on the couch, miserable, in pain, plagued with flashbacks to his recovery after the accident. Without conscious thought, he reached for the mostly full bottle of whisky on the table and began to drink. Hours later, he was blissfully unaware as he passed out, still lying on the couch, his arm trailing off and reaching towards the nearly empty whiskey bottle that had fallen over and was dripping slowly onto the floor.

Buck was still completely unconscious the next morning when they found him. He hadn’t called in to work, and when he hadn’t shown up, they’d gotten worried. He didn’t hear the pounding on his door, the shouts for him to open up. He didn’t hear the key being inserted and turning as Eddie used his spare, didn’t hear them bustling in. He didn’t feel them shaking him, voices telling him to wake up. He didn’t feel them checking his pulse, pulling his eyelids back, checking to make sure he was alive. He had no clue that he’d been lifted and dragged to the bathroom, a dead weight in Eddie and Hen’s arms as they somehow wrestled him into the bathtub.

Buck was completely oblivious until a cold spray of water came down on his face, and even then it took many moments for him to properly react. Consciousness seemed to take a while to come, and he groaned, trying to flinch away from the water, but his position didn’t allow it. After a few moments he spluttered as the water came down even more onto his head, soaking his hair and plastering his clothes to his skin. Finally opening his eyes, he peered blearily up through the spray and felt his heart lurch as he realized he wasn’t alone. Eddie and Hen were staring down at him with what he could only imagine was deep disapproval, and he felt shame lick at him as he slowly realized what must have happened.

Once he was fully conscious, they helped him stand. As he stood, leaning heavily on the shower wall, Hen left the room to give him privacy and Eddie silently helped him out of his sopping clothes, then left him to shower. It took a long time; shame and a hell of a hangover made Buck’s movements slow, his head pounding, nausea rolling through him. His leg still ached, and he knew that he was going to get questioned the second he left the bathroom, which made him seriously consider just staying in there forever. He reluctantly finished showering and toweled off, seeing that someone had set some clothes for him on the toilet with his phone on top, the wet clothes Eddie had helped him out of draped over the towel rack, now dripping steadily on the floor.

After Buck managed to dress himself in the T-shirt and shorts that had been left for him, slipping his phone into his pocket, he clumsily threw the wet clothes over the shower curtain rod so they’d drip into the tub instead, then peered at himself in the mirror. He looked terrible; he was pale with dark circles under his eyes, and he looked absolutely exhausted. Buck ran a hand over his face and tried to think of a reason to delay the inevitable, but he came up blank. So, feeling like he was heading for his own funeral, Buck opened the door and moved slowly out of the bathroom, limping a little on his sore leg.

He had just been thinking that at least Bobby wasn’t there; as unpleasant as it was, he could deal with Hen and Eddie, but he didn’t think he could deal with Bobby’s disappointed expression. Unfortunately for him, as soon as he lifted his head to look into the kitchen, he saw that of course Bobby was there, standing at his counter. Chim was there too, the four of them standing around, waiting for him. Somehow the sight of them in full uniform was even more intimidating, and Buck swallowed hard. He felt his heart sink even more than it already had, and he dropped his gaze to the floor as he limped towards the kitchen island, feeling everyone’s eyes following him.

He pulled himself into a chair and looked down at his hands, worrying his fingers as he avoided all their gazes, his heart pounding. The bright sunlight streaming in through his wall of windows was sending sharp pains through his head but he tried to ignore it, tried to ignore the way his mouth and throat felt parched, the way he longed for a drink, at this point a drink of anything, just to wet his throat. As though answering this thought, someone slid a glass of water in front of him and he chanced a glance upwards to see Hen looking over at him. He quickly averted his gaze.

“Thanks,” Buck muttered, his voice thick and hoarse. He tried to clear his throat, but it wouldn’t clear. He lifted the glass with a shaking hand and took a sip; the cold water fell upon his parched mouth and throat like rain over the desert and he let out a shaky breath of relief.

“How long has this been going on?”

Bobby’s voice broke through the silence and Buck winced as his head throbbed from the sound. He couldn’t meet Bobby’s eyes. He didn’t want to admit that anything was going on at all, but he didn’t really have a choice. They’d all seen for themselves; hell, they’d had to wake him out of a drunken unconsciousness. There was no point in denying it.

“Since the lawsuit, I guess,” Buck mumbled, staring at his water glass. There was a pause, and Buck continued to look down, not wanting to see their disappointment, their disapproval.

“So at least six months?” Hen asked, and Buck nodded, watching the way the water in his glass crawled up the sides as he turned it in his hands, his gaze never rising.

“Why didn’t you tell us?”

Eddie, this time. Buck did not miss the undercurrent of “why didn’t you tell me?” in Eddie’s tone, but he couldn’t respond to it. Why hadn’t he told them? Because he hadn’t thought it was a problem at first. Because once he’d realized it was, he was too afraid, too ashamed to admit anything was happening. Because he’d thought he could handle it on his own, even when it had become clear that he couldn’t. Because he, most of all, didn’t want to admit it to Bobby, whom he and Hen had found in the exact same way a few years prior. Because he was sure that Bobby would be disgusted with him, frustrated that he hadn’t learned from Bobby’s own example. And he hadn’t told Eddie, his best friend, because Eddie had enough to worry about with Christopher and his other problems to have to concern himself with a drunken Buck.

Unable and unwilling to relate all of this, Buck shrugged, still staring down at his glass. Anxiety was gnawing at his heart along with the shame and his hands continually turned the water glass, a nervous motion he couldn’t stop. He felt trapped by their gazes, unable to move but unwilling to stay. He wished the floor would open up under him and swallow him whole, just so they couldn’t see him anymore.

“I’m sorry,” Buck said to his water glass, feeling like the weight of the world was pressing down on him. “I’ve been stupid. I’m sorry for worrying you all.”

“You’re not stupid, Buck,” said Hen, and while Buck appreciated the words, he wasn’t sure he believed them. He shrugged again, swallowing hard as tears threatened. Buck sensed Hen coming closer, turning his head away from her as she put a hand on his back. He automatically wanted to pull away from her touch, but something stopped him. He’d been hiding this for so long, so sure that everyone would reject him instantly if they’d known his secret, that the fact that Hen was offering him even this small gesture of comfort gave him a tiny flicker of hope that not all was lost.

“We’re not judging you, man,” Eddie said, as Buck continued to fight against his rising urge to cry, desperate to hide his feelings. “We’re just worried about you.”

“We knew something was up,” Chim added. “We can tell you haven’t been yourself lately. When you didn’t show up for work today…” He trailed off, and Buck understood. If they’d already suspected what had been going on, then they must have had some inkling at what they’d find.

“I’m sorry for worrying you,” Buck repeated, his voice more hoarse as he fought to control himself. “You all have more important things to worry about than my stupid choices.”

He chanced a glance at Chim, whom he had pegged as the least likely to pull an emotional reaction out of him; Chim’s expression was clearly one of worry, and Buck quickly looked away again, having misjudged his assessment, tears threatening even more. Did he even deserve their concern? This was his own fault, after all. He was the one who had started drinking, knowing full well it was not a problem-solver. But then he couldn’t seem to stop, even though he’d wanted to, even though he’d been internally yelling at himself for weeks, trying to figure out how to fix this.

“Buck, addiction is not a choice,” Bobby said gently, once again proving he knew exactly what Buck was thinking. But of course, it made sense that he would know. Buck felt a sudden, intense connection with Bobby, knowing that he must have felt exactly as Buck had at some point before. “We’re here because we care. And we are going to get you help.”

Finally, Buck couldn’t handle it anymore. He looked up, meeting Bobby’s gaze across the counter. He saw nothing but concern there, nothing but a man who clearly cared about him, who understood what he was going through. He glanced at Eddie, and then Hen; the same expression was mirrored on their faces. He understood then that they weren’t there to chastise him, but to help, to offer support. Overwhelmed, tears finally spilling over, Buck buried his face in his hands as he broke down, his shoulders shaking as he tried to hold back his sobs.

A moment later, he felt Hen’s arms wrap around him from one side, Eddie’s from the other. He heard footsteps and felt Chim join the hug from behind. Shakily, Buck clutched them back, holding onto Eddie and Hen’s arms, ducking his head as they pressed in on him. Though he was shaking, tears running down his face, Buck suddenly felt slightly lighter. He hadn’t realized how truly terrified he’d been of losing his family, but he knew now that he should have known better. They wouldn’t abandon him for this. They had never abandoned him before, even when he thought they had in the series of events that led to him filing the lawsuit. He’d been so afraid that things would fall apart again that he’d completely forgotten that he had people he could rely on, people who would have his back.

“Thanks guys,” he croaked after a long while, sniffing and taking shuddering breaths. They backed off enough to let him breathe, but Buck was happy when neither Hen nor Eddie withdrew entirely, each with one bracing hand on his back.

Buck wasn’t sure what to say to fill the silence that fell. He knew they were on his side, yes, but he was starting to feel embarrassed that they had found him passed out, that they’d had to revive him like that. He supposed that if Bobby could get over the embarrassment of it, he would too, but for the time being he felt extremely awkward. He swiped at his tears and took a sip of water to delay the moment he’d have to speak, though he was saved a moment later. Buck felt a sharp stab of pain in his temples as Eddie and Hen’s radios suddenly went off inches from his ears on either side, and he let out an involuntary gasp, flinching away from them. Feeling him react to the sudden sound, both Hen and Eddie stepped back, angling their radios away from him as he winced and put a hand to his forehead, trying to listen to the call coming in without overloading his hungover brain.

“We need to go,” Bobby said, as dispatch finished relaying their message. “Chim, Hen, go to the truck, we’ll be there in a minute.”

“Right, Cap,” Chim agreed, shooting Buck a sympathetic smile and moving over to the door, waiting for Hen. Hen squeezed Buck’s shoulder and gave it a wordless pat, then followed Chim out the door and down the hallway.

“Eddie’s going to grab the bottles you have left for now, okay?” Bobby asked Buck, who nodded, avoiding their eyes again as shame bubbled to the surface once more. Eddie, responding to Bobby’s words, moved over to the counter to pick up the one bottle of rum that was visible.

“There’s more in the bottom right cupboard,” Buck said dully, not watching, but listening as Eddie opened the door, hearing the clink of glass bottles as he gathered them.

“I’ll text you later, okay?” Eddie said bracingly, and Buck glanced up at him. Eddie was standing there, holding his last few bottles of rum and vodka, but all Buck could see on his face was worry and concern, no trace of teasing or mocking whatsoever. Buck nodded, attempted a smile, and then Eddie was gone as well.

“It’s going to be okay, Buck,” Bobby said, and Buck slipped off the chair to stand as Bobby moved to his side. “It’s not going to be fun, but I promise you can do it. If I can, you definitely can.”

“Thanks, Bobby,” Buck said, his eyes cast downwards. Bobby pulled him in for a brief hug, and Buck squeezed him tight, trying to put his gratitude into the embrace. “And I’m sorry, again. For missing work, too.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Bobby said, pulling away, his hand lingering on Buck’s shoulder for a moment. “We’ll get through this as a team.”

Buck, unable to speak, nodded once more. He seemed to be doing that a lot lately. Bobby squeezed his shoulder and turned to leave, but then paused and turned back, looking thoughtful.

“I have a meeting later this week, and it’s not far from here. Would you like to come with me?”

Buck swallowed hard and looked up at Bobby, looked up at the man he regarded as a father figure, one of the most important people in his life. He knew that none of this was going to be easy, but somehow, the thought of sharing it with Bobby made it seem a little more bearable.

“I’d like that,” Buck agreed, his voice shaking but genuine.

Bobby smiled, nodded, then turned and left the apartment, closing the door behind him. Buck limped over to his balcony and looked down, watching Bobby hurry from the building and jump into the truck. Whoever was driving hit the sirens and then they were away, leaving Buck alone with his overwhelming emotions once more.

Buck made his way back inside and looked around his empty apartment, feeling at a loss. He knew what he wanted to do, but thanks to Bobby and Eddie, there was no longer any alcohol in his apartment. He had mixed feelings about all of this, and he knew somewhere in the back of his mind that that was all part of the addiction.

Addiction.

He turned the word over in his mind as he forced himself to drink the rest of the water Hen had given him, then moved to the sink for a refill. It was funny how, in the weeks and months this had all been going on, he’d managed to avoid labelling his problem with that word. He’d acknowledged that he was drinking too much, that he was not helping his problems in a constructive way… but he had never called it an addiction, or alcoholism. He supposed it was an important step to acknowledge, however much he loathed to admit it, that he was an alcoholic. Just thinking the word was a shock to his system, his heart clenching, feeling like he’d been punched in the gut.

Buck sighed heavily and ran a hand through his damp curls, shivering as a droplet of water slipped down his neck. He was exhausted. He knew the best way to feel better was to sleep the hangover off, but he also knew he needed to replenish his fluids and have something to eat. He peered into his fridge and found a container of leftover lo mein, threw it into the microwave and drank the rest of the glass of water while the food heated. He poured himself another glass of water and sat down at the table with his food, slowly making his way through the container, even though all he wanted to do was pass out again.

Finally, after he’d finished his food and the third glass of water, Buck allowed himself to succumb to the fatigue. He limped to the bathroom and got himself another pain pill, as the throb in his leg was not relenting, then forced himself up the stairs so he could sleep in his bed. He didn’t want to face the couch yet, didn’t want to face the place where they’d found him.

Buck fell over into his bed, not bothering to change, and pulled the duvet over his head, sighing as he settled in. He felt emotionally spent and so full of confused, conflicting feelings that all he wanted was to sleep the day away. Just as he was drifting off, his phone chimed in his pocket, startling him - he’d forgotten it was there. He groped around under the blanket and found the phone, moving it towards his face and squinting into the bright light it gave off under the darkness of his covers, saw Eddie’s name above the text.

It’s gonna be okay. We won’t let you go through this alone.

Buck’s heart was heavy, but he smiled. Maybe things really would be okay, with Bobby, Eddie and the others at his side. Just maybe. Buck drifted off with the phone still clutched loosely in his hand, and his dreams, when he had them, all carried an undercurrent of hope within them, as though his conscience was telling him it was all going to be alright.

If you would like to be added to (or removed from) my tag list, please send me a message or an ask!

Tag list: @firemedicdiaz @diekatimitdemhutohnehut @inuhimesblog @that-firehouse @charnease @bicepsie @perfectlynervousbeard @evanbuckos

#911 #fanfic #9-1-1 fanfic #evan buckley #tw: alcholism #eddie diaz #hen wilson #bobby nash #chimney han #evan buckley fanfic #911 fanfic #911 on fox #9-1-1 on fox #angst #angst with a happy ending #supportive firefam #firefam #protective 118

41 notes · View notes

inviouswriting · 4 years

Text

Benvenuto all'inferno - Darkwardens AU

Going off of @maiden-born-in-snow ‘s oneshot she did where Thancred slays Shuri.

Some warnings - Death. There is death. Of a favorite, mentions of Divinity’s past, Kivera’s, and Shuri’s death following her oneshot she did. I know Thancred might be ooc. This is an AU. No smut in here.

But here we are.

Title is “Welcome to Hell.”

“We can’t feel mama anymore.” Divinity’s demeanor changes immensely, she knew it, she felt it. She is as linked to Shuri as Kivera was. All she could do was collect the children as they went to her to grieve. The moments that follow the death felt, were a calm before a storm. That storm that was about to hit, was Kivera. Divinity knows she felt her death, and from the eerie calmness she felt through her link. The only thing she could hope for, was a swift merciful death upon Shuri’s murderer.

However, she knows her leader won’t be that forgiving to grant such a thing.

Divinity felt two approach her, and she didn’t need to turn her head at the hoof falls of Chiron. Or the timid steps that belonged to Parn.

“We should take them into Paradise. They’ll be safer through the gates, they won’t have to feel or see a world burn from Purgatory.” Chiron says to Divinity who nods, she had forfeited her sight to resume her own role as a star spirit. She knew better, not with what she feels, that intense sadness that returned through the link she shares with Kivera. They had a bit of time before her heart is thrown into chaos.

Parn helps guide the group from the Sanctuary into Paradise. He was a small boy, well pass four hundred years but retained a small body per his death and role as Capricorn’s spirit. He had a deep connection to Kivera before she passed on her name to Kiya. He was the second being to show the reaper kindness following her death and guided her to Chiron after she stumbled onto the very shores of Purgatory.

Parn could tell Kivera is restraining her emotions, her domain linked with her power. She was holding off till Shuri’s children were secure and safe. The last thing the angel wanted was to scare them worse than losing their mother. She needed to be a face they could still trust after what she was about to do. What she will do.

Kivera in question had fallen to her knees just outside of the Malikah’s Well. She had just left to go in search of aether for Anubis, she had only hunted powerful A and S rank monsters that provided enough for her. Finding they sustained her in the same manner that Kivera sought another’s essence. To her it was no different than if she devoured a soul, it was nature to her. That is where she and the Scion’s differentiated on morals. They want to protect the all from an unseen danger they don’t know. She on the other hand was protecting that very soul from giving into that nature that separated Shuri from becoming a full monster.

Yet here Kivera is, doubled over on her hands and knees, her soul ached in the same fashion she felt when she had lost Damien. Only this time, she can’t bargain to reverse time for Shuri. And she knew the consequences for that action.

Yet she knew Shuri was not meant to die by this fate. Her fate was something else, yet someone deemed it fit to murder her.

Kivera searches the air itself for something, the last thoughts, moments from Shuri. What she senses ends off her tongue.

“Thancred..” Kivera recalls the last hour to herself, using her own abilities to be able to seek to understand what happened. Before she made her choice, before she committed to being The Scion’s end.

Instead she found the resolve to end them entirely. Devastate them enough to never step into her affairs ever again.

There was no justified reason to the death. Not one Kivera could find. The hand that pulled the trigger, was one of fear, the “what if.”

She waited.. just a little longer. She could sense those in her realm, her home, where she was getting ready to transport Shuri to, to keep her within Purgatory, to keep her safe, and able to see her children as a chance to stirr Shuri within. To break from Anubis, and maybe find a way to shake the unending darkness off her. The very light that she never wanted to see without parents. What any mother strives to protect is her children.

Kivera feels Divinity give her a ping, only to shut her out. The Libra spirit knew what she was about to do. She was in the state where she could destroy the realm. She didn’t want to let Shuri’s children feel her anger or dwell on the sorrow yet.

Once Kivera was certain that Shuri’s children, all souls and her zodiac spirits were out of her sanctuary. Was when she allowed herself to howl in pain. A scream that reaches the very ends of The First, a scream of pure anguish and agony as the sky falls to darkness itself.

Thancred took time to look over Shuri’s fallen form, still stained black, but after her death she had regained her former self. Pristine white, looking like she had never been touched from the start. Only lifeless and blood pooled underneath.

“I’m sorry Shuri, this was the only way. We had just saved this world, only to have another threaten it. Right when we’re about to go home. We could never leave if we knew there was another fight waiting.” Thancred tried reasoning more with himself, to make what he did sound right.

It was in this moment he heard the scream, he ducks down on himself as it shakes the well, shakes the entire domain itself.

“What... in the seven hells.” Thancred doesn’t finish that thought, instead he feels searing heat engulf him and throw him across the bottom of the well. He regains himself fast and pats out dark green flames that leech on him and he feels his very soul burning from their touch.

When he regained himself he saw Kivera standing over Shuri’s form. Her attention fully on her fallen lover. Thancred notes there is a calm about the reaper. One he had noticed before when he first approached Holminster where she had previously hid Shuri before relocating her to Malikah’s Well, further away from the possibility of encountering humans.

Kivera kneels down to check over Shuri, as if seeing if there was a glimmer of life left in her. She knew there wasn’t, her soul had returned to the aether, she felt the cord sever from herself, and everyone she was soulbonded to.

“If you are at Acheron, please wait there for me. I will collect you for Paradise myself.” Her voice solemn and full of emotion. She refused to allow her to be buried in a world where her body would rot. Kivera under a gesture she could do to preserve her. She lets the pricks of permafrost ebb off her hands and encases her body in an ice crystal. She further sends this to her Sanctuary. To tend to her and let her children and Estinien say a proper farewell for The Source, just to the vessel, her soul she would find.

Kivera stands, only then did she even acknowledge Thancred. A pair of bright red eyes, different than their cat-like appearance, the whites of her eyes had stained black and she seemed to stand there waiting for something. Kivera was far too calm for someone who lost someone dear to her. He does note that there is fire that seems to swirl around her. Her energy giving off her rage. She wanted nothing more than to destroy the star they were on. She didn’t but it didn’t mean she would let the man or his band of scion’s continue their paths.

Thancred finally finds his resolve, getting up to his feet using his gunblade to steady himself.

“It had to be done. She could not go on living like that. You saw her for yourself. She was too far gone, her very aether was corrupted.” He uprights himself just as Kivera turns enough, he had her attention. She wanted to hear his excuse. Try to reason with what she truly knows.

“I am listening. Let’s hear you make light of murder.” She leans back folding her arms, yet at her feet the ground is scorched being eaten away.

“That was not Shuri.. I felt it, that she did not want to continue like that. She accepted it.”

“Interesting coming from the likes of you. A soul who has cheated and is cheating death once again. You guys spent months and years in this world trying to figure out how to change a calamity. To try and find a way back to your bodies.. yet you couldn’t give Shuri more time. For fear? Fear of her undoing all of you and yours precious heroism.” Kivera reaches out into the air and grasps something. This something attached to Thancred, she twists what she sees and brings him to his knees.

“You know as much as I do. There was no reason to kill her. She was not hurting anyone, she had enough process in herself to not go into the towns and hunt townsfolk. She knew she couldn’t. Even when she had ran out on her own for aether. She attacked an S mark instead of people. Thancred. She was still there! Yet for your own reasons you decided to kill her. Tell me, was this the action of the scion’s as a whole? or yourself?” Kivera’s tugging on the cord in her hand, she sends a stream of fire through it and into his chest. Connecting her to him, with Thancred understanding her being more clearly.

Kivera peers into his soul and shows all his deeds before him. From the time when he was the cause of Minfilia’s parents, the time he had met Shuri for the first time, to her heartbreak realizing he was a player. The trickery he had shown, the time he was taken over by Lahabrea. Everything Kivera wanted to know she looked for it. It was like a picture book being flipped before her eyes. To the most recent of time where the truth of his kill on Shuri was out of fear, and on his own. Not the scion’s doing. They were not as stupid as he was. They knew the powerful being that Shuri had at her side.

They could sense her power, they would have kept her as an ally and let her take Shuri to her domain if it meant keeping all realms secure without a needless death. If anyone could have found a reason to reverse it would have been Kivera in her knowledge in her home world without the risk of Shuri being killed on her mind.

So here she was looking for any sort of justified reason that Thancred could have had. Yet she knew the truth of it. There was no reason other than the “what if” factor. What if she had lost her humanity, what if the public saw her, what if.

Those were the very factors that angered her more than Shuri’s death itself. Done on someone’s fears. She has seen deaths like that, the one that claimed Divinity’s life in the Salem trials. She had sat with Divinity on her stake pyre till she took her last breath and was the Libra spirit’s last sight before she asked to be allowed to see again.

“I’ll ask once more. Was this you, or your scion’s order. Your answer is highly important regarding their lives. I want to hear it straight from you so that I can present it to them after I’ve tossed them your head. If this was their order. I will hunt each and every single one of them down. There will not be a “scion’s” by the time I am done. That whatever little agenda you all have going, ends.” Kivera tugs the cord for an answer.

“Mine! It was only mine..” There was no use lying to her when she could see the answer for herself. He barely understood her being, and that was done on purpose.

“You had no right to claim her life. Your scion members would have said to focus on the empire, your next bigger threat than worrying over Shuri when she posed you no threat. She could have broke out at anytime and lain waste to so much here. Yet she didn’t. Nor do you care to know, all you wanted was to prove some self righteous reason that it had to be “you” to put her out of her misery.” Kivera shared the feeling Shuri had, her true desire was that of anyone who had gone months without seeing their loved ones. Loneliness, self fear of whether or not she would come out of it or lose herself further.

“She did not want to die, she had lamented to me. She wanted to go home, she wanted to see her children, Estinien, her family. I was trying to make that possible. I had made it clear to you what would happen if you came for her. That I would erase your entire existence. Now I rethink that. I think the world should know what sort of faith they’re putting into you and your kind. That you would hunt and kill someone innocent who never once stained their hands in blood except under your commands.” Thancred knew her right, hell she is death. Of course she was right. He knew she did not pose threat to them as of now, if there was something they could have sent the next warrior of light, but he had seen the aftermath of the former warriors sent. Each of them had been dropped at his feet by the angel that stands before him now. She had been generous to return each of his failures for him to bury. She did not kill all of them, some she returned broken or the ones she made see her reason left with scorning Thancred’s ideas.

Thancred is without words, and he found the ground at Kivera’s feet, where he could focus instead of her face. He couldn’t focus on her eyes, their inhuman appearance unnerved him. Yet it seemed she was waiting for him to look away from her.

The tension in the air shifts, and he sees her sweep a foot in a circle as if making a rune. When she places the sole of her foot on top of it the ground after that softens where he is, he felt himself sinking. He had seconds to react, the grace period was over. He forgot that she is an opportunist fighter. Him bowing her head away from her eyes enabled her to take an advantage. His unsteady on his feet was not what he needed to focus on. It was the blade swinging towards his neck.

Thancred had seconds to block it with his own, to be knocked back. Kivera is fast on her feet, he knows her to be fast. Estinien has shared stories of their sparring. She has only been beaten because she allowed him to win. Here he sees her round and aim again with the blunt end of her weapon towards his side. She connects with his arm and that was enough for her to engulf him in a burst of flames dark black and purple flames.

He felt his very soul on fire as they race through his being scorching almost as if taking root within his very core. He would question her about it, but not with those eyes calculating his next move if he would falter down or try to launch his own attack. This was going to be a fight he knew he couldn’t win. Unless she felt merciful.

The flames around him seemed to leech his very life, like she was removing something. He readies his blade to fire at her, it then clicks at what she was doing when the power to use it fades. The aether within the gun was stolen out. All that the gun had now were useless bullets. Not like using them would have had an effect on a spirit.

Kivera kicks a foot to the ground, the ground underneath him cracks and he recoils jumping away from her. Moving hurt, his soul was in pain from her flames. He wondered if this is what each warrior felt before they were killed. Like all the weight of what they were doing was forced on their shoulders and burned them within and out.

“This must be why you sent all those warriors to me. You are no fun if you are succumbing so soon just to my miasma and hell flame.” Hellfire. Thancred looks up.

His looking up was what she wanted, as he looks up she sends a fire bolt his way. He blocks it with his blade letting the embers scatter around him. Those embers engulf and spark off like hundreds of a little explosions. He begins to move running around to try and get an advantage or at least breathing room. Every part of him felt as if it was heavy. Like heavy had been casted on him.

Kivera was hot on his heels intending to not let him gain a chance, they both exchange blows of their weapons. Kivera seeming to dance around his attacks, on his attacks. He threw off the gunblade after it seemed useless for the rogue knives he kept in back, as a last resort. He could still fight this way.

He felt a wave of cold as she shifts her elements, at his feet he slips on ice she engulfs the floor with. He remembers Shiva to stay still, yet the jump attack Kivera does sends him sliding backwards to a wall. He regains himself enough only to have the crescent of the blade slam towards his head at his neck. She was aiming to kill him, the fastest was beheading. He ducks under the blade by sheer luck looking at how deep she embeds it within the wall. Had he still been there he doesn’t escape the blade without a deep graze on his forehead.

Kivera raises a foot back and kicks it towards him. He catches her foot with one of his daggers. There a burst of flames off her foot rains down on him. She pulls her scythe free, and turns it to slam it again, point towards the top of his head. Thancred rolls to the right to avoid it, feeling the ground cleave next to him where she strikes it. How her blade doesn’t even chip, he notes her shoes seem to be made with the same material as her scythe.

Thancred regains himself, and dashes away from her, she gives chase, this was a losing fight, he had to get away from her. Kivera sees him running through the long hallway that leads to the bottom of the Well. She summons a “door” in front of him, and he foolishly takes it thinking it was a way out. When he passes through it, he is dropped to the ground in front of her. She was waiting for him and hits him with the blunt end of her weapon knocking him through another door she summoned.

Thancred feels like he is falling, spinning even, this was her doing. The door she knocked him through wasn’t a door, it was a mirror for a different dimension. One she commands alot of respect in. The feeling of falling ends with another hit from the weapon she carries, and he lands across from her at a shore. The water was on fire, and he notes a deafening roar of screams.

Kivera lets him gather himself and his bearings to take in the burning land he was on. In here, the guise she used in his world ebbs off in ashes from her. She retains the dark complexion yet appears more at home, her wings black and white instead of just black. Almost a symbolism that there was still good in her. If she chose it. The scythe she has even takes on a different appearance. Like it has a life of its own. Antares, he remembered the name of it.

“I don’t think you would give me an answer of where we are, would you?” Thancred feels the air thick with ashes, he faintly is aware of a “rain” but did not want to know the source of it.

“I think you should guess that answer. You remember where I am from. To humor you, you are in Hell itself. I brought you here, body and soul. As for your essence in Eorzea or The First, among your friends, scions. They felt your death in the same manner we felt Shuri’s. They know you as dead.” Kivera rests her blade under her feet standing on it like she can’t touch the ground herself. Or refuses to touch the ground she herself had crawled on to get out of the plane of existence.

“But you didn’t kill me yet.” He sees her grin, and put a hand to her face. He noted how her eyes had returned green briefly. She peers at him through her fingers, her right eye red again while a grin spreads.

“You don’t even realize it yet. I don’t know whether to laugh, or leave you in suspense.” He stares at her confused, what didn’t he realize. What did he miss. What did she do that ended his life.

He thinks of all her attacks, he didn’t feel any of them that would have ended his life. Kivera keeps herself suspended waiting almost for his realization.

“Perhaps, I should show you.” She summons a mirror in front of him, and he looks on into it. It was when she had grabbed the very soul cord he had. When she was getting him to look at all the things he did, the things Shuri felt. There in her hand she had burned it off. The connection between his soul and body.

“Oh! It seems to click now doesn’t it? Yet I like to remind you. You are already a spirit! The reason you are even able to see me. Is because you have been on death’s door the whole time. I just took you as payment for the others.” Thancred looks on in realized horror, she had been kicking him around as a spirit this whole time, the reason his weapon didn’t fire, the way her flames were alot hotter when she used hellfire. She was burning his very spirit, marking him as a hellbound spirit.

“You should have left Anubis alone. I warned you. Did I not? Yet, you escaped back to The First, when you should have left these matters to me. Thought I wouldn’t notice a spirit walking through The First again? After Kiya had painstakingly helped bring you back to The Source. Risking her life. You owed alot to my successor too. Who do you think kept bargaining your lives?” Kivera looks at her nails in a manner of being bored.

“You may have doomed both stars! I thought you weren’t suppose to intervene in fate.” This earns a glare from her.

“You know, eventually you all will die some day. Every single act you do, just extends the time. What will happen with Zenos? That lunatic Fandaniel, parading around in Asahi’s body? It was suppose to have happened already. Your deaths. You were suppose to have died to Black Rose. Remember? Yet that idiot cat interfered with what was already in motion.” Kivera was getting bored of the monologuing, she finally sets her feet on the ground, here it didn’t matter if she used her full power. It would give the gods and goddesses of the lands some entertainment. The real Hades would already be looking, the one being she answers to next to Thanatos or her guarding deity in Pluto.

“You would have been content with the death of an entire star?” She looks at him as if it was the first time he has seen a reaper.

“Do you not get what I am? You recall Amaurot? I was there. Maybe you need an explanation of one of my titles. I am a doomsday reaper. What do you think that entails? I end worlds. The death and destruction of a star is a day job to me. All to increase the subjects Hades wants.” Kivera even shows her spot after Therion had descended as the third Doom. Her overlooking the star as it burned from the edge of the thermosphere.

Thancred takes a leap towards her, and she steps around him, he seems to slow in his fall, while she kicks him rounding it so the sole of her foot hit his abdomen. Sending him back across the field she had brought them to. Close to the burning river. He had almost fallen in, the heat on the shore enough to make anyone scramble away from it. Yet every surface was burning with the same dark purple flames that she had engulfed him in.

“I should leave you here. To wander lost, to wallow in your days, wondering what you had done, when you knew the catalyst that started this sentence in Hell. I had warned you from the very beginning. That if you sought to end Shuri’s life. I would plunge you into Tartarus myself. Next to that unforgiving time god himself. I’m making good on that promise. We’re only in Hell after all. Tartarus... is a bit further down!” Kivera finishes her words with using her scythe to hit Thancred across the field towards a pit. Where she had been aiming him to, he catches himself on the lip with her standing over him.

With her feet on the ground she uses one of her elemental abilities to soften the ground at his hands into sand, watching him slip into the pit further. She jumps in after him, and with his fall, she hits him again till he lands at another ledge. Thancred hits into something, and looks to it. He is met with a face, a giant, he alone was barely the size of his nose. Yet this being was of titanic porportions. An eye is open as it looks at him.

“Kivera, what is this?” The being speaks. Thancred sees her stroll up to this being as if this was normal for her.

“You should be glad. I brought you a friend. You two can be miserable together. Kronos.” Her tone is cheerful.

“What do you want.” He cuts to the chase, wanting to know the reason she is there. She only bothers him to bargain.

“Come now.. I come with innocent intentions. Besides... I know from the last time of bargaining a life. I won’t repeat that mistake. I genuinely brought you a friend for eternity.”

“I don’t want him. What use have I of him?” Kronos eyes him, and Thancred worries as Kivera talks of bargaining lives. To realize she was keeping her word, she would leave him here. With this titan.

“Where do you suggest then? I brought him all this way! Surely you can’t be mean in refusing my gift. I’ll tell Hades.” Kivera feels Thancred trying to inch away and swiftly pins him with her scythe embedded in the ground in front of him.

“Do not move.” Her only warning.

“Fine. I’ll keep him. Suspend him next to me then.” Kivera smiles and does as she is instructed. Placing Thancred in a orb to leave him with the time god. Leaving him at eye level to him.

“Kivera, why not just end me entirely?” Thancred wonders why she is leaving him like this. Kivera shows the reasoning behind her leaving Thancred to Kronos to the god. That he had broken a taboo, in taking a life he wasn’t suppose to claim. For she had claimed Shuri’s soul when she had soul-bonded with her.

The time god howls in laughter at this.

“You are asking her now? Why she is leaving you to an eternity with me? You pissed her off! This is light compared to what she usually does! What’s the matter? Not liking my company already? Well, we ought to get use to each other. She did gift you to me. You took the life of someone she loved. Be glad she didn’t retaliate in killing someone you treasured. She knows what each person despises deep in their souls. What is more boring than being left in a pit with an old god like me. She thought your punishment through. Thancred is it, an eternity is excruciating slow here.” A fate worse than death, is spending endless time in nothingness. Not dying, not withering away to rot. But spending a true eternity in idleness.

“Welcome to Tartarus.” Slow realization that the only face Thancred would be able to look at, is Kronos. Only him to talk to, and he is powerless here, except as the key component in all time in the universe. Thancred has nothing to offer the god, and Kronos wants nothing he could give him anyway. A perfect punishment for one who has cheated death, is a deathless death. The surface already knows his death, they would only grieve him.

Kivera returns to the surface, to inform the Scion’s of her doing. She looks at each of them with a warning of hers.

“Do not ever meddle in my affairs again. Or I will throw each and every single one of you where he is.” Kivera shows them all the needless death, how she was working on trying to save Shuri from her affliction. That she was about to move her to her realm. That was Kivera’s plan, Anubis would have endless aether in Purgatory. While Kivera could actively look for something without Thancred’s warriors hunting her down or killing her.

Kivera glares over towards G’raha Tia.

“It was you, that enabled him to cross worlds wasn’t it?” He shrinks back.

“He begged me to do it. To send him there.” He did not lie to her, he could not lie to someone who can see the truth. She would pull it out of him in the same manner she did Thancred.

“He’s an idiot. And you are one as well. All of you. Your deeds do nothing but annoy me. I wonder how you all will fall from here without him. I’ll be watching from the shadows.” Kivera leaves them not entertaining them longer with her own pain. She had a more important role to do, a soul that needed her was in Acheron.

She leaves The Source the same way she entered, through a mirror. A conduit between dimensions for her. After she passes through it, she shatters it. The group looks between each other, they truly wonder how to press forward without Thancred. Kivera showed them the truth of what he had done, they couldn’t be upset with her. They were upset that she didn’t seek them out. Yet they were enemies because of Thancred sending people out to eliminate Shuri as a threat.

His own undoing because he feared Shuri would have eventually harmed Ryne, or any of the people they fought so hard to save.

The shores of Acheron was always in a dense fog, Kivera looks among the many hooded figures. She focuses for a specific shine to a soul, one she knows, and the other ferrymen would know as one of her spirits she has marked. She finally sees her, and drops in front of her.

Shuri almost bumps into her, the face that greets Kivera is one she is glad to see. Herself, pristine white, a look of fear in her mismatched eyes. Kivera takes the ladle she was given full of water and pours it out before she can drink the water of Lethe. If she had let her, she would truly be lost to her. Kivera knows the expression, anyone would in the underworld. Confused of where to go, who to follow, no direction other than waiting for the Charon or herself.

“Let’s get you to Paradise. It’s where your family waits.” Kivera knows her soul is pure, she has seen it from the very start, she shined like Divinity, a reason the reaper was drawn to her. If there was ever a soul to take over as the spirit of Virgo, she would easily replace Beatrice with Shuri. She fell into the category of qualifying for one of the star spirits. Endless tragedy on a soul marked for destiny she didn’t want.

“I can’t wait to see them... it feels like ages since I have held them. Won’t they be confused? They felt me die..” Kivera presses her forehead to Shuri’s showing her bright gold eyes, relief flashing through her irises, brief in blue at the mention of her death, then softens down to a soft green.

“The older ones will be easier to explain than the younger. I think they’ll be more happy to see you, over wondering why they felt you gone. Estinien, I still have to track him down. I’ll let him know you are safe now in my domains.” Shuri is lead to a boat that Kivera has waiting for them to begin their travel.

“Why are they not in your sanctuary?” Shuri asks as she is seated, Kivera uses her scythe as an oar to guide them. The first time Shuri has seen her do this, she notices how her reaper looks alot different, she remembers this form from the first time she took her to her home. This was the full angel of death, the one face she keeps hidden from all that lives.

“Divinity and Parn took them to Paradise where it was safer, so they didn’t feel my anger and pain. So I didn’t scare them. Children should never witness someone in pain the way I was.. I didn’t want them to feel that hatred I had. Or feel off of it. They’re in safe hands. The very realm I safeguard is of peace.” Shuri is still confused, yet Kivera is sure of herself. She is relieved they’re safe, even for Kivera being safe. She knows she wouldn’t fall in a fight with Thancred, but if he had recruited a white mage or Ryne. It would have been different.

Shuri knows that she is not immortal. That scared her as much as her own death, that she could lose her permanently.

Once they had crossed from the main section of the Underworld into the burning Sanctuary, Shuri understands why she had them moved. Her rage would have burned them, her sanctuary is linked with her emotions and power. If she loses herself, her world burns like her heart does.

“All of the souls you housed here are in Paradise too?” She remembers all of the other child souls she lets roam her home.

“They are. I would never do anything that will scare them worse than when they died.” Kivera stops their travel to take care of her home. She quells her own anger and rage inside, while repairing the small place. Regeneration to the things that were within the domain, her books, scrolls, the ground, house, everything touched by her fire to restore.

Like a phoenix to renew from the ashes. as if it was never burning a few minutes ago.

Kivera looks back to Shuri, and helps her out of the boat, to guide her to the house in the center. Something she does with each soul she saves from the shores.

Kivera lets her have time to recollect herself, have real food she hasn’t eaten in what felt like years as Anubis. Bathe and heal her spirit from what she had endured. Let her cry it out over being killed. Kivera let’s Shuri rest on her lap hand guided through her hair to comfort her.

“You’ve done this for alot of souls.” The words come out idle, the meek voice hoarse a little from the screams and cries she had let out.

“Divinity. She died a similar way to you. Pursued, hunted down, killed for a “just” cause, because the people were afraid of her and her father Seth. Just because they feared the unknown. I don’t know if Divinity told you her story herself. I sat with her as she burned. She smiled the whole time, she resigned herself the same way you did to Thancred. Just.. accepted her death. I petted her head the same way here.” Kivera cards her fingers through her hair from forehead to a horn.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you... I’m sorry I failed your children... Estinien... Ardbert... I...” Kivera bows her head into the side of Shuri’s head and finally cries. Shuri feels her tears in her hair and on her face. Shuri places a hand to Kivera’s face and rubs gently.

“You protected me as much as you could. I am here now, you did so much to keep me safe. You protected our children, you protected me to the very end, stained your hands when you didn’t want to. You did everything you could.” Shuri turns her head to see the deep blue irises Kivera has, Kivera looking away in shame at her failure, till the auran girl grabs her by her hair and gives her a full kiss.

Kivera feels a hand at the back of her head threading through her hair the same way she had been doing to Shuri’s. Comforting as she holds her giving them the time they need to compose themselves before they go to Paradise. To have her see their children.

For now, Kivera wanted to keep her to herself, just be a little selfish. Shuri allows her to be. Kivera is thankful she did not have a repeat of Damien, her losing all of her memories, being forced to watch her from afar as a pact. Being the one that houses all of what they knew. To mourn a second time.

The reaper knows not to keep her from her children long, she knows more than anything how much she wants to see them. So after gathering her back into the boat they arrived in. She continues their path on towards Paradise.

Kivera ringing a bell to open its gate.

#and leaving it there~#because this is getting long!#kivera x shuri #some angst and fluff in there #I apologize on Thancred fans sincerely #Kivera Siverstein #shuri fontaye #thancred waters #tw death in here #darkwarden au

8 notes · View notes

thespiritofthoughts1234 · 3 years

Text

The warriors

Hi, my name is Isabela! I live in a small town called Ocna’s Village in Romania. Actually, I was born in Italy, but I’ve moved to Romania without knowing why, ok when I moved, I was a baby so is pretty logic to not know lots of things on that young age…Eh, doesn’t matter, cause now I don’t wanna tell you my story, but I really want to discuss about Dimension F35A.

F35A is a place where everything that appears to be unrealistic, impossible or even dumb on this planet it can happen there. Now you might ask yourselves: “How can a little girl know so much about an interdimensional world”, well I know because I WAS THERE. You know, a very long time ago it was known about a rock that once rubbed by someone, it could create a portal between dimensions. That rock was called then a “curly rock”, a natural object that can be modeled in any other form, in today’s world it can be recognized in bracelet form and you can purchase it at an affordable price… (I swear I don’t make advertisement) …not true, actually you get it from birth (not literally anyone can say that).

This dimension was perfect for my imagination, but it comes out that…I couldn’t get there till I turned 7…okay, technically, even at that age I still could NOT go in that universe, so I took my mom’s bracelet -I know that I’m not a good role-model, but I was DESPERATE, I asked her each year on my birthday (to be more convincing), and guess what she told me…I’ll make a scheme to show you my agony: -3years=No.

-4years=No!

-5years=NO!

-6years=NOO!

-7years=NOOO!

So, it turns out that I’ve woken up for 8 years (1 year was under warranty) at 6 am because I had a “noghtmare” (eh, eh, get it…anyway, I wanted to make a pun but I noticed that no one laughed…L-LET’S KEEP GOING).

Ok, so when I first got in, I saw… a party with ponies and rainbows, that is what you were thinking...well, YOU’RE WRONG, it was just an unending war with random characters, it means that Batman could fight Bambi or something like that. Anyway! I looked around, everything was a chaos, but I’ve noticed something weird, I realized that everyone in there was fighting for a purpose or covering themselves or conquering new territories, so I made up a purpose too…the most important one. The thing that actually matters is that someone must clean this mess, a person that must be good, brave, and WORTHY FOR SUPREME LOYALTY, a creature that will stop this disaster.

And that’s why I’m…going to find it, what did you think that I am the person, no, not even a word, I won’t get into those knuckleheads, they freak me out.

So, I transformed myself into a mouse and tried to reach the closest spot to hide (a rock…t-there will be many rocks in this story). And exactly when I thought that I’m safe, a giant robot crushed me (obviously I didn’t die because after you are crushed, sliced, shot, burnt, etc. you get back to your home dimension). But a second before game over I saw an iconic red color being, with deep black eyes that penetrate souls, three fox tails, two fox ears and one fox nose, who wore a leaf that covered all of its body, and who appeared to be a little bit confused by the chaos behind him, but in the end, he still crossed the road, very chill, to resolve his problems. I scanned it to have it like “skin” in the future (Minecraft users in the public, or Standoff or PUBG, whatever) but what future, because that stupid stack of iron CRUSHED ME:

--Hmm, what if I turn in that thing? I did it. Ew, this leaf doesn’t work on me… therefore, I changed. I was wearing a blue vest, white shirt, black jeans and brown boots…BOOM, it’s betTEEEER! I was screaming because a giant iron sole was going to crush me again (I would give a reply but I don’t have one…OH, WAIT, it looks like we can’t STEP inside without being CRUSHED by hospitality, HA HA, I’m a horrible pun maker…BACK TO THE STORY). However, I’m talking about one second before the impact, I ran but not like a penguin, I ran like FLASH:

--WHAT THE…WOW, I am running with the speed of light (clearing throat), doesn’t matter, now let’s find that person…I will look over mountains and valleys, lakes and oceans, and I will be recognized like “The random girl who brought the hero of this world” … after I will visit this place with the super-speed thing. Now I think I went through 3 kingdoms -I despite no one saw me- And then I arrived on a land with a dense fog, without…(cough)…clEAn AiR:

--NO…I need…(COUGH)…to continue mY qUeSt-not too far away from me stand a humanoid silhouette…at least that’s what I thought…however, I started to scream, powerless: PLEASE…(COUGH)…YOU, THE STRANGER IN THE HORIZON …I’M VERY YOUNG…EVEN IF I APPEAR TO BE IN MIDDLE AGE FROM THE DISTANCE AND UNCLEAN AIR! I fainted waking up in a cave:

--(Clearing throat again)…Uh, where am I? I said after being a little dizzy.

Suddenly a sound came out of nowhere, like a growl:

--W-what? Who’s there? I asked scared. An animal came out of shadow, actually it was the same animal that I saw a few moments ago: You again! What do you want for appearing in those mysterious ways? the animal growled harder showing its big fangs: Uuuh, what BIG fangs you got there, buddy, ha, ha! Wait do I have fangs too?! What’s your name? No, no, no, how do your friends call you? I have many questions about…you…I was slowly going back, because the animal was slowly coming to me. Unfortunately, I reached the end of the cave: Understand that I mean no harm, although we are in the same species, no…I scanned you, didn’t I…I scanned you…and I transformed into you, I hope you don’t want to…EAT ME?! I said with a worried expression.

After the last phrase the humano-animal -partial human, partial animal- for a second it stopped, and then it came rapid, got its huge bloody red color claws out -literally anything is red on you? – Well in that moment I nodded and I said:

--N-nice…c-claws. Did you do your manicure?... the best pun that I could tell to a creature with an unpredictable behavior, oh and more than that,

before I didn’t know if she/he was furious or happy, because I was seeing just his/her dark eyes -even the gender is unknown-, and after that innocent joke its eyes changed a lot, they were yellow with a keen red iris. “OH MY GOD I’M SO DEAD!” I said to myself…BUT yes, of course, I can’t die in this dimension, yeah thank you for reminding me, I don’t need to worry…just if I bump into a particularly type of being…a being that can destroy anyone and anything…

Is known about an ancient legend that reveals some sort of creatures, warriors, who disintegrate everything that stays in their way, although it doesn’t exist in their dimension, it’s speculated that those legendary creatures are the most dangerous beings in the multiverse…who told me? ... Mama told me!... Ok I don’t know how those legends look, but I hope that the respective humano-animal wasn’t a part of those fighters -WAIT A SECOND I HAVEN’T NAMED THE GUY YET, hmmm…let’s see…Neferis…no, to Grecian…Falohe, no, to Hawaiian, hmmm…Do…Ba…Aaaa I know, Zentofea, why this name? I DON’T KNOW!

Back to the story: That Zentofea -Oh gosh, I love this name- came closer to me being just as predictable as unpredictable like before, but the Zeantofea…Zen-a-to-fe-a?... seeming to be more furious. I said quickly:

--WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME! the Zento- Agh- that humano-animal, appeared to attack me, …but no, he/she? Destroyed the boulder behind me to make clear way to the outside world…really nice gesture from a wild animal…By the way, after that giant stone, there was a pasture full of cold crystal flowers - why didn’t they named them ice flowers-: WOW, I hope you wanted to do this for the first time, because you might just miss and… Ya’ know…

At first, the animal had a disapproving look, and then it smiled and leaved:

--Ok…anyway…I’M GOOD! Now I seriously need to find that person, the battlefield is getting dirty, and I don’t want to clean the mess…I made a few turns in the pasture…aaand then I got lost…Um…I think I should go in that way…or that way…or…that…way…uuuh, …HEEEELP! After the previous phrase a humano-animal came out of the forest near the pasture: DUDE, if I owe you, every time you appear, I’ll buy you a yacht. Then the animal came closer, showing itself not being a Zentofea, but a humano-animal with a body of a wolf, a more evolved wolf, with human head and some different sized crystals placed uniform on the fluffy chest -I should wear glasses.

It came and smelled me:

--Uuuh, are you some sort of dog? it has stopped from smelling for a second and showed his sharp fangs… sharper than Zentoffe-a’s ones -I’m still thinking how to pronounce it correctly-…anyway…of course I got scared: UUUH, GOOD BOY, GOOD BOY, SIT! He growled: WHAT, DID I OFFENDED YOU IN SOME WAY?!SAY! LOOK I DON’T KNOW WHO YOU ARE AND WHAT YOU ARE, BUT TO KNOW THAT TODAY IS MY FIRST DAY IN HERE, AND ALL THE ANIMALS ALREADY HATE ME!

--Get out of our territory, Zentofea!

--Ooooh, so it’s pronounced Zentofe-e-a, ok I noted AND HEY, HOW DO YOU KNOW ABOUT THAT NAME, and did you say “OUR territory”!? after that phrase, a bunch of more humano-animals came out of the forest. Ya’ know, don’t ya’ think you have to many friends? They were slowly approaching me, I know, you think that I could’ve escaped, but the answer is NO, I couldn’t escape because I was surrounded, and I also know I could have jumped, but those animals seemed to have springs instead of legs, really now, I think they evolved from kangaroos…Siberian kangaroos. Many of those animals had an white with a little of black fur, WE C-CONTINUE: So I was there surrounded by those oversized human-headed dumb dogs, I was helpless, TIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII- increase the suspense-IIIIIIIIIIIILLL … nothing happened, I’m kidding, I figure it out that:” BUT WAIT I HAVE SECRET WEAPONS TOO!”. I tried to annoy myself to get my claws out, first time it didn’t work, and then I thought about the most annoying thing for me, not even this worked because I love all the things unless the things that I hate, so I went to Karate, Judo, and putting my fingers in other one’s eyes:

--OUCH, WHY DID YOU DO THAT?!

--That’s how I know!

Even with my MASTER moves, I still couldn’t stop those hundreds of humano-wolves - hmm, surprising- until one bit my tail. In that moment I was angry- I took out the sharp fangs, yellow eyes with small pupil and iris, big claws, now I don’t boast myself, but I took down at least 20 wolves, ok I boast myself a little bit. Doesn’t matter because everything happened in my MIND, after that guy who I put my fingers in his eyes, another one threw a stump in my head.

I woke up tied up of a plank, carried by 4 human-wolves -I’ll name them later- to the chief of the tribe. They put me in a cage, still tied, with fire under the cage, very chill. The chief said:

--Oh, divine spirit of the frozen forest we give you this offering in exchange of a great dinner.

--An offering for a great dinner? Do you know that you can hunt? I mean you’re half wolves after all!

--GASP, who would’ve done such a shameful deed!? They looked offended.

--Says the guy who is making an offering to a horse!

--It’s a majestic wolf!

--Riiight, you really aren’t good at sculpture!

--Oh, yes, we are, everyone is criticizing us, and why aren’t you worried, you’ll be burnt, are you a player?

--OF COURSE, I AM -a brilliant idea just crossed my mind- n-not…of course I am NOT a player, because I’m a destroyer undercover!

A sound of surprise came from tribe:

--Wait a second why did you smell like a Zentofea?

--Well, it’s a special thing that none of you heard about, it’s called perfume!

--Oh!

--A-and if you don’t untie me, I’ll destroy you ALL!

--But if you’re a destroyer and you can destroy us, why didn’t you destroy the rope and the cage already?

--Uh- OH, yeah…uh, thanks…I forgot I can… DO… that -I was pretending to concentrate to destroy the cage, but as an amazing coincidence, a thing came out of nowhere and cut the iron box and saved me…still tied up…but free…i-in a way. Uuuuh, yeah, I telepathically sent a message to a recruit to save me, good job soldier! I caressed his head, good part he was fluffy, bad part he pulled out a laser gun from his pocket and pointed it to my forehead, he had 2 guns, the other one was pointed at the public -how dangerous can be a creature with 3 feet high:

--Run! Said The Short One, that’s how I call him, with a deep voice.

--I would’ve run already, if I haven’t my legs TIED UP!

--A Zentofea has stronger muscle power in lower limbs!

--…Yes…

--…That means that you can rip the string that ties your legs!

--Ooooh! I ripped the strings and I ran… after a few seconds I stopped and I returned to The Short One.

--WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU DOING, I TOLD YOU TO RUN!

--I won’t let you down!

--I’ve been here more than you so I learned a lot in my time!

--Ok, I trust you on this, but can I do somethin’?

--Yes, try to survive!

--…I hope I can do that!

Well, it appears that The Short One had a plan to escape from that situation, I don’t know how, but The Short One shot with the laser gun in a cold crystal (ice), bounced off another two cold crystals (two pieces of ice), and then to the base of a tree, that rip causing a chain reaction, putting down tree by tree, the last tree falling in front of the angry crowd:

--WOOOOW!

--COME ON, I CREATED A DIVERSION!

--But, wait, how did you know that tree was going to fall in front of them? I have said while I was running with The Short One.

--D-do you really want to know?

--Uh, yes?

--Really, no one has asked me about this for a decade!

--Uh, about what?

--Science stuff…oh my God…I’m…so…excited…(clears throat) ok I’ll tell you…GASP, first time I calculated the area between the laser gun and the target, and then I’ve calculated the variables- he continued talking until I realized that we both have stop from running.

--Uh, dude ya know…an entire squad of human-wolves with six packs is like…following us!

--…And then I measured…

--…Uh, maaan?

--…But the distance was equal with…

--I beg you to stop!

--…So, I created a way to…

--Sigh, who am I kidding? I took him by the arm and jumped in a tree.

--…Although if I would’ve taken the theory…

--CAN YOU KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT…please? I put my hand to his mouth and I pointed to the tribe that passed us.

--Oh, yeah, I-I’m sorry!

--Look, man, I understand your excitement, I think you’re a little lonely here by your independent character, but can ya wait until we get rid of this dorks?

--Yeah, I know, and by the way I’m a girl!

--You are a girl, but how do you have such a deep voice? SHE took her mask off!

--It’s a changing voice device, dear!

--Oh. My. Goodness. YOU ARE SO CUTE! I think she was the cutest specie of humano-animal that I’ve ever met in my life. I hugged her… SHE WAS FLUFFY!

--Look, that’s why I’m always wearing a mask…ok, this and other 3 reasons!

--Daaww, why, like someone would really attack you?

--Yes, many would attack me, players, qualified and unqualified hunters, maybe…MY OWN ENEMIES!?

--Aaww, but wait, you have enemies?

--Yes!

--Why?

--Because of my high intelligence!

--Really, well, that means that you have common enemies with many of your species.

--Meh, not really, I’m a very rare case, usually creatures in my species are…

--Let me guess, dumb, goofy, jerks, but with no reason?

--I wanted to say idiots, but your description is much more extensive.

--I know how it feels, I mean a lot of people from my species are like that!

--Zentofea?

--No, humans…but I have one question, how does everybody know about this name? I named that creature!

--Uh, no, it has been named like that since forever!

--How?...

--Look, stop asking useless questions and care about your purpose!

--My purpose…OH YEAH, MY PURPOSE, I FORGOT ABOUT IT!

--How can you forget your own objective?

--My PURPOSE…is that an ocean? I’d said while I was exiting the forest.

--Yes, the terrestrial space from this planet is predominant in isles and archipelagos!

--DAMN IT, how am I going to cross the ocean now?

--But why do you want to cross it? Do you need to cover a territory?

--No…

--Do you want to conquer a territory?

--…No…

--Then why do you want to cross the ocean?

--I want to change the world!

--Wait, you want to change the world…alone?

--Nope, that’s why I’m looking for a person to help me!

--Wow, really…wow, you’re the first person who said that! Hey, HEY, what are you doing? I took off my boots, I rolled up my jeans and I tried to run above the water, for 3 seconds I really have run above the water, and then I began to sink. I swam back to the beach.

--So, do you wanna tell me…where…the heck…were you thinking?

--I thought that I could run on water.

--Kiddo, if in your dimension exists some force who keep things together, however are you calling…

--Gravity…

--I knew about that name, I’m a genius, I just wanted to clarify that you know what I’m talking about…What I wanted to say, is that, the respective force exists in this universe too, but it acts with a different attraction.

--Aha, so what other idea do you have?

--Hmmm, first, you still didn’t answer the previous question!

--Well, I think the person might be after the ocean!

--Do you think that this motivation is certain, I mean isn’t assuming an attempt to know something that can be inexistent, do you really think, in this life anything can have a scope, don’t you think that life is an illusion meant to prepare us of everything what can be beyond the bars of reality?

I remained without words:

--I made this up 10 seconds ago, what’s so hard to understand?

--No, no…I-I understood!

--Then why are you doing this!

--Um, I don’t know…I think I just needed an adventure!

--Then why did you choose to change this world?

--I don’t kn-…YOU KNOW WHAT, leave me alone with those weird questions, you’ll provoke me an existential crisis!

--Ok!

--I just wanted to know How. Can. I. Cross. THE DAMN OCEAN?

--Stay chill kid, I’ve got this! She took out a thing from her pocket and she blew in it, then a 45 feet animal came out of water and it wasn’t a blue whale. A little help from a seahorse!

--You can’t put the words “seahorse” and “little” referring to that thing!

--Oh, yes, I can. Player, say hi to Rudolf!

--RUDOLF? WHAT ARE YOU…SANTA…THE BARBARIAN!?

--Not really. Rudolf, say hello to the player! He said hello…i-in his language.

--Yep, I’m clearly going to make a raAAF- the monster picked me and sank into the water!

--Bye, bye, bon voyage through the ocean!

The monster took me to a temple under the water. In temple:

--COUGH…when I said to cross the ocean I DIDN’T MEAN UNDER WATER! All the torches in the room blew up.

--Greetings, my dear child! Said an old lady when she appeared from nowhere in front of my face.

--HOLY SHAMALAMA…sigh…ma’am I think you have the wrong person!

--No, no, that’s how I tell to the visitors!

--Ooo, so, you have tourists…riiight!

--No, every new player comes to me for the closet! She showed me like a Chinese closet -I made a redundancy, everything is made in China.

--Closet, do you have problems with the furniture?

--No, they get in it!

--So…you kidnap kids... I’m calling the police!

--No, you didn’t understand, it will be worth, plus is no police station in the middle of the ocean!

--You’re the creepiest person I’ve ever met in my life!

--Many people say that! Now, come on, it doesn’t bite!

--At least I got rid of a fear! I got in the closet, immediately after I got in, I remained unconscious and I woke up in another world.

I’ve heard a girly voice:

--WARM WELCOME TO THE DIMENSION OF THOUGHTS! Said a grey colored skin girl with black clothes and amber colored eyes. And I’m the Spirit of Thoughts!

--AAAAA!

--Hmm, I thought that a Zentofea wouldn’t fear of literally everyone who says hello!

--How did you know about that…AND MORE IMPORTANT, HOW DOES EVERYBODY KNOWS ABOUT THAT NAME!?

--Well, first, I know what every player thinks, and second, I know about that name because I put it!

--But ho-

--How do I know that? Well, the answer is in the name, MY NAME, DUH!

--And how did I-

--And how did you name it? Ho ho, well, that’s simple kid, it’s because all of those subliminal messages that I left around the place!

--If-

--If I control the thoughts, why didn’t I end the war, yet? …It’s because that war shouldn’t end, it’ll declare the true leader of this world, like you said it must be a good, brave, and worthy person to clean this mess.

--An-

--And that means-

--Oh, will you please let me talk?

--Ok, go ahead!

--…And that means I’ll have to fight to make a little difference?

--Kid, I think that you will change the whole world, trust me, I don’t say this to any other player…but you have to fight for that, although it’s like the real life!

--Yeah…it is!

--…So, are you ready for your first match?

--Y-yes…yes, I do! Let the game begins.

#The Spirit Of Thoughts(me)#Isabela #F35A #The Short One #Rudolf #creepy lady #human-headed dumb dogs #Zentofea #my first post

1 note · View note

human-trash-fire · 5 years

Text

Shot Through The Heart CH6:

Alright beautiful humans this is the last set up before the smutfest coming up. I hope y’all enjoy! Thank you to everyone for reading/sharing/commenting I can’t tell you how much I love you <3 Shoutout to @nalgenewhore @highqueenofelfhame @starseternalnighttriumphant for always letting me throw ideas at them!

Two months passed slowly for everyone, all struggling in their own ways...

For Fenrys it was filled with excitement. Each day brought him closer to *finally* being able to touch the girl who had been his every thought. Their conversations were so easy it was as if he’d found his best friend in a woman he’d yet to meet officially. They Skyped when they could, Snapchatted daily, and shared nearly every part of themselves. It was wonderful, and yet…

For Rowan it was agony. He was, on the outside, the same as he’d always been. Indifferent, ruthless, focused; Inside he was burning. Every time he saw Aelin on their now regular group-Skype chats, when he saw a new picture of her effortless form on Instagram, when Fenrys went on and on about her… He felt like he couldn’t breath. He had no right to feel anything but happy for his friends, and yet…

For Aelin it was pure confusion. She loved her growing relationship with Fenrys, he was someone rare. A bright light in the darkness of her heart, a smile on a bad day, a joke at an inopportune moment, a shoulder to lean on. He had, by some miracle, become someone she could trust completely. He filled a hole in her heart that yearned for an easy friendship. Fenrys was undoubtedly the most simple part of her life, or he should have been. They flirted constantly, that was their way, and she knew he had gone into this arrangement harboring feelings. It was that knowledge that twisted in her gut in the early hours of the morning when she found herself staring at a picture of green eyes, imagining what it would be like to know the man behind him. She adored Fen, and yet…

HOMECOMING:

Aelin:

The ball wasn’t for another few days. The Cadre, Fen had informed her, had to debrief first (checking in equipment, finalizing reports, etc.) before they’d sign out for leave. Knowing their list of post-deployment requirements didn’t stop the girls from demanding to know when it was the boy’s plane landed. And so she found herself wearing a simple outfit, high-waisted skinny jeans, white KEDS, and a white crop top, standing alongside Lys and Elide in the airport. They held a giant sign, complete with glitter and lights, that read “We finally met, the wait’s been crazy, get your asses over here & hug us maybe?” It was so stupid they were still laughing, and yet it felt like the only way to welcome them home.

“Their plane just landed!” Aelin squealed while reading the arrivals board for the hundredth time. “How’s my hair?”

“Flawless,” Elide responded before adjusting her bra. “Do these look perky enough to you?”

“You could see them from space El,” Lys laughed and threw her a knowing look.

“It’s not too much is it? I want him thirsty. I brought a jacket if you think it’s too much?”

“Babe, he is going to fall to his knees and worship at your feet the moment he sees you, regardless of how much breast is showing,” Lysandra assured her.

“No jacket,” Aelin added.

A new wave of people were shuffling through through the entryway to baggage claim. A number of them began pulling out their phones upon seeing the 3 famous women and their adorably large sign. This whole endeavour, like much of their lives, was popular knowledge in Orynth and the crowd gathered to watch. Aelin was bouncing on her toes, eyes scanning for a glimpse of, THERE-

The crowd before them parted and 6 gloriously tall men in uniform, duffle bags slung over their shoulders, looked up at the same time the gathered crowd began to clap. Smiles danced across their tired faces, that was all it took. Aelin took off running, her long golden hair streaming behind her as she made a b-line for Fenrys. With a screech, she jumped onto him, legs locked behind his back and arms thrown over his shoulders. He had dropped his bag just in time to catch her lithe form, and he spun her around laughing. Aelin pulled back from his shoulder and smiled brightly, “Hey you.”

“Ace,” Fen shook his head. “This is- Gods, this is amazing!” Aelin threw her head back and laughed. As she righted herself her eyes drifted just over his shoulder and found Rowan’s, his jaw was clenched. For a moment she thought she saw a flash of something flit across his face before he wiped it clean with an easy smile. She slid out of Fenrys’ grasp. And looked over in time to see Elide walk right up to Lorcan and smile in an almost lethal way.

“Salveterre,” she purred.

“Lochan,” he grinned back, his eyes sliding to her chest and back up to her lips in a way that made Aelin wish she could have a shower.

A small and slightly awkward silence followed the exchange as the remaining members of the group seemed to realize they were still in the center of a crowd of onlookers. Aelin tossed her hair over her shoulder and turned from Fenrys.

“Let me grab your bags, we have our cars out front. I know you’ll have to go back to base soon but would you care to have a beer first?” She asked reaching for Fenrys’ duffle, which he promptly tore from her hands and swung over his shoulder.

“Boys?” he asked behind him, and was met with a chorus of “Gods yes”

They made their way towards the doors, the crowd parted with cameras flashing and the girls smiled demurely. The Cadre, unaccustomed to such publicity waved and smiled, though the Moonbeam twins and Vaughn seemed to be the most at ease. Aelin, her left arm linked with Fenrys, chanced a look over her shoulder and found Rowan already staring at her. She smiled and jerked her head, Rowan made his way to her other side. Her stomach dropped.

“ Welcome home Buzzard,” her voice coming out slightly breathless, her eyes were still lost in his. Rowan smirked, a slow and sensual thing, and leaned down towards her.

“ Thanks princess,” his voice was smooth like aged whiskey, and his breath was hot on the shell of her ear. Fire shot straight from her flushed cheeks to her core. She looked down at her feet before she turned back, only to realize he’d fallen back in line with the others behind her. Breathe. Fenrys was telling Lysandra a funny story involving a port-o-potty and a helicopter when she tuned back into the conversation. Aelin laughed, and led the boys to the cars, all the while she felt Rowan’s gaze searing through her back.

They helped the Cadre load their bags into the back of the SUV’s and found seats. Elide was driving Lorcan, Connall, Vaughn and Lysandra to the bar, the others found themselves with her. Fenrys in her passenger seat, and Gavriel behind him, which meant that Rowan with his unending gaze was directly behind her. Aelin took a steadying breath as she moved the car into reverse, using the camera in the dash to avoid her rearview mirror.

“Where too?” Fenrys asked when they’d finally pulled onto the main drive from the airport.

“Mistward okay with you? We haven’t eaten yet and I need fries,” Aelin laughed looking to Fenrys for approval.

“Gods yes, you know it’s our spot,” he winked.

She turned her eyes back to the road for a moment, then to her rearview mirror. Rowan was already staring. Shit. Eyes locked on her, his thumb tracing slow lines along his bottom lip, he quirked an eyebrow in question, and Aelin looked back to the road, heart racing.

Be. Fucking. Casual. Gods. she silently reprimanded herself, even though she thought she may be burning out of her own skin.

“Fen, find some music yeah?” she asked, reaching up to adjust her mirror as nonchalantly as possible. A chuckle rumbled just behind her head. Apparently not as casual as I thought.

Fuck.

I need a drink.

Fingers white-knuckling her steering wheel, Aelin drove on to Mistward…

************************************************************

THE BALL:

Rowan:

The military trains special forces in the art of withstanding torture. Rowan had been waterboarded, put in stress positions, kept awake for days at a time, and starved. He passed every test of will doled out by his trainers with top marks, never once did he break, remembering only to state his name, branch, and ID number like a mantra: 1SGT Rowan Whitethorn. Terrasen Army. ID #8675309.…. But this? This was something new.

They had all met at Fenry’s place to await the limo the women had sent to fetch them for the ball.In typically dramatic fashion, the girls informed them that they’d meet them there. Apparently they wished to “make an entrance.” When the limo rolled up the Cadre piled inside, a chorus of “fuck yes” coming as they saw bottles of expensive champagne waiting on ice inside the stretch SUV. Dressed to the nines in their uniforms (white pants with a green stripe down the leg, a black coat featuring their medals, white dress shirt and black bow-tie, a “Cadre Cord” of braided green rope adorning their right shoulders) the men turned up the 80’s rock and binged on champagne.

Rowan had 2 glasses before they even pulled up to the event center, he knew he was going to need it. The building was tall, glass covering the entire side the vehicle pulled up too. Inside they could see hundreds of their fellow men and women in uniform bustling with their dates through the reception line and standing at the windows to watch the scene before them. Because it was a fucking scene. 50 paparazzi, cameras flashing, greeted the Cadre as they made their way outside to await the girls. Rowan felt positively overwhelmed by the number of questions being thrown their way and found himself praying to the Gods that the women would show soon, I just need to get the fuck inside and get a drink, he thought. With a flurry of movement the cameras spun from the Cadre as a black stretch SUV the same as the one in which they arrived pulled up to the curb. Rowan could feel hundreds of eyes on them inside the building, the knowledge made him uncomfortable. His entire job was based on stealth.

His heart already beating out of his chest, Rowan fixed his eyes on the door the driver opened and as if in slow motion the girls made their way out. Lysandra was first, her stunning curves were painted in a deep green velvet. The sweat-heart neckline fitting perfectly around her breasts, a luscious diamond and emerald necklace at her neck. The color made her eyes so bright, Rown found himself nodding appreciatively.

“I’ve got this one, boys” Gavriel’s said as he adjusted his tie and made his way to link arms with Lysandra. She smiled, and thanked him as they stopped to pose with Connall and Vaughn for the photographers.

The next out of the limo was Elide. Swathed in a positively sinful black lace gown with a slit high on her thigh, she tossed her long dark hair over her shoulder and held out her hand. Rowan choked on a laugh as Lorcan nearly fell over himself trying to reach her, and as she wrapped her arm in his she winked, that blush Rowan had seen only once in his life making a second appearance. Oh, he is so fucked.

Rowan held his breath as a long tan leg emerged from the vehicle, Fenrys waiting at the ready. Rowan stood back, not allowing himself close, and doing his best to look nonchalant as Aelin stepped out. His stomach hit the floor nearly as fast as his jaw. She was a fucking vision, bathed in gold sequins. Her wavy golden hair falling loosely around her shoulder, dripping diamond earrings hanging from her ears. The camera flashes playing off the dress seemed to make her catch fire. Rowan didn’t think he could breathe. A red lipped smile stretched wide across her face as Fenrys hugged her. Rowan’s jaw clenched at the contact, that lucky fucking bastard.

The couple turned away from him to pose for the cameras, and that’s when Rowan died. Where’s the fucking rest of it? He thought. How the fuck am I going to do this. The gold clinging to her body like liquid metal stopped at her sides, coming to a point so low he could see the dimples above her perfectly shaped ass. Breathe. Rowan told himself as his eyes traveled the expanse of bronze skin. He wanted to taste her. He wanted suck bruises into the skin as he bent her over the table in the middle of the ba- Not. Your. Date. Think of anything else. Naked old ladies. Dead bodies. Water boarding. FUCK.

“Buzzard!” He was pulled from his thoughts by the voice that haunted his every waking moment. He lifted his gaze to find Aelin smirking, one eyebrow hitched in challenge. He’’d been caught staring at her ass. Fuck. “Get your ass over here.”

He slowly walked up to Aelin’s other-side, and did his best to calm his nerves as the cameras continued photographing the group. I forgot about the fucking cameras, he thought just as Aelin slid her arm slowly into the crook of his elbow. He felt his breath catch and his skin burn through the jacket he had on.

“And who’s this?” a voice yelled behind the wall of flash.

“Oh just some old man Fen here found in the desert. The stairs going into the event looked a little steep I didn’t want him to break a hip, so I figured I’d offer him my hand. It’s my patriotic duty.” Aelin laughed, Fenrys snorted, and Rowan sapped his head to look at her. She was already staring back at him, teeth biting her bottom lip, she winked. Menace…

The party eventually made their way inside, the women signing autographs and posing for pictures alongside other guests. They ate a lovely dinner at their table and listened to numerous speeches. They stood to toast the country, each other, their fucking ancestors, the sun, the Gods and like 12 other things, before finally the night began. Music picked up, lights dropped lower, and the Cadre found their way to the dance floor. Rowan sat at their table on the edge, whiskey in hand, content to sit until they made their way to the after party. Try as he might, he couldn’t help staring at Aelin as she moved her body against Fenrys. Rowan had never been so jealous in his entire life, Fen’s hands low on her hips as her ass was grinding into him. Lysandra and Elide performing nearly the same risque ritual with Gavriel and Lorcan, Rowan shook his head watching the men’s wet dreams come true. As one the three girls facing each other slid down to the floor, laughing as they slowly dragged their way back up their dates; hands on the men’s legs. Fucking tease…

As if she’d heard his thoughts Aelin’s eyes caught his own. He knew what she saw. His tie was loose around his neck, nearly full drink in hand and legs crossed. He looked like an asshole, watching his freinds have the night of their life. She smiled, a small thing just for him and extended her hand finger curling in a “come hither” motion. He shook his head. This was Fen’s date, and the way she was dancing wouldn’t help the growing itch he felt below the belt. 1SGT Rowan Whitethorn. Terrasen Army. ID #8675309. 1SGT Rowan Whitethorn. Terrasen Army. ID #8675309. 1st- fuck it.. he finished his drink in one gulp, fire burning his throat.

He stood up and stalked directly to the woman made of wildfire and clothed in gold. With Fenrys still at her back, he met his brother’s eyes. You good with this bro? He asked in that way men do, Fen mouthed back a “Fuck yeah.” Rowan nodded. The hand she had extended to call him to her grabbed the front of his shirt and tugged. He looked down at her grinding, her head leaned back against Fenrys’ shoulder, as her arms snaked around his neck. Fenrys moved his hands slowly up her sides and around her stomach making room for him to place his hands on her swaying hips.

The three of them were lost in their own world. Aelin writhing tightly between the two brothers, her eyes locked on his, tongue grazing her lip like a porn star. Keep it up princess, and I’ll take you on this fucking floor in front of the whole world. I don’t give a shit whose date you are. His lust addled brain was fighting for control. She was extraordinary. She was trouble..

...1SGT Rowan Whitethorn. Terrasen Army. ID #8675309…

Her nails digging into his neck and shoulders.

...1SGT Rowan Whitethorn. Terrasen Army. ID #8675309…

Biting her bottom lip.

...1SGT Rowan Whitethorn. Terrasen Army. ID #8675309…

Rubbing against his groin, in smooth practiced movements.

Rowan was in heaven.

Rowan was in hell.

Rowan Whitethorn, was fucked.

*******************************************************************

TAG LIST:

@http-itsrebecca

@highqueenofelfhame

@feyrethedarklady

@someonemagical

@thebitchupstairs

@over300books

@starseternalnighttriumphant

@musicmaam

@blueeyes425

@clockworkgraystairs

@nalgenewhore

@illyrianbeauty

@dazzlinghazee

@randomtogacotar22

@westofmoon

@forest-magic6

@nerdyclementine

@la7sorcellerie

@yikesitsmaddie

@tswaney17

@fourshizzle149

@sjmsstuff

@clarkesardothian

#stth au #rowaelin fic #rowaelin

114 notes · View notes

theaquarianphoenix · 4 years

Photo

THE DRIVING LESSON

It’s Saturday afternoon and we’re driving back home from Show Low in our powder blue Ford, Taurus. We went to Show Low to get groceries and things my dad needed for projects around the house. We stopped at a hardware shop so my dad could look at chainsaws. He talked to someone for 45 minutes while we stood around outside. My younger brother and I made dirt configurations with our scuffed tennis shoes and kicked some pebbles back and forth. It was mostly boring, and my dad didn’t buy a new chainsaw. I guess he’s going to try to fix the one has, even though it’s hard to start and he gets mad at it almost every time he uses it.

On the 50-minute drive home, my brother, 13, is in the front passenger seat. My dad is driving. My mom is sitting in the back with my sister and me. I’m not sure why she’s not in front with my dad. There is conversation between my dad and brother, but I am not paying attention. I stare out the window and watch the landscape turn from piney evergreens to high desert laden with shaggy bark cedars, sage bushes, and pinyon trees. I watch the clouds make formations across the sky above the scenery. I am enthralled by their unending ability to shape shift, one minute a fiery dragon, the next a wild horse tossing her mane.

Ricky Van Shelton is playing in the tape player. He’s singing “From a Jack to a King.” My dad likes Ricky Van Shelton, so that’s who we are listening to.

I feel the car slow down and am shaken from the daze of my window-gazing world. I watch my dad pull over to the side of the road. We’re just outside the small town of Concho. I ask my mom why we are stopping but she’s not looking at me or answering my question. My dad and brother get out of the car and swap seats. My mind makes a hurried, dreadful click. A realization. My dad has told my brother to drive. NO! I plead to myself inside of my head, “Please, No!”

The second my little brother slides in the driver’s seat my whole body tightens and clenches and bears down. My heart ricochets in my chest like a rogue bullet, painfully piercing the sides. I put my hand there to quiet its noise.

I already know what is going to happen.

Because it’s what always happens whenever you do anything alongside my dad. There is never teaching. There is no space for patience or learning. You must know. You must possess the knowledge of the exact contents of how things should be done according to my father’s rules and expectations. You are not allowed to make mistakes. You must be an expert, even if you’ve never done the thing you’re being asked to do before. You must do is RIGHT.

And failing to do things right means consequences. Ugly, ugly consequences.

I watch my brother put the shifter in drive. He looks so small in the big seat behind the steering wheel. His white, blonde hair barely levels over the top of the dashboard. Aside from a few streets in our quiet, small town, I’m sure he’s never driven a car. Instinctively, I feel the need to get low. To make myself unseen and sink into the Earth. I wish I could dig a hole and crawl down inside. Like a snake, I slide away from the window and press my head in my mother’s lap. I feel her body as stiff and tense as mine. She knows. And she’s bracing herself, too.

We aren’t more than a mile under way and my dad is already raising his voice, yelling at my brother not to drive too close to the center line. Angrily, he grabs the steering wheel and jerks the car toward the side of the road. I feel the jerk like a stab to my neck. A kind of invisible blood flows out. It starts pooling on the floor. My skin becomes pricked with stress and fear. Each hair raised at attention. A thousand tiny antennae. They absorb the vibration from my brother. The antennae on his own body reaching out along the current, communicating his terror, his pain, and the whirlwind of emotion he must navigate to survive what is happening.

I lift my head slightly from my mother’s lap and look out the window. I see a cloud shaped like an elephant. I imagine a circus.

“Ladies and Gentlemen! Do you see that boy up there?? Look up! Way up! He will now perform a high-wire, tightrope act! To keep from falling to his death on the paved highway racing by below, he must do the impossible! He must balance his inexperience and the unimaginable pressure of trying to do things perfectly right, with a thousand tons of the unrelenting and brute dominion of his father!”

It continues this way the entire 15 miles to our house. My father yelling and jerking the wheel. I want it to stop. My mind falls in on itself over and over, pleading for it to end. But I can’t stop it. No one can. Not even my mother. Because we understand that, to protest, to intervene, to plead for mercy, is to poke the teeming, angry nest of a thousand swarming bees.

So, I try to stay still. Because stillness is the only way through. To keep the bees from stinging en masse. I peek up at my mother, her face so tight. I know this look. A mix of agony and helplessness. So filled with torture.

The invisible blood is still flowing.

In my stillness, I tune in to everything around me. My antennae at high vigilance and hyper aware. Each car that goes by whirs past like a buzz. I feel them almost cartoonish in their passing. Like the pages in a comic book. BUZZZZZZ!!! ZOOM!!! MEEEEEEEP! Our car almost spinning.

Then a flash!

I’m instantly brought back to reality by my father’s voice. The pounding hammer of his yelling. “Stay in the goddamned lines!” “Get the hell away from the center line!” “I thought you were more advanced than this!” “You’re not goddamned listening!” Jerks to the steering wheel. Again, and again. At one point, the jerk is so hard the car wheels screech. Each mile makes his shouting more intense. More sinister. More filled with rage.

And then I hear it.

SLAP.

A hard smack to the back of my brother’s head.

Have you ever seen my father? He’s big and strong and built like an ox. Sometimes I think he’s so strong he could lift our car over his head.

His slap rattles your bones.

For my brother, that slap meant, “Do it right, goddamn it! Do it right or I’ll hit you harder next time!”

When we pull up to our front yard, I feel a release from the anguish of being in the car. From the inescapable enclosure of that horror. But the brutality and the trauma remain. It covers us. A baptism. In invisible blood. My dad has already stormed off somewhere, outwardly vindicated by his actions. We stagger, wounded in the upheaval of his wake, trying to swim to shore, to find our breath. To pick through the mountain of his wreckage.

I watch my brother slink out of the car. Hunched over. Like a tortured, terrified alley cat. When he looks up, we lock eyes and hold each other that way for a few seconds. We don’t speak. We don’t have to. I understand what his eyes are saying so completely I have to steady myself to keep from falling forward on my knees.

It’s always the same. That horrible mix of feelings. The blame. The shame. The guilt. The self-loathing. The self-doubt. The hatred. The anger. The demoralization.

The dismemberment.

The murder.

The death.

Of your spirit. Of your soul. Your heart.

Of You.

And the invisible blood keeps flowing.

#iamnotafraidanymore #tellingmystory #domesticviolence #childabuse #theaquarianphoenix

2 notes · View notes

ineffablegame · 5 years

Note

I have no idea if you wanted it from ask or as a message I'm sorry if it is the wrong one but maybe 14 and Gabriel and beelzebub? (I'm too dumb to remember their ship name I'm sorry)

Before anyone reads this, please know there are hints of an abusive relationship at work. It’s nothing traumatic, but if that’s not your jam, please don’t read!

Also published at my Ao3.

Beloved

For some, the Fall was a plummet, abrupt and gut-gripping, the only certainty being the sick knowledge that they would break when the rocks rose up to meet them. For others, like the demon Crawley, it was a gradual thing: a platter laden with questions, each a gleaming fruit, and the realization that you had been poisoned only after you’d gorged yourself to bursting.

For Beelzebub, the Fall was the flame to their moth – they fluttered, hopeless but entranced, perfectly aware of their fate when they strayed too close. A burning ember, charred to ash before they landed.

After, they would remember nothing of this. No demon would be allowed memories of Heaven – of the joy, the contentment of complacency, the unending sensation of being glutted on God’s love. They would only remember the agony of Falling and the loneliness that came after. The hollow ache of being severed away.

Beelzebub had a different name before they Fell (they must have, and millennia later, it will still infuriate them that they cannot recall it, a soul-deep bruise of loss). They had a name, and they had God’s love, and they had the love of one other.

And they had the niggling sensation that something was about to happen. The first waft of fiery breath on their wings.

“Gabriel,” they said, alighting beside him. They stood on the edge of a universe, watching some minor angel weave starlight together out of void. Without looking away from the cosmic threadwork, Gabriel extended a wing to wrap around Beelzebub, pulling them in close. They went, not eagerly but with a sense of relief, arms outstretched. Glad to have the choice firmly taken.

“Look,” Gabriel said, his voice rumbling through his body into Beelzebub’s. “The Almighty has assigned that angel to hang the very stars.”

“It is an honor,” Beelzebub murmured, more preoccupied with Gabriel’s warmth, his solidity, than any workings of an inconsequential angel. “He has been shown favor.”

Beelzebub felt Gabriel tense, minutely, and looked up. His granite jaw was set in a frown. “Why does he deserve it? He is…”

Beelzebub knew this dance well; they had led Gabriel through it many times before. Always the perfect partner, always letting their beloved believe he was in control. A well-placed pivot was all they needed to turn him away from his brooding. “He is nobody.”

“No,” Gabriel said, surprising them. “Worse. He is one of Lucifer’s lackeys.”

Dread crept up Beelzebub’s throat, a sour tang. Lucifer. Most beautiful among angels, most beloved by the Almighty. Lucifer, whose every step was shadowed by admirers, all straining to reflect the light shining off him. Lucifer, whose eyes followed Beelzebub with calculating consideration. Lucifer, who filled Beelzebub’s mind with questions and possibilities, each more tantalizing than the last.

Worst of all was that Beelzebub could not find it in their heart to hate those looks, those questions. In fact, they could not even muster apathy. They wanted Lucifer’s attentions, his regard. They basked in his light as a serpent sunning itself on sun-warmed stone.

“You are Beelzebub,” the Morningstar had said, having crept up on them on silent feet. Beelzebub had turned, tense, and mustered a mute nod. Lucifer had cocked his head, arching a golden eyebrow. “Why do you cling and grovel behind that fool, Gabriel, so loyally?”

Beelzebub had bristled, stung out of their stupor. “Because I love him.”

The Morningstar had smiled in a knifing flash of teeth. “I can see that. You are utterly devoted to him, aren’t you?”

“If you knew, why bother asking?” Beelzebub had snapped. They froze, startled by their own vehemence. “I—I apologize, Morningstar. I misspoke.”

“Do not apologize,” Lucifer had said, still smiling, as though all of Heaven was but a mild amusement for him. A dollhouse for him to play with as he pleased. “I want to see your fire.” A meaningful pause, eloquent beyond words. Then, “Do you think Gabriel would feel the same?”

Those words had wriggled their way into Beelzebub’s mind, worms burrowing into the flesh of an apple. Beelzebub loved Gabriel – had loved him since they first glimpsed him, shining and sharp, a leader among angels. Lucifer, Michael, Gabriel – Beelzebub was not made to match their greatness, but it was enough to touch Gabriel’s light, to let him enfold them in his wing and draw them close. It was enough.

It had been enough.

“He shouldn’t have the honor of the stars,” Gabriel muttered, drawing Beelzebub out of their reverie. Still tucked against his side, they drifted a hand across his chest, to the place where a mortal might have a heart. Gabriel caught their hand, gripped it to the edge of pain. “It should be mine. I should be the one to please the Almighty.”

Oh, but he was such a child, always petulant, always expecting his mediocrity to be praised above a lesser being’s excellence. Beelzebub loved him in spite of it, but it rankled them. In the distance, the nameless angel scattered stardust across the darkness. Brilliance winked into being.

“He isn’t doing it properly,” Gabriel muttered, expression dark. “There is no order to it.”

No, Beelzebub thought, but it is beautiful because of that. How do you not see?

“You will have your chance,” they said, “just as this one has his.”

Abruptly, Gabriel’s wing loosened and he pushed them away. Beelzebub stumbled, caught off-guard, and stood shivering before him, cut off from his warmth. His face was a thunder of bruised pride, eyes twin bolts of blue-violet lightning.

“Don’t try to placate me,” Gabriel snarled. “I am ready for glory now.”

“Gabriel,” Beelzebub began, taking a cautious step forward, “beloved, I only meant—”

“Leave me.” Gabriel turned to glare at the nameless, insignificant angel, still stringing stars without a care in Heaven. “I would be alone, now.”

“I want to see your fire.” The Morningstar’s voice echoed in Beelzebub’s head. “Do you think Gabriel would feel the same?”

“I will go.” Beelzebub heard themself utter each word as if from a vast distance. “But may I have a parting kiss, beloved?”

The hard line of Gabriel’s mouth softened. He could not fathom it – could not imagine that Beelzebub would never grovel and beg for his affection. A spike of rage rose in their chest, startlingly fierce and white-hot.

“You may,” Gabriel said. So graciously. It sickened them.

Beelzebub drew close, playacting wariness, as if every moment they expected him to lash out. Their hands were soft on his face as they rose on tiptoe, and he did not lean. Always he expected them to scrabble and scrape, to bloody themself on the crags of his pride. They kissed the firm, unyielding lips and thought, I will show you my fire, beloved.

There was only rage, they told themself. Later. Only the rage of being brushed aside, treated as inconsequential.

But later – thousands of years later, standing on the tarmac of Tadfield Air Base, exchanging a glance with the Archangel Gabriel and remembering nothing of their time in Heaven – Beelzebub feels their throat tighten for the briefest moment. As if they are choked by tears.

Beelzebub shakes off the sensation and turns to face an angel, a demon, and the Antichrist. They are the Lord of the Flies. They are the right hand of the Devil, and they are going to lead Hell into war.

#good omens #ineffable bureaucracy #good omens fanfic #good omens word prompt #tw abuse #alternate title: how many times can i metaphor in 1k words

116 notes · View notes

i-growl-growl-growl · 6 years

Note

Could you do a reaction where the boys see that their lover commited suicide because of their acts?

Since the unit for this request isn’t specified, I will go with the 127 members, however, I hit the maximum limit on tumblr for text boxes for this post so Jungwoo to Haechan will be done later if you’d like. Also, if you want the rest of the members (other than 127), feel free to request for more in the future! From what I assume, the “acts” you mention are their yandere deeds. Correct me if I’m wrong!

Sorry if it was really long, I got carried away with a lot of the reactions…especially with WinWin’s…If you don’t mind, I wrote scenarios to go with it!

TRIGGER WARNING: Mentions of suicide, blood, self-harm; please do not read if you are uncomfortable with this topic. Please do not be influenced by the character’s decisions in the imagine, this is pure fiction. GRAPHIC!

Taeil

When Taeil came home that evening, he expected to see you, chained to the bed and sleeping alone. But when he soon found that you were nowhere to be seen, he freaked out.

He went out on a rampage, looking in every nook and cranny of the house the two of you shared. You weren’t in the closet, definitely not hiding under the counter, why the hell weren’t you hiding in the pantry like last time?

Suddenly, Taeil snapped to his thoughts. The bathroom.

As he tore though the hallway, Taeil tried to think of all the ways you could’ve escaped from the chains on the bed. Taeil had punished you last night, but he didn’t think it would affect you that badly.

Storming into the bathroom, he saw your unconscious body on the cold tiles. Taeil’s sleeping pills had been scattered everywhere on the floor and you were without a doubt, dead.

Devastated, Taeil tried to shake you awake as if you would open your eyes and laugh at him and say it was a stupid joke. But it wasn’t. This was all real.

Taeil fell to the floor and cried, hugging your corpse like a teddy bear. It was too much for the boy to handle, despite him being the source of your pain.

Many questions ran through his head as he embraced your dead body. How did you escape those chains? How did you find those pills even though he was the only one who knew where they were? Not to mention, those pills were locked up like diamonds in a safe.

Left with questions unanswered, Taeil was confused but beyond heartbroken that he had driven you to your breaking point. But unlike the time you ran away in the mall, you had ran away forever.

Johnny

You had gone missing a few hours ago. It was after Johnny finally agreed to take you to the movies after being well-behaved for the past four months. Of course, he should’ve expected you to use the bathroom excuse and make a run for it outside. Sadly for him, Johnny didn’t think that far ahead and sat in the dark theater, wondering when you would come back. It shouldn’t have taken that long to have changed a pad, right?

Only then did Johnny realize how foolish and stupid he was for letting you go. How far could you have ran away? And how much time did he have left to find you?

Unfortunately for him, the headlines of the newspaper the following day had in bold letters, “Drowned Girl found by the River; Suspected Suicide.” By then, Johnny clutched tighter onto the paper and took a deep sip of the coffee in his hand. Rather than feeling sad, strangely, he felt angry.

He was angry that you didn’t feel fulfilled by his unending love towards you and chose to escape that by following the route of suicide. He was upset that you didn’t even bother to talk to him about your problems, though he never would’ve listened and continued to hurt you. But most of all, Johnny was furious that you thought death was the only way to escape from this love.

How could you have been so cruel to leave him alone? But not all hope was lost; who said death could separate the two of you?

Taeyong

“Y/N! Y/N! Open the damn door!”

You were currently hiding in your room, Taeyong furiously knocking. Your parents had left on a business trip and thought you were old enough to take care of yourself on your own.

Unfortunately for you, a crucial thing your parents didn’t know was your psycho ex-boyfriend, Taeyong, somehow found out with his stalkerish ways and hunted down your location. He had barged in through the window of the second-floor hallway with a small pistol in his hand.

“Y/N! If you don’t open up the damn door, I’ll blow it down myself!”

His yelling was only making the adrenaline in your body accelerate and your heart thumped louder and louder. Any second longer and Taeyong would come in and kidnap you.

Your dignity and survival was at stake. You were sick of Taeyong coming into your life and running it like a madman. Taeyong wasn’t even normal, he was insane!

The long curtains were just at your reach. Grasping onto the thick fabric, you tried to make a rope out of it. If you were going to die, you weren’t going to let Taeyong get to it first!

As Taeyong continued to bang on the door, you threw up your makeshift rope onto the poles of your bed. Thank goodness your parents had insisted on a canopy bed to make your room more “grand”.

Tying the “rope” onto the bed and giving it a firm triple knot, you held your breath as you tied it around your neck. You felt your throat slowly closing up and suffocating you.

Taeyong never blew down the door. He finally punched it open but he was much too late. Your dead body hung up from the curtain rope on full display.

He felt tears spring up to his eyes as the thought of you dead finally struck him. Taeyong walked closer and closer to your hanging corpse. Grabbing your chest, he tried to listen for a heartbeat or a pulse. But alas, he couldn’t find one.

“No…no…NO! Y/N! Please tell me this is some awful trick! You’re not really dead, right? No! Please wake up! I’m sorry!”

Through his quiet sobs, Taeyong fell to his knees, the pistol popping out of his jean pockets and onto the carpet.

“I can’t live without you…”

Yuta

Again. This happened again.

The same creepy letters were coming to your locker. But there wasn’t much that you could do to escape that. You just transferred to this school and your parents (guardians) didn’t want to move again after finally settling into your new home.

There weren’t many suspects that you could rat on. You were the new kid and that kinda meant you were an easy target. You still hadn’t made friends that could’ve supported you through this and track down the stalker.

Weeks went on and the letters became more and more graphic. Eventually, photos of you changing, walking to school, eating at a cafe, or even brushing your teeth were included with each and every one of them! It was a surprise you still hadn’t found out the person considering there was a signature at the bottom of each note.

You fell into great paranoia and depression. It hurt to even move, fearing for your life that the stalked would be there and ready to take a picture and document it on who knows what. What made it the absolute worst though was the threats included at the bottom portion.

If you find out who I am and report me darling, don’t be surprised to attend your mother’s (or guardian’s) funeral.

Love you too,

xoxo N.Y.

N.Y.? There were multiple people with that name. Nina Yoshima. Nicholas Yen. Nancy Yerevas. Noah Yackley. Nathan Yakish. Who on earth was it?

This drove you into a frenzy. Soon, rather than counting down the days for school to end, you counted down the days to die. Why?

You were going to end your life. You had it. This was too much for you and it was becoming so overwhelming. So you did it. When your parents left you on your own for a family emergency, you released carbon monoxide into the air, quickly killing you.

Nakamoto Yuta. The very boy who bestowed this tragic fate unto you. And now he had to pay, seeing the news flash with your suicide all over the headlines. He hadn’t meant for it to go so far like most yanderes, he just wanted your attention and for you to notice him!

He grieved for his mistakes and refused to eat and drink. Locking himself in his room, no one saw him ever again, lounging in the back of the classroom with a juice box in one hand and a pen in the other.

Doyoung

Doyoung had heard about your death through the school’s gossip. He was absolutely heartbroken, knowing that he had crossed the line when he fought with you about your friend group. His jealousy blinded him to the point where he took action; he killed your younger friend Renjun out of rage.

You were terribly upset about that and cursed Doyoung out. For that, he slapped you hard on the face and threatened to shoot you too with the gun in his hand. But to his surprise, you grabbed onto the gun and pulled the trigger. The bullet flew straight into your chest and your white blouse started to stain with the crimson blood.

Collapsing to the floor, Doyoung looked at you in horror. As he stood there, internally panicking, he soon realized that you were mumbling something.

I will never, in all my days, forgive you, Kim Doyoung.

So here he was with his friend Kun, at this cheap frat party. Scratch that, it was Kun’s party and only God knows how wealthy his family actually is. They’re too busy bathing in hundred dollar bills to even keep track of the damn bills!

Even though it was probably the biggest party of the whole school year, Doyoung couldn’t bear to see the drunk boys and girls dancing the night away. He tried to walk out into the balcony, but was faced with a gang of youngsters, smoking some weed. The smell was suffocating and hurt Doyoung’s eyes, so he went to the only place he knew where he could find solace.

The bathroom. Doyoung locked himself up in the cold bathroom. He sat on the toilet and buried his face in his shaking hands. The memories of your suicide haunted him to this day, even though it was over a year ago.

He sobbed and sobbed over and over again. Doyoung called out your name numerous times and screamed out of agony in the bathroom until someone knocked through the door and asked him to shut up.

Doyoung would have one of the hardest times out of all the yanderes to recover from your suicide in my opinion because of his personality. He seems to be a yandere who is sadistic, but a true softie when you actually get hurt. Your death took quite a toll on him…

Jaehyun

Jaehyun had walked into his art studio, ready to paint you again. You were posed on the sofa, lying so still that anyone could’ve mistaken that you were dead.

Only this time you were. You had stabbed yourself to death with the knife Jaehyun had you pose with. So imagine his horror that his art model and lover was dead and surrounded with blood.

But in the beginning, Jaehyun truly believed that someone had broken into the studio and killed you. Because of this belief, he tried to trace down as much evidence as he could, mainly because he didn’t want to think that your suicide was your doing. Jaehyun wanted to hope that rather than it was his fault, it was someone else’s evil deed.

Eventually, Jaehyun gave up and declared to himself that your death was indeed, a suicide. From there, the disasters began.

He didn’t expect you to resort to something so drastic like suicide, especially when the night before, you seemed surprisingly cheery, willing to cook dinner for once rather than mope around in bed. In fact, there was no sign of despair and to any stranger’s eyes, it would seem like you were a loving couple rather than a helpless girl trapped in a relationship with a psychopath.

The shock would consume Jaehyun up and it wouldn’t be until a few days later when he embalmed your body since he didn’t want to bury you that it truly hit him that you were gone.

And to think that it was all his fault that pushed you to the brink of life and death. Jaehyun would be devastated and bedridden with guilt. Even more so, he would be ashamed to feel like he was the very person who took away the girl he wanted all to himself.

During this mourning period, Jaehyun would fall into a great depression. He would take out his anger using his art until it drove him crazy. Jaehyun wouldn’t be able to focus or bear the memories of you dying. So he packed up everything and left the country, off to a new land for adventure and a new life in America.

WinWin

I will use WinWin’s real name (Sicheng) for this reaction as it is much more fitting for the scenario.

Sicheng was the son and heir of a powerful and influential company in Tianjin, China. He was spoiled rotten as a child and was used to having things his way.

So when you entered in the building as a new intern on that fateful day, he was practically bursting with excitement. Sicheng had never been exposed to many people when he was younger and most of the employees working at his father’s company were in their 40′s and 50′s.

Young and fresh-faced, you were a new person and a new friend to Sicheng. You fell for his smooth talk and innocent eyes like any normal girl would. He had his charms and quirks that intrigued you, deeper and deeper into a trap you couldn’t escape.

About two years had passed since the two of you had become couple when Sicheng placed that diamond ring on your finger and asked you to marry him. You, being completely unaware that your sweet and gentle boyfriend would show his true colors later, accepted without hesitation.

It was only on your honeymoon did Sicheng begin to reveal his cruel and manipulative ways as a yandere. He pressured you to always be by his side as he was insecure about his persona and wanted to make sure that you would never leave him.

But this new lifestyle had become unbearable for you. Constantly calling WinWin every hour. Texting him every twenty minutes a long summary of what you did. Mindlessly waiting in your shared room, locked up with a key and the windows shut with steel shutters.

You tried to take every opportunity that came your way to run from his clutches and escape. But he was always two steps ahead of you. He planned out your every move, took your passport, and any possible weapons that you could’ve wielded. Sicheng didn’t even let you cut a damn apple without his supervision. And half the time, he did it himself, afraid that you would hurt him.

Unable to carry the weight of the relationship, you took the route that seemed like the only way out; suicide.

Sicheng had to bring you to banquet outside, much to his dismay. However, this may have been the only way for you to vanish from him for good. So you walked in, ready to inhale the flashing cameras and the reporters shoving microphones in your face, questioning your latest disappearance.

When Sicheng turned his back from you to talk to some of his father’s clients, you made a break for the window. But the champagne you had drank beforehand wasn’t sitting well with you, intoxicating you so you couldn’t think straight.

Rather than finding a height that would be decent to jump from and still live in your six-inch heels, you ran for the balcony on the ninth floor of the hotel. Without a second thought, you threw yourself off the building and smashed onto the concrete, sealing the deal.

The ruckus outside certainly drew some attention on the inside as the reporters clamored in to see what had just happened. And there you were, dripping with blood all over your nice ballroom gown and several broken limbs.

An ambulance was called and Sicheng began to freak out. The next 24 hours was him pleading the doctors to save your life and to do everything they could to help you live, even if it was just a bit longer. But it was no use. You were declared dead as an “accident” until Sicheng’s own mother demanded for an autopsy to find out the truth. She had always known her own son was a bit insane in the head, but the elderly woman felt something sinister was lurking around.

Several weeks later and your apparent “accident” was changed to a suicide after the official autopsy. Signs of trauma and depression were found as investigators dug deeper into the mystery of your sudden death.

All over social media, it was absolute madness. Articles read with Sicheng on the front cover with suspected abuse, finally drawing the attention of the authorities to bring Sicheng into custody. However, with the help of some connections and his great acting, Sicheng managed to be released within a few hours and was “confirmed innocent”.

Surprisingly, your suicide was just as shocking for Sicheng as it was for the media and the people around him. But slowly, after people began to forget about the whole scandal and your death, the Dong’s company was having some peace and quiet.

Yet it wasn’t at all peaceful in Sicheng’s heart. It still didn’t click in his mind that the only reason you jumped off that balcony as a last resort was because of him. He continued to blame your death on well…you.

That still didn’t stop Sicheng from mourning your loss. As much as he hurt you emotionally and mentally, he loved you from the bottom of his heart; he just didn’t know how to express it. His days were soon filled with tears and exhaustion.

_ _ _

And that’s it! I hit the max number of text blocks for the post so I’m sorry about that. I’ll continue on another post if you’d like!

Edit: For some reason the “read more” button after the trigger warning isn’t showing, so I’ll try and get that fixed.

#suicide #trigger warning #self-harm #yandere nct #nct yandere #kpop yandere #yandere scenario #yandere reactions #yandere jaehyun #yandere taeyong #yandere yuta #yandere winwin #yandere imagines #yandere taeil #yandere johnny #yandere doyoung #tw: suicide #tw: self harm

541 notes · View notes

thecasualinsomniac · 5 years

Text

Rollercoaster Dancer

Everyone needs some dancing Virgil in their lives, right?

Pairings: LAMP

Warnings: broken hand mention, hospital mention (nothing serious)

Song imagined/listened to whilst writing this piece because it’s what I’ve had on repeat for the past three days because I love it: Rollercoaster by Bleachers

I’m dead tired and wrote this in one go, who needs editing? Psh. Anyway, enjoy this thing that wouldn’t let me sleep until I wrote it. I do not dance, so I’m sorry I can’t actually describe dancing, but I gave it my best. Listen to the song

——————————————————————————————————————————

When Roman, Patton, and Logan decided to go get groceries in order to restock on cookie dough, pancake batter and crofters, they of course invited their fourth boyfriend Virgil to go with them.

It had started with Patton and Roman, constantly flirting and blushing. While both were sweet on their own, it was saturatingly overwhelming for Logan and Virgil, their roommates, to be around them. Especially since Logan and Virgil were also in love with Roman and Patton. A month passed of Logan and Virgil spending less time around the pair before they asked Logan to be their boyfriend as well; they wanted to ask Virgil too, but they barely saw him enough anymore to catch him for a minute to ask him before he was back out the door.

It was agony for Virgil to be around the happy trio.

Golden Patton, with rounded edges, freckles, bright blue eyes and plump pink lips that practically begged to be kissed. Kind Patton, who made sure he ate and left cookies outside of his room when he was having a bad day and cried anytime Virgil cried. Gentle Patton, who’d made Virgil’s patchwork hoodie by hand for his birthday when Patton found out Virgil had never gotten a birthday present before, the hoodie that Virgil was now rarely seen without, a constant source of comfort and feeling of love.

Elegant Roman, with green eyes, dark red hair, high cheekbones and a smile that could dazzle anyone, straight or not. Protective Roman, who declared his love for Patton and his friends in grand threats toward imaginary foes and annoying homework, who once decked a man for insulting Virgil and promptly broke the guy’s nose and two of his own fingers. Virgil helped Roman decorate his cast when they got home from the hospital.

And, of course, brilliant Logan. They’d been friends before meeting Roman and Patton in college. Logan, with his honey brown eyes and dark skin, curly black hair, and deep voice that melted Virgil like nothing else. Passionate Logan, with his unending desire to learn, everything, about anything, with his particular adoration for the universe and astronomy and all things space, who can name all of the constellations in the night sky and tell you the mythology behind them. Mindful Logan, who may be convinced that he feels things less than other people and is entirely too socially awkward, but is the first person Virgil can turn to when he needs to be talked down from a panic attack.

Virgil was happy for his friends, he really was. They all deserved to be happy and in love, and he knew all three of them to be the most incredible people in existence, objectively. But to be around them together was not healthy, and so he filled his days with other activities.

They finally managed to catch him at 3 am on Friday night, stumbling in as if he were drunk but was truly just honestly exhausted. He knew they were having a movie night tonight, and so had intentionally stayed out as late as he could, not wanting to be around his best friends as a group but not wanting to be alone in his room while they snuggled on the couch. It had been months since they had all hung out as a group, and each of them was aware that Virgil was avoiding them. After many discussions, they hoped they had figured out why, and intended to remedy the situation as soon as they could get Virgil to sit still for more than a minute.

Logan woke up on the couch when Virgil came in, and quickly woke the others and Virgil silently slipped out of his shoes beside the door. Logan flipped the switch on the lamp beside the couch before he could leave. Virgil jumped and muffled a scream.

“Virgil! I apologize sincerely, I did not intend to startle you, merely provide some light so you did not trip in the darkness,” said Logan. He noticed Virgil’s hands shaking; pushing the waking Roman and Patton off of his lap, he quickly went over to Virgil. “In for four, hold for seven, out for eight,” he said quietly. Virgil just nodded, breathing with him. Logan watched, relieved, as Virgil slowly stopped shaking. Patton and Roman smiled as Logan sat back down with them on the couch.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you guys up, I’ll just go back to bed now,” Virgil said, starting to walk away before Roman caught him.

“Hold on for a minute, dark and stormy, we wanted to talk to you for a minute,” the princely man said. Virgil looked anxious again, but sat down. “Don’t fear, dear darkling, if it were anything bad I would of course protect you immediately,” Roman was quick to reassure him.

“We know you’ve been avoiding us, Virgil,” said Patton, grabbing Roman and Logan’s hands. “We think we know why, and we wanted to talk to you about that cause we think we finally figured out why.”

“Virgil, we’ve been friends for a long time,” said Logan. “You have always been someone who was important to me. Before we were friends, I was worried I would never be able to trust anyone, much less love them.” Virgil’s breath caught, his hands shaking slightly again.

“We’d like you to be our boyfriend,” said Roman, nervously. His legs twitched, and he fiddled with Logan’s hand. “I know we didn’t have a great start as friends, but you keep me grounded and my head from going too far into the clouds. I love Logan, but he’s not nearly as good as you as debating the good and bad qualities of Disney movies with me,” he laughed.

“It’s ok if you want to take some time to think about it, kiddo,” said Patton. He looked at Virgil hopefully. “But you really need to know that you mean the world to us, and it’s made us really sad not to have you around. We need you with us, like Roman said, to keep us grounded, but also because you’re you. You make sure we turn the oven off and lock the doors at night. You text us when we go out to make sure we get there and back ok. You’re so incredible at everything you do, and we would be so incredibly happy if you do want to join us. If you don’t want to, though, that’s ok too-“ he was interrupted as Virgil lunged forward to hug the three of them with a breathy YES. They slept all together on the couch that night. They all woke up with back pain, but it was totally worth it to see Virgil’s smile in the morning when they all kissed him when they woke up.

It had been three months since then, three glorious months of love unlike anything Virgil was ever aware was possible. He loved being around his loves, his best friends, his boyfriends, but found himself missing some of his hobbies from when he spent most of his time alone. Well, one in particular.

Which is why, when Roman, Patton and Logan invited him to the grocery store with them, he declined in favor of having the house to himself.

It took ten minutes just to clear away all of the furniture in the living room, enough space for him to move freely. It took another few minutes to shed his hoodie and other clothes, down to a tank top and leggings, and connect the music to the speakers. He cranked the volume, and got into position as the first notes came out, and he was off.

The grocery store was closed for renovations, so Logan decided that they would go back into town the next day to go to the other store, which wasn’t open on weekends. They headed back home, and in the garage heard the music from the living room. They looked at each other a little confused, for Virgil usually just listened to his music on headphones.

They cracked open the door, unsure if they should be concerned or not, only to slip into the kitchen and look into the living room in shock.

Virgil flew through the air as if gravity was nonexistent. They realized, each individually, that they’d never actually seen him without baggy clothes and a hoodie on, and each individually realized how extremely gay they were for their boyfriend.

Long and lean, defined muscles showed through his tank top and leggings. He’d danced for years, stopped in college, then got back into it before joining his boyfriends. It was his favourite way to burn his anxious energy, whipping into spinning circles and flowing with the music. He’d mainly studied ballet, but had spent his downtown just dancing, and it showed how much fun he was having just rocking out to the 90s sounding song.

When the song ended, he was panting and covered in a sheen of sweat, but he was happy. It felt good to dance again. He looked up when Patton clapped; Roman and Logan just looked at him in awe. Under normal circumstances, he would’ve panicked and immediately tried to hide, but everything just felt too good not to just stay. He smiled at them, and held out his hand, inviting them to dance as the song started over.

#sanders sides #thomas sanders #virgil sanders #patton sanders #roman sanders #logan sanders #lamp #dancing #cuteboyfriendsbeingcute #rollercoaster #bleachers

16 notes · View notes

paladin-andric · 5 years

Text

Survivor

A story request from @paper-shield-and-wooden-sword! I was asked for any Leianna story, and...well, I give you this monster. Pure, unending action and frantic struggle!

Sweat. Panic. A cold chill. The smell of blood and iron.

Leianna could feel these, and more.

The cleric was in a small, squalid storage closet, sitting down with her arms around her legs and her back against the door.

A door of wood, and floors, walls and ceilings of dirt...there was little else to expect from an underground mine turned...hellhole.

The cult knew they were coming. They knew who was coming. They knew just what to do. How? How had they set up such a perfect trap? Now, in this mine, she was trapped...

What should she do? What the hell was she supposed to do? She’d already been here for an hour, she couldn’t just-

Hello?

The voice made her jump, immediately grabbing her mace from the ground and looking around the closet. Nothing…

Are you there?

She got up slowly and quietly, turning to face the door. She backed up, brought her mace over her head, and waited for whoever was talking to open the door.

Leianna?

Two things made her pause. First, the fact that whoever was there knew her name. Secondly, that voice wasn’t coming from outside the door...it was coming from inside her head.

What the hell? She thought to herself.

Leianna?! Is that you?!

The cleric grimaced. Who’s there?! What is this?!

This is Nathaniel. The telepath?

Leianna blinked in realization. Oh...right…

I couldn’t reach anyone else’s mind. What’s going on down there?

They’re dead, she thought quietly.

What?!

I’m all that’s left.

Are you serious?!

I didn’t watch them die...not all of them, at least. If no one came running back to the camp than I’m the last one.

The voice seemed to quiver as it continued. No one’s come back...Leianna...what happened?

An ambush, she thought bitterly, We never had a chance. I managed to slip past them during the chaos.

Oh, God...Leianna, come back! We can mount a counterattack later.

I’d have left if I could. I didn’t slip away...I slipped deeper into the mines.

What?! You mean…

I’m in a storage closet near the bottom, she admitted, I’m as far in as I can get.

The man paused and muttered to himself, though still in her head. God damn it, Leianna...it’ll be hours before anyone checks up on us! They’ll find you! What are we supposed to do?!

The woman nodded to herself. Exactly. That leaves one choice.

What? What are you doing?

I’m breaking through.

W-what?!

Leianna opened the door and hurried out of the storage closet.

Can I trust you to get me out of here once I’m out?

E-, I-, uh, Leianna... The man seemed to be struggling to say what he was thinking. Y-yes! The horses! I’ll bring one for you!

The cleric ran up to the exit to the back room and nodded, hands gripping her mace.

Then I’ll see you on the other side.

With that last thought, she kicked the wooden door, the fragile wood giving way and bursting open as she hurried towards the exit.

(Mood Music)

Moving into the next room, there was a brief sense of relief as Leianna noticed it was still empty. Good. They must have swept this place but forgot to check the closet.

She moved into the mine proper. The claustrophobic narrowness of the passages, and the weak-looking wooden supports, cracked in some places, didn’t help to put her at ease. In this tight corridor, when she did run into the enemy, there was only one way past; through.

At least they couldn’t surround her, though. It would work as a chokepoint if it came to that.

The cleric sped up, moving into a quick jog as her armor made loud clanking with each step. She had her scalemail, her mace...things could be worse.

She was missing her shield though. She had dropped it by accident at some point during the chaos. It was all a blur to her, and she had no time to sweep the area for it.

Turning a corner, she nearly bumped straight into someone. The cleric only made out the black robes and white mask in the split second she stopped, but that was all she needed to know.

“What the-”

The cultist didn’t get to finish as her mace slammed into his face. The second he hit the ground, she hit him again, then once more. She didn’t wait to see if he was dead, but from the lack of noise as she continued, it seemed he was.

Now she was in it. Leianna could feel that rush coming back. Blood had been drawn, and this was a battle once more. She was stone-faced, but her heart was racing. Her jog moved into a sprint as the tunnel took an incline. She was moving up, closer towards the surface…

Noticing another person in robes as the incline ended, she rushed towards the them as they turned.

“What?! Cleric! Cleri-”

He went down in a single strike, and she delivered another to his skull as he lay there before moving on.

Another door. She kicked it, hard, and it gave way. The flimsy thing flew wide open, and Leianna entered what appeared to be a sort of “break room”. There were chairs and wooden boxes pulled in front of the chairs, apparently acting as makeshift tables. There were mugs and pitchers scattered around, and some plates and books too.

There was also a figure sitting in one of the chairs, also in robes and wearing a mask. They were slumped over, appearing to have fallen asleep.

She rushed past the slacking cultist, not sparing him another glance. If someone else had heard the yelling, she was on a time limit now before the entire base was secure and awaiting her.

“Mmph?”

The sleeping person stirred, though by the time they started mumbling, Leianna had already passed through the room, and was back into the mines.

A few torches along the walls of the narrow mine shaft were the only things keeping the cleric from pitch black darkness, illuminating the way for her.

Taking another turn as the path began to slope up again, she ran headfirst into a group of three of the cultists, all pausing as she rushed towards them.

Before any of them could react, she brought her mace down on the head of the one up front, dropping him instantly.

The other two turned to run. She caught one of them with a swing to the side of the head. She surged forward, not having the time to make sure they were dead.

She had to catch the other one before he got away.

The heavy thuds of her bootstomps only spurred the man on, but despite the weight of her equipment, she managed a surprisingly good chase, not slipping behind by much as they ran uphill.

At last the man hit a door, struggling with the handle for a moment. It seemed as if the crude wooden door was jammed, though he threw it open after a moment.

It was enough time for her to catch up, though.

He ran into the room and pointed behind himself.

“SURVIVOR!”

A woman in scalemail, slamming a mace into the man’s back was the only warning the rest of them got. Leianna reeled back and cracked him with it again, sending him tumbling to the dirt floor.

This room, a break point that split off into multiple mining hallways that scattered throughout the underground, was currently full of several cult members...likely relaying messages throughout the tunnel systems to update others on the search for survivors.

As the man fell, several of the cult members broke into runs, scattering into the various hallways throughout the room.

Several others, however, stayed...approaching the cleric with weapons at the ready. It seemed whoever was armed was willing to fight, and the ones who weren’t would alert the others before arming themselves.

The first of these uniformed cultists swung a club at the cleric, but she saw it coming, ducking to the side and delivering her own swing to him. The spiked mace crashed into the side of his throat, and he went down.

The others jumped in. What appeared to be a robed and masked woman nearly impaled Leianna with a spear before the holy warrior threw herself backwards, rolling on the ground and steadying herself as she got back to her feet.

Kneeling, she swung wildly at the cultist that rushed her. The mace grazed them, cracking open the mask and leaving bloody gashes across the mess that was their face.

The cultist reeled back and clutched their face, crying out in pain. Another swung from the side, hitting Leianna with a sword. She offered a silent thanks to God as she felt it hit her armor harmlessly.

Leianna missed a strike to the other assailant before feeling a sharp pain in her foot. She looked to see the spear-wielding woman had jabbed her there, the point stuck into a gap in the armor.

“Cunt,” the cleric hissed as she yanked her leg away, feeling the pain intensify as the spear point left her. She stumbled back a bit, ducking under a sword swing from the other cultist.

She swung at him again. This time, she was successful. The mace hit him in the chest, and he stumbled before falling over.

Turning her attention to the wounded one, she saw the figure wildly swinging as they still clutched at their face. Avoiding the blind strikes was easy, and delivering her own proved laughable as the cultist never saw it coming.

As the wounded one stopped screaming and collapsed, a much sharper, horrid pain filled Leianna. The cleric groaned as she felt agony through her body.

Turning, she saw the cultist woman had struck again, the spear skewering her through the stomach.

Something in Leianna snapped. This little bastard just wouldn’t stop, didn’t know when to give up, kept stabbing and stabbing at her over and over. The cleric began to see red for a moment as the cultist attempted to pull the spear free.

Leianna reached out and grabbed the spear, holding onto it with a vice grip as the smaller woman struggled against her.

“You want this spear back…?” Leianna said deeply as she pulled with all her might, yanking the spear straight out of the woman’s hands. She winced as she pulled it free from herself, feeling the beginnings of a pool of blood forming under her armor. She stepped forward, weapons in hand.

“Than take it.”

The cultist failed to react in time as Leianna drove the spear into the woman’s chest, the dark worshiper falling to the ground and writhing in agony of her own.

Leianna didn’t have time to kill them all, though she certainly wanted to more than ever.

She had to keep moving.

She picked the tunnel that led upwards, and the cleric could swear she thought she was headed the right way. The narrow passageway seemed familiar enough…

Stumbling through the dimly lit mine, Leianna was running on blind hope at this point. She muttered a few curses under her breath as she held her mace in one had, clutching at her stomach with the other.

“Bastards...damned fiends…”

She kept running, though pain shot through her injured foot each time. She couldn’t stop to perform a healing ritual on herself now. She could hear shouts both up ahead and behind her. They knew she was here, and they were coming for her.

She kept running further and further up, the winding main passage bringing her closer and closer to the surface…

The main pathway curved up ahead, and Leianna could suddenly see a flash of light from around the corner, and a chorus of shouts.

A hunting party, here to sweep through and drown her in sheer numbers.

Shit!

She glanced to her side and quickly ran into a side passage.

What’s happening? Another voice in her head rang out.

Nathaniel. He was still there.

I wasn’t fast enough, Leianna explained as she ran through the even narrower, darker passageway, Teams sweeping the main passage, might have to go the long way.

Damn it...alright, be careful!

Yeah. Leianna rolled her eyes.

The cleric ran through the unfamiliar mine passage. Was it a dead end? Surely it reconnected with the main path somewhere…

Getting deeper and deeper into the tunnel, the shouts behind her grew distant, and the light from the torches grew darker and darker as it appeared this passage wasn’t really used enough to warrant hanging them up here.

That was worrying...a dead end?

Soon enough, the cleric couldn’t see a thing. She started holding a hand in front of her as she jogged on, getting more tired by the minute. Hopefully, there were no monsters in the dark waiting to devour her…

A spark of light up ahead rekindled a bit of hope in her. Perhaps they just lit this less used path sparsely?!

Surging on, she found the light was indeed from a torch, hanging from the flimsy supports along the walls. With the light, she could see that ahead of the torch, the pathway ended...into water.

She frowned as she reached the end of the path. A foot or two drop led into a body of water, though still as narrow as the passage. A dead end, indeed...only…

She grabbed the torch off the wall with her free hand and leaned down, focusing her eyes. The water was...shallow. Had there been some sort of flood? Perhaps the path still led to where she needed to go? But that was a massive risk. If it got too deep, she...in her armor, she’d…

Leianna’s eyes went wide as she heard voices behind her. Faint, but slowly getting louder. They were fanning out and hunting her down. If she stayed…

“Ah, what a load of…” she shook her head and grimaced as she stepped forward...and hopped into the water.

A brief moment of fear ended when her feet hit the ground. The water was about up to her waist. She could manage…though the sudden horrid stench assaulting her nostrils made that a more challenging prospect.

Not having much choice, she slowly trudged through the water, moving as quickly as she could despite the effort it brought with it.

As the voices got louder, she turned and looked behind her. Not a speck of light. They didn’t have torches…?

She looked down at the one she was carrying, still lurching forward with loud splashes in the meanwhile. If they caught up, the light would give her away. It was pitch black without it, she might be able to sneak away...though, trudging through an unknown passageway flooded with water, weighed down by armor…

She groaned as she stuck the torch into the water, snuffing it out.

“God, I’m insane…” she muttered to herself, now hurrying through waist-deep water in the darkness.

After a few minutes, she bumped into...something. She kept moving, unsure what it was.

Then she bumped into another. Then another. Then another.

The stench was unbearable, now.

Suddenly, there were all kinds of things in the water, on the ground and floating on the surface, slowing her down even more. She stepped over the sunken things and shoved through the floating ones. Then, her hand brushed against another hand.

She froze, waving an arm around, looking for a cultist that wasn’t there. Reaching down, she felt along something floating, and…

“Shit!”

A corpse. She was touching a corpse.

She was marching through a sea of dead bodies.

“Ooh, they’ll burn, they’ll all burn, I swear…”

She shoved through the corpses, the field of watery decay truly testing her resolve...but she had to keep going. She had to force herself on.

She had to survive.

There was a faint light ahead. The end of the tunnel?!

Good...good...just...a little...farther…

The light was approaching. Leianna hung her head and breathed deeply, stifling her nose as she attempted to catch her breath. On and on, one step after another…

At least she had reached the next torch. It was right at the ended of the flooded passage. Ahead, she could see solid ground, rising up out of the water, and a ladder at the end of a hallway. Before that, however…she noticed something else.

The bodies right before land, right where she was standing...they wore...church outfits. Cleric armor. Symbols of God on their tabards. Moreover, she recognized them. Their bodies. Their faces.

The cult had tossed all the other members of her team into this pit, rotting alongside God knows how many other victims they had claimed.

“NO!”

It was a moment of weakness, of despair...but as soon as the shout left her lips, she heard something else.

Strange noises. Snarling, scratching, movement up ahead...and out of a side passage in front of the ladder that led out of this hellhole...four drakes rushed into the mine shaft, green scales glimmering in the torchlight.

Leianna stared at the pack of beasts, a look of bewildered despair written on her face. “Oh, fuck off…”

The pack of monsters surged forward, breaking into bounding sprints towards her.

“You’re kidding me!” she cried in disbelief as they closed in, the cleric getting out of the water as she readied herself for what could truly be her last stand.

The first one leapt at her, and Leianna swung at it as hard as she could. Thankfully, her mace slammed into the beast, cracking it across its draconic skull before it slammed into her. These things were big, and the weight of its lunge alone was enough to knock the cleric over, despite being struck down by her.

She quickly got back up when the next one jumped onto her, bringing her back onto the ground. Leianna cringed as she held the beast back, its snarling, snapping maw attempting to tear into her face. New pain filled her thigh as another one of the beasts snapped down on it. She could make out another figure moving around her...

She couldn’t die here. She couldn’t break free with might alone.

The cleric closed her eyes as she readied a spell...one that would take quite a toll on her.

She let out a snarl of her own as the magic surged, drakes around her suddenly seizing up and crying out in pain as they stopped attacking her.

Destroy Evil. The spell that destroyed wickedness and evil in whatever it touched. It was incredibly powerful, and incredibly costly.

Leianna felt exhaustion fill her as the divine energies burned away the impurities in the drakes around her. All the vile thoughts in their minds, all the horrid evil in their hearts…

It was too much for them. Their cries of pain ceased, and they collapsed on top of her, dead from the shock.

All except one.

Leianna could make out a pained hiss as she threw the drake on top of her off and slowly climbed to her feet. Trying to focus her blurry gaze, the cleric could see that one of the drakes withstood the might of the holy purging. It panted in what seemed to be exertion, shaking as it tried to regain control over itself.

Leianna stopped only to bend down and grab her mace from the pile of drake bodies before moving on. As she ran forward, the drakes eyes seemed to widen, before it quickly backed away as she kept approaching.

Finally, it reached the ladder, and backed off into the side passage as Leianna got to the end. She paused and stared down the side passage. It must have been where the drakes were kept, their nesting ground…

The lone drake stared at her, intelligence clear in its gaze. It was motionless...save for a tilt of the head as it continued to stare.

Leianna could swear there was meaning behind the way it tilted its head. A question. As if it said ‘why?’ to her.

The cleric shook her own head. She had other things to worry about.

Grabbing onto the ladder, Leianna began to ascend the steps of the wooden ladder, looking up and seeing a hole above.

Leianna climbed out of the pit, and into a new room. She could feel it, she was so close...the room was small and empty, save for a single door. The cleric hurried over and pulled on the handle.

Locked.

The sounds of scraping and clanging came from the hole she had just climbed out of.

They’re here already? Damn…

The cleric slammed into the door with all her strength, splintering the wood each time. This was easier before, when her body wasn’t crying out in protest…

With one last heave, the entire door fell apart, collapsing into a pile of wooden debris, save for a few chips latched onto the frame to remember it by.

The sounds of a struggle, and scraping made their way into the room itself. Someone climbed after her?! Leianna turned, mace raised.

The drake stood in front of her, still standing there, looking at her. Despite having plenty of time, it didn’t lunge to attack her.

“How the hell did you…?”

The creature tilted its head again, gaze locked on her. Did it...like her now?

Perhaps the spell purged it of its darkness and cruelty...?

The woman huffed. “You’re not gonna cause me any trouble?”

The beast let out...almost a chirp in response.

“Fine. But if you do anything…”

There was no response. Of course.

“I’m getting out of here. Stay back.”

The drake’s head suddenly shot up, eyes wide. It rushed towards her with great speed.

“I SAID STAY-”

It ran right past her, off into the hallway.

“...back.”

It stopped and turned around, gazing at her expectantly. Not knowing what else to do, the cleric shook her head and left the room as well.

As she did, the drake turned back around and began running away. At least, that was what she thought it was doing. In truth, it kept stopping and turning back, not leaving her sight as she jogged behind. It turned a corner and began running up a sharp incline...one Leianna recognized from when she and the others first delved into the cave.

Is it...leading me out?

It certainly seemed that way. This was the way she had came, the exit was so close…

“Can’t believe this…”

She hurried after the drake as best she could, though her wounds were really starting to catch up to her, and the use of that mighty spell, despite its extremely short duration, had brought her to extreme exhaustion.

Thankfully, the adrenaline coursing through her was keeping her on her feet, for now.

Leianna, they’re out here!

The cleric blinked. What?

The cult, Nathaniel yelled in her mind, They’re here! They’re outside! They’re gonna find me!

Leianna grimaced. This was dire…if that happened...but, herself…

What do I do?! I-If they keep searching-

Leianna narrowed her eyes. Just go.

What?!

I said go, Nathaniel. Get out of here.

But I can’t just-

Listen to me. If they get you, they’ll be long gone before anyone else gets here. Warn the church. You have to tell them what happened. There’s...there’s so many bodies, Nathaniel. More than just us. They’ve been doing this for ages. Your duty to the fallen, and everyone else at risk of these people is above your duty to me.

There was a long pause in her mind before his response came.

God damn it, Leianna…

Nothing else came after that. It seemed he really did follow her order.

Good. At least if she fell, they wouldn't get away with this...but what would she do, now?

Something. She’d figure something out.

I’m...so close...just a little longer, she told herself. The ascent to the surface was pushing her to her limits, but she couldn’t stop. She had to try.

She recognized the markings along the wall. Early on into their delve, they passed them.

Almost there...nearly out…

Turning the corner, she made her way to the final hallway. It was just a few minutes, now. She moved on, all the while that green drake marched ahead of her, occasionally making sure she was still following it.

After slogging through the mine, she marched up the stairs at the end, nearing the entrance. This was it…

As she reached the top of the stairs, she found herself in a small, square room. At the end of it, the wooden door was taunting her. Right behind it, salvation lay in wait, and the drake sat patiently waiting…

But a figure leaping from the shadows put an end to that. A cultist emerged from the darkness and sunk a dagger into her with blinding speed. The blade hit her shoulder, slipping past the protective armor and piercing her additional layers of protection. Thankfully the armor and padding at least made the wound not a deep one, but it still hurt like hell. Another figure came from behind, grabbing her and restraining her as she struggled against the pair.

It hit her, a sudden realization. She was weak. She was hurt. She was tired. She was out of energy. Two against one.

This is it, she thought grimly.

But the man with the knife suddenly cried out in pain, flailing and letting go of the dagger, still stuck in her shoulder.

“D-down you stupid beast! DOWN!”

The drake. It had...attacked him. It was on his back, jaws biting into the villain as he struggled against the monster.

That was the opening she needed. Leianna leaned forward and then thrust her head back, slamming her skull into the other man’s face. It stunned him. Not enough to free Leianna, but enough for her to slip her hand free, and…

Despite the terrible angle, and swinging blind, she managed to hit him in the side with her mace. That did it. He let go and she quickly turned and followed up with another swing.

The mace hit his chest, and he went down. She raised the mace over her head and swung down onto his skull, putting an end to the threat for good.

Leianna turned and saw the drake and cultist struggling. He had gotten the beast off his back, but the drake had bitten his hand and wasn’t letting go, as the man pulled and struggled to get his hand free.

He didn’t even see the cleric come up behind him. With one last swing, the man collapsed to the dirt, and it was done.

Bloodied, beaten, clutching onto her wounds and with a knife in her shoulder, Leianna hobbled, dragging herself to the door. She pulled on it and…

Of course.

Well, she hadn’t come this far to be bested by a locked door. She kicked it with her good foot. It shook. She slammed it again. Something snapped. She gathered her strength and kicked once more…

The door flew open, and Leianna had to squint as sunlight assaulted her eyes. That was it, she was here.

The battered cleric limped out into the wilds, leaving the cave behind her. The sun was shining, the sky was a bright blue, the grass and trees were a verdant green and birds chirped in the distance.

She sighed and began hobbling forward, not sure what she was going to do now. She was free, but...she could barely walk, and her rescue had been forced back. It was only a matter of time before they caught up with her…

The sound of rumbling in the distance caught her attention. The exhausted cleric turned towards the direction, looking off into the field beside her…

A wagon was headed towards her. A wagon...with Nathaniel at the helm. The pair of horses hurried as he urged them.

Leianna could hardly bring herself to believe it as he pulled up beside her.

“Hurry!”

She didn’t waste any more time. She hopped into the back of the open wagon, throwing herself against the side as she sat down and gasped, overtaken by her exhaustion.

The sound of a loud thud made her open her eyes again. As she suspected, the drake had hopped in after her, the cheap, small wagon being completely taken up by the pair.

The carriage took off again, the horses turning back around and galloping the way they came.

Leianna leaned back and threw her head up as she gasped, still in disbelief at the events that had just unfolded.

“I heard what you were saying to yourself, you know. I know you were just trying to urge yourself on, but knowing you were almost out...I couldn’t run away.”

Leianna gritted her teeth as she endured the pain of the excursion. “Y-you...said they…”

“I caught their attention, led them the other way. Shook em’ off and came back.”

The cleric sighed, nearly laughing in exuberation. In all honesty, she should be dead right now.

The Lord was merciful. Only thanks to his gifts had she been able to escape. Without that miracle, the drakes…

The drakes.

She looked back down. The drake was lying down too, curled up and resting alongside her.

Leianna furrowed her brows. “Why’d you help me?”

Nathaniel whipped around and gave her a funny look. “I couldn’t just leave you.”

“I wasn’t talking to you.”

The drake looked up at her, pupils boring into her soul. There was intelligence, behind those reptilian eyes...there was no question.

It knew what it had done, and why.

The man rubbed his messy hair before his gaze widened in comprehension. “Oh...oh! Your, uh...friend? You made...a friend down there?”

“It appears so...isn’t that right, buddy?”

The drake let out a soft huff as Leianna’s hand slowly rubbed along its head. She had always wanted a puppy. For a few moments, the cleric smiled.

Close enough.

Tag list: @thereisnothingwrongwithbeingmad, @lady-redshield-writes, @paper-shield-and-wooden-sword, @sheralynnramsey, @tawnywrites, @writer-on-time, @oceanwriter, @zwergis-spilledink, @fluffpiggy, @elliewritesfantasy, @homesteadhorner, @laurenwastestimewriting, @elaynab-writing, @the-ichor-of-ruination, @candy687, @novicewriterstuff, @shewrites-sometimes

15 notes · View notes

ialwayscomewhenyoucall · 6 years

Text

‘til Midnight

chapter 5/6

ao3 | ch 1 | ch 2 | ch 3 | ch 4

twelve x rose, Into the Dalek coda

He isn’t going to sleep.

He’s going to spend this hour memorizing the feel of Rose in his arms, breathing her in, delighting in stolen moments he thought he’d never have again.

The last few hours replay in his mind like a film, from when he first stepped out of the TARDIS and heard Rose’s voice right through a few minutes ago, when he he lied...telling her he’ll never leave her again.

When she finds him again, the other Doctor, he’s going to leave her behind on that beach.

He doesn’t deserve her. He doesn’t deserve these moments of joy. He’s protecting her heart by lying to her, but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s lying.

You asked me if you’re a good man, and the answer is I don’t know. But I think you try to be, and I think that’s probably the point.

Is he a good man? Where is the line?

Suddenly everything overwhelms him; his limbs feel heavy and his eyes won’t stay open. No! Not now, he pleads with his body, but it’s no use. He checks and double-checks the alarm clock in his head.

He cannot let her disappear like this.

Just before he succumbs to sleep a series of thoughts drop into his mind like stones into a pond. He’d said goodbye to her once, and it had nearly broken him. He’d said goodbye to her again, given her to himself, as it were, and it had been the hardest thing he’d ever done.

He doesn’t know how he can possibly do it again.

✰✰✰

“Rose.”

His voice is barely more than a whisper but she snaps awake, her eyes full of panic. “Is--am I late? Is it… are we okay?”

Pulling her close--closer, actually--he peppers her face with soft kisses. That treacherous bit of his mind says, “What is this you’ve become, Doctor?” but he quickly shuts it down.

“Everything is fine, my Rose. Everything is fine. It’s just time to wake up is all.”

She relaxes, melting into him. “You stayed.” He hears the smile in her voice.

“I said I would. I even slept, actually.” He pauses, then adds, “It’s been a very long time since I’ve been so comfortable.” She snuggles even closer, and he gives a little hum of contentment.

“Did you dream?”

The ghost of a smile flits across his face. He doesn’t often talk about his dreams, but this one he’s happy to tell. “I did. I dreamed of the first time you saw me. I picture you that way all the time; that brilliant smile, and all the falling snow.”

She sits up and turns to face him, utterly bewildered. “Doctor, the first time I saw you was in the basement of Henrik’s. Remember? Moving dummies, explosions, ‘run for your life.’ Ringin’ any bells?”

“That was the first time I met you.”

He lets the silence linger; they just look at each other, and he sees the exact moment she realizes what he’s saying.

“Doctor!” Her eyes are wide, unbelieving. “You went back into my past? Which one of you? Was it a face I knew? How come I don’t remember?”

At first he hedges. “It...it wasn’t a very memorable moment. Not for you, anyway.” She gives him that look of hers, and he gives in. He’d known he would from the start. “I was feeling sad, alright? It was the end of a hard day and I wanted to see you. I didn’t mean to actually be noticed, but I’m glad of it. I got to see your beautiful smile, hear your laugh. You thought I’d had too much to drink because I didn’t know what year it was. Bit of a common problem for me, actually.”

Realization washes over her. “I remember! When I told you, you laughed and said--”

“I bet you’re gonna have a great year.”

“And that was the year I met you. Properly met you, I mean. The year my life changed forever.” Her eyes begin to glisten again.

“I almost messed everything up that night, you know,” the Doctor says conversationally. “I nearly added ‘Rose Tyler.’”

A laugh bubbles out of her. “You never.”

“I did. I had to bite it back. You know how I was in that body. I had to say your name every chance I got. I rather liked the taste of it in my mouth, I think.”

She leans forward until she’s just a breath away, looking right into his eyes. “Didn’t you ever wonder if the taste of me might be better?”

He swallows. “Every single minute, my Rose.” Clearing his throat, he amends, “Well, nearly. The minutes we were in peril I was thinking about how best to save your life, and then how maybe I could swing you up in a celebratory hug and maybe kiss you afterwards. You know, all caught up in the spirit of celebration. The few times I did get to kiss you, you were the Wolf, or you were Cassandra, or...it was all very confusing. I just wanted you, and to know you wanted--”

His words are cut off by Rose’s lips pressed against his. When she stops for a breath, she whispers, “I’m here now, Doctor. And let me tell you, you’re all I want. You are my past, present, and future.”

You are my present. It’s the only thing he’ll let himself think. Because her future is the other Doctor.

She grins. “Did you really think about snogging me that much?”

He looks away, eyes seeking anything in the room that isn’t her. “I might have exaggerated. Just a bit.”

Her laugh actually sparkles. Another piece of him breaks.

Two hours, thirty-two minutes, fourteen seconds, thirteen seconds, twelve seconds…

✰✰✰

“Well. This is new.”

His ship, yet again. They’d been wandering about, and he’d let Rose lead. Or so he’d thought. But when she’d stumbled upon this particular room…

“New body, new hobbies, you know the drill. It’s just something I decided to pick up again. It’s been awhile, but it’s like flying a TARDIS. You never forget.”

She runs a finger along a coiled metal string, which releases a soft squeak. Looking up at him through her lashes, she says, “Play for me?”

As if he could refuse.

He sits on a low stool and settles the guitar on his thigh, the lacquered wood and metal strings somehow familiar against the relative newness of his left hand. Rose looks at him, expectant, and in that breath he begins to play.

He has no particular tune in mind, only Rose; he thinks of her and improvises. The tune begins playfully, skipping from high notes to low and back again the way they skipped across the universe. He plays the Wolf, dramatic and sweeping, then the mingled pain and joy of regeneration. Sometimes there is fear of losing her, sometimes there is laughter, sometimes it is just the perfection of being with the one who fits so rightly at your side.

He doesn’t want to, but it is part of their story, so he plays Canary Wharf. The utter despair echoes about them, the feeling of losing one of his hearts when she disappeared into the other universe. He plays the beach, the words both said and unsaid. He doesn’t risk a look at her face, but he can feel the tears in her eyes.

He plays her absence, his loneliness, her determination to find him again. He plays their reunion, a ridiculous movie crescendo that ends with a whimper; he recalls lying on the street in her arms and can barely go on.

But he started down this musical memory lane and he can’t stop now. He plays the cacophony of the Crucible, the confusion of the metacrisis...and then the worst goodbye he’s ever said.

It is slow and bittersweet; he plays her happiness and confliction at once, dipping occasionally into a minor key. He plays his heartbreak, the emptiness inside him that could never quite be filled. He lets the song go so quiet it sounds like it may even just ease off into nothing. Rose’s breaths slow with the music.

And then he plays today.

He plays his melancholy, his longing, his attempted self-comfort. There is a drawn out wail when he remembers hearing her voice calling out to him, that moment etched in his mind for all of eternity. His fingers jump along the strings, mimicking Rose’s footsteps in the courtyard. He plays his frustrations with the TARDIS and Rose’s trilling, teasing laughs, the joy in the garden, the bliss of kissing her, of holding her, of being near her. He plays her fierceness, her refusal to let time--past, present, or future--get in their way. He plays hints of the agony he knows is coming, but refuses to dwell on it, not wanting to hurt his Rose. He plays the sweetness of falling asleep with her in his arms.

And winding through it all, a theme that repeats over and over, is love.

His unending, unconditional, heartbreaking love. He can’t say the words to her, but he can play the notes. He hopes that someday she will understand.

At the very end, almost an afterthought, he plays the first eight notes of “Auld Lang Syne,” sweet and pure, no reverb or distortion.

And then there is silence.

For a moment--or actually, 97.32 seconds--he is lost inside himself, lost in a flood of memories. Music may be good for the soul but it can also cause heartache. He’s brought back to the present by a face searching his, a hand on his cheek.

“Doctor, that was…” Rose looks into his eyes as if the answers lie buried somewhere inside him. “That was me. It was you and me and the whole universe and how did you do that with just a guitar?” She doesn’t give him a chance to respond, instead she presses her lips to his, taking his breath away. He returns her kiss with enthusiasm, nearly dropping the guitar in his attempt to pull her onto his lap.

“Hold on, I’ve got to put this up, it was a gift from…” He sees her face: eyes bright, cheeks flushed, lips swollen from kissing him, and he amends his train of thought. “You know what, that’s not important.” He manages to get the guitar onto the stand with one hand and pull her onto his lap with the other. Her fingers thread through his hair as her lips crush against his again.

This, he thinks. This right here is what the present is for.

for @doctorroseprompts 31 Days of Ficmas || day 31 - midnight

#lirael writes #doctorroseprompts #31 days of ficmas #twelve x rose #'til midnight #dw fic #into the dalek coda #the twelfth doctor #rose tyler #i love twelve with his guitar #and also snogging #*happy sigh*

9 notes · View notes

jbgjbg-blog · 6 years

Text

The most effective method to Host a Post-Wedding Brunch

A post-wedding early lunch is the ideal method to say goodbye to your visitors, fix their aftereffects before their flights, and allow everybody to repeat what went down at the gathering the past night. The post-wedding informal breakfast is customarily facilitated by the lady of the hour's folks, however there's no motivation behind why an auntie, your in-laws, or even you two could have the early lunch.

Thinking about how to handle this last wedding occasion? We'll let you know all that you have to know from where to have the early lunch to how to tell your visitors the occasion is going on.

Pick a Location That's Convenient

Your visitors will be dispersing in only hours—regardless of whether it's via vehicle, train, or plane—so you'll have to pick an area that is advantageous for them to get to as they settle up with their inns and assemble every one of their bags. The best spot to have a post-wedding informal breakfast is an area that is directly close to the wedding setting, where (apparently) the vast majority of your visitors are remaining. In the event that your setting isn't reserved for that following day, you could likewise ask the amount it would cost to have an additional early lunch for a few hours. This could be a money reward for them in the event that they don't regularly have a Sunday wedding.

Try not to Host it at the Crack of Dawn

In the event that your wedding gathering went on late into the night, you most likely would prefer not to have an informal breakfast that begins at 8 a.m.— yet don't begin it so late that your visitors are holding up in their rooms, hungry. It's ideal in case you're adaptable with the time so your visitors can go back and forth as their movement plan suits them. Thus, for instance, have your informal breakfast from 9 to 11 a.m. also, let your visitors realize that they don't need to arrive comfortable or leave at 11 so as to take part.

Tell Your Guests Ahead of Time

Since a post-wedding early lunch isn't a piece of the run of the mill exhibition of a wedding, you can educate your visitors concerning it in any capacity you like, regardless of whether it's on the web or through snail mail. Include an area about the early lunch on your wedding site and put the majority of the data they have to realize, for example, time, date and spot, and regardless of whether they have to take note of any dietary limitations. You can likewise send a supplement in your paper wedding solicitations telling them every one of the subtleties of the post-wedding early lunch and approach them to RSVP for that also so you realize precisely how much nourishment there should be.

Pick Some Delicious Food Options

A smorgasbord of sustenance for a post-party informal breakfast.

Regardless of whether you're getting the sustenance provided food or somebody is setting up the nourishment in their own kitchen, early lunch is one of the simplest group satisfying dinners there is, and there are such huge numbers of delightful alternatives to look over. When arranging the menu, consider early lunch things like little quiches, breakfast burritos, a morning meal taco bar, natural product serving of mixed greens, small scale waffles, biscuits, and grouped cheeses. Obviously, you'll likewise need to offer your visitors espresso (they'll unquestionably need a lot of that) and perhaps a mimosa or Bloody Mary bar for a little hair of the canine. On the off chance that your visitors need to run rapidly to the airplane terminal and just possess energy for an embrace farewell, have some morning meal burritos wrapped to go so they can appreciate them on their Uber ride to the flights path.

Reuse Your Wedding Decor (But Not every last bit of It)

To press one final use out of your wedding stylistic layout, show some of it all through the post-wedding informal breakfast, for example, two or three highlights and a couple of other deliberately set things. You would prefer not to re-utilize every last bit of it, as that could be a colossal torment to drag everything in and out, yet the general thought is to have the informal breakfast feel just as it's each piece a piece of the wedding end of the week as the practice supper and the gathering. In the event that you had a photograph stall or have any moment prints of the gathering, make certain to show those and pack them up for visitors so they can have a remembrance to bring home.

Attempt to Talk to whatever number of Your Guests as could be expected under the circumstances

A gathering of individuals getting a charge out of a post-wedding informal breakfast.

Gatherings are a feverish couple of hours for a recently hitched couple—visitors are swarming to disclose to them congrats, and it can frequently feel like they don't get quality discussion time with the same number of individuals as they would have preferred. The post-wedding early lunch is an extraordinary chance to have an easygoing discussion with anybody you missed or the individuals who you just got the opportunity to put in no time flat with. Make sure to say thanks to them for coming, give them an embrace, and wish them well on their excursion home.

6 Common Spring Wedding Problems, Solved!

A lady of the hour and man of the hour remaining in a lavender field at their spring wedding.

Spring is a standout amongst the most mainstream seasons to get hitched—and it's anything but difficult to perceive any reason why. The blossoms are sprouting, the climate is beginning to heat up and the scene potential outcomes are unending. Be that as it may, weddings in spring—simply like in some other season—aren't without their hiccups. Spring weddings have extraordinary difficulties that you'll need to consider before you book a scene or set a date.

We're handling how to unravel the six most basic spring wedding issues with the goal that you can be the spring goddess lady of the hour you constantly longed for being.

1. The Unpredictable Weather

A lady of the hour and lucky man wearing precipitation boots in a woods setting amid their spring wedding.

Regardless of where you live in the nation, spring can be a standout amongst the most capricious climate seasons. One day may have cold downpour, and the following might sear. In certain territories of the nation, you even need to battle with extreme tempests with tornadoes or hail.

You may have longed for a dazzling greenhouse wedding in the spring daylight—and you might almost certainly pull it off with some karma—however it's in every case best to have an indoor reinforcement plan in the event that something goes wrong. On the off chance that you book a setting with an outside part where you'll be facilitating the function, make certain to ask the scene organizer what you ought to do if there should arise an occurrence of severe climate. On the off chance that a scene doesn't have a reinforcement plan for when the climate gets touchy, at that point you may need to either plan your wedding for the mid year or fall or consider running with another setting that has an indoor service space you can utilize.

2. Planning Around Spring Breakers

Arranging a goal wedding in the spring? You'll in all likelihood have excellent climate, however you'll additionally need to manage spring breakers who are noisy, upsetting, and don't generally set the foundation tone that you imagined for your wedding.

The most ideal approach to maintain a strategic distance from those unruly spring breakers is to examine the inn or resort you plan on booking. See what sort of group they take into account and regardless of whether the inn has a base age. Peruse the surveys on Yelp and TripAdvisor to get a feeling of what spring break resembles there and regardless of whether it's a decent spot to get hitched this season.

3. Hot Days and Cool Nights

Another issue that spring presents isn't just unusual climate starting with one day then onto the next, yet the potential for fluctuating temperatures between your function and gathering. Spring tends to be really warm in the evenings and afterward genuinely crisp in the nighttimes, so the best strategy is simply to be set up for all circumstances.

In case you're facilitating your service outside in the late evening, attempt to pick a detect that is sufficiently shaded or give your visitors paper fans to chill. For the chilly nighttimes, get some additional room radiators in the event that something goes wrong and check whether there's any way you can encase the meeting room either with a tent or give your visitors shawls or different things to heat up.

4. Bugs

A lady of the hour holding a blue and red bundle at her spring wedding.

Bugs are an indication that the seasons are changing and that the temperatures are beginning to heat up, yet bugs can be a gigantic disturbance at a wedding. Request that your flower specialist structure a bundle loaded up with roses or other greenery that aren't alluring to bugs—since you truly would prefer not to keep running from a honey bee or a wasp while you're strolling down the passageway.

Something else to think about with regards to bugs and spring weddings is the sustenance. In case you're anticipating serving nourishment outside, solicit your cook what sorts from assurances they have set up to keep flies from arriving on your supper. In conclusion, you may likewise need to inquire as to whether they have any precaution measures for mosquitoes, which can begin to be a genuine agony this season in specific areas.

5. Sensitivities

Springtime is the point at which every one of the blooms flawlessly bloom and things begin to spring up indeed. But on the other hand it's the season when everybody is sniffling their heads off because of sensitivities. The exact opposite thing you need is for your visitors to be not really quietly enduring your "I do's" with the wheezes or sniffles. Ensure that your service space isn't excessively drafty and doesn't have a lot of allergenic vegetation adjacent.

6. Excursions and Holidays for Family

Your wedding may be the main date that is hovered on your schedule, however a significant number of your loved ones may as of now make them spring break goals or Easter plans that are now represented. In spite of the fact that you can't oblige everybody's calendar, take a snappy straw survey of those visitors who are most imperative and see what the best dates are for them so you can maintain a strategic distance from any twofold appointments.

#candid #candid wedding photography #best wedding photography

1 note · View note

littledigong5 · 6 years

Text

✨THE SPARK✨

Once upon a place full of hopeless and unloved people suffering from different love Illness faces that shades by tears and turmoil, heart are numbed empathy is havoc the word love in the place is just fantasy! a theory of fiction that is not worth to take seriously in reality, bitterness is their paradigm love is persecuted unjustly no one have enough courage to inter the death row, lover's are criminals condemned and decapitated! every relationship has it's boundaries people are drown in agony and sadness their life is murky as cave gaining nothing but sorrow and pain, they are bind by their unquestionable culture centralizing limitations that broke the cell of an extending hand toward peace and unity among neighborhood leading into a most penurious land, that no one would wish to step on where dignity is trampled and pride is in disguise of religiousity, prohibiting every women to have an affair to the men that they called non-believers and even more than violent to the people whom are rainbow lover they are bloody murdered! not given the to perform their unique love.

And if in life treasured are guarded in the place the daughter of the prominent elite family in the place is highly protected greater than wealth, valuable from anything for them caring for the daughter as majesty is safeguarding the generation to come of unending succession vested by their early ancestors.

In the middle of February the protected princess turned into a fully matured women the young girl that spend her childhood inside a small room with guard's is now free to go out side in the condition of covering her whole body using their traditional clothes from feet up to head Zahra Amira in the first time finally experience a bigger place where she is free to mingle with everyone in her hometown like a ordinary woman despite of the limitations for her it's much better than to stay in her room like a prisoner Zahra envy every women in their community that can freely make their own decisions without restrictions as she have, she is lonely because her parents prohibiting her to have a friend specially to men! she loves flowers for her it brings a priceless happiness and a opportunity to meditate about life with hope that one day she would be totally free from the puzzle where she is trapped! Full of wonders and asking the same question by herself: God if I am special why that you allow me to experience this ordealness? I feel empty and unloved I wish to be a flower to felt the softness of love and cared even by this farmers.

The prescious Zahra did not know that heaven is listening to her wish until the almighty answered her question through an instrument named Shujae Aldhiaab a God fearing men a anthropologist from out side whom are in a farmer disguise to study the culture of the place.

Shujae is a diligent guy even he came from a affluent family but he refused to enjoy the luxury life and instead humbled himself by choecing the profession to learn more about human culture and diversity.

One day at the garden Zahra is doing again her daily routine talking to the flowers as she said: I wish I could be beautiful as thess flowers and suddenly there is a strange voice answered her by saying Yes you are! after hearing the voice Zahra didn't know what to do she is nervous that was the first time she heard a mysterious voice of a man, in the garden so she closed her eyes and pray to God to give her more confident to face the man and when she turned around she spot a majestic man that melted her like an Iceland surfacing the sun! Also the man who are are in a farmer disguise forget his duty in a moment to pretend as a farmer when he witness the adorable beauty of Zahra and accidentally turned urine into his pants! both of them felt something inside that is intense and inexplicable that was love at first sight! a deep coloring spark that felt internally lighting the corpse heart and start to tough it how to love, and Shujae never missed the opportunity to know the princess and start to ask questions but Zahra did not response to him because she don't know how to start a conversation with a man like Shujae but because of importunate attitude of Shujae the princess finally response and start to blast her bank stories from her childhood up to present and when Shujae heard every detail from Zahra life both tears and saliva flows because of a long sorrowful story of Zahra, it inspired and empowered more the feeling's of Shujae to Zahra and in no doubt Shujae also shared to Zahra his life story the real him and his felling for Zahra but then Zahra strongly said that it could not be possible to happen because that was considered as mortal sinned to their culture! but their mutual feeling's never shunt night has come Zahra's guard's feched her to bring back home when she came back to their house her father asked her why that she use to spend her time to a useless garden instead of doing their traditional prayers Zahra is guilty at the same time because she knows what could her father do if it will discover the truth about Shujae secret, so she keep on silence and refuse to answer her father, that is why her father doubted knowing his daughter hiding something because he knows Zahra very well, so he call one of their slave to look after his daughter and instructed her not to tell the princess about it, after a moment of sermon Zahra went again to her jail and that night is a sleepless night to Zahra she keep on remembering Shujae the things that they talk about, his killer smile and sweet personality that she never experienced since birth, having a conversation with a guy like Shujae.

After a long night🌃 sunrises and another day has come asusual early in the morning Zahra came back in the garden but this time she is not interested anymore to the flowers but more to the farmer that give life to her hopeless living, so finally they meet again and start chatting like a long time friends discussing a bountiful memories but without knowing that their is a deadly eye witness their different closeness that are extraordinary to a princess and a farmer so after seeing! the slave came back to Zahra's father and stated what she see in the garden upon hearing the statement of the slave Zahra's father directly ordered his guard's to get his daughter away from the garden and from the farmer so the guard forced Zahra to go back home, and her father started to investigate her how true what the slave told to him if she is having an affair to a farmer Zahra did not know what to say, she is worrying about the safety of Shujae her silence again triggered his father suspicion! so her father ordered his soldier to investigate about the farmer, Zahrah was so frightened because she knows how dangerous her father are, so she find ways how to scape to save Shujae from death! she pretend to be calm and go to her room as if nothing happens she locked the door and everyone thought that she is sleeping so she use this as an opportunity to escape and this make possible through the window that she had been manipulated for over a year! And she hurriedly fled to find Shujae and in the middle of the garden they meet together like a sheep who lost their shepherd and Zahrah tell Shujae about her father's dark plan that surely beheading Shujae in the crowd for what he did is unforgivable! So Shujae offered her to go with him out from the hell where she belong and promised her that she will be provided a valuable life without doubt Zahrah go with the man that she love the most!!

After a perilous way out from the place of evilness they successfully scape and went to the opposite place a broader birth land of Shujae, where love wins! in every individuals, where rainbow are free to shine... A new beginning and finally Zahrah realize the essence of a genuine freedom that she wish to have even before! she discovered that there are place that are livable far from violent perspective where she came from the joy that she felt is overwhelming, but on the other hand she feel sad to her fellow women whom are left behind to a Godless place.

After a year of living together Zahrah and Shujae finally get married and freely demonstrate their love and commitment to each other! And blessed by three siblings that imbued with moral values from their parents grow up as a responsible children and God-fearing citizen! Starting that day their families love starts to prospered and inspired many a spark that give light to a gloomy state far from ordealness experiences that provides a meaningful life.

#CreativeWriting

#ShortStory

#4thunitexam

1 note · View note

writesandramblings · 6 years

Text

The Captain’s Secret - p.78

“We Get What We Deserve”

A/N: This chapter concludes the events of episode 10, "Despite Yourself," and continues with the events of episode 11, "The Wolf Inside."

Full Chapter List Part 1 - Objects in Motion << 77 - Hook Line and Sinker 79 - People They Come Together >>

The brig on the ISS Shenzhou was exactly as Lorca remembered it. The three agony booths, the crackle of torture devices, the unending screams. Two of the booths were occupied. The third had been emptied for Lorca, its former occupant shunted over to the containment pen to sit and enjoy what little respite the too-bright lights of the pen offered.

"Only the finest agonizer booth reserved for the treacherous Lorca," Connor announced. Lorca resigned himself to step inside it. At least the booth had been sanitized recently. The only thing worse than getting into an agony booth was getting into one that was already drenched in someone else's urine.

"Absolutely not," said Burnham.

Connor and Lorca turned towards Burnham, Lorca's alarm evident on his face. Was she trying to spare him this? That was a mercy Terrans did not give. Connor was equally confused.

Burnham's response to this silent question was to shout. Not the kind of calm, commanding, scathingly dangerous tone that would have shut Connor down completely, but a shout that just seemed to be for the sake of shouting. There was a forced insincerity to it. "What did I say to you! I do not want some overzealous guard killing him before I have the chance. I would punish the entire ship for an error that grave!"

Lorca winced. He probably should have told Burnham what agony booths were, but he could not explain to her how he knew; the booths were so ubiquitous they did not merit definition in the rebel data core. It also felt like there was a plaintive note of desperation in her voice. Not only did it remind him yet again she was not his Michael, it might spell their downfall if she failed to convince the Shenzhou's crew of her strength.

"We would never allow him the release of death, captain," Connor assured her.

"See to it that he is installed properly here," Burnham said, addressing the brig security chief and Tyler, and still sounding entirely too unconfident. Thankfully, she finally hit her stride. "I need to access my files. Escort me to the ready room." She strode away with Connor.

The brig commander issued some quick orders. Double-check the monitoring systems, set low thresholds for the alarms that warned when someone was entering potentially deadly distress. (Alarms which were usually turned off. People sentenced to spend time in agony booths were typically expendable.)

Lorca was mildly annoyed by this result. He did not need to be coddled where agony booths were concerned. He also noticed Tyler seemed slightly dazed and decided the best thing to do was also the thing that came most naturally to him.

"Well, now that it's just us chickens, who’s up for a little mutiny? I'll make it worth your while." He smirked. He received only silent glares in response, but it was his way of signaling to Tyler that everything was fine.

Tyler’s expression showed no sign of reassurance at the joke. He looked as dazed as before. Lorca's eyebrows knit in momentary concern. Tyler's head was not in the game. He needed Tyler in the game more than ever because he was counting on Tyler to protect Burnham.

The security chief came and removed his restraints, then shoved him backwards into the booth. Lorca smirked at her. "Maybe you'd like to come in here, too? I can show you a good—" He never finished. The door clicked shut and the booth turned on and he screamed as his skin seemed to light on fire with electricity. Every nerve, every synapse lit up with pain. He had to fight to keep his hands from clawing at his face—that was a rookie mistake where agony booths were concerned, and he was no rookie. As he screamed and screamed and screamed, he forgot all about Tyler.

Connor picked up on the flaws in Burnham's performance. Even if he had not, her demise was the only way for him to keep his captaincy of the Shenzhou. He came at her in the turbolift between the brig and the bridge. Burnham was forced to defend herself, stabbing him with his own knife and feeling a rising panic as his eyes went wide at the realization that his life was ending.

It was the second time Burnham had watched him die, and even though Connor had tried to kill her, it felt as horrible as the first. When the turbolift doors opened and his lifeless body spilled out onto the bridge, the crew assembled there began to applaud. Crew with familiar faces: Kayla Detmer, currently Discovery's helmsman and formerly helmsman of the USS Shenzhou, standing as the ISS Shenzhou's first officer. Around her, Weetan, Januzzi, Gant—officers Burnham had served with and known for years, but complete strangers as they applauded Connor's death.

She was glad for the solitude of the ready room and equally saddened by it. It had the same dimensions and layout as the ready room of the USS Shenzhou. She and Captain Georgiou had spent so many hours in there, planning missions and reporting to Starfleet and reviewing ship operations. This room was different, darker, and decorated to be faintly menacing, but it was familiar all the same.

That was the worst thing, she decided as she scanned for the Defiant files. Everything here felt familiar yet wrong, like looking at yourself in an unmirrored photograph.

She found the files. There was a problem. The data was massive, encrypted, and behind a formidable firewall. It could not be transmitted off the ship undetected.

After dealing with general ship matters and receiving a comprehensive update on the Shenzhou's status, Burnham retired for the night into the captain's quarters. It was a relief when Tyler contacted her on the comms. "How's the captain?" she asked.

She could hear Tyler exhale heavily. "It was... horrible. He's hanging in there..."

The captain was not her only concern. She could only imagine how that scene had looked to Tyler after surviving Klingon prison for seven months. Her voice softened. "How are you?"

"I wish I were with you."

Burnham wished that, too. "We should keep a low profile for now." Talking was some comfort, so they did that for a few minutes and then Burnham slept as best she could in a bed that was not her own on a ship where it felt like the shadows were filled with daggers.

In the morning, she beelined for the brig. She could hear the screams from the hallway. The first thing she saw when the doors opened was Lorca in the same agony booth as the day before.

Burnham addressed the brig commander. "I want to speak to the prisoner. Alone. Clear out this rabble." It was a fierce, determined voice, entirely what it needed to be. If Lorca had been aware enough to hear it, he would have described it as steel and approved entirely.

"As you command, captain," said the brig commander. She rounded up the brig's other occupants with brutal efficiency and herded them away, the brig guards following. Burnham and Lorca were alone but the room was still filled with the sounds of Lorca's screaming. It was a different scream than Tyler had observed the day previous; lower, hoarser, more of a keening than a full-throated sound.

Burnham went to the brig console and found the command to turn off the booth. Lorca's voice terminated into a gasp and he sank down in the booth with exhausted relief. Burnham dashed over and opened the door.

Lorca looked up at her, breathing heavily. "Oh," he said, and managed to swallow. "It's you." He closed his eyes and relaxed, his breaths leveling out into a slow, even rhythm.

Burnham crouched down and tried to help him up, but he waved her off.

"Just... give me a minute."

He seemed utterly exhausted. "Were you in here all night?"

Lorca gave a snort of amusement. "Is it morning already?"

Burnham stared. How could they keep someone in this state for such prolonged periods? "Sir, at this rate, I'm uncertain how much more of this you can take." The stress alone seemed potentially fatal.

"Ah, they pull you out when you lose consciousness," he told her, managing a smile. "I just haven’t yet. Guess I'm made of pretty strong stuff." It was a point of personal pride. He could go longer in an agony booth than almost anybody.

He motioned for Burnham to help him up. He stood up straight and tall and stepped out of the booth, rotating his shoulders to ease the stiffness out of them. Noting Burnham's continued look of concern, Lorca offered, "I'm fine. Good thing I skipped breakfast. Hate to embarrass myself the way some others have." He looked over at the adjacent booths. That was another rookie mistake. The smell in the brig really was abominable. "I think I'll use this opportunity to avail myself of the facilities if you don't mind."

She turned her back while he did. The containment pen seemed to have no privacy settings. Apparently even that simple courtesy was beyond Terrans.

"I'm truly sorry about this, captain. If I could get you out of here without arousing suspicion, I would."

Lorca was touched by the concern but shrugged it off as he returned to the central section of the brig. "I've been through worse."

It was hard to imagine what was worse than this. "The Klingons?"

"If you like," said Lorca dismissively. Burnham realized her guess was wrong.

"The Buran," she tried again.

Lorca looked at her calmly. "I know pain, Michael," he said. "I think we both do. Whatever this is..." He gestured at the agony booth. "It doesn't compare to that."

Her parents. He was talking about the death of her parents. Burnham felt a small well of sympathy she had thought buried with the memory of her parents' deaths long ago.

Seeing that sympathy, Lorca smiled. It was good to know, under all that Vulcan nonsense, she was still as human as he was. He treasured that right now, because for a moment, he felt like he was looking at a different Michael Burnham.

Some part of him wanted to reach out, embrace her the way he had embraced the woman whose face she shared, but he knew better. There was no pretending his Michael was anything other than dead and, in more ways than he could express, this Burnham was not her. He was simply grateful that the universe had provided him opportunity to see her again.

"Sir, I have an update on the Defiant files..."

There she was, all-business Burnham. Right on cue. He listened to the update with mild agitation. When she was done, he said, "I know you can do this. Keep at it. The sooner we get those files back to Discovery, the sooner you and I can both get out of here." There was an easy answer to getting the files but he could not tell it to her because, again, how would he explain the knowledge? So many things he could not say.

He stepped back into the agony booth.

"Maybe I can adjust the settings, make it less..."

Lorca smiled and turned away because he did not want her to see the regret in his face. "It's fine. I can take it." Had he looked at her, he would have seen her sympathy a thousand times magnified, and a horrible regret to match his own as she closed the door and turned the booth back on.

The pain made the heartache go away. The pain made everything go away. As he screamed, it even made Burnham go away, because she could not watch the horrible writhing of a man she respected as her captain. Lorca pressed his hands against the walls of the booth and screamed and screamed. There was something freeing in it, in not have to think of anything, of screaming without end.

Besides, some part of him felt he deserved it for failing his Michael Burnham.

The security chief and guards were in the hall. They wordlessly returned to their posts. Burnham noticed the other prisoners were not waiting in the hall with them. Detmer's voice came over the comms. "We're ready for you in transporter room one, captain."

In the transporter room, Burnham found the brig's three former guests arrayed on the pad like offerings for inspection. Detmer stood at the ready and exchanged a nod of greeting with Burnham.

Detmer spoke to the assembled prisoners. "You are all guilty of malicious thoughts against your emperor. By order of the sovereign Terran Empire, I hereby sentence you to death."

Burnham felt her eyes widen slightly and fought to keep her face impassive as the three figures were enveloped in particles of white streaked with gold. They were being beamed out to space where they would suffocate and freeze in the vacuum. All Burnham's time at the Vulcan Science Academy, fighting to keep her emotions in check around her Vulcan classmates, was being pushed to its limits. She turned from the empty transporter pad and strode out.

Lorca had warned her. Her decency in taking the time to speak with him had been a weakness. Those three crewmen had paid for that weakness with their lives.

The news of Culber's death took the crew of Discovery by surprise. It was as if the darkness of this universe had infected the ship. The fact that the murder had been perpetrated by Stamets made it even worse.

Sylvia Tilly was still having trouble with this turn of events. Even in his worst moments of delirium, she could not see Stamets as being capable of murdering his own husband and dragging the body down to deck twelve undetected, but apparently that was what had happened. That said something to Tilly. In a very real sense, that person who had stumbled out of the spore chamber after the jump had not been Paul Stamets, and she intended to prove it.

As the ship shifted over to night, Tilly headed to the engineering bay and pulled a canister of spores from the wall. She informed the other engineer in the room she was taking it for a comparative analysis to try and determine if a property variance had caused the universe jump (just in case anyone asked) and proceeded to deck nine.

O'Malley was on the door. He and Larsson were on twelve-and-twelve solo shifts now out of necessity, not that anyone else on the ship really knew or noticed. "Captain," he greeted, displaying the same sort of jaunty irreverence as he had used the first time he met Lorca.

Tilly smiled, glad for a small spot of light in these dark times. "Delivery!"

Normally, the spore delivery was conducted entirely in the security area, but today, Mischkelovitz directed Tilly to bring the spores all the way inside. It did not escape Tilly's notice that Mischkelovitz's nose and eyes were red from recent crying. "You're not going to take them into..." Tilly wondered what to call the crawlspace.

"No need," said Mischkelovitz, gesturing to the security monitors up by the ceiling. "Captain's not on the ship. He won't see." She directed Tilly to put the canister on the table and went to open a wall panel.

Tilly decided to ask now before she lost her nerve. "I've been bringing you a lot of spores. I was wondering if you might be willing to help me with something in return?"

"Okay," said Mischkelovitz, opening a conduit to load the spores into.

The words came flowing out of Tilly like a broken fire hydrant. "The jumps have affected Lieutenant Stamets brain, and ever since the last jump, it's like his brain is stuck and that's what made him kill Dr. Culber, because the Paul Stamets I know would never do anything like that! He injected himself with alien DNA rather than let Ripper suffer, he hates seeing anyone suffer. I need your help to fix him, to make him himself again. Lieutenant Stamets is always saying physics is biology, so I was hoping maybe we could try and make medicine like engineering and fix him that way?"

Mischkelovitz gaped. Tilly winced, knowing her verbal hemorrhage could have that effect on people sometimes, but Mischkelovitz's shock was due to something else. "Hugh is dead?" Her jaw began to tremble. Fresh tears spilled down her cheeks.

"I didn't realize—" Tilly paled. Of course Mischkelovitz did not know. She rarely left her lab and never spoke to anyone on the ship outside the small circle of Lab 26 personnel. Tilly clenched her hands. Mischkelovitz was so jumpy Tilly was not sure if she should try to hug the other woman or not, but standing around doing nothing felt wrong. She tentatively reached over and put a hand on Mischkelovitz's shoulder.

"I'm okay, I'm okay!" went Mischkelovitz, wiping her face furiously. "What happened?"

"They think... they think that he had an episode and ran away and Dr. Culber chased him and Paul... Lieutenant Stamets snapped his neck."

Mischkelovitz's breaths came in rapid, ragged gasps. "They think?"

"That's what Commander Saru told me happened." Tilly gulped. "But Lieutenant Stamets couldn't do something like that! He wouldn't!"

With a series of long, shuddering breaths, Mischkelovitz seemed to get hold of herself. She knew what it was to be blamed for and even responsible for the death of someone you loved through no intentional fault of your own. "Okay," she managed, and nodded. "I'll help."

The spores lay untouched on the table as Mischkelovitz and Tilly went over Stamets' brain scans. The changes to the white matter and cerebral blood flow, suggestions for how to undo or repair the damage in some way, they went over it all. Mischkelovitz managed to explain the neurological processes in ways Tilly could understand clearly, a task which was made more difficult by occasional verbal slip-ups: "mite whatter" instead of "white matter," "teurological nissue" for "neurological tissue." It seemed the more technical Mischkelovitz's words became, the more the letters rearranged themselves.

The conclusion of their assessment was that much of Stamets' brain had been rendered nonfunctional as a result of the structural changes to the organ. Thankfully, the situation was far from hopeless. "You're right," said Mischkelovitz, "it's a ratter of medirecting the pathways, but medical intervention can't do it. He's part of the network. You have to reroute the network."

Tilly's eyes went wide. "Of course!" The network that needed rerouting was the pathways forged by the mycelial link. "The spores changed the structure, they can change it again."

"You just have to be careful to change it to the right structure. Here." Mischkelovitz brought up an earlier brain scan of Stamets; the one Lorca had provided her when she okayed him for that last jump. "You can use this as a template."

Tilly beamed. "Thank you so much, Dr. Mischkelovitz."

Mischkelovitz blinked a few times. "You... you can call me Mischka."

"I can?"

Mischkelovitz nodded rapidly. "It was nice having a partner again. Maybe... maybe if I can find myself here..."

That threw Tilly for a loop. "You want to work with the other you? Isn't she a bad person? It seems like all the people here are... the worst version of us. My doppelganger has killed dozens of people!" Captain Killy had, in fact, killed hundreds, but in this instance, Tilly was referring only to those deaths Killy had performed with her own two hands.

"Maybe," said Mischkelovitz quietly, "but if I could just find me, maybe I can be two people again."

It was tragically sad. Mischkelovitz seemed to think she could replace Milosz with her evil twin. Tilly was not sure what to say to that. "Maybe," she offered after a moment. "Thanks again."

As the doors cycled, Mischkelovitz's odd desire lingered in Tilly's thoughts. She almost forgot O'Malley was outside. Tilly startled when he asked her, "You were in there a while. Everything all right?"

Nothing was all right, but Tilly was starting to feel like it might be better soon. "Uh, yeah! Just... Dr. Mischkelovitz and her husband really had a special connection."

"Oh?" prompted O'Malley. "How d'you know that?"

"They recorded these research logs. It was like..."

O'Malley smiled softly. "Like the same person in two places?"

Tilly was surprised. That described what she had seen perfectly. "Exactly! Did you know Milosz Mischkelovitz?"

"I've known them both since they were eight," said O'Malley, smile deepening into one of genuine affection at the memory.

"You grew up with them?"

O'Malley started to laugh quietly. "Emellia is my sister," he said in proud explanation. "And my favorite person in two universes." That fact suddenly amused him, fraught as it was with the unfortunate nature of their circumstances.

Tilly's eyes went wide as saucers. "I have a million questions!"

O'Malley considered that. As far as crewmembers went, Tilly was right up there with Saru in his estimation. She was amiable, cheerful, intelligent, generous, and kind, but her overly eager nature and willingness to stumble into making mistakes did not make her a very popular person. A bit of an outcast, really. At the beginning of the voyage, she had tried to join the family dinner in the mess hall and they'd turned her away. O'Malley now realized they had done themselves a grave disservice with that action. "Well, I've got nothing but time."

"Really?"

"I mean, I can't promise I'll answer everything, but I'm standing around all night either way."

Though her uniform gave the appearance of Terran scourge Captain Killy, the eager look of excitement on Tilly's face was anything but. "Tell me everything!"

He wouldn't, of course, but he knew enough minor, unincriminating anecdotes to entertain. "So there was this one time, when Mischka was ten..."

In the morning, Saru and Tilly contacted Burnham for an update on the mission. Saru chose not to inform her of Culber's death. It would only distract Burnham from her task. Besides, there was nothing at this point any of them could do.

Stamets lay strapped down to a medical bed, restraints across his torso, arms, and legs. He was completely immobilized. There was no way he would escape again. His milky-white eyes stared unmoving at the ceiling, only the beeps of the medical monitors signaling that he was still alive.

Tilly hated seeing Stamets in this condition, but Saru was adamant the restraints were needed. "If Lieutenant Stamets killed Culber, he may be a danger to all of us." That Stamets was not the real suspect was a fact known only to a few. Circumstances were bad enough without the crew thinking they had a potential murderer roaming the ship who could freeze time and strike anyone, anywhere. Circumstances were bad enough with everyone thinking Stamets had murdered his husband.

"He only escaped because the containment field was disabled," said Tilly. She had not thought to raise it after seeing Stamets; neither had the nurse. In fairness, it was hard to notice a lack of something in the room, particularly when Stamets had seemed so largely unresponsive. "Culber probably lowered it himself. Who could stand to see the person they love in a cage?"

"Perhaps that was his fatal error," mused Saru. At present, he and Groves were operating under the theory that Stamets had gotten out of sickbay, wandered down to deck twelve, and Culber had tracked him there, encountering Allan. Allan then killed Culber, framed Stamets, and deleted the relevant security footage. The theory was not perfect, there were a lot of questions like why Allan would kill instead of just disappearing as he seemed readily able to, but it was a solid theory.

Tilly's reply was immediate. "Stamets didn't kill anyone."

"Are you suggesting there's a murderer running free on our ship?" asked Saru, concerned. Because Allan had always kept himself on the fringes of everything, never getting directly involved, no one seemed yet to realize his absence. That could surely only last so long.

"No!" exclaimed Tilly. "I'm saying that this... this is not Paul Stamets." She brought up Stamets' brain scan on the nearest display and outlined for Saru the details of her discussion with Mischkelovitz. "This was an unfortunate consequence of an addled mind trying to reach beyond a cloud of confusion. We are losing him, commander, and fast."

"The lieutenant's health it in the hands of our medical officers," said Saru somberly.

"Medicine isn't working! This is a spore issue. Which means no one is more qualified to treat him than I am." Before the mirror universe, such an outburst would have been entirely out of character for Tilly. Some combination of the role she had been forced to assume as Captain Killy and her desperation to save Stamets had combined to produce a forcefulness within her. It surprised her as much as it did Saru. She quickly tempered her outburst with a plea. "Please? Let me bring him back."

As he looked down at Stamets, Saru thought that this was not what Culber would have wanted. "Very well," he said, though some part of him doubted Tilly would be able to succeed where Culber had not. They had to try, at least. For the memory of Hugh Culber.

Part 79

#Star Trek #Discovery #Star Trek Discovery #Captain Lorca #Gabriel Lorca #Mirror Lorca #Michael Burnham #Cadet Sylvia Tilly #Sylvia Tilly #Saru #Commander Saru #The Wolf Inside #Despite Yourself #Ash Tyler #Paul Stamets #Hugh Culber #ISS Shenzhou

3 notes · View notes