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echoes-of-the-clockwork · 3 years

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Book One: Gold (Prompto x Reader) Chapter VI

The next morning, (Y/n) wandered into the convenience store. She offered to do some shopping for the boys and stock up on supplies for their dangerous trip ahead. She looked around at the items on display, wondering what all she should buy with the gil Ignis gave her. While staring at a few potions on the shelves, memories from the past filled her mind. She remembered the time when they were only 12 and Prompto was living with his adoptive parents. They didn't know about her due to the blonde keeping her hidden in the gemstone whenever they were around.

When his parents went to work one day, they left a sick Prompto behind. She took it upon herself to take care of him while they were gone. She was forced to head to a nearby store for some medicine and was gone for almost an hour due to not being familiar with human remedies. By the time she got back, he was crying. Tears were streaming down his face as he wailed at the top of his lungs. A sniffle came from him every now and then. She learned he was crying because he couldn't find her and thought she'd left him for good. The spirit reassured him before showing him what she bought at the store to help with his cold.

Suddenly, (Y/n) was torn from her thoughts when Ardyn strolled over. She tried to ignore him, but it was futile when he blocked her from grabbing some potions. She kept calm and did her best to be nice. "May I squeeze by and get some potions?"

"Why, of course." He stepped aside. "My apologies, (Y/n)."

She grabbed a few potions and elixirs, ignoring the man when she noticed he was staring at her. She headed to the counter and paid for the items, but she was once again stopped by Ardyn when he blocked the entrance of the store. She looked up at his face, seeing his somewhat unsettling smile. "What?"

"I must say, young Prompto truly is fortunate to have you by his side," he said.

Her eyes narrowed. She wasn't sure what made him say such a thing. "And what brought this up?"

"A mere observation on my part, is all." He sighed dramatically. "Oh, if only Callyx was as dedicated."

"Maybe it's not him, but you. Now if you'll excuse me..." She pushes past him to exit the convenience store and returns to the caravan. She handed the curatives to Ignis, who thanked her.

Once they were all ready to ship out, they left the caravan. Noctis begrudgingly spoke with Ardyn inside the store to tell the man they were ready to leave. Callyx told (Y/n) she no longer had to ride with them before entering the red car alongside his auburn-haired man. The girl didn't complain and sat in between Gladio and Ignis in the backseat of the Regalia. Noctis started the engine once everyone was inside the car.

Like the day before, Noctis followed a safe distance behind Ardyn's car. After leaving Cauthess Coernix Station, Gladio glanced at their destination that loomed in the distance. "Whoever thought of tapping into the Meteor's power was a genius."

Prompto glanced at the Disc. "Can you even go near that thing?"

"They harvest fragments found nearby-pieces that broke off when the Meteor fell. Almost fell, I should say, for the Archaean caught it," Ignis explained.

"And he's still there, holding the thing up," Gladio added.

"Guess he never misses leg day," Noctis commented.

"Or any day for that matter," Prompto said.

"His unceasing toil and the Meteor's might form the tenets of worship for the locals of Duscae," the advisor stated.

"Makes you wonder what it's like down there at his feet," the shield voiced his thoughts out loud.

"Speaking of gods, that Callyx guy seems to know a lot about an Astral that's supposedly forgotten," Noctis said.

"It's possible Callyx has access to ancient texts that mention Brahma. He did tell me a little more about the seventh Astral," (Y/n) chimed in. "The creator god's consciousness resides within the Celestial Crescent."

"You mean that cluster of stars you told me about?" Prompto asked.

She nodded. "Yeah. Callyx even asked me if I was hearing voices coming from it."

"Are you?" Gladio inquired.

"Well..." She clasped her hands together in her lap. "I'm...not sure. I think I hear a voice, but I can't say for certain."

"Eh, don't worry about it, (Y/n)," Prompto said. "Let's tackle one all-mighty being before worrying about another."

"Couldn't agree more," Noctis stated.

Ignis, after a couple minutes of silence, spoke up and discussed another topic. "So you know, it's hot where we're going. Will the camera fare all right?"

Prompto lifted up his camera, examining the device. "As long as I avoid open flames, it should be okay. I think."

"We don't have a spare if it breaks," Gladio said.

"Leave it in the car?" Noctis suggested.

"Oh no, I'm taking it. Not every day you get up close and personal with the Archaean. I'd kick myself if I missed the photo op," Prompto replied.

"Spoken like a true photographer," the brute remarked.

"As they say, "Better to try and fail than never to try at all"."

Noctis grinned. "Look at you."

"Well, they say that, not me," the blonde said.

"Well, you just do what you gotta."

"But in all seriousness, try not to break it. It was expensive," (Y/n) chimed in.

"I'd never break it! It's very precious to me, especially since you're the one who bought it for me," Prompto stated.

"You bought it? With what money?" Gladio questioned, glancing at the girl sitting beside him.

"I used to work in a small boutique in Insomnia. It was run by a spirit like myself. I worked hard for every yen I spent on that camera." The guardian leaned back in her seat. "She was the first spirit I met. Callyx is the second."

"Wow. Are spirits really that rare?" Noctis asked.

"Yeah. It'll take some serious dedication on the empire's part if they want to wipe out all the spirits on Eos."

The group, once again, fell silent. Noctis kept his attention on road to ensure he wasn't too far or too close to Ardyn's car. Prompto glanced into the backseat at (Y/n) before looking towards Ignis. "Hey, Iggy. Can your glasses take the heat?"

At the mention of his glasses, the strategist adjusted them. "Well, I don't see why they shouldn't."

"Even if they couldn't, he'd still be all right," Noctis commented.

Gladio nodded in agreement. "Yeah, Iggy's eyes ain't that bad."

Prompto was flabbergasted at the news. "Oh, really?"

"My vision is passable without corrective lenses," Ignis explained.

"Then why not take 'em off sometimes?"

"Well..."

Noctis snorted with laughter. "You don't get it, huh?"

"Ignis likes his world to be crystal clear," the shield said.

"Indeed. I've never been one for ambiguity," the advisor claimed.

"Ah. I think I'm getting the picture now." Prompto sat back down, turning to face the front.

"What if they were to break? Do you have a spare pair?" (Y/n) questioned out of curiosity.

"I'm afraid not," the bespectacled man answered.

Drawing closer to the Disc of Cauthess, Prompto has one more question to ask the strategist. "Hey Ignis, how's it feel being away from the wheel?"

"Positively frightening," Ignis responded honestly.

Noctis glanced at him in the rear view mirror, eyes narrowed. "What're you sayin'?"

"That I'm no stranger to His Highness' driving habits."

"'Preciate the confidence."

"Wait," (Y/n) sat up slightly. "Is he really that bad of a driver?"

"Morosely, yes," Ignis replied.

"I mean, he can't be that bad...can he?"

"Trust us, short stuff, he's the worst driver you could ever meet," Gladio said.

"I'm not that bad!" Noctis shouted.

"But you admit you're bad," Prompto cackled.

The prince rolled his eyes. "Ugh..."

After another minute or two, they arrived at the Cauthess barricade. It was sealed tight with imperial troopers watching the perimeter. What shocked the group the most was the lack of hostility from the enemy soldiers.

"We're here," Ardyn chirped.

"Better not be a setup," Noctis commented.

The auburn-haired man glanced over at him. "Have I given you reason to doubt me?"

"You don't exactly inspire confidence," Prompto answered.

Gladio was in agreement with the blonde. "Yeah, not very straightforward."

"Neither of you are," (Y/n) mumbled, eyeing both men in the car beside the Regalia.

Ardyn looked away from the group and shouts over the wall. "Hello! It's me! Be so kind as to open up!"

At his lighthearted command, the gates open. Prompto gasped in shock at how easy it was for the man to gain access to the Disc. "Wow, that worked?"

"I may not look like much, but I do have some influence. Aren't you glad we came together? Your audience with divinity lies ahead."

"You're leaving?"

"I drop you at the Archaean's open door, and with that, bid you farewell."

As Noctis drives the Regalia through the open gates, (Y/n) spared one last glance toward the red car. Her golden eyes locked with Callyx's emerald ones for a split second before they were too far apart to see each other. Even with his stoic expression, she could sense something much more sinister under the surface.

"I've met some weirdos..." Gladio mumbled.

"I hope we never meet those two again," Ignis remarked.

"Whoa! Little harsh there, don't you think?" Prompto asked.

"There's something off about those two..." (Y/n) muttered.

"Glad we agree," Noctis said.

The prince continued to drive the car down the dirt path until they came to what appeared to be a dead end. The five hop out of the Regalia and located a narrow pathway to the side. They follow the path and eventually stumble upon a stone sarcophagus. Prompto recognizes the design and asked, "Is that what I think it is?"

"Didn't expect to find a royal tomb here," Ignis expresses his own bewilderment.

Gladio elbowed the prince. "Would be a shame not to grab that power, eh, Highness?"

"Let's grab it and go," Noctis blandly stated.

As the raven-haired boy walks up to the sarcophagus near the ledge, (Y/n) heard a voice again from above. It was the same one she heard yesterday. Looking up at the sky, her golden-slitted eyes focused on the Celestial Crescent. She felt as if someone had put her under a trance. Unconsciously, she walked forward a few steps and came to a halt when the disembodied voice addressed her.

You...the...

"Are you...Brahma?" The girl whispered.

Vessel...mine...

(Y/n) was still in a dream-like trance when the ground begins to shake dramatically. She managed to keep her balance while all the boys weren't so lucky. Prompto and Ignis fall down while Gladio and Noct just barely manage to keep themselves upright. "Here we go again," Prompto said, bracing himself.

"This one's huge!" Gladio bellowed over the loud rumbling.

That's when Ignis notices the ground beginning to crack underneath Gladio, Noctis, and (Y/n). "Get away! Quickly!"

The spirit's gaze was still locked on the sky. She failed to notice the danger and hear the painful cries of the prince as he was overcome by another headache. She reached out a hand towards the sky just as the ground beneath her feet crumbled. She gasped when feeling a plummeting sensation in her gut, snapping out of the trance as she began to fall. The sound of Prompto shouting her name echoed in her ears.

(Y/n) feared for her life, but her fall was short-lived. A hand wrapped around her wrist and ceased her quick descent. "I've gotcha!" Her savior shouted. Looking up, she saw it was Prompto who grabbed her.

"Prompto..." The guardian whispered.

"Just hold on!" He shouted. Using his strength, he struggled slightly to pull her up. When he managed to pull her up onto solid ground, he sighed in relief. "Whew... That was close." He wiped the few sweat droplets off his forehead before gazing towards the girl. "Are you okay, (Y/n)?"

"I'm fine thanks to you," she smiled.

Just then, the Meteor begins to rise before them, revealing Titan. The Astral who has been holding the chunk of space debris on his back for many years makes his presence known. Prompto and (Y/n) stared in awe and fear at the sight of the mighty god. They both flinched when the Archaean's booming voice resounded out.

"So this is Titan..." The guardian mumbled.

Prompto, remembering Noctis and Gladio had also fell, peers over the ledge to check on them. He shouts when seeing they were both on a lower ledge. "Noct! You okay?!"

Ignis stood by the blonde and was relieved to see the prince and his shield were in one piece. "Thank heavens you're safe. Is there a way back up?"

"No, but there's a path. Gonna see where it leads," Noctis replied.

"You three try to get down," Gladio said.

The strategist nodded. "Very well. We'll look for a way. Be careful, now."

"You, too," the prince retorted.

"What? We're going where?!" Prompto shrieked.

"No time to dawdle," Ignis spoke up. "We must make haste."

(Y/n) wandered a little ways from the crumbling ledge and spotted a narrow, rocky path nearby. She noticed it went out of the way, but it was the only route leading down. "What about this path?"

"It's our only option," the advisor said.

"Then down we go!" Prompto cheered.

The trio wandered down the path, watching where they stepped. It was narrow and littered with jagged stones. Prompto slipped a few times due to being distracted by the rumbling caused by the Archaean. Luckily, (Y/n) caught him every time he stumbled. She sighed when he nervously laughed and thanked her every time.

They continued to listen to the Astral slam his mighty stone fist into the cliffside. They weren't able to see what damage the Titan was causing, but they were able to deduce who he was trying to reach-Noctis.

Ignis, Prompto, and (Y/n) soon arrived at a dead end. They looked around for another path, but they couldn't find one. When they walked over to a cliff, they saw a path below. Carefully, they slid down the small rocky slope and land on the path. As their feet landed on the ground, they spotted the Archaean's fist strike across the way. Ignis ushered them to move quickly.

All of a sudden, (Y/n) heard a faint humming. She looked around before glancing upward. Flying overhead were imperial drop ships. Seeing the empire had arrived, Ignis pulled out his phone and tried to get ahold of Noctis. When he managed to get ahold of the prince, he was relieved. "You're safe. Good. Listen, imperial troopers are near."

Morosely, that was all the advisor got to safe before the signal was lost and the call dropped. "Bloody hell," he hissed, shoving his phone back into his pocket.

Prompto was about to ask Ignis about the call, but his attention was drawn to their left when he saw movement in his peripheral vision. "(Y/n), Iggy, we've got trouble!"

The advisor and spirit looked in the direction the blonde was. Their eyes widen when seeing Titan's open-palmed hand heading straight for them. The girl was the first to react. She shoved Ignis and Prompto to the ground just as the Astral tried to grab them.

When the Archaean's hand wrapped around (Y/n), she cried out in pain at how tight the god was gripping her. She could barely breath and only managed to gasp as Titan retracted his hand.

Prompto heard her painful wail and scurried to his feet. "(Y/n), no!" He summoned his pistol and aimed, but he was afraid of hurting her if he pulled the trigger and missed. He watched helplessly as she was dragged away by the god.

The guardian squirmed in Titan's grip. She lifted her head just as she realized she was at eye level with the Astral. She winced the moment the Archaean's booming voice echoed out. She couldn't understand what he was saying and could only stare into his eyes. Feeling the god's grip lighten, she gasped when she could breathe again.

Suddenly, her attention was drawn away from Titan when she heard the voice in the sky speak to her.

Chosen...one...

My...vessel...

(Y/n) blinked in surprise. "Brahma, are you the one talking to me?"

Yes...

You...are...my vessel...

She shook her head. "Please, don't choose me. I-I wouldn't even know what to do as the conduit! There's no way I could become your vessel!"

You are...worthy...

Child...of Pneuma...

Heed...my call...and do...my bidding...

Fear not...

I...shall...guide you...

(Y/n) gasped in pain, shouting at the top of her lungs when she felt an intense heat radiate in her chest. She clawed at her chest, the gemstone on her arm pulsating with a brilliant golden light. Blood trickled from her eyes and nose. She released one final bloodcurdling scream before falling unconscious. Her body went limp in the Archaean's hand.

Before the Astral could place the girl down, Noctis appeared out of thin air. He warped and struck the god's hand, forcing him to drop the guardian. The prince caught her and grabbed his sword. He warped them down to the ground near Titan's feet where Gladio, Ignis, and Prompto were waiting.

Once landing safely with (Y/n), that's when Noctis saw her bleeding eyes and nose. Prompto rushes over while Gladio and Ignis provide protection from the Astral. The blonde carefully took the girl's body out of the prince's arms and pulled her into his. His heart was racing with worry after seeing the blood and seeing she was unconscious. He quickly picked her up and carried her away from Titan as Noctis parries the god's fist. He gently placed her down on the ground, glancing between her and the others. Seeing they needed his help, he reluctantly left her side to rejoin the fight.

As the royal retinue continued to fight against the Archaean, more imperial drop ships arrived. The group was ready to deal with the empire, but they were relieved when Titan swatted away some of the ships before they could attack. With the imperials now disposed of, they continued to deal damage to the god.

Eventually, Noctis built up enough energy to activate the armiger. He dealt blow after blow before performing a joint attack with his companions. They dealt heavy damage, causing the Astral to lose his balance and fall to a single knee. After attacking, Ignis then hurls a Blizzard spell at the god's arm. "The game's up!"

Gladio and Prompto follow the advisor's lead and hurl yet more Blizzard spells at Titan's arm. "You're out!" The blonde shouted. The Archaean's left arm freezes from the elbow down.

"It's over!" Noctis swings his sword down into the arm, shattering it all the way up to the elbow. Titan then collapses. The prince turns around to face his friends. "Hey, we all still here?"

"Yep, still here," Gladio replied.

"If a little battered," Ignis added. "How is (Y/n)?"

Prompto gasped, eyes widening as he ran over to the girl. Noctis, Gladio, and Ignis stood behind the marksman as he tended to her. He fell to his knees beside her and used a potion. He wasn't sure if it would help, but he knew it wouldn't hurt to use one. Prompto cups her cheeks in his palms and wipes the blood off of them. He stared at her with a saddened expression. "(Y/n)...?"

He received no response.

Ignis checked on her and was able to tell she was physically fine on the outside. His only concerns were her bleeding nose and eyes, which could be a result of internal injuries. He assisted Prompto by helping him put the girl on his back. When seeing she was safely onto the sharpshooter's back, he stepped away.

Just then, the tremors resume. The ground shook violently. The group's gazes fell back on to Titan. "What-what is it now?" Noctis asked.

Ignis' eyes narrowed, watching the Astral closely. "What is he doing?"

"He's winding up!" Prompto shouted. His grip on (Y/n)'s thighs tighten and he took a few steps back, readying himself to run.

"For the big one!" Gladio bellowed.

Titan roars, his booming cry echoing all around the royal retinue. Gold lights begin to emanate from his body, some of which coalesce around Noctis, showing him the god's memory of Luna standing before the god. Once Luna fades, he watched another memory of the god fighting a cosmic being. Titan, although bigger than the cosmic being, fell to his knees after being defeated.

When the god's memory fades, Noctis blinks in surprise. "That was...Luna. You spoke with her. That's why... But what was with that other memory?"

Titan and the Meteor suddenly discorporate in a powerful flash that sends all the imperial ships in the vicinity crashing to the ground. Lava spews from the earth as the Disc of Cauthess crumbles around the boys.

"Doesn't get much worse than this," Gladio commented. The four find themselves trapped.

Suddenly, an imperial drop ship descends to their location. Ignis grew tense as the airship closed in on them. "The empire! Now?"

The drop ship's door lowers, revealing Ardyn and Callyx. The auburn-haired man smiled at them. "Fancy meeting you here!"

Noctis and the others stare at the two men in stunned silence. Callyx crosses his arms with a sigh. "Maybe they didn't hear you."

Ardyn continues. "It occurs to me I never formally introduced myself. Izunia. Ardyn Izunia."

Ignis was shocked at the revelation. "Imperial Chancellor Izunia?"

"At your service. And more importantly, to your aid."

None of the boys move, instead offering only uncertain stares. Prompto glared up at the two, remembering what the empire's plans were. He couldn't believe Callyx was working for the empire knowing they were hunting down and killing spirits.

"I guarantee your safe passage. Though you're always welcome to take your chances down there," Ardyn spoke up. He glanced around at the faces of the royal retinue after receiving no response. "Buried among the rubble, is it?"

Ignis looked away from the chancellor and guardian, eyeing the prince. "Dying here is not an option. We have no choice, Noct."

Noctis met his advisor's gaze. "I know."

Reluctantly, the boys board the airship. As the hatch closes behind them, Prompto placed (Y/n) down. He then sat down and pulled her body into his arms. He rested his head on top of hers, ignoring Ardyn as he tried to speak to the others. He closed his eyes, holding her tightly against him.

It wasn't long before Prompto's eyes flew open at the sound of approaching footsteps. Looking up, he saw Callyx and glared at him. He watched the emerald-eyed guardian kneel in front of him. The moment he tried to touch (Y/n), Prompto summoned his pistol and aimed it at the man's head. "Don't touch her."

Callyx retracted his hand before raising it as a sign of peace. "I only wanted to check on her. What happened?"

Prompto lowered his pistol slightly, but kept it aimed at the spirit. "I-I don't know..." He looked down at the girl slumped against his chest. "Why're you working with the empire? Aren't you the one that said they were killing spirits?"

"I made a deal with them a short while ago. They allowed me to keep my life in exchange for loyalty. I'm using my position to warn any guardians I come across. (Y/n) is the first guardian I've met outside the empire."

"Won't they kill you once they learn you're protecting other guardians?"

"Most likely, but I'm willing to risk my life to protect my people."

Even at Callyx's declaration, Prompto didn't trust him. He dispelled his pistol and chose to remain silent. The spirit walked away after taking the hint and rejoined Ardyn and the others.

Now alone, Prompto buried his face into (Y/n)'s (h/c) hair and whispered, "Please wake up soon..."

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onebizarrekai · 4 years

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Meme Waker: That Final Thing

okay aight here we go here’s the big idea compilation you’ve all been waiting for or something like that

since I’ve finally accepted meme waker’s inevitable fate, I’ll share what I’ve had laying around about it. prepare yourself for a wild ride.

first of all, what existed of the planned character key:

Nightmare = Link Dream = Aryll Cross = Tetra Ink = The Entire Pirate Crew Granny Gertrude = Grandma Horror = Quill Killer = Medli Color = Komali Dust = Makar XGaster = Tingle (yes, you read that right) Fresh = Fado (?) Geno = Laruto Blueberry = Niko Error = Ganondorf Giant Flying Chicken = Helmaroc King Core Frisk = The King XChara = Zelda

So XChara was going to fill the role of Zelda–basically, what was going to happen was that when Cross and Nightmare reached sunken Hyrule, which was replaced by the Omega Timeline, they encountered Core Frisk and with their magical Core Frisk powers that apparently exist, separated XChara from Cross’s body. Because Error was hunting him down for whatever villainous reasons (I dunno, maybe he wanted to find Overwrite or something), XChara was going to spend the near remainder of the comic hiding in the Omega Timeline from Error. It was a pretty neat reference to the fact that Error doesn’t know where the OT is.

Unsurprisingly, considering when I was working on this, Nightmare and Cross may have eventually started dating. They were going to kiss during a fight that involved them accidentally rolling down a hill and then likely spend the remainder of the comic referring to each other as boyfriends, with no further indication of romance between them. I never really mentally decided whether I was actually going to incorporate this or not.

In moments where someone needed to present a musical instrument, Cross was going to play a keytar.

There is a very high chance that the entire comic was going to end up being an elaborate prank set up by Ink and Error.

After being rescued from the Forsaken Fortress, Dream was going to get crossbows and… I dunno, maybe be useful with them sometimes. One consideration was that he was going to complain about being stuck in a glorified retirement home and request joining the party.

Nightmare was going to have a fake ID with the name “Nathaniel Meyer” on it.

When Nightmare eventually pulled up the Gaster Sword, he was basically going to do a magical girl transformation and get a new outfit. I was considering holding a contest where people would submit new designs for Nightmare before I realized that I may have wanted to do it myself. Meanwhile, Cross’s design change at the same time was going to pertain to the fact that he had such a hard time with his uniform that he just wanted to start wearing normal clothes.

When XChara was separated from Cross, it would indicate that Cross can’t use the hack knife anymore, so I had to think of a new weapon for him. I considered giving him arm mounts with knives in them for no reason other than being extra, but I was probably just going to end up going with a regular sword.

Nightmare and Cross were going to be mistaken for missionaries at some point due to Nightmare introducing Cross as his ‘companion’.

Nightmare’s fake ID is actually a driver’s license. Cross questions how he could get one when he’s only fifteen, and Nightmare responds with “what can I say? I live in the country.”

The Giant Flying Chicken was going to evolve into the Cyborg Giant Flying Chicken before Nightmare and Cross fought it. It was already a robot, but someone decided it would be fun to make it look more robotic for some reason. Maybe too many people tried to eat it.

Because Blueberry was going to replace Niko, that meant there was going to be a form of challenge that he would present to Nightmare and/or Cross. They were probably just going to play Dance Dance Revolution.

The dress that Granny Gertrude gave Nightmare was actually going to be infused with magical powers. Either Nightmare could only access the power of the Triforce when he’s wearing the dress, or it was going to be a piece of equipment that turned his sword into a fire sword.

Nightmare was going to come back to the Village of Old People to see that his grandmother had conquered it with capitalism.

Dragon Roost Cavern was going to be replaced with a Pokemon gym.

When Nightmare supposedly kicked Error’s ass at the end of the story, he was going to say something along the lines of “Because fuck you!” and it would be the first and only f-bomb in the whole comic. Nightmare would proceed to say that it was the first time he’d ever said fuck and that he felt dirty.

The Triforce of Courage was just going to be called the Triforce of Porridge for exactly zero reason.

Some incarnation of Buffmare was going to exist in the comic, but only in a sequence taking place in Nightmare’s imagination.

When Cross realized his backpack was missing, it was because I realized his backpack was missing. I forgot to draw it. I decided that the backpack actually fused with him to create a Zelda-style magic pocket.

Nightmare was going to try to control a seagull with the command melody, but he was accidentally going to start controlling Cross instead and make him run into a tree.

The Tree Spirit was going to hold official interviews for placeholder guardians in Dream and Nightmare’s absence. These placeholder guardians were going to be Neil, the overenthusiastic French furry, and Ccino, the local emo kid who is absolutely done with everyone’s bullshit, and exclusively because they were the only ones who applied for the job. Neil was going to have an ulterior motive of becoming Gaston’s successor.

Neil and Ccino were eventually going to ‘get together’, if you can even call it that, and for no other reason than shitpost reasons.

Nightmare may have had a showdown with the Giant Flying Chicken while riding the Great Charizard from Dragon Roost.

Another possible concept for whole story was that it was a bad self insert fic written by a younger version of Nightmare, but it’s really unlikely that I would’ve gone through with that.

Nightmare and Cross may have needed to go on a fetch quest to find Ink’s brush in the ocean because they accidentally lost it, but honestly that would’ve served nothing for the progression of the story. Because XGaster put a tracker on Ink’s brush, they were going to have to enlist his help.

and that about wraps up my notes, now let me throw what I had sitting around of a script draft–reading this was a trip because I forgot that literally 60% of it existed:

(inside the mountain)

Cross: holy shoe, EVERYONE has wings? how is this a thing??

Cross: I’m frickin jealous

Chief: Oh. You must be. Those guys.

Horror: yeah man, I enlisted their help to capture the Chicken Terror, but then they were all like yo, it’s a robot! 

Chief: horror robot or not I told you that we weren’t going to capture the chicken terror for food because we’re not cannibals we don’t eat birds

Horror: but

Horror: we’re hardly even birds!

Chief: you know your job Horror. now get back to work. your actual work.

Horror: But… being the mailman sucks! 

Chief: Do I need to confiscate your axe again? 

Horror: OKAY FINE. I’M GOING. (flies away in a huff)

Chief: AND DO YOUR GODFORSAKEN LAUNDRY!

Chief: I apologize for that… so, how can I help you two today? 

Nightmare: You guys have like, some pearl thing or something? We need to like, collect three of them in order to… save the multiverse… or something like that.

(Camera dramatically darkens.)

Chief: It’s just as the prophecy foretold…

Nightmare: oh god what

Chief: You see, young whippersnappers… legend tells of a great hero that would rise up and save a bunch of people in times of desperation that they don’t even realize are desperate. the great hero would travel far and wide in search of the Pearls of Shiny to finally retrieve a great weapon that he would use to strike down the evil that few knew existed. also the hero would have a sidekick wearing stupid clothes.

Cross: EXCUSE ME

Chief: THAT’S JUST WHAT THE PROPHECY SAID

Nightmare: okay, y’know, I’m just gonna roll with it. where can I get the pearl?

Chief: Well… that’s where the hard part comes in. You see, the pearl belongs to my son… but he’s been acting like an edgy teenager lately.

Nightmare: Great…

Cross: Is there a reason he’s being edgy? Maybe there’s something we can do to appease his hormones.

Cross: Free food works like a charm for me.

Chief: No, it’s more complicated than that. When one of our people becomes of age, they climb to the top of Charizard Island to receive a scale from the Great Charizard that will allow them to grow wings.

Nightmare: the… great charizard.

Chief: But lately, the Great Charizard has been throwing inexplicable temper tantrums. No one can get close to him anymore. And with my son being of age, he’s decently pissed off about this.

Chief: We’re thinking that the Great Charizard is displeased about something, and it is also causing our shortage of food.

Nightmare: Wait, you worship something named after a Pokemon? 

Chief: Anyway, perhaps you two will be able to talk some sense into my son. Maybe he just wants to talk to someone his age that isn’t Horror or Killer.

Nightmare: What kind of names are those? 

Chief: There’s a letter that I wanted my son to read, and I’ve given it to Killer to hold onto. You can go get it from him upstairs in the first room near the stairs, just tell him I sent you. He’s the little guy in the short shorts, you’ll probably recognize him when you see him.

Nightmare: Can’t you just call him here? 

Chief: No, it is of upmost importance that you experience a basic fetch quest in order to become a great hero, because those fetch quests will become needlessly complicated before you even realize it.

Nightmare: ?????

Nightmare: I can’t even tell if you’re joking or not–

Cross: dude let’s just go get the letter

(scene transition)

(Killer dramatically turns around and it zooms in and says his name SSB style)

Nightmare: Wait, why do you get a dramatic introduction? 

Killer: Dayum. New faces.

Nightmare: Why is everyone ignoring my questions??

Killer: (needlessly sensual voice) So, what brings you here? (walking closer) 

Nightmare: (backs into wall) NO BUENO

Cross: You have a letter or something? 

Killer: Oh. Yeah. Chief gave it to me for some reason. Yo, catch.

(He chucks it like a ninja star. Cross catches it between his hands in front of his face.) 

Killer: Ey! You actually caught it! 

Cross: I’m a trained ninja.

Killer: So like, who are you guys?

Cross: I’m Cross. He’s Larry.

Nightmare: NIGHTMARE. MY NAME IS NIGHTMARE.

Killer: Aw man, I know the feel of having a really lame name and wanting one that’s cooler.

Nightmare: No. Like. My name is actually Nightmare. My senile grandma called me Larry earlier today and this loser picked up on it.

Killer: There’s no need to lie. I understand.

Nightmare: I’M NOT LYING!

Killer: anyway make sure you get that letter to Color there’s something I have to do–

(Killer zips out the door behind them.) 

Cross: what even the frick? 

Nightmare: that guy freaks me the frick out.

Nightmare: literally. I felt like he was coming onto me.

Cross: you’re imagining things.

(SCENE TRANSITION)  Cross: all right Nightmare I literally do not trust your ability to communicate with another person in a way that will make them feel inclined to give us something so just let me handle this okay

Cross: okay better yet wait outside the room

(Nightmare makes a less than amused face.) 

Cross: it’s for the greater good

(Cross walks into the room.)

Cross: hi my name is Cross and

Color: LEAVE

(Cross immediately exits the room.)

Cross: this is a lost causeNightmare: what

Cross: go make him bleed with your words

Nightmare: dude isn’t this the part where we give him the frickin letter

Cross: (pauses) :o

Cross: OH RIGHT

(Cross takes the letter and goes back into the room, leaving the door open)

Cross: oh yeah this letter is for you it’s from your dad or something

Color: Oh, wow. Can’t even be bothered to talk to me in person.

Color: Give me that thing.

(Color stares at the letter. It’s actually a letter from Killer filled with really bad pickup lines and other really creepy compliments.)

Color: What the hell, you said this was from my dad!

Cross: We thought it was–??

(Killer teleports in behind them, scaring the shit out of Nightmare) 

Killer: Suuuup~

Color: Killer I swear to god.

Killer: Here’s the actual letter, though you might not be happy with it.

(He flings it at Color and it lands in front of him. He reads it over, rolls his eyes and throws it in the trash.)

Cross: So uh… I don’t know what the letter says but apparently we’re prophesied heroes collecting a bunch of pearls to save the multiverse and the pearl you have is– 

Color: Can everyone just get out of my room already?

(everyone just leaves)

Nightmare: What even was the point of that stupid fetch quest?

Killer: Oh yeah, can you guys help me with something? Just a smalllll favor. And I can’t ask anyone else because I’m not supposed to do it.

Killer: I need some strong, reliable people…

Nightmare: Don’t touch me.

Killer: It’s just a small favor! And I mean actually small, it’ll take like two minutes.

Nightmare: I have doubts about this.

Killer: Great! Meet me out back by the spring.

Nightmare: Wait which side is the back–

(Killer is gone)

Nightmare: Cross which side is the back.

Cross: I don’t know??

(after spending twenty minutes going through the various exits trying to figure out how to get there)

Killer: What the hell took you so long.

Nightmare: Directions would’ve been helpful. There wasn’t even a freaking map anywhere in there!

Killer: The hollow is like the size of a middle class house! How difficult could it be to find out where to go?!

Nightmare: IT’S A DOME THERE IS NO BACK

Cross: OKAY, what matters is that we’re here, what the heck do we do now.

Killer: Okay, okay. (steps backwards) Look, if you look around here, it’s all a dried up spring. The Great Charizard was throwing a tantrum, a boulder fell down and it coincidentally plugged up the spring for the third time this week, which is literally our main source of fresh water. I’m honestly getting sick of this so I’m going to climb the mountain and see what’s going on because everyone else is too scared to do it.

Nightmare: God. You’re not gonna make us go with you, are you? 

Killer: Oh, no way. I just need you to throw me up that cliff over there so I can get into the cavern that leads up the mountain.

Nightmare: Can’t you fly?

Killer: Not thirty feet straight up. Do these noodle arms look like they can manage that? 

Nightmare: Whatever. But quick question. How the hell does one throw a person.

Killer: I weigh like fifty pounds. It shouldn’t be that hard. Also, if you’ve noticed, the wind is rapidly changing directions, so you’ll probably have the best effect throwing me when the wind is blowing that way.

Nightmare: Mhmm. Sure. Let’s just get this over with.

(Nightmare crouches down and Killer fuckin walks onto his shoulders)

Nightmare: Hey! Watch it!

(some way or another he throws Killer and Killer barely makes it to the cliff, face planting into the ground)

Nightmare: Well I guess that worked.

Killer: THAT WAS TERRIBLE!

Nightmare: YOU’RE WELCOME! COULD’VE JUST USED A DAMN LADDER!

Killer: NOBODY OWNS A LADDER HERE BECAUSE EVERYONE CAN FLY!

Nightmare: Then how the frick do people get up this cliff?!

Killer: THERE’S NORMALLY A BRIDGE BUT IT BROKE AND PROBLEMS LIKE THESE ARE PRECISELY WHY I’M CLIMBING THE MOUNTAIN TO BEGIN WITH! ALSO I’M LEAVING BYE. (turns and leaves)

(cricket cricket)

Cross: Nightmare we should probably follow him.

Nightmare: No.

Cross: What else do we have to do. We solve their problem, Color can get his wings and then he stops being emo and gives us the pearl out of the goodness of his heart.

Nightmare: I’m not risking my life for this! If that guy is willing to do it himself I’m going to let him do it!

Cross: Dude, look at that guy. He looks about at capable fixing whatever the problem is as Ink is at providing emotional support. If this happens to be anything like a video game, we’re the only ones capable of solving anything. Besides, what else are we supposed to do? Hang around and wait for something to happen?

Nightmare: All right, fine. But how are we supposed to do something? It’s not like we can climb up a thirty foot cliff.

Cross: No, but we can swim, right?Nightmare: What?

(Cross draws a line around the rock covering the spring. It dematerializes into red squares and water starts to spew out of the spring. They both run back towards the side and climb up the cliff they came from)

Nightmare: Dude, what the hell was that?

Cross: I can draw lines around things with my sword and they do that and go away.

Nightmare: … do they go somewhere? 

Cross: I dunno.

(Meanwhile in Xtale, a boulder slams into the floor and almost crushes Fresh because of course he’s there)

(The spring fills up) 

Nightmare: You know I’m starting to have second thoughts about this swimming thing seeing as how I’ve never actually–(Cross kicks him into the water) 

(LATER) 

Nightmare: YOU ASSHOLE I ALMOST DROWNED

Cross: You’re exaggerating.

Random Dude: STOP RIGHT THERE! 

Nightmare: who.

Random Dude: YOU AREN’T GOIN ONE STEP PAST THIS POINT! YOU’RE LIGHT YEARS FROM FACING BROCK!

(nightmare squints)

(comic suddenly goes into a battle sequence)

Nightmare: whoa whoa what the hell is happening

Cross: oh my god it’s pokemon NIGHTMARE IT’S POKEMON

Nightmare: I DON’T HAVE ANY POKEMON CROSS THREATEN HIM

(Random Dude sent out MEWTWO)

Cross: DEAR GOD

Cross: LISTEN THERE’S A HUGE MISUNDERSTANDING WE’RE NOT TRAINERS WE DON’T HAVE POKEMON

Random Dude: tHEN WHY ARE YOU IN A POKEMON GYM HUH

Cross: Uh… touring?

Random Dude: OH

Random Dude: I SEE

(The Random Dude returns his Mewtwo.)

Random Dude: THERE HAS BEEN AN UNFORTUNATE MISUNDERSTANDING

Cross: Say uh, you didn’t happen to see a scrawny dude with wings pass through here, did you?

Random Dude: Oh yeah, he went into the next room and took the elevator to the top.

(silence) 

Nightmare: Why are there always elevators.

(two seconds later, they reach the elevator and there’s a dude standing in front of it) 

Nightmare: um excuse me we need to use the elevator

Dude: oh man I can’t find my glasses anywhere what do I do

Nightmare: excuse me I said move

Dude: oh man I can’t find my glasses anywhere what do I do

Nightmare: HELLO

Dude: oh man I can’t find my glasses anywhere what do I do

Nightmare: MOVE ASSHOLE

Cross: I think it’s a preprogrammed NPC.

Nightmare: UAGGGGHHHHH

(Nightmare throws himself into the person, but he slams into the STEEL WALL OF NPC)

Nightmare: CROSS TELEPORT HIM AWAY

Cross: wait are you serious what if that freakin kills him I don’t know where these things go

Nightmare: YOU SAID IT YOURSELF HE’S AN NPC

(Cross shrugs. He draws a line around the NPC and the NPC disappears)

(one elevator ride later)

Nightmare: (chokes) oh god

Nightmare: the altitude

Cross: nightmare this island is still lower than ink’s house.

Nightmare: PSYCHOLOGICAL ALTITUDE

(fwip)

Cross: Oh look, it’s that guy from earlier.

Nightmare: Got captured somehow. Why am I not surprised?

Killer: YOU KNOW WHAT SCREW YOU GUYS

(A really buff guy abruptly slams into the ground)

Buff Guy: FEAR MY WRATH, FOR I AM BROCK! LEADER OF ALL THINGS ROCK HARD

Nightmare: Look man, we really don’t have time for this, just let the shota hoe go, we’re just checking up on the huge-ass Charizard up there.

Killer: excuse me

Brock: I AM THE LOYAL GUARDIAN OF THE GREAT CHARIZARD! You can only pass if you defeat me! 

Cross: what the hell is even happening anymore

(Loud gym battle music as the gate at the entrance of the clearing slams shut)

Nightmare: LOOK WE’VE BEEN OVER THIS WE DON’T HAVE ANY POKEMON

(Brock war cries as he sends out a very anime geodude)

Nightmare: can someone please tell me I’m hallucinating all of this

Brock: WELL, IF YOU DON’T HAVE POKEMON, YOU’LL HAVE TO USE A RENTAL

Cross: What? But rental pokemon always suck.

Brock: YOU MUST PROVE YOUR WORTH SOMEHOW! AND BECAUSE YOU’RE SMALL CHILDREN YOU OBVIOUSLY CAN’T PROVE IT THROUGH SUMO WRESTLING.

Nightmare: I’m fifteen!

Cross: Nightmare I think you’re missing the point.

Killer: Good god, just let them through and let me out of here, they’re the heroes of prophecy.

Brock: PROPHECY

Brock: GOODNESS ME I APOLOGIZE FOR THAT

(Brock returns his geodude)

Brock: YOU SHOULD HAVE SAID SOMETHING

Nightmare: That would have worked?

Brock: BUT! IF YOU WANT TO FREE THIS TINY FELLOW HERE, YOU MUST COMPLETE A DIFFERENT CHALLENGE! FOR YOU SEE, HE TRIED TO PASS THROUGH HERE WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION! 

(Killer rolls his eyes. Nightmare squints, literally pulling a notebook out of his shirt. He writes something in it, walking up to Brock and holding it up. It says “Let the guy out of jail you dick”)

Brock: AHA

Brock: WELL

Brock: I CAN’T ARGUE WITH THAT

(He stomps his foot on the ground and the bars in front of Killer go up)

Brock: DON’T BE CAUSING TROUBLE NOW KIDS 

(He ascends back into the sky) 

Cross: I’m not even going to ask. That entire conversation felt like a drug trip.

(Killer dramatically throws himself onto Nightmare) 

Killer: I knew you would come around, my knight in–

Nightmare: Why did I assume that you had become any less creepy in the last ten minutes. Why did I even do that? 

Killer: Because your heart told you to.

Nightmare: Dear god stop touching me or I will literally pick you up and slam you into the floor.

Killer: Feisty. Anyway, I figured out why the Great Charizard is freaking out all the time. His tail is hanging down into the room below him and something is chewing on it like all the time.

Cross: What? Then why doesn’t it just, I dunno, pull its freaking tail out of the room like a reasonable creature? Or maybe take care of the problem on its own?

Killer: The Great Charizard is like a five year-old. It’s self aware, but it expects all of its problems to be solved by everyone else and throws tantrums when that doesn’t happen.

Nightmare: Well that’s stupid. Why does everyone act like it’s some holy being then?

Killer: Because it’s a massive, terrifying dragon that can breathe fire?

ok unfortunately this is where the script ends but I hope you enjoyed that

oh yeah, and some extremely old art that I found:

as well as a brief consideration to make the characters human before deciding that I just didn’t want to work on the comic anymore.

basically you will notice that most of this doesn’t have a solid outline, and you’d be right: I never actually planned it that meticulously. I mostly just winged it and threw stuff in over the course of time and never even really planned anything close to a definitive ending beyond “maybe it was a prank”. sorry if this is like… anticlimactic, but it’s all I could find!

#meme waker #long post

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bottleofspilledink · 4 years

Text

God’s Watching, Put on a Show || Chapter XV

Now, normally a love confession would be followed by an answer. It was only rational. Declare your love and wait for a response. Either get a relationship or get rejected.

Lilith was not, however, what society by and large would actually deem ‘normal’ and neither was this confession. The word ‘love’ was not mentioned once, leaving her to wonder if Eve actually did understand her…

As the days passed, what was unspoken but clearly there blossomed, from a pinky-sized seed into a lush bouquet that filled their chest with an indescribable yearning and their conversations with heavy pauses, gazes overflowing with a tenderness that far surpassed what was appropriate between fond friends.

Soon, though, the rubber band holding the bouquet together would snap.

Soon, Lilith would come to know that Eve understood her quite well.

From the tension that sat in the five inches of space between their two chairs, something akin to electricity buzzing there, to the way Eve would eagerly ramble about the (not forbidden, she was still too shy to talk about what exactly was in the book Lilith snuck into her bag) books she’d read during lunch, to the patience Lilith would show as they ran through equations in study hall.

What was unspoken was slowly growing whether Lilith or Eve wanted it too. Like an unkillable weed that always grew back, no matter how many times you’ve pulled it out of the ground, no matter the chemical you chose to douse it with. But far more beautiful… That is, if the gardener would allow it to grow.

And everyone who was willing to see it would know it was there, what was there, even if the people feeling it were too scared to give it a name, even if the people seeing were too scared to admit it existed.

...

It was Thursday night on the same week as the incident, Lilith and Joan sat drinking cola in the shack, crickets and cicadas chirping in chorus outside, no one else with them busy with part-time jobs and family dinners and catching up on a week of homework.

“Hey.” Joan said, trying to steer the conversation away from their light-hearted chats and towards something a bit more… complicated, a tad more touchy.

“Yeah?”

“Are… Eve, I mean.” The brunette took a long sip from her can, the relaxed air between them shifting as she stalled what she needed to say. “Are you sure we can trust her?”

“What do you mean? She’s obviously gay and in denial-”

“That’s the point.” Joan fixes her with a soft stare, trying to strike the balance between firm and sympathetic. “I doubt Eve’s even admitted it to herself, and even if she has, she’s no friend of ours yet.”

“Where’s all this coming from all of a sudden?” Lilith can’t help but be defensive. After everything she’d told Joan about Eve and how she felt for her, after everything Joan had seen Eve go through just that Monday, how could she still be against the girl?

“They’re holding confession tomorrow.”

“What?”

“In the afternoon, just before club. There’s going to be confession.” Another sip from her drink, faster this time. “The holy type.”

Lilith knew exactly what Joan was implying, now considering the possibility herself having remembered what was happening tomorrow and every week after that. She wouldn’t admit it, though, refusing to doubt Eve despite the danger it may pose to trust her, to… love her.

Aster blue eyes widened, if only a fraction, in shock.

“And what’s that got to do with anything?”

“Are you sure she won’t crack?”

It hurt to think of. The chance of betrayal very real and very close, the things it may cost them all hung heavy in the air. What they’d worked for during the past year – the subject of many serious chats, full of tears and thinking and uncertainties, the cause of many sleepless nights, weighing risk and reward, planning – could vanish in an instant and make them vanish with it.

She could practically feel the ‘Godly Living’ brochures in her hand.

It was another thing she tried not to think of too much; her friends strapped into electric chairs and deadly hydrotherapy chambers, pumped full of pills that made them nauseous at the very thought of love with women or ones that didn’t let them think at all, the possibility of getting lobotomized.

“- could out us! She could out you!”

Joan’s voice pulled her from her mind before she could go too deep.

The emphasis on ‘you’ nearly made Lilith cry.

At the end of it all, even with the threat it brought to their gay little family, made up of people so vastly different yet somehow so similar, Joan was thinking about her.

And she was right to.

Tomorrow, if Eve did give her away, the others would be able to lie their way out of it, come up with alibis and excuses and cry ‘I have a boyfriend’ because Eve hadn’t spent enough time around them to gain anything as evidence because Eve had only been around Lilith.

“I don’t think she will.”

She tried not to sound scared.

“The only thing she really has against me are words anyways…” There was no reason to tell the other of the note she’d written for Eve. Painful as it was, the girl had probably thrown it out by now, especially since she knew what it meant. “And she can’t mention experience without admitting what almost happened between us a week ago.”

Joan was unconvinced.

“Are you really going to take this risk?”

She tossed Joan a few quarters. Enough for three phone calls on the payphone a mile or so away.

Maybe Lilith was going to risk herself for the sake of some girl.

But she’d be damned if she let her friends do the same thing for her.

“Call the others. Tell them to pack essentials and paperwork. Tell Colette to bring the check.”

“Only if you pack a bag too.”

It seems they would do the same for Lilith, whether she wanted them too or not.

“Joan-”

“No. If we have to leave tomorrow, you’re coming with us.”

And that was that.

...

It was a fine Friday morning in St. Agnes School For Girls. Maybe even her last.

Lilith tried to stay calm. Even as she packed her bags, even as she snuck into her grandfather’s office to retrieve her personal papers, even during the walk back to the shack, even while Paula and Joan and Julia and Colette went over what to say if they were questioned about their relationship with one another, their closeness, their relationship with Lilith, specifically.

It was agreed they would never throw each other under the bus. Agreed that, they’d deny all allegations against each other despite the proof, even if it may mean making them complicit.

After all, if they had to flee, they’d flee together.

If even one of them were found out, the plan was to run and pull a fire alarm, notifying the others.

Joan’s truck was parked just a few streets away from the school, no more than a quick sprint needed to reach it, key in her pocket, Paula carrying a duplicate, bags already in the back, fastened, Julia had forged a note for them about an after-school activity, buying them some time before a search was called if the school didn’t immediately call their guardians, and Colette carried all she needed to cash the check in on her person.

The last thing they did were practice statements, crafting sentences that left no room for interpretation and had no strange implications, absent of loopholes and additional clauses.

“What do we say if any of us are questioned about homosexual activity?”

“I know nothing about that.” They said, all in synch, drilling the words into their heads exactly as they were so there was no chance of them being taken out of context and used to spin a narrative. If the nuns wanted any of them sent to conversion therapy, they were going to have to lie through their teeth. “I’ve never taken part in such things and know no one who has.”

They sounded nothing like themselves, Lilith realized in between breaks.

Though she supposed that was the point.

“Again!” Said Joan. “What do you say if they accuse your friends of being homosexuals?”

“My friends and I are good, Christian people who would never willingly associate with homosexuals. I have personal anecdotes to prove the innocence of the girl you are accusing.”

It made them sick to their stomachs, having to say such things.

It made them safe, though.

And for now, that was all that mattered.

They were prepared.

But they didn’t want to leave. Not yet.

...

As the day went on, Lilith began to lose her cool, anxiety creeping deep into her bones, growing fidgety and restless. Her leg shook under the table, fingers tapping against the desk and clicking pens, eyes always shifting, looking for another sign that they needed to go.

Was this what Eve felt like every day?

The fear of being found out was in no means foreign to Lilith, nor was the fear of God, a tyrant she used to believe in and worship just like Eve did. But it had faded, her hiding of herself perfected to a science, fear turning into anger as she realized that everything she was raised on was a sham.

It had been too long since she felt this real, crushing anxiety.

She didn’t like it.

...

It was time.

Lilith and Eve sat next to each other in the small chapel on school grounds, just a bit behind the actual building but before the convent, not an inch of space between them as they were squeezed into the pews filled with those yet to receive the sacrament of confession. The seats were divided so that there were two groups of pews, one for waiting, the other for prayer, where many would do their penance. Two confessional booths were far behind them, having been placed like that so none of the girls would see who went in when or be able to hear a peep.

She knew how this was going to happen, how they could possibly get outed.

Priests were not allowed to break their vows and tell the nuns of the sins they’d heard during the confession but a penance was to be given to those who had sinned.

It could be anything from a prayer to an act of service.

It could be telling the nuns what you’ve done or know someone’s done as a way of repenting.

No doubt, if anyone confessed something of significance, they would have to tell Mother Cecilia.

And since most everyone who did this in earnest would believe their soul was on the line, if the girls in this school were truly the people they claimed to be, they would tell the nuns, friendships and loyalties and love be damned as the person they tattle on.

“Eve?” The girl whispered, finally snapping. “The note I gave you, do you still have it?”

The blonde did nothing more than look to the marble floor, hair shielding her face. There was no way for Lilith to tell if she was ashamed or guilty or planning to-

“Please answer me.”

“I still have it.”

For the first time in years, far longer than what most would consider healthy, Lilith felt herself minutes away from bursting into tears, eyes stinging from having to hold it all in.

“Where?”

“Why?”

Eve refused to meet her eyes when she ducked down to try and catch a glimpse of her face.

“With me, right now, in my pocket.”

Before the girl could answer her, a nun appeared to lead Eve into the booth, giving her a light scolding as they went.

“Time before confession should be used to reflect on your sins, Miss Peccator.”

“Yes, Sister Jane. I’m sorry.”

And with that, she was gone.

...

It was an eternity later when Lilith left the chapel, finding Eve just outside, to the right, standing amongst stone pillars that had barely started growing moss, waiting.

They were as alone as they could be, the only things watching them were the unseeing eyes of the statue saint surrounding them, whatever creature lingered in the cracks on the chapel’s stone, and God.

Perhaps what resided in the chapel was God.

“Eve…” She stepped closer to the girl, desperation potent. “What did you tell them?”

No response.

All she was given were downcast brown eyes and fidgeting fingers, guilt.

Lilith took another step forward, grabbing the other by her hands, letting Eve feel her warmth, her pulse, the softness of her flesh, of the blood that flowed through her veins, of her humanity.

“Eve, what did you tell the priest?”

Lilith had fallen to her knees, in a plea, in a prayer, the ground beneath her unforgiving and now stained with her blood, dark red and sinful. Eve’s hands clasped in hers and pressed to her sweat-soaked forehead as sobs wracked her body harder than it had in years.

She was screaming now, pulling on the other’s hands hard enough to hurt, something, anything to make the girl look up at her, unaware of the tears streaming down her own face.

“Eve? Eve?! What did you tell the priest?!”

They were the image of repentance, a holy figure, a dirty sinner; Eve towered above Lilith as she cried, immaculate and unattached as the girl wept into her skirts and her hands, a holy portrait commissioned by a long-gone pope.

If only they weren’t both sinners in His eyes.

“What did you tell the priest, Eve?!”

__________________

HAPPY HOLIDAYS HAVE A FUCKING CLIFF HANGER ψ(｀∇´)ψ

Lmao yes I know it's only the 24th but I’ll be back on actual christmas day with the next chapter tho so please don’t be mad at me and I’m very sorry for this (┬┬﹏┬┬)

Anyways, I would like some reblogs as my present this year <333

Taglist: @atahensic @anomiewrites @leahstypewriter @madame-ree @melpomenismask @littlemisscalamity @phillyinthebathroom @gaypeaches @extrabitterbrain @pirateofblood @i-wanna-be-a-rock

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eliyah-de-dark · 5 years

Text

Two Lies and A Truth part 2

Turns out the Startrain can get a person from London to Paris in what feels like a matter of minutes. Marinette waited on the platform, alone in a crowd of commuters, with her wide brim hat pulled down low over her face. She wore her hair down, a countermeasure against any old friends who might recognize her style, and opted for an equally unfamiliar white and pink sundress. She'd originally made it for her dream date with Adrien. Now it would meet one of the only friends she had left.

The train from London pulled in, and Felix Graham de Vanily was the first off. He wore his signature dark gray three piece suit, a white shirt making his skin seemed more tanned. He scanned the crowd, forcing people to move around him as his vibrant green eyes searched for her.

She wove a path through the crowd and grabbed his hand. "Hey," she said weakly.

He froze, taking in her changed appearance before speaking. "Your hair looks nice." He touched just the tip of her blue hair, admiring the length. "What prompted the change?"

Marinette's smile dropped. "Don't want to be recognized." Her voice was almost imperceptible in the din of the station.

The pair walked out hand in hand, Felix's heart racing where Marinette's barely caught her attention. Together they wove their way through Paris. Their only pause was with Andre Glacier to get ice cream, Andre's idea not theirs. Finally their meandering brought them to the bakery where they first truly met.

Sabine and Tom waved to the kids as they went up into the apartment. Marinette noticed her mother's calculating look while Felix caught her father's questioning gaze. The young man thought their journey would end in the living room, but Marinette kept his hand in her own until they'd climbed up into her pink painted room. The walls were nearly bare, with the crumpled up pictures of Adrien in her waste basket. Felix took good note of that.

In the safety of her room, Marinette started talking. She repeated a lot of what Felix already knew: how her class had been turned, how the teacher punished her when it wasn't her fault, about how she had only 3 people left in the whole city she could trust. When she brought up the arrival of Suzette, he could tell from the stormy expression of her face that this girl did more than bother Marinette.

"What do you care if she's Ladybug?" Felix asked, waving his hand as if to present the situation on a platter. "Sounds like she'll prove herself wrong soon enough."

"But she's put the entire school in danger!" Marinette cried. She slumped onto her chaise and sighed. "If Hawkmoth thinks anyone in François Dupont is his arch nemesis..." She didn't finish the sentence. She didn't have to. Felix had seen the chaos akumas caused, and if it weren't for the Ladybug Cure, everyone in Paris would be dead ten times over.

He nodded, and Marinette sighed with relief. She wanted to tell him the real reason, that she was the one suffering stolen identity here, but she couldn't. She thought of Master Fu's threat. Being Ladybug was stressful, sure, but it was one of the best things in her life right now.

Their phones buzzed simultaneously. Felix had his out first, sparing Marinette the trouble. Nadia Chamack's face filled the screen completely. "Don't be bemused, it's just the news. On this special report, we have Alya Cesaire live in our studio to talk about a remarkable post she's put on her Ladyblog." The camera switched to show the red haired girl Marinette used to call friend. As the audience applauded, the pair in a pink room sat on Marinette's chaise.

"Thanks for having me, Madame Chamack." At least she had her manners. "I'm a big fan of yours."

Nadja laughed and made a little dismissive gesture. "If you're a fan of mine, then you know here at the station we love our Ladybug, and your blog has been a key source of information on her. Let's show the audience what you posted today that's sweeping our city!"

Nadia's large screens showed Alya close up in the frame, breathing heavily. "How unbecoming." Felix scrunched his nose in disgust while Marinette laughed.

The video showed Alya rushing back to her seat where across from her sat...Ladybug? The costume was fairly well made, superior to Chloe's in many ways. There was still the glaring issue of a zipper on the back and her mask slowly dropping on the left side.

The two began talking like old friends, Alya crediting Lila for getting the interview squared away. Felix watched Marinette as her face switched from shock to horror.

Once the Ladybug interview had wrapped up, Nadja began asking questions about the whos, whats, wheres and whens of the impromptu video. "Lila, my best friend," Alya emphasized that title like she knew Marinette was watching, "promised me an interview with LB, and it turns out Ladybug is wonderful in and out of costume!" She pasted a surprised look on her face and murmured, "Oh, I shouldn't have said that." in such a perfect copy of Lila that Marinette searched for a wig line or something.

"In and out of costume? Does that mean - hold on, you know who Ladybug is?" Nadja had real shock on her face, and if the camera had turned then Felix imagined the audience would have that same look too.

Alya smiled sweetly. "I couldn't say."

The interview continued, but Felix set his phone away. Marinette was shaking now, and he put an arm around her. She leaned on his shoulder, her body slowing to matching his heartbeat. He rested his head on top of hers and took a deep breath. She smelled like strawberries, glue, and mint.

Now he jumped up and paced. Her eyes followed back and forth as he moved, pausing every so often to muse on a particular idea.

"I've got it." He smiled, a devious grin that split his face like a demon.

Marinette listened with rapt attention.

"Blast Master, I am Hawkmoth. You want to expose the truth about Lila Rossi and save your friend. I'm giving you the power to control explo-"

"That's a no on the name."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Then beg."

"...what is happening?"

"Listen, you're right about why I'm pissed, and I'll gladly take the explosion power, but I'm not calling myself Blast Master."

"I...suppose?"

"Excellent, glad we're on the same page."

Suzette Lambert basked in the attention of her schoolmates like a cat basks in the sun. Lila was right, she mused, these idiots are too easy. Only two weeks and she had near god like worship. She almost didn't regret transferring out of her private English school.

The two people who didn't immediately succumb to her will were Chloe Bourgeois and Marinette Dupain-Cheng. Chloe made snide comments here and there but hardly went toe to toe with the new queen of the school. It helped that literally anytime she tried, either that nuisance Alya would snap at her or the teacher would gently redirect the class.

Her teal eyes caught sight of the little pariah, who'd snuck in early and taken her spot at the farthest desk in the room. Marinette never spoke. Not even when the teacher called on her. When she'd asked, Lila bemoaned, "Oh Mari? She's just the worst. She's always so mean to me and everyone hates her for it. I wouldnt even bother talking to her."

Suzette couldn't say it was hard to get on Lila's bad side, but that seemed a bit extreme. It all made sense after her little "slip-up" though.

It was the Italian's idea to say she was the heroine. "Trust me, no one will even question it." As much as Suzette hated to admit it, Lila was right. Everyone latched onto the biggest lie of her life and now the royal treatment was just a standard. The only bad reaction she got was Dupain-Cheng running out of the room. That was weird on so many levels, but Suzette ignored it.

Class was going smoothly until the volley of ringtones interrupted the lesson.

"An akuma?"

"It's just down the street!"

"Hold up Alix, let me see!"

Suzette checked her phone, lazily scanning the report of a dancing harlequin-style akuma moving steadily towards François Dupont.

"Go suit up, Suzette!"

She looked at Alya with a tired expression. "What?"

The reporter pointed her cellphone at Suzette. "Don't you need to transform? To defeat the akuma?" Her quizzical look spread like a virus through the class.

"I can't." She needed to think, quick. "The Guardian took my miraculous for safe keeping." She mentally congratulated herself for the excuse.

Nino spoke up next. "Why?"

"Repairs."

"Why would a miraculous need repairs?" And why was Kim of all people chiming in?

"Oh puh-lease." Now came Chloe Bourgeois. She sat on her desk and ignored Madame Bustier's reprimand as she continued. "Obviously she can't because she isn't Ladybug." Sabrina nodded vigorously, the nasty little cockroach.

Alya naturally spoke next, loud enough to give the queen standing next to her a headache. "No one asked you, Chloe." She snapped. "Why dont you keep your opinions to yourself?"

"Why dont you you little gossip rag wannabe?"

Wow, Suzette thought. That's an interesting shade of red in Alya's face.

Chloe turned those sky blue eyes back to her rival. "What form does your miraculous take? Or better yet, what's mine?" She leaned forward, her head tilted as if to listen for an answer.

Suzette crossed her arms. "Why would I care about yours?"

"Because you're the one that gives it to me, Ladybug. And I know for a fact if you were the real Ladybug, you would've kept your mouth closed about your identity."

No one noticed Marinette in the back of the room staring wide eyed at Chloe.

"Who are you to talk to me like that?!" Suzette yelled. Lila grabbed her arm, locking her in place. "You're just the mayor's spoiled brat who only cares about herself!" Chloe smiled at Suzette's words. The audacity.

"Maybe, but at least I'm honest."

Another insult began forming in the mind of the false Ladybug when the door came off its hinges with an explosion.

((@goblinwhoships @ml-cartoons @enchanted-nerd since you three specifically requested being tagged, here you go))

((Yeah so people really seemed to like part one. That's pretty hekking neat. Hopefully part 2 can live up to the hype))

#fanfic #ml #ml ladybug #marinette dupain cheng #felinette #felix de vanily #adrein agreste #adrien you dunce #chloe bourgeois #lila salt #lila rossi #oc #suzette lambert #part 2

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missinghan · 5 years

Text

dawn ⤖ lee minho

❖ genre : runaway! au; demon!au; fluff; angst

❖ word count : 10k.

❖ warning : explicit language, mentions of alcohol

❖ summary : it seems like everyone has their own guardian angel, everyone but you because you’ve given up on Jesus the moment you come down to Lee Minho’s level and shake hands with the Devil.

one.

Your dad is definitely not gonna approve of you hanging by the bar alone after midnight.

It all happened too fast, and you don’t even know where you’re going next. After a call from your manager, which you almost fell asleep as he rambled about boring paperwork, until he dropped the bomb. He said he was sorry for what he’s gonna say next and turned out the label wanted to cut you loose. The entire universe was completely shattered right in front of your eyes. You were utterly speechless when the line went dead so long story short, you packed your bag and ran away.

Like a coward.

You stare blankly at the half-empty glass of Martini in your hand before chuckling lowly. Because life is a little son of a bitch, who’s born with the power to pull on everyone’s strings as if people are a bunch of puppets for whatever gods up there to entertain themselves. Getting signed into a music production company right after your graduation swept your life over with joy. Your parents were… overwhelmed to say the least but they still wanted you to move to Seoul. Two years later, your life once again was flipped upside down because of a single phone call. They didn’t even bother to call you in and meet face-to-face.

“Cheers to this motherfucker.” You almost laugh at your own miserable state but suppress it and down the whole glass in one go. “Another one.” You tell the barista absently and he just sighs before starting to mix your drink.

“Tough times ?” He leans over the counter and slides your drink across the wooden surface.

You gratefully take the glass, words slurred between hiccups. “You have no fucking idea.” Your eyes travel down from his defined features gleaming under the neon light to the name tag hanging off his white dress shirt. It reads ‘Kim Woojin’. You shake your head to lure the weariness away while your right hand reaching inside your pocket to pull out some cash.

But before you can place them on the table, Woojin stops you abruptly. “Keep a hold of them. This last one’s on me.” He sighs defeatedly. Judging by how you look right now, he must have thought that you’re some petty college girl who just got into a fight with her boyfriend and now you have nowhere to stay for the night so essentially, he wants to be certain that you’ll have enough money for a cheapass motel of some sort.

Woojin pats his wet hands onto the black apron wrapped around his hip. “You’ll need them more than I do.” And you feel kinda bad for him, partially because this place doesn’t serve cheap vodka like most bars, and partially because you’re now a somewhat burden to the bartender. “Listen, no matter how much bad shit happens, I’m sure you’ll be just fine. Besides, looks like that punk over there has already had his eyes on you the whole time.” He winks at you playfully before walking over to his coworker at the other side of the counter.

Speaking of the Devil… literally, not even sarcastically, a hollow presence seems to come into sight the moment you place your lips on the rim of the glass. You automatically reach your hand backwards only to find exactly what you’re looking for. “Do not touch me.” You deadpan, normally you would have felt bad by now upon your sudden discourtesy but unfortunately you’re not in the mood to be kind today. Hearing his melodic chuckle, you yank his hand away rather harshly, the coldness of his touch still chills you to the bone.

“Why so sad, bunny ?” He moves over to sit down on the nearby wooden bench, lips curled into a devilish smirk. Out of 7 billion people on this glorious plant, he chooses to pester a mundane mortal like you. Out of 365 days of the year, he chooses to visit you on the worst day of your life. Lee Minho is worse than Lucifer, it’s official.

Not enjoying your dull state, he cocks a brow at you. “You’re jobless because that stupid label doesn’t need you anymore. And now what ? Are you gonna be petty and depressed about it for the rest of your life ? Because if so, you’ll have a really shitty life Y/N. Do you really want your demons to come out and conquer the path ahead like it’s their fucking playground ?”

You can’t help but roll your eyes. “Said a demon himself.”

“Then aren’t humans the closest things that we have to demons alive ?” Minho almost snickers at your suggestive remark, but he wouldn’t admit that it did sting a bit. After all, he is a demon, an epitome of a creature that’s second to Lucifer and his descendants generation, highly worshipped and exceptionally feared. And he’s low-key impressed that you didn’t throw yourself out the window when he stepped out of a wisp of black smoke the day you two first encountered.

You on the other hand didn’t know that he was too utterly soft for you to actually erase your memories. From then on, he would visit you occasionally at the godly hour when you’re close to kicking yourself in the process of composing or when you accidentally fucked up something. ‘Til this day, you still don’t know whether his concern for you is pure sincerity or he just finds your first world problems very amusing. You can’t tell either way.

Taking another sip of your drink, you groan slightly at the slight burn in your throat from the strong alcohol. “I mean ... fair point.” Your lips pursed unknowingly. “I don’t know Minho… I think I must have done something fucking messed up to be kicked out of the game like that. I wasn’t even thinking straight, you know, just packed my stuff and drove downtown. Ugh now I feel like shit.”

The demon in front of you glares at the glass of Martini coldly. He’s not letting you finish that shit after who knows how much alcohol that Woojin has permitted you to drink. “Do you think that overcoming cowardice is easy ? If it was that easy, everyone would go outside to get some fresh air, smell some flowers, meet new people; not fucking hide behind their screens and whatnot while talking trash about others like a bunch of scaredy-cats.” Minho spats, swiftly taking your drink away before you gulp it again.

Funny enough, you’re sitting at a bar with a demon, who’s obviously so done with your shit, but also the one that you have least expectations for listening and giving you advice. Just like how that one song goes.

Well, I shook hands with the devil

Down on the south side

And he bought us both a drink

With a pad and a pencil sat by his side

I said, "Tell me what you think".

Except that Minho didn’t buy you a drink, he actually stole yours.

“I may not know much about your world, but I’m confident that you’re very talented and passionate about what you’re doing. I saw how much effort you put into your work, staying up after midnight, heck, you barely got any sleep when you’re still working for that shitty company. I saw how much you care, Y/N and I don’t give two fucks about how much you’re doubting yourself because you’re so much more than that. I know you got this, you’re as stubborn as a human being can be, you’re not gonna let a tiny cut or bruised knee hold you back, are you ?”

You shake your head slightly, starting to acknowledge his words. You don’t get why you never noticed this but for a demon, Minho gives really good advice. In spite of his cocky personality because he thinks that he has every right to sass every human being out whenever wherever he wants to, his company always makes you feel fuzzy inside. It’s almost heartwarming but that makes no sense because demons are nowhere near ‘sweet and caring’.

A strange look flashes in his eyes when his eyes meet yours but before you can properly react, it vanishes. “You’re not drinking ever again… at least not for the time being.” He tells you off with his eyes before chugging the whole glass. Woah, good shit, he admits internally. And he’s mildly surprised that you’re taking this better than he’d thought. Other young producers would have been bawling their eyes out by now, not talking to a creature from the underworld.

“Alcohol helps me sleep.” You pout slightly, feeling the need to actually pay Woojin back when you get paid again. Oh wait… but you’re practically unemployed. “Insomnia is painstakingly arbitrary, like a needle that’s constantly pricking my spine whenever I’m trying to get comfy in bed. Guess I’m not sleeping tonight, thanks a lot.” You huff and lean over on the wooden counter, cheek pressed against your left upper arm.

Although Minho thinks that you look ridiculously cute right now with tinted pink cheeks and messy hair, he’s still not gonna buy you another drink. “They do say that insomnia is just another word for chit chatting with the demons during bedtime. And you’ve already wolfed down three fucking Vodka Martinis by the time I teleported here, aren’t you concerned about the stupid hangover tomorrow morning ? I swear to Lucifer— are you even listening to me right now ?”

Minho asks in disbelief when you stay unresponsive. The demon peels his eyes away from the empty glass and turns his head only to find you already fallen asleep, like a bear in hibernation. Your eyes are closed shut, chest heaving up and down rhythmically as you drift away from the cruel reality and into dreamland. Truth be told, you tend to fall asleep whenever he’s lecturing you a lot, and that gives him an excuse to stay for a little more than he should.

two.

Hangover hits you with a bang, almost knocks you out cold. But it’s not going to let you pass out, at least not before you start regretting the amount of alcohol that you chugged last night. Your eyes are still screwed shut, refusing to flutter open as your head throbs uncontrollably. Usually you would have been awake by now since you’re dumb enough to have white curtains instead of colored ones which helps the sunlight goes right through your apartment.

But something seems off today because there’s nothing that’s bothering your eyes. And you would definitely sleep in if it wasn’t for the strange feeling beneath your skin. Wait a second… A worrisome feeling runs down your spine, causing your eyes to open. You look down and check your clothes properly, everything stays the same except for… hold on, since when did you have a silky black sheet ?

“You woke up, finally. Be grateful that you’re on time for breakfast.” Someone’s voice booms in the distance when your eyes adjust themselves on the foreign surroundings. The studio apartment in front of you has your jaw dropped to the floor. Minimal yet modern pieces of furniture, a fully equipped kitchenette and an enormous window that gives you a breathtaking view of the whole city. This isn’t your apartment, is it ?

You groan loudly before pushing yourself off the bed and shiver slightly when your feet come in contact with the cold floor. “Tylenol’s on the table, you’re welcome.” Minho says nonchalantly as he has his back against you. You drag yourself to the dining table and pop the pills into your mouth before downing the glass of water beside them.

Yeah, no, you’re not drinking ever again.

“What are you doing ?” You ask him in a raspy tone and sniff your nose continuously at the aroma that’s filling the entirety of the apartment. Minho stays silent, deciding to fully concentrate on his current task. When you suddenly approach him from behind and place your head lazily on his shoulder, he almost drops the pot of freshly made soup. His chest swells a bit whenever you get close to his body, whether it is because it’s all in his head or just you having that kind of effect on him, he dares not to know.

“Tsk, you’re in my way, shoo.” He sneers, motioning for you to move so that he can transfer the pot over to the table in peace. Minho quickly scoops the thick liquid into a smaller bowl and gives you a look. You just stare at the hearty soup in complete awe, mouth slightly watered. No one has ever cooked for you before, much less a pot full of hangover soup. And you would be lying if you said that you’re not touched right now because you feel like it’s been forever since you’ve had homemade food.

Lee Minho never changes, still ever so caring.

He sits down at the table and pushes the bowl towards you. “Eat this and write me a 1000 words essay for instant feedback later.” Without a word, you automatically take a spoonful into your mouth, almost choking because of how hot it is. “Dude, it’s not 1945 anymore. If this goes on, you’re not gonna die from anything other than choking yourself.” He purses his lips at your eagerness, dabbing the excess soup away with a napkin on the corner of your lips.

After coughing furiously, you figure that your voice can finally function normally. “I didn’t know that you can cook, god this soup is everything.” In the next ten minutes, you finish inhaling the whole bowl as if you’ve walked through the desert, searching for an oasis for a week straight.

You’ve never let anyone cook for you other than your parents because one, none of your friends can cook, Changbin almost burnt your apartment down while Jisung came up with the idea to crack eggs with a knife; and two, you still remember a creepy story you once heard on a podcast vividly. Basically, there’s this girl who allowed her date to make her a meal on their very first encounter. She was hospitalized a week later, suspecting food poisoning but the test results came out as cannibalism. Yikes.

“Demons eat souls, not human flesh you paranoid bitch.” Minho reads your thoughts in a matter of seconds before taking his wooden spoon and smack you on the head. He looks unimpressed right now, he really does because he’s so over your delusional ass from binge-watching way too many investigation related shows at three a.m. “They’re not even that tasty, I’d rather have a boring sandwich.”

You scoff at him, rubbing the spot where he hit previously. “You can’t have mine then, it’s too dark for you.”

“A ‘thank you’ would be nice.” He almost grit, lips pressed into a thin line.

You stand up from the wooden stool and carry the dishes over to the newly renovated silver sink. “This is your place ?” You ask while turning on the faucet to spray water all over the dirty bowl. “It’s really nice, not gonna lie. Just not as nice as mine.”

When you’re having your back against him, Minho looks somewhat guilty. What would Hyunjin say if he found out that his roommate brought a mundane mortal home and even made her a bowl of hangover soup ? “For the time being, it is.” Whatever, Hyunjin’s staying in Italy for a good two weeks anyway. With a little bit more effort of ridding off your human scent and reorganize some stuff, Minho can pretty much pass without being suspected. “And what do you expect ? That I’m gonna leave you at the bar where sketchy people are getting wasted ? FYI, a demon doesn’t necessarily have to own a place where it’s just full of miserable souls swimming around. I take my beauty sleep very seriously, actually, all of us do. Even Satan.”

You carefully line the dishes up on the white rack next to the sink and sighs. “Beauty sleep ? I don’t know her.” When you turn around to face Minho, his lips are slightly curled upwards. “What, Minho ?” You ask, slightly annoyed.

He props his head onto his palms and cocks his head to the side. “What will you do now ? Going home is a no-no, obviously, and I believe that your coworkers/best friends are flipping the whole city upside down looking for you so your apartment isn’t really an option anymore. What’s next Y/N ?”

You think for a bit and hum. “Technically I’m running away ...so…why not make the best out of it ?” Then, something clicks and your eyes lit up in mischief. “I have an idea. It’s genius, a fucking genius idea.”

Minho immediately shakes his head furiously, looking like he’s encountering a panic attack. “Hate it.”

“You love it, don’t even lie to yourself.”

“It’s humiliating.”

You reach your hands inside your pocket to look for your keys. “Too late.” That’s when Minho knows that he doesn’t have a say in this.

three.

“You know what’s more fun than this ?” Minho supports himself on his knees as his breaths come in short, he feels like he’s gonna throw up. Being on a rollercoaster is most definitely scarier than attending a meeting with the Underworld Authority. He still doesn’t get why humans enjoy torturing themselves as a form of pure entertainment when they can do something like educate themselves by reading more books. “Hearing Lucifer play the fiddle, the Devil plays it damn good and a fun demon to hang around. He’s a real entertainer, trust me. Just hire a lawyer beforehand if you’re signing any contract with him.”

Minho’s making it sound like you’re planning on having ‘a thing’ with Lucifer meanwhile he practically follows you everywhere, watches your every move and you think that’s close enough for an example of the infamous slavery contract.

You run a hand through your hair and exhale in satisfaction. Since middle school, you haven’t really got a chance to come to amusement parks before. You’re far too caught up with the new tempo to life these days. “Come on, it’s not that bad. It ain’t my fault when you can’t teleport us both to somewhere further.” You almost laugh at his current state; disheveled hair, beads of sweat rolling down on his forehead, and he looks as pale as a ghost like he just saw one. Not like he’s terrified of ghosts or anything, actually, he might be scared of heights.

“You can’t teleport with me for fuck’s sake, even when I want to, you’ll end up disintegrating into dusts forever because your mortal body doesn’t have enough energy to recollect itself piece by piece.” Minho grits and shakes his head slightly to adjust the messy mop of hair on his head. He looks really cute, you think. Like a cat that’s trying to clean itself but can’t quite reach the itchy spot.

Upon your stubbornness because he knows too well that you just wanna see him being drowned in misery, Minho can’t help but roll his eyes. “And can you get any dumber ? You have a fucking Range Rover and a valid license. Technically, there’s no law against driving with a demon sitting in your vehicle. Ugh, I really should have left you at the bar last night.”

Right when you’re about to snap back at him with a witty comment, your phone buzzes loudly. And your eyes are about to jump out of their sockets the moment you open up the device. There are more than thirty missed calls, from your family and friends along with countless texts filled with nothing but concern. Changbin and Jisung both work under the same label as you so you assume that your family already knew everything. Now you feel guilty for running away so spontaneously because after all, you do have people who are always willing to be there for you.

[ 3:25pm ]

jisung | dude, I’m outside, open up

jisung | we know everything already

changbin | Y/N I’m bringing food over, you’re gonna binge-watch Netflix with us whether you want to or not

[ 3:27pm ]

jisung | uhm, hello ? Y/N ?

changbin | we’re breaking in if you’re not coming out, FYI

[ 3:35pm ]

jisung | you know I have the keys right, we’re gonna go in

changbin | this isn’t fucking funny

jisung | stop being such a stubborn piece of shit

[ 3:36pm ]

jisung | Y/N where the fuck are you ?!

changbin | …. look, just go home, your family are worried sick

[ 3:45pm ]

jisung | at least call me back ?

changbin | whatever you’re planning on doing, don’t do it

[ 9:23pm ]

chan | call me, I’m not going anywhere

Sensing your racing thoughts and seeing your tense posture, Minho swiftly takes your phone away from your hand and drops it into his pocket. The last thing he wants to see is you curled up into a ball and cry alone in the bathroom. “You’re so rude ? What kind of human are you, Y/N ? This is how you’re treating your date ?” He huffs, arms crossed in front of his chest like a little kid. But wait, a date ?

“This is not a date, Lee Minho, stop flirting with me.” You knit your brows together in confusion when his eyes twinkle. What’s with his demon nature being on steroids right now ? “Give me my phone.” You order.

“It’s a date when I say that it’s a date.” Minho reaches his hand outwards and links his fingers with yours. He quickly narrows the proximity between the two of you, backing you up against a wall. Utterly speechless, you find yourself dumbfoundedly melting into his touch. How can a demon possess such radiant warmth and tenderness ? Is it all just a facade or does he seem more human when he’s around you, you can’t tell either way. But what you do know is that when you relax a bit and let him hold your hand properly, it fits like a glove.

Minho cocks his head and cracks a smile. For the longest time, you’ve never noticed anyone looking at you with so much sincerity and affection. Maybe it’s all in your head after all. “What now ? You wanna watch a movie and put our hands into the popcorn at the same time to see what’ll happen or nah ?” You question, but it feels more like a question towards yourself.

Minho chuckles lightheartedly. “You’re so damn predictable Y/N.”

The rest of the night is absolutely magical. You feel like you’re acting in one of those One Direction’s music videos that’s not the typical ‘too good to be true’ kind. It really does remind you a lot of ‘Night Changes’ when Minho almost slips while holding onto you like a cat that just came in contact with water. Meaning, if it weren’t for your mediocre ice-skating skills way back from middle school, everything would have been exactly like the music video itself, in which you don’t mind. Because it’s Lee Minho, because his warm presence is something you never knew you needed in your life, because you always have this sense of comfort and happiness even when he starts cursing so loudly that your ears bleed. Demon or not, him being him is truly a blessing already.

Minho says. “I told you it’s humiliating.” He links your hand into his before stuffing it inside his pocket and drags you away from the front entrance. His hand’s got a lot warmer from staying inside his coat for so long and that makes him more human than ever. In which, makes you feel fuzzy.

“You freaking loved it, you can’t tell me otherwise.” You shake your head in denial.

“Whatever.” He rolls his eyes for the tenth time. “Let’s go home.”

four.

The next day, Minho somehow convinces you to drive back to your apartment for packing. Not for running away this time, he’s had enough of that shit. But for a trip back to your hometown instead ( you really should have gone deeper into his ‘let’s go home’ from last night ). The flight will take approximately ten hours or more so he only gives you two hours to pack before leaving. You basically spend half an hour picking out clothes from the messy walk-in closet and another ninety minutes to fit all of them into your suitcase while having a mental breakdown inside your head.

Because gosh, what would they think ?

You’ve scared them all shitless for the last two days and now you’re just gonna show up at the front door and go “Hey, I’m done being miserable now.” ? Sounds like a pretty solid plan but you doubt that your mom’s not planning to beat you up with her favorite broom that’s covered in nothing but dust and spiderwebs. Not to mention, your brother is definitely gonna grill your ass for causing such a commotion in your family. You can already imagine him waiting for you at the foyer with crossed arms, getting ready to lecture the heck out of you.

“Did you lose your favorite pair of shoes or something ?” Minho suddenly fades into your room, making you jump slightly. You’ve got used to his particular ways of intruding your personal space but the demon never seems to fail at surprising you.

You glare at him. “Look who’s being rude now.”

Minho purses his lips. “I didn’t know humans were notorious for being terribly indecisive when it comes to their belongings.” He almost sneers, leaning back against your bedroom wall.

“That’s not the problem.” Yeah, that’s not the problem because not every human takes pain in packing their stuff, it’s just a ‘you’ problem. “I’m coming home after scaring the shit out of my loved ones. I wouldn’t blame them if they hated me, it’s just that I don’t know what to say. What do I say in situations like this ? School didn’t teach me that.” A sigh escapes your lips as you kick your suitcase towards the door. And you’re kinda glad that Changbin and Jisung left your apartment last night, specifically when you called them at one a.m. because you were driving back with a demon right next to the shotgun window.

Minho politely grabs the doorknob and pushes the door open for you. Now that was a first. You almost smile at his out-of-nowhere kind gesture. Normally, he would have teleported to the front porch and complained about how you’re always taking so long. “Hurry up dumbass, we don’t have all day.” He raises his brow at your thoughts.

“Tsk, you’re not the one who’s driving.”

Minho can’t drive, sadly. Partially because he doesn’t see the point in moving around in a fucking box with four wheels when he’s fully capable of teleporting from one place to another within a snap of his fingers. And partially because he can’t afford erasing some cops’ memories because they might have some kind of innovative technology that’ll automatically record when things go down. Another reason is that he might or might not chug a whole bottle of whiskey while driving just because he feels like it.

“It’s cold, roll down the windows.” Minho reminds you when he enters your car because gosh, you always love to keep the temperature at a minimum of 71 degrees even when it’s freezing outside. His cold-hearted demon ass is quaking because another cold case remains another mystery for the entirety of humanity. “You’d be a badass demon, just saying. I’m surprised that you’re still alive at this point.” He shakes his head in disapproval and leans forward to turn off the AC. Not because he’s cold but he’s afraid that you’ll actually freeze to death before you two can even make it to the airport.

You kick the brake when the first red light occurs. “Just admit it, you’re cold. If anything, you can always hold my hand.”

“Okay,” He blinks numerous time at your reply. When did you become such a brat ? You’ve been acting like him these past few days and now he knows how it feels like. Woah, he does act like an old, bitchy cat. “Who taught you that ?”

You say, sparing him a slight smirk. “You know, only the best of the best.”

“Just don’t act like that in front of your parents, will you ?” Minho scrunches his nose at your particular way of having a civil conversation. “You did tell your parents right ?”

You nod. “Yeah, I told them that I was gonna go home sooner or later. I even texted Chan— OH MY GOD,” You let out the loudest gasp whilst trying to make sharp turn at an intersection.

“What the fuck is wrong with you ?” He gasps in disbelief at your sudden outburst, holding onto the side of your car for dear life.

“I can’t just bring a demon home !” You cry out. “You’d be considered safe if it weren’t for my brother. He just happens to be home for break. God, do you know how protective he is when it comes to bringing a guy home ?!” One time, you asked your desk mate from highschool to do a project at your house and Chan didn’t even hesitate to put him on trial. Luckily, they talked things out pretty smoothly and became friends later. Now Felix’s probably the only guy who wouldn’t be thrown off a cliff for breathing in the same room as you.

Minho stares at you weirdly for a full twenty seconds, and that makes you think he’s mentally judging you, which he totally is. “Wouldn’t me being your boyfriend the best option then ?”

“Are you dumb, or are you dumb ?” You haven’t dated anyone since elementary school and the relationship didn’t even last a week. And now out of nowhere you’re just gonna bring a ‘boyfriend’ home after running away ? That’s practically equivalent to adding fuel to the fire and you doubt that Minho’s comprehend the situation correctly. That’s it, you’re officially letting all hell break loose from here. “Yeah, go ahead and be my boyfriend if you wanna sleep with the fishes.”

He throws a look at you. “Is that a challenge ?”

“Better not dress like that in front of my family then.” You glance at his bold choice of a silky wine colored dress shirt along with leather pants and combat boots. Can’t have him walking around looking like a celebrity now, can you ? Although he does look good in them… so annoying.

“Trust me, I know what I’m doing.”

However, Minho’s outfit is most definitely the least of your worries.

five.

“Don’t tell me that you thought this through because-“

Minho says in a hushed tone. “I did think this through, baby. Loosen up a bit.” A devilish smirk blooms on his lips as he tucks some loose strands of hair behind your ear. He really needs to stop doing that because you’re already a blushing mess. He switched out his usual clothes and went for a comfortable hoodie with some jeans and sneakers. You hate him even more now because the demon easily pulled off the perfect boyfriend look.

Grimacing, you slap his hand away. “I’m not your fucking baby. And keep your hands to yourself, will you ?” And with that, you turn on your heels and make a beeline towards the kitchen where everyone’s busy setting up the table, leaving him in the living room alone.

Minho unconsciously plops himself onto the white faux leather couch and looks around in awe. Your house sort of symbolizes you because it’s minimal in the best way with a white color scheme and the occasional colorful tiny details on some of the decorative pieces. He starts pondering about how you never told him anything about your family in Australia. And although you grew up in a pretty well-off household, you didn’t flaunt your wealth. That makes you much more admirable in his eyes because not everyone can keep their mouth shut for more than two seconds when it comes to money.

Truth is, when your parents saw Minho for the very first time, they totally freaked out and drove to the nearest supermarket to shop for more ingredients. Now the house is filled with the aroma of a variety of grilled meat, vegetables, seafood and rice. He finally understands why you’re always homesick because gosh, who wouldn’t miss this kind of homemade food ? Minho props his head onto his hand as he watches your hard-working back figure from the living room, arranging the dishes onto the dining table with a smile on your face. And that stirs something inside him, he just doesn’t want to know it yet.

And Berry - your very much spoiled dog - is absolutely terrified by his dark presence. She keeps barking whenever he tries to pick her up, then ends up whimpering in the corner later. “Berry, don’t be rude ! He’s no stranger to us now.” Your mom nags while looking at Minho with an apologetic look. “Minho, honey, come join us. There’s no need to be so formal.” She offers him a seat at your family’s table warmly and he can already see where you got your smile from.

When he beams at her words and quickly takes the seat right beside you, you secretly roll your eyes at him. “I didn’t know dogs were supposed to be scared of demons. This is so obvious.” As you continue to complain about how he’s not acting naturally and all in a small tone, your hand automatically reaches for the chopsticks and picks out some lamb loin chops onto his plate. Minho simply brushes your words off, muttering a quick ‘thanks babe’ before pressing a kiss on your cheek.

Your eyes widen in surprise at his action, immediately darting towards your family members else whom have already gathered around. But before you can react properly, your dad cuts you off. “How sweet of you two.” He shows that signature ‘dad smile’ which never fails to melt your heart. “Don’t they remind you of us when we were young, dear ?” He tells your mom.

“Certainly, I still remember how—“

“Uhm, so, how did you two meet ?” Your brother - Chan - who’s sitting across the table tries his very best not to gag and changes the topic before things get out of hand. Your dad used to tell you about his first encounter with your mom, their first date and etc.. as an alternative version for the regular bedtime stories session. Chan has known too much already.

“We met at a dinner through a mutual friend during her business trip to Paris. I knew she didn’t come from Europe so if I didn’t ask for her number then, we would never meet again.” Minho has already made up a story during the dreadfully long flight, now all he has to do is read outloud. Easy mode. “We kept in touch and eventually, I moved back to Korea to meet her and stayed with her since then.”

Chan hums as a response, he doesn’t hate Minho yet, you can tell. “Why didn’t you tell me about him, Y/N ? Dad was so close to talking to Felix’s parents about setting you two up.”

You gulp slightly to hide your nervousness. Under the table, Minho squeezes your hand in reassurance, and that gives you enough courage to explain slowly. “I didn’t want to freak you out with our long distance relationship. You might go nuts knowing that I’m dating a guy who I’ve only met once and he’s nearly six thousand miles away.” And setting you up with Felix ? You would never let that happen. Not in a million years. It makes you shiver just thinking about holding your highschool deskmate’s hand while walking down the aisle. “And dad, Lee Felix ? Really ? I would rather be single.”

Your dad laughs. “Come on, he’s a pretty decent boy. Too bad he’s traveling overseas right now or I might invite him over.”

“So, Minho,” Chan sips on his drink. “What do you do for a living ?” When you two arrived at the front door, he finds such little amount that Minho’s luggage holds a bit skeptical, as if your relationship and the idea of coming home happens overnight. And how he wears clothes pretty casual too for a first time meeting the parents but Chan knows better than to judge a book by its cover. However, he wants to make sure that your ‘boyfriend’ doesn’t do drugs of any kind.

Minho doesn’t even hesitate. “I’m a dancer and owns a dance studio with my friend after when I flew back to Korea. I was in Paris for an internship over the summer.” You just sit there, blinking at him in disbelief like a total dumbass. Now you’re starting to wonder how it feels like to dance with the Devil. And if it weren’t for him kicking your leg under the table, your face would have given it away.

“Hmm, interesting.” Chan nods in acknowledgement. Well, at least he’s not unemployed… could have been worse.

Your mom advises thoughtfully as she walks over to the kitchen aisle and refills the plate of beef. “Oh, and be careful with the sauce for the lamb, it’s quite hot. If you’re not good with spicy food, just leave it out.”

“No, it’s fine. Actually, I can handle spicy stuff pretty well.. unlike someone over here.” Minho glances over at you. You immediately gut him with your elbow, earning a low grunt followed by a lighthearted chuckle of your family members.

“Minho can handle spicy things only because he’s getting old. His taste buds are losing their senses.” Your comment is partially true because he once told you that he’s been around for quite awhile. Definitely a lot older than the new batch of demons. He stopped counting at some point but ensured you that it’s somewhere from fifteen thousand and twenty thousand.

Minho looks at your sternly as the corners of his lips curled up. You’re already low-key mortified of what he’s going to say. “If you’re gonna act like a brat for the rest of the night, I’ll have to make sure that your legs will lose their sense by tomorrow morning.” Yep, there it is. You’re so used to his flirtatious remarks to the point that they don’t faze you anymore but having your family witness this is another level of torture. Minho’s definitely the type of guy ( if he were an actual human being ) who can’t be bothered about publicity and would straight up kiss you in the middle of the street.

And it doesn’t help either when Chan just doesn’t laugh loudly at your ‘boyfriend’s’ less than appropriate joke, he’s also on his side. Along with your parents. “I like you, not everyone can make her shut up like that.” Your brother nods in approval, clapping happily like a seal. Your parents even supply unhelpfully. “Try to keep it down and use protection, okay kids ?” Is this what betrayal feels like ?

You feel so adopted at that moment.

six.

“What the hell are you doing here ?” You try to groan as quietly as possible when you find Minho creeping up to you in the living room. “What part of ‘you can take my bed and I’ll sleep on the couch, wake up before everyone else then come back to my room later on’ couldn’t you understand ?” A compromise was almost made, and he fucking blew it.

He chuckles and looks at you dreamily. For a second there, you really thought that he was sleep-walking. His brown hair is in a bird nest, accommodated by a pair of plaid pants and white t-shirt. This prick never fails to make your heart skip a beat. You’re glad that at least he doesn’t sleep shirtless like your brother. It gives you major nightmares since middle school just by waking him up every morning.

“I can’t sleep on a foreign bed..” Minho pouts. He really can’t, especially when you’re not around. And he’s not risking the chance of one of your folks or Chan accidentally. barging into the room when he’s doing some voodoo shit either.

You huff tiredly and walk over to him, grabbing the pillow from his arms before throwing it on the couch along with your blanket. Well, lucky him, your parents just happen to love ginormous couches and you’re far too lazy to drag him back to your bedroom. “Come here.” You order after plopping yourself onto the soft surface, letting out a prolonged yawn. Minho takes a good ten seconds to look at you again. He can’t help but keep staring like a creep when you’re in an oversized t-shirt with shorts underneath, exposing your bare thighs. You’re too cute for your own good.

You say when he remains silent. “Hurry up before I change my mind.”

He obediently nods, quickly settling down under the blanket. You two shuffle around for a bit until no one’s uncomfortable with less than a few inches away from each other. And when you decide to flip yourself over to face the wall, Minho gently pulls your back flush against his chest. Your eyes fly open at the sudden contact. “What-the-fuck-do-you-think-you’re-doing ?” You turn around and stare at him square in the eye.

Even in the dark, his eyes are gleaming with a demonic glint of silver. He beams innocently at your threatening tone. “Get comfortable ?”

“I mean…” You hesitate for a few seconds. Because you’d hate to admit but it does feel kinda nice having his warmth radiating off from underneath his thin shirt. It makes you feel fuzzy inside, more secure, more like you’re finally home. “If you don’t mind then…” You gather up every last bit of courage and energy to scoot yourself towards him, your arms snaking around on either side and hug his torso closer, your face buried in his chest.

And it takes every single strand of willpower for Minho to not jump and teleport to the nowhere. His breath starts to quicken when your body is practically attached to his. He didn’t expect this at all. It might be because you’re exhausted from the flight so you’re just far too sleepy to be conscious of your own actions. But anyhow, he’s not against the idea of having you in his arms like this. It makes him more relaxed knowing that you’re safe in his sound right here.

So Minho drapes one of his arms around your waist to hold you in place and the other underneath his head, straddling his legs with yours to keep them warm since you’re only wearing shorts. “Thanks for dinner, by the way.” He murmurs into your hair, taking in the scent of your familiar shampoo.

“If anything, you should be thanking my parents. They looked like they just saw Jesus when you first arrived.” You say and snuggle closer to him.

He chuckles, sending vibrations to the tip of your nose. “Admit it, your family’s in love with me. Even your brother isn’t half as bad as you made it sound. I think he would actually have nothing against our wedding.”

You make a face and lift your head upwards to look at him. “Dude, it’s just really good acting. Such a shame how the other Lee Minho gets the title of an actor when you’re over here stuck with being a demon.” If you’re being completely honest, you’re kinda scared right now. Because one, all of this is just a big play and when you fly back to Korea, it may seem like nothing has ever happened. And two, if this goes way too far, your family might disown you for ‘breaking up’ with Minho when he wasn’t even your boyfriend in the first place.

“Actually, I’d be glad to take the title of being your boyfriend instead.” And the thumping force inside your chest picks up the pace as you can feel your cheeks heating up. His simple acknowledgement makes you flustered, absolutely moonstruck. No one has ever said that to you before, well, partially because you’re super single but you can’t help but let those words affect you tremendously. “Where do you want to go for our honey—“

“We’re not getting married.” You hiss at him like a snake.

Minho draws a cat-like grin on his lips, mischief glistening in his eyes. “Nuh uh too late. I’ll consider you as my own from now on, Mrs. Lee.”

You reply flatly. “You talk a lot for a demon who treasures their beauty sleep. You’re not vampires and you don’t watch people in their sleep, do you ?” The only person Minho watches in their sleep is you, but he’s not saying that to your face. And that was one time, one-time.

Upon his silence, you raise a brow. “Wait, you do ?”

“Who I watch in their sleep is none of your business, Y/N.” He replies with flaming cheeks.

You giggle. “I knew it, you’re related to Edward Cullen.”

“No, not that bitch Edward !” Minho makes a disgusted face but can’t contain his laughter for long. God, what are you doing to him ?

seven.

You wake up with a cold sensation wrapping around your feet. With body shivering slightly, you instinctively nuzzle your head into the nearest heat source, retreating your legs deeper into the fuzzy blanket. Groaning, you shake your head slightly to shake the weariness away. This is why you hate long flights with a passion because you’re never not gonna be jet lagged for the rest of your life.

“Why do you always wake up so fucking early ?” Your eyes shoot open at the hoarse voice only to find Minho squinting his eyes at you sleepily with his bedhead and wrinkled shirt. He looks so human right now you can care less about the fact that you’ve just spent an entire night on your parents’ favorite couch with a creature from Hell. Definitely boyfriend material.

“My feet get cold easily in the morning, and that wakes me up.” You pout and hold his torso closer. Minho tries his best not to flinch when your arm brushes over his as the strangest warm feeling bubbles up inside his stomach. And you’re glad that he doesn’t snore and isn’t a messy sleeper. Just sleeps like the death, which makes sense. Unlike your best friend, Seo Changbin who sleeps like a fucking starfish with his four limbs wide open. Give him a king sized bed and he can still manage to have his blanket on the floor by the time the sun rises.

Minho runs a hand through the messy bird nest on his head which takes the breath right out of your lungs because it looks like those too good to be true shampoo commercials with people who have shiny, luminous hair. But those models spend hours on a wooden stool for their stylists to make it look like they didn’t even try but they’re not even close to Minho’s league because he needs none of that in order to look attractive.

Finally, he sighs. “Go back to sleep then.” He pulls the blanket down slightly to cover your feet completely and hugs your waist closer so that your upper body won’t be bothered by the morning breeze. “I’ll make breakfast later, what do your folks usually prefer ?”

You look up at him in awe. No one has ever offered such a sweet thing to do when they come over to your house. Not even your relatives ‘cause they’re far too busy bombarding you and Chan with questions about your personal lives rather than helping your parents out with washing the dishes after a meal is done. Minho might look cold and all but it’s all really just the typical demon facade that he’s trying to maintain. He’s actually really caring and thoughtful, you’ve found more sense of morality whenever you look into his eyes deeply than when you look at other people.

“Lee Minho is making breakfast for my family ? What’s this ? Is World War III coming ? Is the world hanging on the verge of ending ?”

He shakes his head at you in disapproval. “I just wanted to do something nice in return to last night’s dinner. Your parents really didn’t have to go all the way to the supermarket just because of me.” And he secretly enjoys seeing you munching happily on the food that he makes. How your cheeks are bunched up when you accidentally take too much of a bite, how your eyes light up in joy when you melt into the taste. He loves you for being you, for going all out without trying to act like a lady, eating quietly and shit.

You think for a bit. “They all have a big appetite, plus they’re not picky so anything will do. Just try to work with things in the fridge that you find promising ?”

“Oh okay.” Minho shrugs before leaning forward to press a kiss on your forehead. “Go back to sleep please, I beg. Jetlag is killing me, or else I’m gonna have to kiss you again and again until you get tired of me and doze off.”

With coral cheeks, you muster the calmest voice possible. “Is that a challenge ? Because if so, kiss me before I kick you off the couch.”

He smirks at you. “If you’re willing to.” As he leans in closer, you can feel your confidence level decreasing dramatically, your heart feels like it’s running on a treadmill endless. You’re no longer brave enough to keep eye contact so your eyes are screwed shut at some point, waiting for his lips to collide with yours.

Suddenly his phone buzzes obnoxiously on the coffee table, making you two pull away in a hassle. “Sorry, I gotta take this.” Minho says sheepishly as he sits straight up and grabs his phone. The apologetic smile on his face drops when he sees the caller’s ID. He swipes right to answer, placing the cool device close to his ear. “Yeah, Hyunjin ?”

“Hyung, you’re going too far. Come back.”

eight.

It’s been a few weeks later, and your family can’t stop gushing over how lucky you are to find a boyfriend like Minho.

You start getting daily voice messages from your parents, asking if you’re taking good care of yourself, if Minho’s treating you well, if anything’s been hard lately. Oh boy you sure regret running away before because your parents keep checking up on you every two hours. If not for Minho, they would have made you move back to Australia for who knows how long.

With that being said, Minho is obligated to move in with you. But you’re not complaining at all because cuddling with him is naturally carved into you like second nature. Even Jisung and Changbin didn’t bother to question why you start to have two mugs by the sink, two pairs of slippers by the shoe rack and a foreign smell of cologne all over your couch. They’ve probably figured it out that you got yourself ‘a man’ since the night that you came back to the apartment in such a rush.

And from then, you wonder why you’ve never considered having a roommate before. There are always really shitty excuses inside your head like : what if your roommate has some kind of questionable habits, what if they’re secretly a part of some mafia organization ? But really, it’s because he’s Lee Minho, because you’re too utterly soft for him. Nonetheless, you did learn a few things from spending more time with him rather than locking yourself up with work.

The feeling of having someone waiting for you to come home is beyond heartwarming. And you’ve also learnt to use your time and effort on someone else rather than just yourself. It actually feels really nice because his presence brings more than just a sense of comfort and happiness to you. There’s something about him that’s irreplaceable. As if he’s your soulmate, that one person who adores you to the moon and back, who’s willing to bring out the best in you and deal with you when you’re at your lowest.

But the whole concept of soulmate is still debatable because life isn’t just peaches and cream, it’s roses and thorns.

“Something’s bothering you, tell me.” You make the sharpest of a turn to the left to snap Minho back to reality. You don’t like when people keep ignoring your questions.

“Nothing’s bothering me.” He answers flatly. Obviously, he’s lying because he’s only spoken to you seven words maximum since you started the car. “Follow-the-GPS-to-reach-the-destination.” That’s it. No more. No less.

You scoff. “Something’s clearly bothering you. I don’t need your mind reading crap to know what you’re thinking.” You’re trying so hard not to take an argument out on him, especially when you’re driving to somewhere you don’t even know. But Minho’s not dumb, you bet he already had everything planned out on his mind. There’s a reason for everything, so you don’t have anything against driving in the middle of the night, just because he insisted you to.

He voices. “I’m thinking about surprising you.” And when you glance at him sideways, there are those specks of playfulness glistening in his midnight orbs again. But there’s also something else, and it’s unfathomable. “Trust me, you’ll love it.” He reassures you with a somewhat forced smile, one that doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

“Fine.” You sigh in defeat, carefully pulling over not to hit the tree by the road.

Minho jumps out of the vehicle first. “We’re here.” You roll your eyes at him playfully and follows not long after.

And the sight in front of your eyes leaves you speechless. Even in the eerie darkness, your eyes can still make out the vibrant display of multicolored flowers all over the green field. The sweet scent soon fills your nostrils, making your eyes go wide in awe. “Come on, over here.” Minho links his hand into yours and drags you along the dirt road, trying his best not to step on any flower. Once he stops, you realize that you’re in the middle of the field, surrounded by the most surreal things that you thought could only happen in fairy tales.

The sky represents a black curtain being draped over your entire universe, with milky swirls and glitter specks dancing elegantly in various patterns. It’s transcendental, you think. How the sight have all of your worries and concerns disintegrate into dust, how you’re here with him as time seems to stop when he looks at you with nothing but pure devotion in his eyes. You’re hanging by this moment, waiting for him to say something. “Do you like it ?” He breathes out ever so softly.

You nod repeatedly. “I love it, thank you, thank you, thank you !” Mixed emotions burst inside your chest and you unconsciously fall into his embrace as if you were meant to be there all along. You bury your head into the crook of his neck, letting his more than familiar cologne hug you like a warm blanket.

Minho opens his mouth to say something but snaps it close later on. The bitterness inside is making him nauseous, burying every last bit of courage to the bottom pit of his stomach. He has so much, so much to tell you yet nothing comes out right.

He’s the first to pull away. “I’m glad that you like it, Y/N.” Take good care of yourself, okay ?

“Of course I like it, it’s everything !” You smile, not noticing how there are tears brimming in the corners of his eyes when it’s so dark outside.

Minho tries to hide the shakiness in his voice. “Close your eyes, the stars will grant a wish to whoever has enough sincerity and purity.” You’ll be fine without me, will you ?

“A wish ? I guess…” You close your eyes, tightening the grip on Minho’s hands, accidentally ignoring how his hands are getting colder, and colder by the second. “There, I made a wish !” Your eyes fly open as you giggle happily. “We should come here more often, don’t you think ? Promise me that we’ll be here every week.” You extend your pinky finger outwards.

Minho nods, intertwining his finger with yours. “I promise.” I’ll miss you.

As a silent tear rolls down on his cheek, his orbs flash a shade of crimson red.

eight & ½.

Changbin cries out dramatically. “Y/N, a little help over here ? Hello ?” He’s struggling real hard to open the door while carrying the groceries all by himself.

You quickly snap out of it, running to help him with the whopping five paper bags in his arms. “Sorry, I just thought that I saw someone who looked familiar.”

He cranes his neck tiredly after stuffing the bags into the backseats of his Tesla. “Could be some guy who reached out to you before. You know how the industry works, if they want you, they gotta have you. So be careful, creepy people are literally everywhere.”

“Right..” You trail off and jump into his car, shutting the door close. Even when Changbin twists his key and drives away from the supermarket, you can’t help but turn your head constantly to see if there’s anyone. On the way out, you made eye contact with someone, who has an odd ray of red in their eyes. Normally, things like this would have crept you out but you found an unexpected sense of familiarity in those eyes. Perhaps you’ve met before ?

But why… red ?

“Hey Bin…” You start. “Do you believe in soulmates ?”

Changbin snickers. “What the fuck is wrong with you today ? Are you sick ?”

You wave your hand to brush the topic off. “You’re right, I stayed up until three last night, can really use a nap right now.” Maybe everything’s in your head after all.

But little did you know, from across the streets, the silhouette of a demon who once shared unforgettable memories with you is embedded onto the cold brick wall. Minho has his arms crossed in front of his chest, mind blank, eyes empty. He only dares to watch in silence as your friend drives you away, fighting back the voices inside his head that are yelling at him to just hug you, to see your smile, to hear your laughter.

Little did you know, he longs to be by your side again. Minho tried to force himself into hating you but he can’t. He can’t because you taught him how to love, because you mean far more than just the universe to him, because blaming hurts more than trying to forget you. But before things get out of hand, he managed to get a hold of himself and decided to cut ties with you for good.

This is for the better, he keeps telling himself.

People say that there’s no sorrow in the demons. Since joy and sorrow are like fire and ice, there’s no possibilities for them to exist in the same subject. Demons are believed to find joy in those who despise God’s commands, and rejoice over this kind of sinister power. Therefore, there’s no sorrow in the demons. Meaning, demons can never feel heartbroken because they simply don’t have one.

If so, then why can Minho hear something shattering into pieces inside his chest ? That’s because he’s experienced something other demons aren’t supposed to. He finally knows what it feels like to actually be ‘someone’ to someone, what it feels like to think of them all day and smile stupidly about it.

And that’s something other demons are fortunate enough to not get themselves into. Because they wouldn’t want to know how painful it is to not being able to be with their loved one. Demons attract other demons by their scents so if a demon fell in love with a mortal being, that one human will live in constant danger.

Not to mention, it’s going against God to fall in love with someone who’s so different, so out of reach. And Minho could never risk losing you to anything but he can risk it all to protect you.

“I just feel so fucking broken.”

“You’ll be fine.” Hyunjin gently places a hand on his friend’s shoulder.

But it is love after all… what can he do ?

417 notes · View notes

fern-the-fox · 4 years

Text

You guys are seriously saying this

Is the exact same as this?

Dude he fought till the end and everyone around him were dropping to the virus like flies.

While I do feel sympathy for Forces!Tails and yes they should have portrayed him better, you can't nit pick a panel and call a comparison.

Unlike Forces, he fought hard to the end. Where did all the "woo-hoo! That's the tails we love!" attitude go? Just because someone is brave and has done scarier things in the past doesn't mean they can't ever show fear and be visibly vulnerable.

"he's saved station square by himself, he helped fight against the black arms and aveenged Sonic in SA"

Yes he did and those are his shining moments, him showing his true potential in cases near death. But has it really PHYSICALLY affect him?

Before you nitpick, how about you actually think and LOOK at the panel.

In IDW, his tails are infected despite him doing his best to escape the zombot chaos. He can't fight them without touching them and he can't use anything since they are literally hot on his tails IN FLIGHT.

He got physically affected in Idw, you should be FEELING for him.

"he called out for sonic like he did in forces"

So you've NEVER called for mommy or daddy when you were afraid? You've never prayed to any god you worship?

Sonic is his big brother, his guardian, his parent technically. How is tails saying is big brother's name when he's vulnerable different from you hiding under the covers and calling for mommy to save you from the monster under your bed?

Here's another scenario for you to put you in IDW!Tails` position.

If I point a gun at you, putting to your head to the barrel everyday, I change up the gun or leave you alone sometimes.

You soon become not afraid of the gun right? No matter how many times I put I different gun to your head.

That's where you are comparing Forces! And IDW! Tails. That's where your claims are stemming.

Now one day instead of pointing the gun, I actually shoot you. Doesn't matter where, the bullet hits. You are touched. Physically touched. Physically in danger despite being in different situations with the same gun.

You are afraid. You feel vulnerable. You are exactly in Tails` position.

Through all the disasters that you use an excuses for his behavior, him showing RIGHTFUL and GENUINE vulnerability. He has never been physically hurt by what happened.

"but he was physically affected in Lost World and Colors!!"

1. He had technology as an advantage, he can't do anything to a Zombot. All technology was being used for the portals. Also it's not like he had time to grab something when the zomchaos where right behind him.

He had Sonic by his side and he was mind controlled. Plus he was perfectly fine afterwards. Sonic doesn't have time to be by his side in the comics, he's fighting for his life and everyone else's.

Tails is an intelligent 8 year old CHILD, not a numb war machine. Just because someone had been through worse doesn't not mean they are incapable of showing fear.

Next time you have a scary nightmare, even though you had scarier expirences or worse nightmares in the past, don't be afraid or call mommy or daddy. You don't want to be like Tails do you? You don't want to be afraid when you've had worse.

Do you?

Fiction may not be reality, but it can mirror it.

#sonic the hedgehog #miles tails prower #tails #tails the fox #sonic idw #idw tails #idw spoilers

35 notes · View notes

springday-aus · 4 years

Text

Disney Prince!AU with Wonho [Hoseok]

★ Wonho [Lee Hoseok] as Disney’s Hercules ★

moodboard link

Group: Monsta X

Member: Lee Wonho / Hoseok

Genre: fluff, romance

part of the Disney Prince series

Type: Bulletpoint AU

Word Count: 1.9k

born a demigod

son of Zeus and a mortal mother

he absolutely adores his mother

he’s not ashamed to say he’s a mama’s boy

on the other hand, he doesn’t really like to talk about his father

especially since he has these powers

the power of physical strength….

he’s not sure if they’re a good thing or a bad thing

like, sure he likes that he can help the elders carry stuff

you know, like their animals when they’ve broken a leg

or moving their houses to more convenient places

the whole village loves him bc they literally saw him grow up as a kid

he turned out so well for someone without a father

don’t be fooled—he can literally physically crush you like a grape, but he’s literally the sweetest boy

anyways

he’s been living normally

despite the whole ability to rip off a 100 year old tree

and lift up a wall

or a house

or a 200 pound horse

his life has been fairly normal up until the incident

one day, when Hoseok was about 16 years old

a couple of kids were stuck underneath a rock

okay, an understatement

it was a huge ass boulder

anyways

these kids were stuck underneath and Hoseok lifted it to let the kids out

since that day, the elders called him Wonho

meaning a brave lion, the protector of the village

since that day, he’s been doing around helping others a bit more

he started putting himself out there to help people

it was small but these tasks got gradually bigger

it started from saving kids

to fighting against monsters

to saving the entire universe (but that’s another story)

next thing he knew the entire village was calling him a hero

there were statues made of his figure

his face was slapped on e v e r y t h i n g

the gods made a star alignment for his stature

he became one of the most famous faces

some just like to call him a Greek god that fell from the heavens

he still blushes every time someone calls him that

the ladies swoon the hardest when he’s on his Pegasus high in the sky

and the light shines oh so perfectly to emphasize his perfect, chiseled face

geez this man is very attractive and he doesn’t even know it

moving on

it’s important to remember that he did not get to this position alone

he was able to train with/under Hyunwoo

Wonho wanted to understand how he can be a better hero

to protect the ones he loves

and those in the community

he is such a good boy, I want to cry

anyways

he heard about how Hyunwoo trains heroes the best so he made his way over and

here he is

even after completing his training, he continues to work on himself

so if he can’t sleep or when people don’t need help

he would be in the gymnasium to work out

or he’d be doing practice training in an abandoned field that Hyunwoo had set up

as he got older, all he really does is help people and train to be better at what he’s doing

since he’s been helping out, the chaos has decreased significantly and he finds himself wandering elsewhere for adventure

this is how he meets you

I mean, you wouldn’t say you were in danger

but also, you were in the woods and you didn’t know this one all that well

and you may or may not have ended up messing with this lake monster that you def shouldn’t have been messing with

so there you are

in the middle of a lake

being held hostage by some

ugly troll ass, centaur thing

(tbh, you couldn’t really tell what he was, a river guardian???)

I literally mean held btw

you were literally in this creep’s hand bc he’s the size of a giant

so Wonho was walking around the forest with Pegasus, trying to find a new place and see if anyone needed his help

and very faintly he hears something from the distance

“if you don’t put me down, I swear to cut off your balls and rip off your—”

oo he didn’t wanna hear that

but he still rushes towards it

that’s when he spots you in this monster’s hand, struggling to get out

he slowly approaches you two

Wonho: “uh, excuse me? sir? could you, um, let them go?”

you speak up first, without taking two glances at him

You: “keep moving junior, I can handle this—have a nice day”

you flash him a sarcastic smile, hoping he’ll move along with his day

but he doesn’t

instead his shoulders kind of drop for a second, slightly disheartened, but only for a second

because he stands up straighter and pulls out his sword

Wonho: “you might be too close to his situation—I’m sorry to do this without your consent, but I have to do my job”

before anyone can say anything else, Wonho dives in and does what he does best

he fights off the bad guy

next thing you knew, you fell into the water and it’s all a blur

you fished yourself out, trying to dry off

Wonho managed to punch the living daylights out of the river guardian so he was just passed out and drowning in the river

but who cares about him

after Wonho ensures he’s not dead, but unconscious

(and Pegasus does his little cheer for him)

he moves over to you

Wonho: “..... hey”

You: “hi”

Wonho: “are you okay?”

You: “after getting all the water out of my ears, I’ve decided that I’ve been better”

Wonho: “sorry… about that—it was kind of stupid, I should have thought that out better”

You: “you think?”

you eye him up and down as you try to dry off your shoes

You: “they give you a name with those rippling pectorals?”

Wonho flushes, laughing rather awkwardly

Wonho: “they call me Wonho, but you can just call me Hoseok…”

you look at him again

he turns into a deeper shade of red under your eyes

You: “I prefer Wonder Boy”

he lets out another small laugh

Wonho: “what’s—what’s your name?”

you give him yours, as you wring out the bottom of your shirt into the water

he repeats it, with a small smile on his face

Wonho: “soooo, how’d you get mixed up with the—”

you finish for him

You: “the pinhead with hooves?”

he lets a little laugh out

it’s kind of cute

You: “well, you know how men are, they think no means yes and get lost means take me, I’m yours”

you let out an airy laugh as Wonho stands there confused

You: “don’t worry about it, Wonder Boy, you’ll figure it out eventually”

you stand up, ignoring the water that continues to drip down

You: “well, Seok, thanks for the help, but I gotta bounce”

Wonho: “ah…”

he can’t really hide his disappointment: “where—where are you going?”

You: “oh, you know, here and there”

you flash a smile at him: “I’ll see you around”

Wonho: “how?”

You: “life has its ways… bye bye Wonder Boy”

you walk off and disappear into the woods

Wonho finds himself still looking off, even as your figure disappears

Pegasus huffs at him, almost mockingly at how mesmerized he is at your presence

he turns to Pegasus and points a finger at him, as if he’s scolding him

Wonho: “not a word”

he continues to go on and eventually stumbles into a little town

…. your little town :)

obviously he didn’t realize

until he saw you again about a week later

you were hanging around a fruit stand that belonged to your friend’s

you looked just as beautiful as he remembers

and less angry

Wonho: “hey” :)

You: “Wonder Boy, back to me so soon, miss me that much?”

Wonho: “yeah, I did”

you didn’t expect him to be so straightforward

You: “so, you’re just hanging around town?”

Wonho: “it’s kind of like that”

You: “I heard some hero killed the monstrous lion, I should’ve realized it was you Wonder Boy”

Wonho: “ahhh…”

he flushes once again, rubbing the back of his neck

Wonho: “I—I’m no hero”

You: “sure you are, just remember, you are in a new town, take a break while you can”

You: “I will warn you though, it’s hard to find pretty sights in this dump”

Wonho: “I don’t think it’ll be that hard…. not without a guide at least…”

you look at him with a raised eyebrow

Wonho: “tHAt’S iF yoU wANT…. yoU don’T hAVE TO….”

you let out a laugh as he continues to flush into a darker red

he’s a cute boy, might as well shoot your shot

you wave to your friend as a silent goodbye and slowly start to walk off

without looking behind you, you shout out

You: “you coming, Wonder Boy?”

Wonho snaps out of his daydream that’s right in front of him

Wonho: “yes ma’am”

and thus the start of a beautiful relationship

Disney Prince!Wonho is as wonderful as it sounds

he already adores the life out of you

and he basically worships the ground you walk on

(as if you were the one with Greek god genes)

you, on the other hand, think he’s like a little puppy

a puppy that can kill you with his strength

but a puppy

he loves praise

he needs attention

he loves affection

he’s basically a soft, gigantic puppy

this view kind of changed when you saw him in action

I mean you did see him in action that one time

but his life wasn’t really in danger

and lowkey he looks hot fighting

but like….

when he killed the Stymphalian Birds…

when he captured the cattle of Geryon….

I guess you kind of drew the line when you saw Cerberus on your front lawn

(he’s absolutely more adorable than people said, but it is still a three headed giant dog)

you were just concerned for him and the danger he was putting himself in

and Wonho kind of ate that shit up

but he did console you

he became a lot more careful to consider your feelings

that did mean more official training with Hyunwoo

but anything to make you happy

anyways

most of the time, he stays to help the village

the elderly and kiddos there have grown to love him

I mean what’s not to love but

anyways

sometimes he does have to travel a bit farther for the king or something

but he always brings back some type of souvenir for you

he loves to spoil you

when he went to the Amazon, you got the most gorgeous flowers

another time, he brought some golden apples for you

he says it’s to make up the time away from you

and your heart absolutely melted

his presence makes up for it

he’s great okay

anyways

so you know how Pegasus is like his sidekick?

you two bonded

he’s not sure how but

Wonho loves that you and Pegasus get along

but y’all bonded a bit too much

like you two won’t say anything but it’ll be on your faces when you’re judging him

moving on

you haven’t stopped calling him Wonder Boy

some days he prefers it

others, he prefers it when you call him Seok

so, affection

this man needs it

whenever he’s in the same space as you

he’s like touch

it’s not like you’re gonna reject it

even if you roll your eyes, you always run into his arms

when he gets back from his trips

he doesn’t let you go for days

**cue you two waddling around because he’s backhugging you**

humor—while most of yours is dry

he still laughs and goes with it

he tells jokes unknowingly

like some of the stuff he says is ridiculous

and you just burst out laughing

you two are just very attuned with one another

very harmonious

very cute

Wonho: “when I’m with you, I don’t feel so alone”

You: “good thing you’re stuck with me then”

Wonho: “I wouldn’t have it any other way”

48 notes · View notes

laughtermagick · 5 years

Note

Do you know that "demon" just means entity, in essence?

Sure do, buckeroo! Figure you're already up to speed since you're the one bringing it up, so please excuse me while I froth at the mouth and just go off (I guess) because WHAT A GREAT TOPIC.

Our story begins as all great stories do...

*pulls down a projector screen for a grainy flickering monochrome film as the lights dim*

Refreshments are available at the concession stand, but there's no leaving now. The doors are locked.

Africa and Mesopotamia sprout a few of the first well-documented civilizations, each taking their turns at the regional captain's helm. We forgot Sumer even existed until we dug some shit up in 1842, and went, "Neato, potato." Yeah, only a couple hundred years ago, we thought the Babylonians were why we counted 60 seconds to a minute and 60 minutes to an hour. But it was the beer-chugging Sumerians, bro, whoo! Unless we stub our toes on another lost civilization's temple or quit erasure or something.

Maybe around 2,100-1,900 BC, a Semitic dude named Avraham came on the scene and later got kudos from Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Jewish oral traditions transcribed to the Torah share similarities to Egyptian and Sumerian prehistoric accounts, including details of Creation, the Garden of Eden, the Great Flood, and the Tower of Babel. (People's names and identifying details have been changed numerous times to protect the privacy of individuals.)

In ancient Judaism, the existence of other gods wasn’t so much denied as it was declined for the Utmost Highest Power. As Psalms 89 states, “For who in the skies can be compared with Adonai? Which of these gods can rival Adonai...”

In the Torah, “demons” could be formidable foreign gods, local demi-gods (like satyrs or succubi night hags), disembodied tempters and tormentors, possibly angels doing dirty work (Angel of Death), and occasionally, biological diseases or vampires.

What might qualify for “demons” also exists in the Book(s) of Enoch: semi-infernal and semi-celestial fallen angels. They taught humans the arts of witchcraft, astronomy, astrology, divination, writing and philosophy, fashion, weaponry forging, and combat. (All subjects relevant to my interests, so thanks.)

Ghosts of the dead got neutrally acknowledged as well. King Saul visits the Witch of Endor somewhere around 1,050 BC to communicate with Samuel, and that witch is able to see and speak with a dead prophet. (What a resume highlight, am I right?)

Angels (to use the term loosely) existed, but refused humans’ worship or to identify themselves, saying their names were unknowable. Angels got more names around 600-ish BC during Babylonian occupation and also 1,100-1,500 AD while Kabbalah was really taking off. When not traumatizing humans with their raw glory, angels in the Torah sometimes appeared as kind human strangers in foreign lands or as protective phantoms.

Let’s check in on gReEcE and rOmE! Around 700 BC, Greeks start living in Egypt and model some gods after the Egyptian pantheon. Thales, Hippocrates, Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, and others traveled to study at Egyptian temple-universities circa 600 BC, and the entire Greek civilization enters a Golden Age. Greece falls to the Romans in 146 BC, but Roman religion was already parroting the Greeks due to early exposure, what with the Roman founding fathers’ time-honored tradition of conquering neighboring territories and absorbing local gods. Greeks and Romans both believed in a whole world of spirits: some good, some not-so-good, and some neutral. In fact, a deity could appear as a thinly veiled daemon and a daemon could be mistaken for deity.

Demon/daemon/daimon (Greek -> Latin -> English) was a neutral spirit/entity.

Eudemon/-aemon/-aimon meant a "good” spirit.

Cacodemon meant "evil” spirit.

Agathodemon was a "spirit of the land".

To name a few. Fun trivia: The Roman term for a personal guardian angel or spirit attendant was genii, which was borrowed from the Middle Eastern and African concepts of jinni. Plural, the Roman word genii was genius, which is how English developed that word. Next time you get a great idea, instead of a lightbulb, I hope you think of the genie from Aladdin teeing a golf ball off the top of your head William Tell style and yelling, “FORE.”

Buckle up. Zoom to 64 BC when the Romans sack Israel. (Hi again, Avraham!) Jewish fella called Yeshua haNotzri (Jesus Christ, it’s 0 BC/AD!!!) made a splash and got executed around 30-36 AD. His followers spread prolifically (PSA: “Christian” was a name first invented as a slur), and in 313 AD, Christianity was culturally assimilated and politically molded by the Roman government. Christianity’s core tenants were voted upon in 380 AD by a Roman-Catholic council. As I’ve gathered, the Church eventually labeled eudemons as “angels” or “saints” to specify well-intentioned spirits that acted under the directions of God.

It’s a bunch of recategorization. Mazel tov.

That’s Christian/Jewish, though. Anybody got input? I love this topic.

#witch #witches #witchcraft #witchblr #pagan #paganism #demons #demonology

237 notes · View notes

jahaanofmenaphos · 5 years

Photo

Art by the awesome @tommieglenn!

Of Gods and Men Summary:

When the gods returned to Gielinor, their minds were only on one thing: the Stone of Jas, a powerful elder artefact in the hands of Sliske, a devious Mahjarrat who stole it for his own ends and entertainment. He claims to want to incite another god wars, but are his ulterior motives more sinister than that? And can the World Guardian, Jahaan, escape from under Sliske’s shadow?

Read the full work here:

ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN

FANFICTION.NET

TUMBLR CHAPTER INDEX

QUEST 06: FATE OF THE GODS

QUEST SUMMARY:

The gods have returned to Gielinor, but something is preventing the arrival of Zaros. Jahaan is enlisted by Azzanadra to help bring his god back to their world, a task that would send him into the harshities of the Mahjarrat homeworld: Freneskae...

CHAPTER 1: WORLDS APART

Jahaan pried himself off the duvet the next afternoon in a puddle of drool. Not morning, no… he’d long since slept through that. Wiping his face, he tried to blink some of the sleep from his eyes and turn over, attempting to push himself up off the bed and gain a vertical base once more. It was an effort, but eventually he managed to fall onto the edge of the bed and sit upright, the room swaying and swirling before him.

That’s when a quick dash to the bathroom was in order.

Splashing his face with the icy cold stream from the tap, Jahaan looked up at himself in the small mirror and laughed humourlessly at his dishevelled reflection. As he tried to straighten out his locks of hair, so too did he attempt to piece together the previous night’s antics.

The destruction to the cabinet, alongside the spew of weapons cluttering the carpet, was proof enough that it was no dream. He’d caught Sliske in his disguise, and almost ended him too. For a brief moment, he had the upper hand.

However, with dismal realisation, Jahaan realised that, even with a bow and arrow trained on Sliske’s skull, he never had the upper hand.

Not against Sliske.

It was then he saw the letter from Azzanadra on the bed.

It definitely started out as a trudge as he made his way over to the coordinates Azzanadra had left him. Of course, he didn’t have a compass himself, and had to make a little pit stop at a small general store, which overcharged him for the pleasure of likely being the only customer that day.

Walking definitely helped his hangover start to ebb away, and before long the arduous slog of a journey turned into quite a nice walk through some unfamiliar, though quite beautiful, forest land. He hardly saw another soul on the entire journey.

A few hours later, the outline of Azzanadra’s unique headdress came into view, along with the rest of him, and Jahaan trotted over to the waiting Mahjarrat.

“Azzanadra!” he cheerily greeted. “Sorry for the hold up. Took me a while to find this place…”

Jahaan decided Azzanadra didn’t need to know about human hangovers, though he suspected in all his years he’d encountered quite a few inebriated fellows. It was more that he didn’t want to talk about it, in case the hangover heard him and maliciously returned for round two. Not exactly a logical train of thought, but he was rolling with it regardless.

“I am glad you could make it, Jahaan,” Azzanadra smiled warmly back it him, though his hand was twitching with impatience.

“So what are you doing out here?” Jahaan asked. “You were quite vague in your letter.”

“Such things could not be trusted to pen and papyrus, for I am here under direct orders from Zaros,” he stated with a smirk on his face that soap and water couldn’t wash off.

Raising an eyebrow, Jahaan replied, “Alright, but what do you need me for?”

“Rejoice!” Azzanadra cheered, emphasising his words with a loud clap. “The time for Zaros' return is at hand!”

Jahaan gasped. “Zaros is actually returning?”

“Yes. Guthix's death was a tragedy, but it has allowed all other gods to return. There is one final obstacle preventing Zaros' arrival, however. Once more, I request your services in the name of my lord. You, and only you, are capable of removing this obstacle. While you may not always have displayed an unerring devotion to Zaros, I need you for this, World Guardian. All disagreements between us are in the past. Any doubts you may have will be answered. Today, we shall truly see if you stand with Zaros, or against him.”

Well, this is a lot to take in, Jahaan thought to himself with an exaggerated exhale. Scratching the non-existent itch on the back of his neck was an excuse to distract himself from Azzanadra’s beady eyes, eyes that demand all, filled with palpable hope that could teeter any moment to rageful disappointment, depending on Jahaan’s response.

He did all he could to avoid meeting those eyes.

Zaros hadn’t played a major part in Jahaan’s life; he was the deity that he knew the least about, all things considered. Sure, he’d read the history books, overwhelmed by a Menaphite bias. He knew all of the Zarosian-Kharidian Wars in the Second Age. He knew about Zaros’ empire, and the rise of Zamorak that came from betraying his former master.

He knew overviews, broad opinions, and naturally, the tainted preachings from Azzanadra. He knew nothing about the deity that he could sink his teeth into, nothing he could get behind. Little information about Zaros’ beliefs or philosophies had been published. In fact, he was shrouded in so much mystery that many people believed the rumour that he was Bob the Cat, the most famous stray in all of Gielinor.

His dangerous curiosity getting the better of him, Jahaan agreed, “Sure, I'll help if I can.”

With a relieved sigh, Azzanadra’s smile grew broad and grateful. “Ever since you released me from my prison, I knew there was something different about you. I have had little reason to rely on humans, even fewer to call one friend... but you have proven yourself to me. I have faith that you will prove yourself once more. Not just to me, but to Lord Zaros himself. This will be a glorious day! Zaros awaits you through the World Gate. Will you go and assist him now?”

“Alright, but what’s the ‘World Gate’?” “It is a portal between realms, created by Guthix many millennia ago. While there are many portals that allow for travel from plane to plane, only the World Gate has the power to reach every plane in existence. Though, at present, it can only reach worlds that either Guthix or Zaros visited with it. To reach Zaros by any other means would require more power and time than is available to us.”

Jahaan looked all around him, scanning the barren, uninteresting surroundings. “Sooo... where’s the World Gate now?” “Why, it is right here, hidden in the Shadow Realm, away from prying eyes.”

“And how do we get it out of the Shadow Realm?”

There was a solid beat of hesitation from Azzanadra. “We... require the aid of another for this task.”

“Who?” there was a churning worry in the pit of Jahaan’s stomach. He had a good guess at who, but was praying to whatever gods were listening that he was wrong.

“I think you know all too well,” Azzanadra confirmed his suspicions. “I was unsure of this, but Zaros was clear.”

Jahaan’s heart dropped. “Oh please no…”

Light vanished; darkness slashed. When it all returned to normal, Sliske was standing opposite Azzanadra, sporting a smile that would almost be classed as friendly if it wasn’t for the self-satisfied glint in his eyes. With a theatrical gesture, he exclaimed, “Speak of the Mahjarrat, and he shall appear!”

Not having time for Sliske’s shit, Jahaan shot back to Azzanadra and stated, “I’m not working with him.”

“Oh come now, it’ll be fun!” Sliske’s honeyed voice dripped through everyone’s last nerve like acid. “I told you we’d make a good team.”

Begrudgingly, Azzanadra said, “We do not have a choice. Zaros was clear.”

His eyes whispered the ‘please’ that his lips missed, hidden among the explanation, “Sliske is the only one of us capable of drawing the Gate back into the material realm. I am not happy that we need him, but need him we do.”

Jahaan looked between Azzanadra and Sliske, realising that the chance of an alternative solution was growing rapidly dimmer. “Fine,” he resigned with a heavy sigh. “Let’s just get this over with. The sooner it’s done-”

“...the sooner you can, what? Go back to your aimless wanderings? Emptily threatening to kill me? Drinking with handsome strangers in bars?” Sliske completed, raising his brows with a patronising glare.

“Just tell me what needs to be doing,” Jahaan growled, instinctively taking a step back when Sliske moved towards him.

“Now now, no need to get all bothered. I just need to pull you into the Shadow Realm, is all.”

Before Jahaan could protest, Sliske grabbed his shoulder and shrouded the world in a bleak, damp cover. Cold air rattled through his lungs, but it was thick and clogging, and every movement felt like he was underwater. Everything around them had turned a dark shade of grey, shadows manifesting in threatening clouds around the trees. Azzanadra was there too, cloaked in shades. Jahaan went to call out to him, but Sliske stopped him, explaining, “He can’t hear you. Not well enough, at least, unless you feel like screaming into his ear. I doubt he’d appreciate that.”

Shadows danced around Jahaan’s form; he felt them like claws on his back. “No wonder you like this place so much. Come on, let’s get the World Gate and get out of here.”

Sliske wrung his hands together. “Now, let's not rush into things. I have a proposition for you…”

“Oh, here it comes,” Jahaan rolled his eyes. “You just can't help yourself, can you?”

“What can I say?” Sliske shrugged with a wide grin plastered across his features. “I am who I am. At least I'm consistent.”

“Aren’t you in a rush to get Zaros back?”

Laughing, Sliske replied, “Zaros has waited for thousands of years. A few more minutes won’t kill him.”

“You know, I don’t see you falling over yourself in worship of him like Azzanadra does,” Jahaan pointed out. “What do you really think of Zaros?”

Letting out a short, sharp laugh, Sliske replied, “Azzanadra is far too blinkered by fealty for his own good. But of all the gods, I like Zaros most. He just gets me, you know? He helped to make the world my playground. But he's been gone a long time and we're all getting on just fine without him. We don't need him. We don't need any gods.”

If Jahaan wasn’t mistaken, he detected a hint of urgency in his words, a slightly higher tone that betrayed something layered beneath his usually poised and conceited dialect.

“Oh, but I suppose we do need a sadistic Mahjarrat?” Jahaan countered, hoping to catch the tone again, to confirm his suspicions.

“This isn't about me.”

“Isn’t it?” Jahaan put his hands on his hips, a knowing smile tearing through Sliske, his body alive with confidence. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you don’t want Zaros to return. Is your loyalty that fickle, or are you scared claiming ascension might have some repercussions?”

“Loyalty goes both ways!” Sliske protested. “I see the truth, unlike pious Azzanadra over there. Oh, I still follow orders like a good little Mahjarrat, but I've always taken them more as… guidelines. I like to be creative.”

“So did Zaros order you to kill Guthix?”

Sliske’s hand danced around him. “That was more my... interpretation. Zaros wanted to return, but I saw the futility in bargaining with Guthix. I suspect Zaros knew that, but he's not exactly forthcoming.”

“And your tournament for the gods?” Jahaan inquired with interrogative undertones.

Sliske’s smirk was wicked. “Well, a Mahjarrat needs some fun too, you know. But Zaros wanted a diversion, so I gave him one. While the other gods are busy with their infighting, Zaros can return unchallenged and none will be the wiser.”

“So everything you've done has been for Zaros? You ARE still a loyal Zarosian?”

Contemplating this, Sliske replied, “After a fashion.”

“But now you're suggesting, what, that I should sabotage Zaros' return?” he shook his head in bafflement. “What game are you playing, Sliske?”

“What can I say?” Sliske’s palms were splayed outwards. “I'm complicated.”

Rubbing the bridge of his nose, Jahaan could feel a headache forming. “Thing is, you don’t exactly have a trustworthy reputation. Why should I even hear you out?”

“Because this time, trust or whatever you might think of me isn’t a factor,” Sliske’s smile was tight; that urgent voice was back. “Through that Gate you're on your own. Neither I nor Azzanadra can follow you. Ask Azzanadra if you don't believe me. I'm not fool enough to so openly disobey Zaros's orders. It will be just you and Zaros. You can see for yourself what he's like, and make up your own mind. All I'm suggesting is that you don't have to do what is asked of you. You always have a choice. As World Guardian, even he cannot force you - the decision WILL be yours. If you like Zaros, then by all means help him. But if you're opposed to him, now is your best opportunity to get rid of him for good, or at least weaken him further. The point is that, ultimately, HIS fate is in YOUR hands. And that, to me, is such sweet irony - it's what I live for.”

Jahaan looked up into Sliske’s eyes, trying to read them, but they were in a language he couldn’t decipher. So, he was hesitant to take the snake’s words at face value. If they were said by anyone else, he’d admit that they have a valid point, and that keeping an open mind was wise. Sliske had an ulterior motive though, and it pushed him away from rational thinking, into blindly going against anything and everything he said.

Which was stupid.

That’s stupid, Jahaan confirmed to himself, the throbbing in his head beating in time to his pulse. He has a point.

So, aloud, Jahaan agreed, “I'll keep that in mind.”

The smile Sliske returned wasn’t all that reassuring. “That is all I could ask for. Now, that's enough prattling - let's get this Gate back in the material realm.”

Sliske waved his arms outwards, then towards the World Gate; he looked like he was straining ever so slightly, like the look of someone lifting a rather large parcel but not wanting to show the struggle. Soon enough though, Sliske, Jahaan and the World Gate were back in the material realm, out of the clutches of the shadows.

The comparatively warm air of normality flooded back into Jahaan’s lungs, and he breathed it in greedily.

However, Jahaan didn’t get much time to enjoy before Azzanadra pressed, “What was the delay?”

“Oh, calm down, Azzy,” Sliske rolled his eyes. “Zaros isn’t going anywhere.”

Shooting Sliske a look, Azzanadra ushered Jahaan to one side and whispered, “You were in the Shadow Realm with Sliske for quite some time. I hope he wasn't filling your head with his nonsense.”

Understanding it was more of a question than a statement, Jahaan decided to spare Azzanadra Sliske’s poison. “Just his usual spiel.”

There was a hint of relief on the Mahjarrat’s face. Wryly, Azzanadra replied, “That can be damning enough. They don’t call him ‘serpent tongue’ for nothing.”

Obviously feeling left out, Sliske jeeringly exclaimed, “Big Boss to Bunny Ears! Big Boss to Bunny Ears! Come in, Bunny Ears!”

Azzanadra shot around to him. “Do not mock my hat! It deserves respect. It is a sign of my devotion, my position in the church.”

“A church that ceased to exist along with the Empire. It's about time you faced up to that.”

Azzanadra clenched his fists into balls; Jahaan could see the magic quietly pulsing at his fingertips, and prepared to dive out of the way if things escalated. Fortunately, Azzanadra managed to calm himself slightly, and the energy faded away. “One of these days I'm going to melt that smug grin off your face.”

Turning his attention to something productive - the World Gate - Azzanadra began altering the dials and coordinates on its surface, symbols written in an ancient language long-since dead and buried, but Azzanadra seemed to decipher it.

“I've taken the liberty of setting the Gate to where you'll be going,” he stated, standing back to admire the Gate as it whirred with a comforting hum. It wasn’t the largest of doorways; Jahaan would have to bend to get through. If he looked closely at the wavering, pulsing green energy that made up the window to the other worlds, he could make out shapes on the other side. Vague outlines, mind you. Only the bare basics. But it was surreal in its own right, to see into another reality. The feeling gave Jahaan goosebumps.

Azzanadra continued, “Once on the other side, everything is up to you. I am under orders to remain here, and I will ensure Sliske never leaves my sight.”

“Why the hostility, Azzy?” Sliske’s eyes flashed with… something. “We used to be such good friends, you and I. Back in the good old days in the Empire, back on Freneskae...”

Freneskae, the name snapped Jahaan back to the task at hand. “Is that where the World Gate is taking me?”

“Freneskae, yes!” Azzanadra cheered. “It is where all Mahjarrat originate. The untrained eye may call it ‘desolate’ and ‘inhospitable’, but a Mahjarrat can see its true beauty.”

At this, Sliske scoffed.

Raising a challenging eyebrow, Azzanadra said, “Something you wish to share, Sliske?”

“Freneskae is such a dull place; there's nothing to do there!” he whined. “Just rocks and lava, lava and rocks… so bland, so boring. Not like here - Gielinor is so much more fun!”

Pointedly ignoring Sliske, Azzanadra explained, “Zaros originates on Freneskae too, like the Mahjarrat. He was able to give us such an insight into our tribe, to provide us with the means to rejuvenate ourselves sparingly. You can see why we left Icthlarin for him. He is our progenitor, of sorts.”

Sliske rolled his eyes. “Oh yes, he’s our ‘saviour’, alright.”

“Are you really still hung up on that?”

“Zaros wanting to know our every move? Our every thought? Let's just say I'm not looking forward to having to file reports again.”

There was a trace of a smile on Azzanada's face. “As I recall, you always managed to do your own thing regardless.”

A thin smile crept into Sliske’s lips, and his eyes lightened. “Yes, I suppose I did.”

Azzanadra motioned for Jahaan to approach the World Gate, which he did with slight trepidation. “Step through when you are ready, World Guardian. The Empty Lord awaits…”

Bracing himself, Jahaan took one last look back at Azzanadra for reassurance, then one last look at Sliske, who’s eyes were fixed upon him, like he was watching an actor on the stage.

“Alright,” he exhaled deeply, hands resting on both his swords. “Here goes nothing…”

DISCLAIMER:

As Of Gods and Men is a reimagining, retelling and reworking of the Sixth Age, a LOT of dialogue/characters/plotlines/etc. are pulled right from the game itself, and this belongs to Jagex.

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#runescape #azzanadra #sliske #fate of the gods #fiction

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bevioletskies · 6 years

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summary: Peter and Gamora have been married for five months, so really, it’s about time they go on their first date.

(This fic takes place after everybody wants to rule the world.)

word count: 3.3k | ao3

Gamora, despite being the former princess of the Titans, was never one for a life of luxury and whimsical fantasies. She lived on a modest ship, rotated between the same three white tank tops and two pairs of pleather leggings, and only indulged in sweets when her teammates felt like it. Even thinking back to the excess of her too-public wedding made her shudder in silent disgust; the amount of gold, the cakes and pastries, the cheek kisses and high-pitched shrieks of fake excitement across the room, it all made her stomach turn. However, as she sat in the large marble tub (it was gold-plated!) of her hotel suite at the Xandar Prime Plaza, soaking away the ever-present ache in her muscles and the insistent buzz in her brain, she had to admit - there was something about a good bath that almost made it feel like it was worth compromising her values.

She flipped idly through the Galaxian Gazette, enjoying the way the gently fragrant bath oils eased their way into her dry, cracked skin. The latest society dinner of her nightmares was to start in an hour, but she never needed much time to get ready, so she was perfectly content to stay right here for at least another twenty minutes. That is, until the door burst open.

“Peter!” she exclaimed, nearly dropping her newspaper into the water in surprise. “You need to knock.”

“Honey, I’ve seen you naked at least - ”

“Not the point,” Gamora interrupted firmly. “Is something wrong?”

“I can’t find my tie. Y’know, the one with the little spaceships - ”

“Oh,” she groaned, tipping her head back to stare despondently at the ceiling like it had personally wronged her. “You had me thinking it was an emergency. And it’s in the front pocket of your carry-on.”

“It was an emergency,” Peter insisted. His eyes flickered briefly to the newspaper. “Find anything interesting?”

“A small mention of our successful diplomatic trip to Baluur, but they misspelled your name,” Gamora said, clicking her tongue in disapproval. “The letters section is intriguing. I assumed people wrote in with problems, maybe ones we could attend to, but it’s mostly just...expressions of sentiment. Fluff pieces.”

“Can I see?” he asked, moving to sit on the edge of the tub. She angled it so he could read over her shoulder, watching his expression change while he scanned the pages. “I mean, they’re nice. It’s romantic.”

“You would think so,” she snorted. “At least they’re a sight better than the direct mail we’ve received. The ship still smells like burnt hair, and it’s been at least a week.”

“What can I say? People love a prince,” Peter grinned.

“I’d call it more of an unhealthy obsession...and you’re not a prince anymore, Captain,” Gamora retorted, sinking deeper into the bathwater out of petulance. Though she’d meant it as an insult, the huskiness of her cadence made Peter shiver.

“I’ll leave you to it, General,” he said, teasing, brushing a kiss on the crown of her head and saluting her on the way out the door. Gamora rolled her eyes at him, but couldn’t help but look back to the letters, thinking back to the letters Peter’s mother had written to him while she was in the hospital, and wondered in a sort of silly, whimsical, fantastical way, if Peter would ever write a letter for her.

Dinner was the usual mind-numbing affair for the Guardians, who had become more accustomed to fistfights and all-out brawls than polite society and “how are you”s. Peter and Mantis were the most experienced with social gatherings, but still, both of them were itching to get back to the world they’d known for far shorter but far better, the world where they were heroes and not gods. It was a compromise, though; working alongside the Nova Corps meant showing up alongside the Nova Corps, and when they were called to a week-long series of conferences and meetings and dinners on Xandar, there was no saying no.

Peter and Gamora were making customary rounds as a couple, something they were still getting used to. After all, they’d been married for five months but truly together for two, and their public appearances had been pretty minimal when they were living on Ego together. It was one of the rare times where Gamora was more nervous than Peter, her fingernails digging welts into the crease of his elbow while they walked, desperately hoping no one wanted to talk to them. Unfortunately, they weren’t so lucky.

“Captain, General, what a...surprise that you’re both here,” one particular dour-looking man sniffed, completely stone-faced. “After the last incident, I wasn’t expecting Nova Prime to invite you back.”

“Nova Prime loves us, Councilman,” Peter said, his mouth tight, his syllables sharp. “I hear we’re a hit with everyone’s kids.”

“Speaking of children - ” another pair of pinch-faced diplomats came sauntering up to them, practically circling them like they were prey; Gamora instinctively took a step back. An army of soldiers, she could handle. Politicians, less so. “There’s been talk lately.”

“There’s been talk since the day we married,” Gamora said coolly. “Talk means nothing.”

“You must know how it looks to people,” the other diplomat added. “The sudden marriage, the death of your fathers - ”

“Thanos was never my father. He was a man who made the mistake of calling himself such,” Gamora continued, colder still. “Now if you’ll excuse us.” Without another word, she took Peter’s hand and led him away toward the bar, in need of a strong drink to drown out the whispers, or rather, the snide comments that some people felt far too bold about making to her face.

“Almost makes me miss the days where the most ‘duties’ I ever had were just...flying into the capital and hanging out with my people. At least they didn’t try to tell me my marriage isn’t real,” Peter sighed, sinking into a barstool. He waved the bartender over, calling for two of something with a kick.

Gamora knocked back her drink in one go, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “I know this sounds strange coming from me, but you can’t blame them, Peter. No one believes our marriage was a product of love, and no one cares to listen to the fact it was the reverse. It’s natural for them to question our legitimacy. I know I would.”

The tightness in Peter’s shoulders went slack as he nodded in reluctant agreement. “Yeah, I guess. And I guess it doesn’t help we don’t do much outside of Guardians work, either. Y’know, dates and stuff.”

“Peter...just because I can see what they see, doesn’t mean we have to prove anything to them,” Gamora said slowly, setting her glass down. “We agreed that our new lives were about helping others, not about us being put up on pedestals all over again. The worship your people had for you, the fear my people had for me, it’s over. Feeding into their gossip means feeding a vicious, unrelenting beast.” She paused to glance over her shoulder at the prying eyes she could feel lingering on her back, the eyes that immediately turned another direction the moment she looked at them. It was far more people than she wanted to ever look at her, period.

“It’s not about that,” he promised. “We just...we did our whole relationship backwards, right? And there were all these things we did together that felt like dates, but weren’t really. Hanging out in the gardens, reading my mom’s letters together...hell, our engagement party was kind of a date, once we stopped thinking about what it actually was.” He took her hands in his, held them flat against his chest so she could feel the steady beat of his heart beneath her palms. Gamora briefly remembered the day she’d held his hands like this while he was bleeding out in her lap. She shuddered. “Look, we’re on Xandar, we don’t got any galaxy-saving to do this week, so let’s just have a nice dinner out, you and me, without all this fake diplomatic crap.”

“That actually sounds kind of pleasant,” Gamora admitted, cracking a small smile. “Tomorrow, then?”

“It’s a date,” Peter grinned in return. “Our first real date.”

Right away, Peter and Gamora decided to keep it far more casual than the glitz and glam of the previous night, where they’d been wearing ties and cufflinks, earrings and stilettos, when they were more accustomed to worn cotton T-shirts and leather jackets with suspicious holes in them. Peter also chose a much calmer venue, one that didn’t involve sky-high columns and polished tile; instead, it was the quaint little restaurant they’d visited during the opening week of Mantis’s outreach center, small and cozy and decidedly intimate.

“This is much better,” Gamora said, relieved, once they were sat at their table. A small tealight flickered between them, harshly illuminating the planes of their faces. There was a long crack running along the surface, from Peter’s left thumb to Gamora’s right elbow. The tables were so crammed together, she was certain if she ducked her head a little too fast, her forehead would hit Peter’s, and she could feel their knees brushing together with every move they made. It was perfect. “I know you thrive with attention, but I certainly don’t.”

“Honestly? I was getting kinda uncomfortable, too,” Peter admitted. “And you also know I didn’t like how my people worshipped me for...I dunno, existing. Feels good to be actually doing something now. Something real.”

“Right,” she said abashedly. “I shouldn’t act like you’re immune. None of us are.”

“But for now...we get to be ourselves, ‘cos you know what? No one’s looking,” he grinned, gesturing around them. She glanced around, and indeed, there was no uncomfortable chill through her spine, no hairs sticking up on the back of her neck, no sweat breaking out on her brow that told her someone wanted to scrutinize her for all the things they thought she was and wasn’t. “So let’s order some food. Somethin’ real messy ‘cos we can.”

Twenty minutes later, Gamora was making her way through a hearty bowl of pasta, hand over her mouth to stop herself from laughing too much while Peter recounted the anecdotes Yondu had told him about his Ravager days as inappropriate bedtime stories. It was still strange for her to think about how different their lives had been less than a year ago, oblivious to each other’s existence, and oblivious of what they were capable of. She didn’t want to remember the time where her only significant interactions with others were being dragged into training sessions and being told that she and Nebula were to hurt each other until they were raw.

She liked this far more, the surprising ease of their conversation, the steady warmth of their presence. It wasn’t just Peter, though she loved him, of course, but how much she revelled in the companionship of the entire team. There was something genuine about the way Peter and Rocket snapped at each other during frosty mornings when the Milano’s engine froze over, or Mantis’s enthusiasm for cooking despite being sort of terrible at it (and the way Drax bluntly told her it was awful, while Groot grinned through the stomach pain). It was a stark contrast between their private lives and public lives, and she hated to think what would happen if the lines were ever blurred.

“Don’t look now, but I think I see a camera.” Gamora didn’t know her heart could sink so much at the sound of Peter’s voice, an itch beginning to form in her throat from the temptation of wanting to turn around. “Crap, how did they - ”

“Another patron, most likely,” she said, slowly setting her fork down. “We should leave quietly. No need to make a scene.”

She spoke too soon, however - or perhaps too late - as Peter was getting out of his chair, advancing on the offender with a camera that looked dangerously professional (and expensive). Sometimes, she forgot how intimidating he could look when he wanted to be, his wide shoulders hunched forward, his stride long and thundering against the old wooden floor. His fists clenched and unclenched reflexively, momentarily forgetting that his Celestial powers were long gone.

“Hey,” Peter barked. “You mind not starin’ at my wife? I know she’s really something, but - ”

“Captain Quill.” Click, click went the camera; the photographer, or more accurately, the paparazzo seemed to have no shame. “You’ll forgive me for not listening to you.”

“Doubt it,” he snapped. “Leave us alone, we’re just tryin’ to have a quiet night out.”

“You two are so strange,” the other man said, letting out a tittering laugh. He lowered his camera somewhat so his beady eyes could meet Peter’s. “Pretending that killing two warmongers absolves you of killing millions of innocents. Pretending your marriage wasn’t just a scheme to distract everyone from your crimes against the galaxy. Pretending your allegiance with the Nova Corps is deserved.” He stood, towering over Peter. “Think about how many of your people are dead, your highness. Think about the dozens your precious wife killed by her own hand before you even met.”

“That’s it!” Peter roared. In one swift move, he pinned the man down, pressing his elbow into his throat until he was gasping, splayed out across his table and startling his companion. Everyone else let out shouts of surprise, scattering immediately, while a waiter went running into the kitchen for the owner, and the hostess went running for the phone.

Gamora shot out of her seat, running to grab Peter by the arm and yanking him back. “Enough, Peter!” she shouted. “I’ve already told you, this gets us nowhere. Leave him. He doesn’t deserve our attention.”

“You’re a clever one, your highness,” the man sneered, though his spite was lost in the hoarseness of his voice, sitting up and straightening out his shirt collar. Gamora wordlessly pulled Peter away from him fully, pressing a generous amount of units into the owner’s hand when she emerged from the kitchen, red in the face.

“My apologies,” Gamora said awkwardly, though sincerely, bowing her head. When the owner merely glared at Peter in a way that made even Gamora wince, the two of them left, shamefaced and shivering in the chilly Xandarian night.

Peter barely heard a word out of Gamora during the rest of the week, aside from their obligatory duties, and he couldn’t blame her. He had apologized in the ride back to the hotel, the elevator ride to their room, and while they brushed their teeth side-by-side in the bathroom, but she still snatched up a pillow, shoved it into his chest, and informed him that the couch was his.

In his opinion - and probably Gamora’s - his temper was one of his biggest flaws, one he found irrationally difficult to control, and it certainly got him in more trouble with her than he wanted to admit to. He was getting better, though, and Gamora’s temper, too, was levelling off as they grew together, and he wanted to prove that he wasn’t the overly-sensitive, tantrum-throwing boy he’d been when she first met. He was a changing, if not necessarily a fully changed, man. It was hard not to be after all they’d been through.

Knock knock. Gamora let out a long, arduous sigh. At least he was learning. “What do you want, Peter?” she called through the bathroom door. It was the last evening before they finally got to leave Xandar and journey off to their next mission, there was one more self-congratulatory charity event starting in about two hours, and she was having another well-deserved bath.

“Got the Galaxian Gazette for you.”

Gamora stared down the length of the tub at her toes peeking out through the water. “Come in.” Peter did so immediately, pressing the newspaper into her outstretched hand. He sat opposite her on the window nook. “...is there something else?”

“Saw something interesting in the letters section, thought you might wanna read.” He shrugged with all the subtlety of Groot attempting to tiptoe to the Milano’s fridge in search of cake. Still, Gamora decided to entertain him and flipped to the aforementioned page, scanning until she found what he was talking about, and oh, it was very clear what he was talking about.

To my wife,

I remember our first date like it was yesterday (or at least, as of the day I’m writing this). In short, it was terrible, but when you’re you and I’m me, I guess it’s inevitable. I would say that our next one will be better, but that’s too optimistic, even for me.

I also remember our wedding - your dad didn’t bother showing up, and my dad was following us like a shadow. We argued through our first dance, and your brother started a huge fight before the song was over. You know what, I’m starting to see a pattern.

Anyways, I’m pretty sure they charge by the word for these things so I’ll keep it short: we may have married for power, but I would do it all over again for love. Instead of me apologizing for the thousandth time, let’s try this again. But this time, you choose what you want. All I want is you.

Love, your captain

Gamora felt the corners of her mouth twitch, daring her to smile. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to give Peter the satisfaction, though when he put his broad hands on her shoulders and gave her a gentle squeeze, massaging the heels of his palms into her shoulder blades, she was about ready to forgive him for anything and everything.

Gamora tilted her head upwards to meet his gaze. “We’re practically still children, Peter. What are we doing here, pretending we deserve a seat at the table?”

“Hey, you deserve it more than anybody.” He moved around to sit in front of her, his expression painfully earnest. “We talked about this. You saved billions of lives, helped kill two genocidal maniacs. The entire galaxy is safer ‘cos you decided to do somethin’ about it. The rest of us were pretty much just along for the ride.”

“Don’t downplay your contributions,” she insisted, lifting her hand to his cheek. “We’re a team, are we not? There’s no room for doubt.”

“Did you hear yourself two seconds ago?” Peter teased. He placed his hand over hers; her fingers were still slightly damp from the water, warm to the touch. “Anyways, I guess we’re never gonna get peace and quiet unless we go to the most remote planet in the universe, so we gotta just...learn to live with it.”

“Says the attention-seeker,” Gamora retorted, though she leaned in to kiss him anyway. “It’s time we focus on ourselves. We don’t let the press, the public, or anyone else trick us into thinking we deserve less than what we want. Because we do. We do, and we will.”

“You should do big speeches more often,” he murmured against her lips, letting out a quiet grunt of protest when she pulled away. “Speaking of what you want...any ideas for our second date?”

Gamora smiled then, almost impish, and Peter felt his heart melt all over again, watching her move backward in the tub so her back was against the wall, her silhouette backlit by the large window, the water sloshing precariously over the edge. She smirked. “We have at least another hour before we have to get dressed, and I believe this bathtub is big enough for two.”

Peter laughed, reaching to pull his T-shirt over his head. “I’m starting to think I should always ask you first.”

#starmora #starmora fic #peter x gamora #gamora x peter #gotg fic #myfic #marvel #surprise i guess? sort of haha i mentioned this in an ask a little while back #anyways these will be coming at random while i work on ATU and the fifty million things i've got going on irl

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thetygre · 7 years

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Dark Souls Lore Rambling #7

I was actually ready to do this one all the way back at #2, so this is pretty exciting for me. I just hope I can organize it all cohesively. I seriously plan on doing some mini-lore ramblings to go with this one, because I’ve got a lot to say about:

The Lords

“There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.”

- The Book of Genesis, Chapter 6; verse 4

Now the last age by Cumae's Sibyl sung Has come and gone, and the majestic roll Of circling centuries begins anew: Astraea returns, Returns old Saturn's reign, With a new breed of men sent down from heaven.

- Virgil, Ecologues

Because if starting off with a Bible verse and pagan Rome were good enough for Tinto Brass’s Caligula, they’re good enough for me. There’s really nothing like the Lords in Demon’s Souls; there was an age where things were objectively shitty, but that seems to be a running them of Soulsborne, if not dark fantasy as a genre. There’s a kind of similarity to the Shadowmen, but more in stature than anything else. The Pthumerians in Bloodborne have a lot in common with the Lords, but are obviously much more human and tragic.

No folks, to understand the Lords, we have to go back. Way back. I know it’s kind of faux pas to see real-world mythology in every video game theory these days, but I feel like it can’t be helped. To understand the Lords (and why they’re so damn dig incidentally), you have to know about the Titans and the Greek Golden Age.

So I’m trusting that you all know your Greek mythology 101, right? The Titans were the gods before the Olympians (but after the Primordials). Deities of more abstract concepts like memory and and invisible air. Mostly literary figures, no actual base of worship. Anyway, the Titans were different from the gods in that they were bigger, stronger, mightier. But the gods were more numerous, and craftier, so they overthrow the Titans in a little thing called The Titanomachy. It actually ties in rather nicely with Dark Souls cyclical universe; Kronos overthrew his father, Ouranos, then Kronos gets overthrown by Zeus, and then Zeus devotes a considerable portion of his mythology living in fear of being overthrown by his children. (Keep that last bit in mind while we go on.)

It’s actually a pretty common myth across Indo-European mythologies when you look around. Before the current order of the universe, there were primordial beings, and the gods overthrew those beings to make the world as we know it. Odin and his siblings had to kill Ymir to make the world, and then later warred with the Vanir. Marduk and the other Babylonian gods killed Apsu and Tiamat. Shiva created his aspect of Virabhadra and defeats Indra, who himself had to kill the serpent-dragon Vritra to bring water to the world. There are even echoes of the narrative in Lucifer’s attempted rebellion against God. Also another recurring pertinent theme there; dragons. The primordial beings were often dragons or serpents.

The thing of it is, this cycle of rebellion takes a toll on the world. After an initial period of chaos and darkness, sometimes there’s a patch where things are pretty sweet. Think the Garden of Eden; just humans crawling around, everybody’s naked and happy, the sun always shines, animals just lie down to get eaten, fruits fall right off the tree. Everything was Better then. And let’s be clear, when I say things were Better, I mean Better; even the humans were bigger and nigh-immortal and beautiful, because things were just that good back then. That’s the concept of the Greek Golden Age. The world started out great when the Titans were in charge, but the rebellion made things worse, and every age after that has gotten worse since then, spiraling on a course of entropy towards the end of the world. That part should sound pretty familiar.

That’s the Lords. The men of the Golden Age. The Titans. Bigger, prettier, stronger, longer-lasting, and all around better than you. Their cities filled with magic and technological wonders humans can’t even begin to reach. And the jerks responsible for setting everything in motion.

But where did the Lords even come from? The myth in the opening cinematic states, “And then, from the Dark, They came.” That’s ‘They’ with a capital ‘T’; They are important, and there’s only one important They in the Dark Souls origin mythology. The Lords, like all life (or unlife in Nito’s case) came from the Dark; but what does that mean? Did the Dark literally produce them out of itself, or were they living as a race underneath the Everlasting Dragons and Arch-Trees for years?

I think it’s important to remember that the Lords came from the Dark in the origin myth. Such a big deal is made of the gulf between Lords and humans as representatives of the Flame and the Dark, but they both came from the same place. It drives home that the only real difference between Lords and humans is circumstance. Humans really are just mutant, pygmy Lords descended from a single freak ancestor. Which makes you have to wonder; why are the Lords so superior to humans if they both came from the Dark? The most obvious answer is that the Lords derive some inherent advantage from their connection to the First Flame.

That also raises another question for me; how much of the Lords’ greatness stems from their own inherent nature, and how much comes from the Light Soul or The First Flame? If the Lords had never discovered the First Flame, would they still be at the same level that humans are at in Dark Souls, so to speak? Would they have giant cities and know all that advanced magic, or would they just be regular human beings? In Norse mythology, the gods of the Aesir aren’t entirely immortal; they can still die from violence, and they are even only immortal because they eat the golden apples of Idun. I’m not saying the Lords and the Aesir correspond one-to-one with each other, but Dark Souls does definitely draw from Norse mythology more than others. It might not be too far-fetched to theorize that the Lords are only special because of the First Flame. It’s their golden apple, so to speak.

Of course, we also have to consider the possibility that the origin myth is utterly fictitious. In that case, the Lords are probably a foreign population to Lordran. How they got there and where they came from is entirely up for grabs. Really, it still doesn’t change that much from the origin myth. The Lords arrived and fought against the Everlasting Dragons for supremacy of the world, or at least Lordran. They then found and harnessed the power of the force known as the First Flame, and with the help of Seathe defeated the Everlasting Dragons. Eventually, humans showed up, and even they don’t know where they came from.

Which I guess is the lead-in to the Way of White. I want to give the Way of White a more close-up look with the rest of the factions later on, but they’re still important to the Lords. Humans showed up, and they allied with the Lords against the dragons, and later on against the demons. When exactly humans and Lords encountered each other is unclear; for all we know, humans were there with the Lords from the start, but I always imagined it as the humans becoming a significant enough power to be an asset to the Lords somewhere around the tail-end of the war with the Everlasting Dragons.

We know Havel fought along side Gwyn against both demons and dragons, and Havel was made a bishop in the Way of White. What I think is that the Way of White didn’t start out as a religious organization, or at least not in the model it’s encountered when we play Dark Souls. The humans were right there with the Lords, tangibly in their presence. The Way of White was originally the organization of humans sworn in service to the Lords; whether that was in terms of knighthood, priesthood, or both is unclear. Allfather Lloyd was presumably involved at some point in this process, but it’s hard to say what exactly he did or how much. As the Lords grew more distant from humans over the course of time, the nature of the Way of White changed into a more separated form of religion. The Lords, no longer present, became numinous, and were worshiped as proper deities, leaving us with the current Way of White.

Except maybe not so much? It’s clearly evident by the furniture and rooms in Anor Londo that there was some human presence cohabiting with the Lords. It’s the beds that sell it for me; the steps are excuseable as Lord foot-size isn’t that far from humans, the door-frames would usually be a foot taller but aren’t unreasonable, and the chairs would be a tight fit but are manageable. But the beds are bunk beds for the Lords standing next to them; even a Lord comparatively as short as the Silver Knights would have their feet hanging out on those beds. Oh, and y’know, the obvious human presence with the Painting Guardians, but who cares about them?

What I always took this as was that the Lords kept human servants with them in Anor Londo. After all, what’s the point of being a god if you still have to scrub the floors? So living in Anor Londo was a population of humans who served directly under the Lords for whatever the Lords might need; soldiers, servants, and just general sources of adoration. Humans who worked for the Lords up close and personal, divested of the deific imagery (unless they were really committed to it).

It’s like... Remember Mad Max: Fury Road? You had Immortan Joe, and then you had the War Boys who worshiped him like a god, and at the bottom were the humans living on the ground who barely saw him and also treated him like a god because of all his power. And in between was the middle class of people, like the Brides and the Milk Maids and the Organic Mechanic; people who lived with Immortan on the day-to-day basis and saw that he was really just another man. That’s what I’m imagining this class of humans in Anor Londo were like, except a little bit different because the Lords really are near-immortal and super-powerful.

I’m guessing these people were basically slaves; conscripted to servitude for life. The kind of job that doesn’t exactly come with a severance package, if you feel me. Work for the Lords or get sent to Seath as a guinea pig, or black-bagged by Gwyndolin for heresy, or maybe just get eaten by the gargoyles (or Smough). Still, the cage is a gilded one at least; Anor Londo servants live like most other countries’ royalty, with fresh fruit, fine wine, access to higher culture, and spacious living. A significant step-up for most people in a medieval society. The population was maintained by allowing humans to actually live and reproduce in the city, passing work down the family line like a traditional medieval society. The Lords would want to make sure their human pets had an active breeding population to compensate for their comparatively short life-spans.

Whenever they needed (or simply wanted) more humans, the Lords could just snatch them up from the cities surrounding Anor Londo; Oolacile, New Londo, and the town that would eventually become the Undead Burg. You can almost imagine it; some random baker or wash-woman standing in the street, just doing their work. Suddenly, the clouds part, a beam of sunlight surrounds them, and a pair of winged figures carry the human up into the sky. The Way of White takes it as a sign; this person lived a humble, virtuous life, and was chosen to ascend and live among the gods. In truth, Gwynevere or whoever just needed someone to do the laundry. But the Way of White spreads the story, about how the gods raise those who live in the city up, and affirm that Lordran is indeed the land of the gods.

Eventually, the abductions stop, simply because there are no more Lords to want humans, and the human population in Anor Londo disappears (except for the Painting Guardians, somehow). Where did these humans disappear to? The Lords certainly didn’t let them free, or else more people would know Anor Londo is a ghost-town. Optimistic answer says the Lords took the humans with them when they left for wherever. Pessimistic answer says they slowly died off, and/or Smough went hog-wild.

And that raises an interesting question that I’m really surprised I haven’t seen more people talk about. Because in wont of the streetwise Hercules to fight the rising odds, I have to ask; where have all the good men gone, and where are all the gods? What happened to the Lords? Where did they go? We know they left Anor Londo (well, most of them anyway); the Ring of the Sun Princess tells us so. But when, and why? The when is fairly obvious; some time after Gwyn went to link the First Flame by immolating himself. As the patriarch of Anor Londo and Lord society, Gwyn’s absence would cause Lord society to begin to radically alter, perhaps even disintegrating. Maybe the Lords were killed, but that just raises more questions; what force could possibly wipe out the Lords, and to what purpose? Darkstalker Kaathe? Velka? A vengeful Gwyndolin? All of them equally outlandish.

Assuming the Lords were still alive for their exodus, why did they leave? The best theory I can come up with is that the Lords feared Gwyn failed; he disappeared to the Kiln of the First Flame and never came back. Between the rising force of humans, the spreading plague of demons, and the encroaching Undead curse, the Lords decided to make tracks and leave Anor Londo behind for greener pastures. But that still leaves where? Maybe another world altogether? Maybe the Lords crossed the dimensional barriers somehow; broke through the Dark, followed the roots of the Arch-Trees, whatever. They found a new world and populated it, starting all over again. Maybe that’s where the Lords came from to begin with. Or maybe it really was as simple as going to another country; a lot less high-soaring, but more practical and a little more human. The Lords reduced to refugees, cast to the wind like everyday people. We’ll never really know, and there’s already too many maybes for this section.

Not all the Lords are gone from Anor Londo, or at least something in their likenesses. The Silver Knights are still around, keeping watch over the city. From what we can see in the opening cinematic, the Silver Knights were the rank and file warriors of the Lords. The remaining Silver Knights are the Lord warriors who didn’t follow Gwyn to the demon wars and the Kiln of the First Flame. They’re not as tough as the Black Knights, and I think that goes in with the relative lack of combat experience.

The biggest debate about the Silver Knights in Anor Londo is whether or not they’re actually real. If you choose to attack Gwynevere, the Silver Knights and the giant guards msotly disappear with the rest of Gwyndolin’s illusions. Further, the Knights don’t appear to actually bleed or leave a body; they just dissolve into white mist while they disappear. This has led to the theory that the Knights, along with almost everything else in Anor Londo, are also illusions. The most common refutation to this theory is that the player is able to gain Souls and equipment from the Silver Knights, up to a complete set of armor and weapons.

But let’s consider; if the Knights are conjured up by Gwyndolin, that means they’re probably based in sorcery. Sorcery, as I’ve talked about before, comes from pure Soul energy. Ergo, it makes sense that once you kill Gwyndolin’s magically conjured knights, you inherit the Soul energy that was invested into their creation via whatever weird, unexplained process it is that the Undead absorb Souls. You can even explain the equipment with the Giant Blacksmith. Think about it; the Giant Blacksmith is one of the only real entities left behind in Anor Londo. He’s constantly working (somehow without fire...); most likely for the Chosen Undead’s benefit, but what if Gwyndolin had him working on side-projects, like equipping an entire regiment of phantom Knights?

However, there’s always the opposite theory; that these are real Lords, still hanging around after Gwyn and Gwynevere and whoever else left. Why would they be left behind? They might be a special contingency guard left behind to guard the city after the other Lords left, in case they ever returned, or to protect any secrets the city might have. Maybe they’re not even special, just general populace guards standing around, and there are even more Lords deeper into the city. When I first saw the Silver Knights, I assumed that the descriptions I had been given about the ‘gods’ leaving Anor Londo referred only to a particular subset of Lords, namely the royal family. Later, I thought these were just Lord guards who had been kept to guard the Anor Londo Cathedral and Gwynevere, the original members of the Princess’s Guard so to speak. When Gwynevere is revealed as an illusion, her guards leave Anor Londo heartbroken. The guards being living Lords doesn’t seem particularly likely to me now, but there’s nothing to 100% disprove it either.

The Black Knights are real, though. Real and badass. Like, we need to sit down and take a minute to admit that none of us are worthy of how cool the Black Knights are. Which is saying a lot considering they’re all dead. The Black Knights are all ghosts or wraithes or some other kind of undead (but still not Undead proper). There’s a part of me that wanted to make a Warcraft joke where I said that maybe they’re Death Knights or Demon Hunters, but that’s actually pretty accurate. They got to be ‘Black’ Knights by fighting against the demons when the Bed of Chaos first popped up.

Gwen linking the First Flame did ‘em in super hard. It’s hard to say how much of them is actually still left in their armor. They just kind of wander the world now, finding places to hole up and guard. There’s not a lot of lore theories to work with on the Black Knights; their story is pretty straightforward. I used to think they were Gwyn’s agents, and that he directed them to go out hunting for the Chosen Undead, but now I don’t think the Black Knights could be commanded even if Gwyn was in any kind of state fit to.

There are still a couple of details I find interesting, though. First off, the Black Knights’ armor is distinctly different from the Silver Knights, namely the collar and the helmet. Now you could make the case that this is from standard Silver Knight armor being deformed in the heat of Izalith or the First Flame, but I think it was different even before the Black Knights fought the demons. My theory is that the Black Knights started out as Gwyn’s personal retinue of knights, handpicked as the best of the best. They might even have been dragon slayers like Ornstein; the horns on their helmets certainly look like dragon wings.

Second, at the entrance to the Kiln of the First Flame, we see legions of spectral Black Knights marching through. It’s hard to say just what exactly we’re looking at here. A part of me wants to compare it to the fight against The End in Metal Gear Solid 3, with the Chosen Undead seeing the spirits of all the Black Knights they’ve killed. Or maybe it’s that from the other side; this is where the souls of the Black Knights went when they were blown out by Gwyn linking the First Flame. I kind of personally always thought of this area as a space between worlds; the Kiln of the First Flame is terra prima for the whole Dark Souls cosmology, so it might not even be in Lordran proper. It has to be teleported to, or accessed through a portal. The space between Lordran and the Kiln is the same space between player worlds, or at least a way through it. It might not even be connected to an individual time-frame; if the Black Knights were forced into a space like that, between time and dimensions, it would certainly explain how they keep showing up through all the games set thousands of years later on, and it definitely speaks to the power of the First Flame.

But enough about the small fry; it’s time to talk about the big fish. We’ll start out easy with The Magnificent Chest herself; Gwynevere. What we know about Gwynevere is that she is Gwyn’s (ostensibly) only daughter and referred to as The Princess of Sunlight; she was also one of the Lords to leave Anor Londo at some point, presumably around the time Gwyn linked the First Flame. In Design Works, Miyazaki talked about how he wanted Gwynevere to come off as a maternal figure, somebody the player would inherently trust and rely on. She was also supposed to talk through a mouth in the palm of her hand like Vamprire Hunter D, which would have been radical, but sadly got cut. Miyazaki also states that she wasn’t supposed to be so... err, buxom, I believe is the polite word, but the designer was so pleased with his own work that Miyazaki didn’t have the heart to tell him to redo it. I’m inclined to take Miyazaki’s word for it as women in Soulsborne usually come in either ‘svelte’ or ‘ogre’ body types, which makes Gwynevere even more of an aberration. And thus Gwynevere went from ‘maternal’ to ‘waifu bait’.

Which, if I’m being honest, I think actually works a little better within the narrative of the story. Gwynevere, as met in the game, is just an illusion conjured by Gwyndolin to commission the Chosen Undead into linking the First Flame. She spins a narrative so compelling that it comes off as too-good-to-be-true. You, the Chosen Undead, have truly proven yourself worthy, and must now defeat The Bad Guys to become the King of the Gods Forever and hey, maybe even mack on a giant hot babe. It actually tells us more about Gwyndolin than Gwynevere lore-wise; this is what Gwyndolin thinks humans want to hear, his impression of our fantasies. And I kind of took it as a more meta statement about video games, gamers, and fantasy tropes. Slay the monsters, rescue the princess, become the king; classic power fantasy. Tale as old as time. Gwynevere is even an actual, literal princess to boot. It’s so incredibly obvious that the only way you can’t notice it is by ignoring literally every other scrap of worldbuilding and lore around you, including the ring Gwynevere herself gives you.

There’s actually a bit more lore to Gwynevere than the surface stuff. First and foremost, it should go without saying that Gwynevere probably wasn’t that gigantic. (I mean, it’s not impossible, but it’s definitely improbable.) Even Gwyn wasn’t that big, and he was king. That was probably a detail Gwydolin added on to make Gwynevere seem that much more overwhelming and important. Like the Greek Golden Age has shown, humans expect their gods to be bigger and better than them. And the bigger the god, the more important they are, so a giant would come off as absolute.

It’s also worth breaking down Gwynevere’s name. Gwynevere is actually one of the easier names in Dark Souls to discern the meaning of. Everybody of course knows it from Guinevere, who was King Arthur’s wife and the lover of Sir Lancelot in Arthurian legend. So Gwynevere is named after a beautiful, romantic, and tragic character who is practically synonymous with the idea of the fantasy queen/princess. It’s doubtful that Gwynevere was responsible for the fall of Anor Londo like Guinevere was for Camelot, but I digress. Examined closer, Gwynevere breaks down to ‘Gwyn-evere’. Gwyn is representative of both Gwyn, Gwynevere’s father, but is also derived from the Welsh ‘gwyn’, which means ‘fair’ or ‘white’. The ‘-evere’ part also derives from the Welsh ‘hwyfar’, which means ‘smooth’ or, alternatively, the old Welsh ‘sebara’, which roughly translates to ‘spirit’ or ‘magical being’. Either translation works, essentially amounting to ‘fair and smooth’ or ‘fair spirit’.

I also briefly want to talk about the theory that Gwynevere is the mother of Crossbreed Priscilla; I don’t buy it. Not only do I not buy it, I am actively confused by it. Where did people come up with this idea from? What evidence indicates it? Yeah, Seathe captured some of Gwynevere’s priestesses, I get that, but I think it’s pretty clear that Seathe will capture anything as fodder for his experiments. That’s circumstantial at best. You could just as easily make the case that Priscilla’s mother is Velka because she’s locked up in the Painted World of Ariamis with all the other Velka stuff. For all we know, Priscilla doesn’t even have a mother; she could have been grown homunculus style out of a test tube. Again, I’m not saying it’s impossible, I just think it’s improbable.

Gwynevere being named after a queen/princess also carries over to her epithet; the Princess of Sunlight. This is the role she is probably afforded in the Way of White and how she is worshiped. (Yeah, I’m a religious studies nerd. This is what I do.) Let’s consider Gwyn for a moment; Gwyn is depicted as the lord of sunlight and lightning. When you look at some of the shrines in Anor Londo, you see three spaces devoted to three gods; Gwyn at the center, Gwynevere to one side, and an empty space for what I’m going to pretend not to know belongs to The Nameless King. The point is, it’s obviously a trinity of the three most important gods.

Now, I would like to propose that in the Way of White, Gwyn’s children were (supposed to be) afforded different aspects of their father. The Nameless King would, if he was worshiped instead of exiled, play into the male archetype of the warrior-prince, and be given reign over lightning, thunder, and warfare. He would be kind of the masculine, aggressive aspect of Gwyn. Gwynevere, then, would be The Nameless King’s counterpart, representing a feminine, benevolent aspect of Gwyn.

When you look at Gwynevere’s miracles, they’re healing spells, and meant to be used on multiple people. Gwynevere, as a deity, probably would have represented all the good things that come from the sun; light, life, health, prosperity, and enlightenment. If she was comparable to any real-world deity, I would say she lines up closely to a female version of Apollo. Another comparison might be to Hestia/Vesta, the goddess of hearth and home. Like Hestia, Gwynevere’s priesthood seems to rely inordinately on women; it’s unclear if Gwynevere’s priesthood is exclusively female, but I do think that there are some direct comparisons to be made to the Roman Vestal Virgins.

The Princess’ Guard is also probably worth a mention. Like most of the other factions, it’s hard to tell whether or not you see any actual members of the faction in game. As I said before, I always theorized that the Silver Knights and giant guards were members of the Princess’ Guard, maybe even with Smough and Ornstein at the top of the hierarchy as Gwynevere’s final defenders. The romanticized ideal of knighthood has a knight swear their fealty and love to a Lady; ergo, the Silver Knights, to fully embody the ideal of knighthood, would probably swear themselves to the only Lady around, the Princess Gwynevere. Of course it’s possible that the Princess’ Guard was just the name for the guards of Anor Londo without the whole chivalric oath thing. The illusion of Gwynevere appears to be the linchpin of the city’s illusion; defending that is tantamount to defending the city and everyone living there, even if unwittingly. Of course it’s all probably a moot point, what with the Silver Knights probably being an illusion.

But knights don’t just swear themselves to a Lady; that’s so much romantic chivalry added after the fact. Knights, first and foremost, are knights because they swear themselves to a Lord, and when your entire race is called ‘Lords’, that means swearing yourself to the biggest and baddest Lord of them all. Which brings us to the man himself; I’m talking about the Grand Poobah, the Big Kahunah, Papa Smurf. It’s time to talk about Lord Gwyn.

The entirety of Dark Souls revolves around Gwyn and the consequences of his actions. So you can understand how it’s kind of hard to talk about him; not only could you feasibly tie every other single piece of lore back to Gwyn, but so much of his story has been covered before. I’d go so far as to say Gwyn’s lore is some of the easiest to find in the game. But that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be examined again from a new perspective.

We’re introduced to Gwyn as the apparent king of the gods and hottest shit since sliced bread. Gwyn is at the center of the Way of White and worshiped as the lord of creation, along with all the other gods in Anor Londo. At some point, we receive the information that Gwyn has flipped off to somewhere to save the world by linking the First Flame, and left Lordran in chaos. Frampt says it’s up to the Chosen Undead to take Gwyn’s place and save the world; he is technically not wrong. Kaathe says that Gwyn has been keeping the humans under his boot and lives in fear of the coming of the Dark; he is also technically not wrong. They both also manage to work in some lies about a messiah narrative, which brings the lie-truth ratio to 2-1.

Gwyn falls very neatly into the deific category of The Sky Father; the patriarchal head of the divine family whose purview is all of reality, but with a definite focus on the sky, sun, lightning, and storms. Notable examples include Zeus, Odin, Marduk, Indra, Perun, and, everybody’s favorite, YHWH. I actually kind of love how deliberately Gwyn is made for this role. It’s so transparent that he’s built around this specific mythical archetype, but he still has enough characteristics to be unique. I want an entire pantheon built up like this. Anyway, I’m gushing; back to Gwyn.

Like all good Sky Fathers, Gwyn started out by fighting the primordial monsters and founding reality as we know it. Gwyn in particular appears to be a composite of Odin and Zeus, with maybe a little more from Odin given that while Gwyn has some very definite human flaws, they aren’t really in the same line as Zeus’ (re: he does not stick his dick into every moving thing). I’d also say that there’s a bit of King Arthur in Gwyn’s character, especially Arthur a la T.H. White, but it’s hard to say for certain; outside of ‘Gwynevere=Guinevere’, the Souls series isn’t really big on Arthurian legend. But Gwyn does have some of the same characteristics of Zeus and Odin, even outside his dominion over lightning. He definitely had some of their strengths; their regality, their wisdom, their leadership, and even perhaps some of their slyness. But with that also comes the overlapping flaws of Zeus and Odin; deceit, tyranny, callousness, vengefulness. Regardless of anything else, he still forced Gwyndolin into the role of a woman, and then hid him away like the deformed family cat.

But I think the most important flaw that Gwyn inherited from his mythological predecessors, the one that defines him more than anything, is fear. Gwyn, like Zeus and Odin, is driven by an overriding fear. Odin lived in fear of Ragnarok, the Twilight of the Gods, when the universe would be destroyed. Gwyn lives in fear of the coming of the Dark, the unknown age where the world of the Age of Fire will diminish. Zeus lived in fear of his children repeating the cycle of violence that was inherent to his family; Zeus overthrew Cronos, Cronos overthrew Ouranos, and Ouranos had overthrown Gaia. So Zeus, naturally, lived in fear of whatever new god or demigod might overthrew him. Paralleling that is Gwyn living in fear of the humans overthrowing the Lords, casting him down just as he cast down the Everlasting Dragons. These fears, of apocalypse and rebellion, are what drove Gwyn to desperation, and eventually, to his own demise.

What exactly Gwyn was afraid inevitably informs us of how sympathetic a character he is. (Well, at least it does for me.) What did Gwyn think the coming of the Dark would entail that drove him to sacrifice himself, his friends, his family, and his kingdom? If he thought it was just the rise of humanity, the Lords being supplanted as the dominant species in Lordran, and he worked to make sure that the human slave race stayed was kept down, then it’s hard to view Gwyn as anything but an antagonist. We learn from the dialogue given by the Four Knights and Gwndolin that Lord opinion of humans is, at best, a kind of benevolent contempt.

But what if Gwyn thought an Age of Dark would be a literal apocalypse, like Gwynevere/Gwyndolin described? If Gwyn viewed the work of the Age of Fire as being civilization and existence itself, then the opposite of that would be nothing short of total destruction similar to the Norse Ragnarok; the world falling into literal darkness, life returning to animalistic savagery before fading away all together, and eventually reality itself being consumed by the void. That perspective makes Gwyn much more sympathetic; who wouldn’t give everything to save the world? The truth, of course, is probably somewhere in between.

At some point, Gwyn began dolling out shards of his own Lord Soul among his more trusted followers. First and foremost, this confirms that, like the Dark Soul and the Chaos (Life) Soul, the Light Soul can be divided and spread. Second, the Soul of Ornstein does indeed clarify that Gwyn originally did this as a reward for certain individuals. This represents more than a reward of mere power, but an actual bestowal of divine authority. By inheriting just a little bit of Gwyn’s power, the shard-holders have essentially received a share in being the Lords of Lordran. If you want to get all chivalric about it, it represents the knights being giving divine authority by their king, himself a conduit of the divine. It’s even more literal given that Gwyn is an actual Lord.

The Four Knights are obvious choices, but there was also Seathe and the Four Kings. The Four Kings are the ones that still interest me, because as far as we know the Four Kings were human. Gwyn might have feared the humans, even hated them, and yet he still trusted four enough that he literally divested him with his own divine power. It might be that Gwyn gave the Four Kings the shards of his Lord Soul because he originally trusted humans, and even considered them his allies. But then the power of the Dark began to show itself; it corrupted the Four Kings, destroyed the Four Knights, and empowered the Occult Rebellion. Gwyn’s opinion of humans changed, souring into that fear and hatred. The threat of the Dark became more apparent than ever, and Gwyn knew he had to do something to stop it.

I like to imagine that it started with the Witch of Izalith, that Gwyn commissioned her to try and help him find some way to keep the Age of Fire going. That backfired, or at least that’s the version we got in the game as it shipped, but the different versions of Izalith and the demons is a whole other barrel of fish. One way or another, Gwyn understood that he would have to solve the fading of the First Flame by himself. You have to wonder how he deduced how to link the First Flame; did he learn it from the Witch’s failure? Or did he figure it out from the Rite of Kindling, watching bits of Humanity act as fuel? Either way, Gwyn knew that the best thing to keep the First Flame going would be its most important and powerful component. And so Gwyn made the decision to offer up that component, his own Lord Soul, to keep the Age of Fire going.

It’s still not entirely clear what it is we find in the Kiln of the First Flame when we find Gwyn. How much of Gwyn is left in The Lord of Cinders? Does he still think, or is it just a mindless husk acting on instinct? That would certainly explain why he’s so aggressive, but he displays an inordinate amount of strategy and skill for what amounts to a zombie. Perhaps, if Gwyn is still sentient as The Lord of Cinder, he attacks the Chosen Undead because he wants to test them, to see if they are truly worthy to link the Flame. Or maybe he’s still sentient but insane, mad from pain and sorrow.

And how long did it take for The First Flame to consume Gwyn’s Lord Soul? That might seem like a minor issue, but I feel it makes a difference from a character perspective. If the First Flame just swallowed up Gwyn’s Lord Soul in an instant, then I have to say, I feel slightly less sorry for him. That might sound harsh, but, narratively speaking, dying for something is easy. Dying period is easy. Dying is so easy that you’re doing it right now while reading this, without even trying. But living for something takes work. Living is hard, full of sweat and blood and tears. When we kill Gwyn, we get his Lord Soul, which I always translated as meaning that the First Flame wasn’t done consuming it. Gwyn didn’t die in a flash; he’d been dying for the last thousand years, letting the First Flame slowly burn him from the inside out.

Gwyn was so afraid of the Dark that he had let himself been immolated alive for a whole millennium. And to me, that makes the fight with Gwyn that much more meaningful; the Chosen Undead isn’t killing some tyrant who took the coward’s way out, they’re killing someone who was formerly proud and noble but is now so consumed with fear that they were willing to kill themselves in one of the most painful ways possible over the course of centuries. We come again to that reminder; the Lords and the humans are not so different from one another. They are both capable of committing evil and making dire mistakes. When the Chosen Undead looks at Gwyn as The Lord of Cinder, they are seeing a reflection of themselves.

That’s the thing about the Golden Age. A lot of people through history have focused on Diomedes’ theories about how the ages of man are proof that every succeeding generation is worse than their own, without really looking at the moral. But the moral, the real truth that Diomedes wanted to reveal with the ages of man, is that yes, things are getting worse; so enjoy today. It’s pointless to try and fight the cycle of entropy, so don’t ignore the good things you have now. And I feel like that’s a core moral of Dark Souls; Gwyn tried to fight the cycle of entropy and lost his family, his friends, and his kingdom. Meanwhile, Manus, holder of the Dark Soul itself, just lay down quietly in a grave after a life well-lived. (Y’know, until his own people raised him as a horrific abomination.) There is nothing that anybody can do to defy the cycle of entropy, so hold on to what is dear as best you can.

And that’s where I’m going to leave on this one, because it’s long overdue. “But wait!” I hear you say, “What about Gwyndolin? What about Smough and Ornstein? What about Velka?” Well, don’t you worry. Because when I said I wanted to do some mini-lore (or just more regular lore) ramblings, those are exactly who I had in mind. So stick around for more Lordly goodness!

#dark souls #dark souls lore #gwynevere #anor londo #gwyn #dark souls lore ramblings

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demilillith · 7 years

Text

So here’s a draft of that story I worked on with Demi and Fimb:

Demi breathed and watched his breath flare against the cold winter air. There was always something wonderful about the changing of the seasons, not just the excuse to wear flannel everyday, he supposed. And with that, there was something so charming about snow in the forest he would frequent, the otherworldly aesthetic… The curious eyes of the inhabitants who dwelled there… And the dark skinned man who would question him about life outside of the forests canopy.

When he thought about it, clutching the red and black patterned fabric closer to his neck, the wintery air must not be good for a man who was practically the forest guardian, anyway. And much less, with the squirrels and the other animals leaving perhaps for the season, Fimbulvetr would likely be lonely. And of course, the last time he tried to get him away from the forest, the man refused, under the pretense that he was bound to his duty… to his home… To protect, shelter, and watch over the land with his best foot forward.

And so Demi huffed, kicking up the snow on his black boots and thanking the divine for crafting steel toed boots for the weather and wiggling himself closer into his heavy suede jacket. Sure, he may have been confused for a brown polar bear walking, but he was safe, and warm, and his palms were freezing… Gods, they were freezing.

Snapping his fingers, a small flame appeared in his hands, the words echoing in Demi’s head for the flame, “Burn… Burn…” His darkened eyes searched around for the familiar glimmer amongst the snow. A green light, perhaps, or the faint look of a scarecrow hat. The tell-tale deep voiced chuckle that would scare the crows away. Or maybe the light colored hair… Oh, who was he kidding. The truth was that he needed the company too, he admitted to himself. They both needed each other, they knew it. One would come all the way to visit the other, and the other…

Demi gulped, recalling the words Fimbulvetr had said in another time, his knees weak at the word’s meaning. “I will be your guardian. Your shield. Your forest.”

Fimbulvetr…

Another name for the coming of the inevitable… Ragnarok and it’s harshest winters… Along with warfare and bloods pooling…

Demi smiled, as he walked along the path and trudged the snowy terrain. His horns were pulsing, the heat catching onto them slightly but the feeling was welcomed, it reminded him he was still alive.

“Well… The clearing shouldn’t be too-“

“Why are you here?”

Demi turned on his heel, instinctively sliding the small athame from his sleeve and pointing it to the inquirer, before realizing his mistake and sheathing the blade.

“Gah… Whew, it’s only you, Fimb… You nearly had me lop off your head in an instant!” Demi stammered, though far more shaken to the core. Fimbulvetr’s sharp gaze pierced into his soul, before eyeing the sleeve of his jacket.

“You would not. Gungir would have already impaled you. However,”

He turned away, green jacket tattered and exposing the scars on his body. What little remained showed itself with the tawny skin that was ripped and torn and healed all over again. The spear, emerald and gold, was tarnished with smeared blood, and used as a makeshift crutch as Fimbulvetr groaned.

“Fimb…” “Worry not.” “Fimb, what happened.” “I merely am doing my job, as guardian of this forest, it is my duty to-“ “You’re hurt.”

 Demi shucked off the coat and immediately the flames dispersed to the air, melting dewdrops onto Fimbulvetr’s hat. He watched with his one eye, how this demon hand moved with such precision, how he had pulled out a small booklet no bigger than his hand and flipping the pages as he searched for whatever else may be left within the space. He smiled, though it soon turned to a grimace as he clutched his sides, vision blurring as dark crimson spread across his palms.

“I…”

Demi eased the larger man down to the coat lying for him. While it was a size too big for him, Fimbulvetr’s sheer size allowed it to be accommodating, the suede being wrapped his hunkered body. Writhing in his new prison, Fumbulvetr tried murmur about the obvious constraint:

“This is… Far too small…”

Demi huffed, the frustration seen in his sharp glare as he uncurled his flannel patterned scarf and began to tighten his grip upon the cloth.

“No words, unless you’re going to explain what the hell happened to you.”

Fimb sighed. There was no way he would escape the demon’s question, whether he liked it or not, the man would probably make some truth spell just to spite him. Fimbulvetr shuddered when Demi’s softer hands laid themselves on his exposed torso, the jacket moved aside in order for Demi to chant some cheerful words and hope the wounds would heal. Warm breath gushed from his mouth, one of Demi’s hands found themselves gently on Fimbulvetr’s chest, the demon’s eyes closed. The gash on the Guardian’s abdomen faded, the seams of flesh sewn back together in an instant and leaving but a small scar in its place, along with the bruises colored indigo and black.

Fimb breathed haggardly, the touch was divine, as if his flesh was yearning for the grace of Demi’s caresses… And yet, it was ironic. For a man like he, who vowed to protect Demi, it was truly the other man who was the one protecting him from further harm as sad as it sounded.

“Come on…” Huffed the incubus, now trying to find some sort of item in his pockets.

“Speak to me, what happened?”

“I…”

“Was it a wild animal?”

 Demi made a small “aha”, as he pulled forth a small clear bottle of liquid from the pocket of the jacket wrapped into Fimbulvetr. With a hiss, Fimbulvetr grit his teeth with reckless abandon as he growled in pain, the alcohol burning as it sizzled into his body.

“I know, I know, but it’s to clean the other wounds. Whatever scraped you like this, literally made tracks over your body, Fimb.”

Fimbulvetr couldn’t hear, the words were drowning him, light blurring, as the soft delicate voice of the incubus lulled him to sleep.

——————

Fimbulvetr woke up with a start, tea green hair flopped along with his neck as he begun to realize his surroundings.

A warm dark lavender, almost the same color as a lounge, with the faintest magenta coming to life via gemstones collected in a makeshift light to the corner of the room. The slightest hint of incense wafted to his ears, and as Fimbulvetr delicately touched his missing eye, and sighed in contentment at the familiar feel of his eyepatch… Soon realized where he had lain about.

Demi laid bare, next to him and gripping his waist with a tightened hug like that of a child and it’s toys. Fimbulvetr’s hat was gone, its starchy voice being un-woefully missing and his coat thrown onto a chair nearby. Gungnir laid across the jacket, its pale green light pulsating as Fimbulvetr’s eyes drifted to his naked torso. The two lied together, for god knows how long, but he hadn’t mind, in fact… Was this but a dream?

Was this the gods’ way of mocking him? By shoveling him off to another world? Another chance?

Demi’s ears perked slightly, before moving his body closer and letting his arms lay on Fimbulvetr’s sides. Growling slightly, Demi mumbled in his sleep a simple, “Go back to sleep, you’re fine.” And tossed himself closer, causing Fimbulvetr to grimace as he felt Demi’s touch rake against his senses.

Oh, curse thee, makers of earth, temptress of seas, king of fire and lustful air…

He tried to hold his breath, but he gasped tightly as his body felt stimulated beyond belief. For a warrior such as he, to feel another’s touch on his own body was inevitable, but impossible.

Was it not because he truly cannot ever feel a touch so delicate?

Was it due to the Incubi’s touch? His air? His baleful and light gaze? His-

No, no it could not be, as Fimbulvetr felt his icy body melt into the covers, it never was. He was trapped, as he watched Demi’s form smoothly lift itself up and lay itself on top of him. He was trapped, by a true demon.

“Lay with me.” It writhed, claws beginning to assuage his opinion.

“No.” His reply firm.

He felt a soft “thump” as the demon continued, spitting saccharine words to his ear, hips gyrating on Fimbulvetr’s ever stalwart thighs.

“Oh, come on now. You’ve always wanted this, tree. Don’t deny yourself this ungodly pleasure. I’m quite sure he too would agree…” It sighed, grasping Fimbulvetr’s hand to place onto it’s heaving chest.

“I refuse, demon!” “Golly,” it mocked, voice a caricature of the original. “Seems you don’t realize it is me! Oh well, just know… We’ll be friends forever, Fimb.” “Gods! Leave me be, you filthy creature, at once!”

It laughed, head rolling back in laughing as it continued, hips bouncing to an invisible rhythm and musk permeating the air, incense burned and the colors shifted and bathed the two in its sensuality. Rouge, Lotus, Lavender... Colors mean nothing when the only thing felt was pure raw “pink”.

“Don’t you see? I’m simply your consciousness. You want him, tree. You want every, last, piece of him.”

Fimbulvetr didn’t speak, only kept an angry eye and turned away as the demon’s fingers grasped his chin and wrenched it closer to its… Entrancing aqua eyes, its curvaceous sly grin, the familiar way its hair was played with by the wind…

“You’re so pitiful. A demon like him can manipulate you to such lengths? Really?” It chuckled as Fimbulvetr groaned, unable to even lift a finger against its lies.

“How would you feel if we simply gave you… Everything?” It purred, raising its stolen hand into the air and making a circle in the air thrice. Immediately crawling onto the bed were more copies, each as lust drenched in words as the first, two grabbing Fimbulvetr’s arms and pulling them apart onto the bed, the other pulling back the covers.

“How… Scandalous.” “Fimb…” “Touch us.” “Taste me.” “Take me.”

Every single last word was dipped into his weakness, and in what seemed like forever, Fimbulvetr could feel release in his bonds as the grip on him faltered, the bodies worshipping and playing with his body like it was mere clay to a sculptor.

Fimbulvetr groaned, body rigid, but lust beginning to melt his structure, his thighs began to piston away from the encroaching threat, his eye shut from sheer sensitivity as he clawed his way from the illusion that called out to him.

“How… Disappointing, Tree, you were always much much bigger than him, anyway.” Fimbulvetr’s eye opened in shock as he felt himself thrown back onto the bed on his own spine, the doppelgänger above his knees and peering into his very eyes.

Its eyes, painted fearsome magenta, was the only “light” in the room, as two more eyes opened from his “cheeks”.

“You don’t realize how weak you really are, do you..?”

“Demon of the Abyss…!” Fimbulvetr spoke, half out of rage, half out of rising fear and he scrambled for control that was already snatched from him. Gritting his teeth, he was pushed back onto the bed with such force that the bed jostled uncomfortably. The dark figures leaned close, its eyes peering down, one glimpse seemed disappointed, the other seemingly bored as it pierced into his heart as it spoke to him:

“Your heart will betray you. You have lost.”

Fimbulvetr screamed.

———————

Once again, Demi found himself wondering why the hell was he catering to this unconscious, idiotic, muscle-bound, charismatic- He didn’t understand why he was keeping Fimbulvetr in his room, much less his apartment of all place… That along with breaking the taboo of taking the Sentinel out of his post, and with bringing him to another District altogether with the usage of a quick fire teleport spell he had fashioned out of 3 tries trying to rhyme “facade” and “carapace”.

Sighing, he collapsed on the bed next to the forest man who laid patched up and thankfully not bleeding under his sheets. Demi watched his chest rise and fall as time went on, before noticing the sharp eyebrows of his guest twitch repeatedly, as though stuck in a dream. The incubi’s hands felt the top of his forehead and worried innocently if the man was having a nightmare: It sure enough reminded him of his own that Olliver had to check on him… He even questioned to Parvati absentmindedly what he should do. He had taken a stranger, well, a “stranger” to his home, and let him in his bed. What would Olliver say? The Madam? Parvati?

Demi huffed and carefully brushed the other man’s long hair with his hands, pulling the covers up to Fimbulvetr’s naked chest and had made note to leave his jacket and hat along the desk and chair of the small room. It was a makeshift room, he was certain, the way it was slim but chic and held all his belongings neatly. The desk was bare but filled to the brim with sticky notes, figures of gods and drawings and to-do lists. The hat strangely sat silenced, as if observing Demi’s actions instead of vulgarly insulting his intellect or behavior. It was odd, but Demi wasn’t concerned about that. No, no, he was more concerned about the man who laid injured in his bed writhing under his warm touch. He was more concerned about his heart, as it pulsed faster, still knowing he wasn’t ready. He wasn’t really ready for anything, yet, he here was.

Demi leaned over to the free side of the bed, still stuck in his jeans and flannel, and found the outlet plug for his lava lamp. Hoping it would give him some relaxing light, Demi held his breath as he leaned over Fimbulvetr and plugged it in. Colors of blue and green softly glowed as the night grew fuller, Demi sitting up in his bed and shucking the flannel jacket off. Tossing it to the chair next to the forest soldier’s jacket, Demetri slid off the bed and walked over the small rug. He looked over to the man sleeping in his bed, noticed the hat that was eyeing him inquisitively and slipped into the restroom to change himself into a red and black striped pajama pants and a simple tank top. It was simplistic, but comfortable, and at this point, the way it looked: He should get comfy. The healing he had done was minimal, almost adequate for what he had learned with Parvati. He prayed over the man’s body, called the blessings of Gaia and administered medicine all the while never leaving his side. He grimaced, acknowledging true demons wouldn’t engage in such manner; Not that he really cared, he wanted this man safe. He wanted him to smile and call him “Little Wolf” and caress his cheek and ask him to read him the Wizard of Oz. He wanted…

“That’s right,”

He said, sliding back into the bed facing away from Fimbulvetr.

“What I want isn’t what matters right now.” With a silent goodnight, Demetri curled up leaned his feet away from the guest he had in bed with him. He was ready to dream the night away if it would let him, and prayed lest it then be swift.

Demi watched the colors of the wall glow, softly lulling him to sleep against the paler, lavender moonlight rising above. His eyes were pulled like a puppet’s, and the next he knew…

When he was about to finally sleep, he felt the faintest of touches around his waist.

It was one of the few times he could go to sleep so easily, that night.

#My writing #Holy shit that was long af and I'm still writing pffttt #OC: Demi #oc: fimbulvetr #I love when there's no real canon pairing because that means Demi's a hoe for love

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fates-end-does-vns · 6 years

Text

Nogi Wakaba is a Hero: 2/2

Wͪ͂̃h̀̇ͬa͌ͣ̽t̒͒̔ ͑ͬͧt͑͡͝h͋̔̌ę̷ͤ ͛͌ͩfͩ̉̚uͭ̏̂c͗̇͌k̓̔ͬ?ͪͫ̑ ?̨͚͢?̙̻̹?̺͜͜?̵̧҉̜̭͖?̵̥͡?̘̜͠

>She then silently placed her hands together while ruminating over the contents of the diary-- oh we really are going deeper

>A fight seems to break out among the underground mall dwellers just about every day. Oh, did they end up killing each other rather than the vertex?

>Since food is limited, some ruffians try to use violence to hoard it all to themselves. """ruffians"""???

>The corpses of the dead are gathered in a designated area. Leaving them where they died would be both a hygienic and mental nightmare, after all. Ahh, it's like I'm writing about corpses as inhuman objects, huh. Maybe my senses have started going crazy too. it's really starting to look like this, huh.

>An adult got irritated at her crying and told me to kill her or put her outside. yikes

>The people advocating leaving to the surface unilaterally destroyed a barricade. It's the same pattern as before. Nothing more can be done. I wasn't entirely right, but I was close.

>The area around the station and beyond was covered with countless giant egg-shaped objects. So the Vertexes are... breeding? Are we sure they aren't just aliens?

>Despite Tamako's in-the-moment personality, she too knew full well the risk of using trump cards. Looks like Tamako might be where they got that data on fairy possession from.

>What came out was... a hoe. And a folded letter. Another apocalyptic log, huh?

>--Shikoku was at risk of a crisis once more. oh boy my favorite

chapter 11 end

Oh, is this some sort of sidestory about dead girl?

>As Utano continued to work hard without ever losing hope, one by one, the residents began helping her. Some cultivated the fields with her. Others provided boats so they could fish in Lake Suwa.

something something Varda Rhaplanca.

>The guardian god of Suwa was a god of war, a princely god of the earth. It was said that this god once used a wisteria vine as a weapon in a battle against another god. Imbued with divine might, his wisteria vine was powerful enough to crush the opposing god's weapon of iron. oh hey it's kanako

>The whip that served as Utano's weapon was imbued with the same spiritual power as that god of war's wisteria vine.

hmm...

Well, I guess they're both player 2...

>However, even heroes had their limits, and the waves of Vertexes kept growing in size. In response to the intensifying attacks, the local god had scaled the barrier down in size to scale it up in strength. Now in 2018, the harumiya and akimiya had already been destroyed and only the area to the southeast of Lake Suwa remained protected by the barrier. froggod is getting tired, I guess.

>At times like these, Mito felt a feeling she couldn't quite describe. Her heart would stir, and she couldn't calm it.

man, they're not even trying to hide it anymore, huh.

>Both Utano and Mito could tell that the power of Suwa's local god was weakening.

>So Suwa was a decoy to let Shikoku prepare for battle. Utano and Mito had vaguely noticed that fact, so it was no surprise. Sacrifices, sacrifices, sacrifices. It's all about sacrifices, isn't it?

>"... The world? You mean the whole el mundo?!" >"Excelente!" why

end

>Thanks to the investigation of the heroes and miko, the Suwa area was confirmed to be safe. propaganda, propaganda, propaganda.

the problem with lying so hard about everything is that eventually people are going to figure out the truth and it's going to be worse than if you'd just been honest.

>It's just... ever since I used the fairy's power during the expedition, I guess? My body's been feeling kind of funny... looks like I was right

>Despite having that discussion, since the battle royale would be for practice, they obtained permission from the teachers and the event was settled. I guess this might turn out interesting?

>Hinata looked at the smartphone she held in her hand. On the screen was a picture of Wakaba doing combat training during lessons yesterday. Normally during hero training sessions, Hinata would undergo miko training in another room, and thus she had no opportunities to take pictures of Wakaba training... ah, bribery.

>Instead, it slammed into Tamako's forehead. I was wondering how the two of them were going to settle it.

>"W-Wakaba-kun... I'm sorry, but there's someone else that Tama likes..." oh no she's FiW twilight

>Wakaba and Yuuna were wearing male uniforms. you know what I would actually like to see this.

good. not as good as I imagined, but good.

>"No, your movements were clearly weaker compared to when you fight against Vertexes." yuuna's protagonist power still shines through

>The next Vertex invasion had yet to happen. in anything else that line would be ominous but you've ended at least like four fucking chapters with "oh no big vertex invasion incoming".

chapter 12 end.

despair? grief? lactic acid?

>Supernatural phenomena like seances and spirit possession have existed in human culture from time immemorial. Shamans. Blind spirit mediums. Animists. Polytheists. Such practitioners would evoke the inhuman into their own bodies. >Polytheists.

excuse me?

>In the classroom the next day, Tamako and Anzu discussed holding a flower viewing party with the others.

does this book actually have a plot

>"Okay, then once our next Vertex battle's over, let's go flower viewing to celebrate! I suddenly feel pumped up!" tempting fate.

>For flowers' lives were short. tempting fate.

>If any evolved Vertexes were to appear, Tamako would surely use the power of the fairies to fight it. I like that she's thinking this stuff through. Too bad it won't help.

>"I think it's more like a scorpion... Takashima-san..." Scorpio?

>At that signal, the other girls began activating trump cards one by one. welp

>In other words, this scorpion-type Vertex had more stamina than all of the heroes currently had the power to combat. Huh. That's unexpected. What else can they do, blossom?

>The needle then skewered Anzu behind her as well. They're just both going to die then? Or are they going to pull something out at the last minute? They were really telegraphing Tamako being the first person to show the symptoms of possession.

>What came out of Tamako's mouth the next moment wasn't a voice, but copious volumes of blood. And not just from her mouth, but from her eyes, ears, and nose. Blood spilled. Perhaps due to the poison, she experienced bizarre symptoms that could not be explained by the stab wound alone. that went from realistically dark to silly in two seconds flat.

>A fairy particularly feared by the Taisha, and thus a fairy the heroes were strictly ordered never to use-- Yuuna would now unleash that fairy's power. of course yuuna would

chaper 13 end.

another blank chapter start. joy.

she punchch

>After sweeping way the Vertexes, Yuuna had lost consciousness and even now had yet to recover. sounds familiar

eyyyy it's leo

>But Yuuna's face twisted in agony. The smooth transformation that normally came with using a trump card was nowhere to be seen. this is a reaaaaly bad idea

>Wakaba and Chikage were unable to do any damage to the giant Vertex, and Yuuna, the only one with any means of effective attack was out of commission. for the first time, they're on the retreat.

>Within Chikage's eyes ignited the dark light of hatred. I mean, she wasn't exactly stable to begin with, but I don't think the fairy thing helped.

chapter 14 end.

Is it all just whiteout now?

So it looks a lot like she's crazy and on the side of the vertexes here.

>However-- voices of anxiety cried up throughout the population. Crime and suicides rose. Public order was collapsing. Wouldn't be as bad if you guys had been honest in the first place.

>Chikage suddenly heard a voice by her ear. She looked up in surprise. That the fairy?

>After leaving her house, Chikage unsheathed her scythe and walked down the road. there we go

>So why must they criticise us...?! If this is what it all comes down to... then there's no point in fighting, no point in protecting people...! None at all! how very Live-a-Live

>To be suspended and have her hero system revoked. So now there's only two heroes left and only one of them can fight, huh?

Chapter 15 end.

>"In about a month and a half, we will reach the fourth anniversary of the tragic 7/30 disaster." A big speech, huh?

>Wakaba had been popular with the people of Shikoku, almost to the point of worship. The crowd listened so intently, they forgot to blink. Well, they haven't lost their faith in her, at least.

>Wakaba wrote a rough draft for the speech, but the content was entirely rewritten by the Taisha. Figured.

>The Koori family was granted a house in Marugame where Chikage lived with her mother and father. That sounds like an awful idea.

>"...I've lost... everything... Everything... was stolen from me..." This is all really uncomfortable to read.

>Chikage took out her phone and began typing out a message to the Taisha: If they believe this, they're idiots.

>The Taisha had fast-tracked Chikage's reinstatement due to the danger of having Wakaba fight alone. ugh.

>And the next moment, seven Chikages appeared, surrounding Wakaba. yeesh. I can't really see a way for this novel to end that isn't awful. This is a really hopeless story/

>But immediately, her hero outfit itself disappeared, leaving Chikage standing in the Jukai in her school uniform. Divine intervention?

>In Wakaba's place, Chikage became Vertex food. Yikes. I guess that's one way to clean up a loose end.

>Chikage smiled and closed her eyes as if to sleep. Okay, this one kind of got me, not gonna lie. Chikage's situation was awful from start to end.

Chapter 16 end

>She could hear Yuuna sobbing from across the other side. welcome to the suffering show

>The Taisha would not tell them when the funeral service was to be held, nor what sort of service it was to be, leaving the others unable to even mourn for her. trust the government to be bastards.

>"Those ones have pictures of all of us." oh goddamnit it's one of these :(

>"Wh-what?! What on earth is this majesty?! It's a tamashock! This flavour is a 30 kilotamashock!'" fucking udon

>"...It's the diploma we all gave Gun-chan together..." fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck

>"Koori Chikage was a genuine hero!!" fuuuuuck it took a while for this story to move me but god damn it

>Only two heroes remained. and there's the traditional "things are gonna get bad" marker.

end of chapter 17.

Descended from humans?

>But according to the Taisha, as long as humanity could overcome this next attack, they would be able to prepare two countermeasures to keep the enemy invasion in check. Which of these countermeasures involves murder?

>The will of the Shinju-sama aside, I would prefer that forced cancellation not occur. I implore you to put your trust in us.-- Her request was accepted and the hero system was updated. Guess that's why Tougou was able to do what she did.

>It was Yuuna. She took one look at Wakaba and Hinata and froze for just a second before beginning to gently close the door. Wawawa wasuremono~

>Wakaba wore a baseball cap and jeans, accessorised with oversized sunglasses covering her eyes, a large surgical mask enveloping her mouth, and her sword in hand. where's that picture with sonoko

>Yuuna smiled and spoke somewhat nervously, as if introducing herself for the first time. You know I think this is the first time we've seen Yuuna really talk about herself. In any time.

>Her vision grew dark. I guess that goes to show just how much weaker they are than the modern heroes, that that was all it took.

>She had only lost consciousness for a fleeting moment. Yuuna isn't like the others, after all.

>(Shinju... sama...? Am I... going inside... the Shinju-sama...?) I'm guessing that's why she's still around, somehow.

Chapter 18 end.

divine era, huh.

>But I'm sure the three of us can go there someday. now, though, there's only two.

>"Huh... n-no... no... Everyone... died...? No heroes survived... except... for me..." bring on the despair.

>In addition to the colossal Vertex, there were also several developing large Vertexes scattered around here and there. Large Vertexes identical in appearance to ones defeated in the past were reemerging as well. welp.

>Wakaba and Hinata couldn't tell what it was, but there was something inside those hollow shells... oh right, the, whatchamacallit, the souls.

>The heavens-- were falling-- guess that's the world ending right there.

>"Any possibility of a comeback for humanity... has been crushed, hasn't it..." yeah basically. say what you will about madoka, but this permanent status quo might be even less hopefull than it.

>"This was our first attempt, but it was a success. We have named this divine ritual the offering fire festival." oh wait is hinata going to be one of the girls sacrificed?

>"The Taisha held a festival. Outside the wall... They spoke to the heavens and prayed, asking for amnesty from invasions on the condition that we no longer leave this land." so is the reason the Vertexes started attacking again in the present because someone broke the deal?

>"But I played my cards right and excluded myself from the selection. I didn't want to die. I'm such an unfair, cruel woman." oh. well, at least wakaba won't be alone.

>If we remain in these lands and abandon our hero powers, we will no longer be attacked." or maybe that's the part of the deal that was broken. there's still the fact of the people who were divinely empowered to do terrorism, though...

>"Indeed. Despite how I might look, I am angry. Let's make sure we recover. Once we lose the Shinju-sama, we lose Shikoku as well, but the Shinju-sama should have a lifetime of hundreds of years. Let's use that time to find a counter strategy." so how's it still around and fine after 700 years?

>Lost lives do not come back. they do when they're yuuna, apparently.

>"First, we will rename the Taisha from 'grand shrine' to 'amnesty' as a self-conscious reminder that we have been granted amnesty and live modestly as human beings." so it is the same organization.

>We'll just bide time and wait until then. apparently you didn't wait long enough.

>The last survivor of the Vertex invasion dies of old age. That's... not very old.

>reverse clapping ?????

>are given the name "Yuuna" by the Taisha in reverence to the legendary hero Takashima Yuuna. Yeah, I'm not buying that. This Yuuna and that Yuuna are waaaaaay too similar. And the weird way Yuuna's been acting? Nah, they're the same person.

Chapter 19 end.

>And I'm not just talking about simple firepower enhancements here. I'm talking about adding mental health support systems, too. I don't think it's that easy.

>"That's right. But if we used artificial... that is, pseudo-fairies, there'd be no harm done, don't you think?" How would that even work?

>Hinata felt as if she could still hear voices like that. gah don't do that

>"Yeah. We'll be together forever. Even after we graduate. Even after we grow up. Even after we're old ladies, we'll be together." gaaay~

>"I've lost so many precious friends myself. So please, don't make your precious ones go through the same thing I did. Swear to me-- swear to them-- that you'll make it back--" arrrgh not a gain this story is so depressing

>"That Hero Record was censored in black, but there were also red censors, too. So it was probably censored twice. And the second round of censorship... erased almost all of it." graaah so they probably don't know most of the stuff in the story

>But nothing lasted forever. As generations begot generations, as time passed by, change happened. and ultimately, their attempts to keep the Taisha free from corruption were in vain, huh.

epilogue? end.

oh hey.

chikage's name's censored everywhere it appears...

yuuna's eager to use the fairy she's been explicitly told not to use.

and anything written by chikage's gone too...

And this was completely wiped away...

Nogi Wakaba is a Hero: End.

#noyublog #nogi wakaba is a hero #nogi wakaba wa yuusha de aru

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