#this should make sense because of i only listen to the mountain goats but i only know that song (one of my favorites of all time) from a

[microcosmtoxin]

guy who only knows music from the weather on nightvale. guy who listens to any song and goes oh yeah like the weather from nightvale

[everything-on-red]

THE BIG SONG RANKING

ladies and gentlemen, to make good on my promise to @daniel-profeta, a list of my 40 favorite songs.

TIER 1 - GOD TIER:

“No Children” - Mountain Goats

Made me cry, made me feel seen, made me feel like a grape in a microwave, cooking from the inside out, dying on the vine, stuck in a box, about to explode, glowing with light. Made me confront my family life, made me ascend to a higher plane of being, made me a sad bastard.

“Staring At the Sun” - U2

I wish I had written these lyrics. I spend 90% of my life in denial so I felt very targeted by this song. I fly up in preparation whenever I hear it starting, and remain floating for the entire song, drifting in the ribbon clouds.

“It’s Alright” - Jack Stauber

This song just grabbed the otherworldly concept of placid hopelessness and frantic optimism and blended it all up in a blender and released a thousand screaming beautiful animals like sun spots on your eyelids in an empty indoor water park where you go skinny dipping with your favorite person and everything feels warm and electric.

“Only Skin” - Joanna Newsom

I have listened to this song probably over 40 times (and it’s 16 minutes long! So that’s 10 hours) and the lyrical tapestry of it is still an explosive mystery to me. It makes me weep and be very happy to be a woman because my body and brain are twisting in a living fairytale fever dream.

“Oh Comely” - Neutral Milk Hotel

How the fuck is this song about so many things and yet one thing. It is some of the most beautiful poetry I have ever had the pleasure of washing over me. Especially the part where it turns into a story about Hansel and Gretel freezing to death after they run away from the circus. See what I mean? It’s about so many things, but it’s about one thing. One solid feeling that you can’t get anywhere else.

“Hey” - Pixies

This song is a screaming roller coaster like an apocalyptic car ride down into the red and blue twilight city, divorce, and the Devil tarot card. Does that not sound like a good time?

“Sweet Thing/Candidate/Sweet Thing Reprise” - David Bowie

This may be cheating, since it’s 3 songs, but the instrumentals in this suite are INSANE, the lyrics are SO FUCKING RESONANT I’M LITERALLY RESONATING, and Bowie is vocal goals here. Wailing makes everything better. “With you by my side it should be fine. / We’ll buy some drugs and watch a band, / then jump in the river holding hands.”

“Never Let Go” - Tom Waits

You know a song is magnificent when it can be both a loud tavern song and a quiet campfire song. This one reminds me of my father, so I can’t say too much else for fear of revealing my bias. But it’s beautiful, and like all Tom Waits, gives weepy 1930s vibes.

“All Eyes On Me” - Bo Burnham

Y'all ready to retreat into the dream and slowly disintegrate as we assimilate into the digital opiate hivemind in death as natural as a river at the end of the world? Because when I listen to this song, I feel fucking HYPED.

“Liquid Smooth” - Mitski

This is a song about Mary and you cannot change my mind. It is achingly powerful and desperate, ringing with the fear of death and ugliness and impotence, the intense and inescapable body horror of our mere existence as bags of throbbing flesh, the bottomless maw of sex.

TIER 2 - FUCK YEAH TIER:

“Rainbow Connection” - Kermie Da Frog :D (Paul Williams and Kenneth Ascher)

This song always makes me smile, and I am proud to be a writer. I feel strong.

“Rock ‘N’ Roll Suicide” - David Bowie

The fumbling and melancholy mundanity that builds into such a beautiful plea for understanding and empathy. I get the sense that everyone who has ever reached out their hands is reaching out for a reason. They hold that reason tight to their chests and ride it into the ethereal plane. “Oh no love, you’re not alone!” The scream is so powerful. We are all David After Dentist. Even David.

“As The World Caves In” - Matt Maltese

Similar thematically to the last entry. Words cannot describe the feelings that the story in this song gives me. “It’s you. / That I lie with.”

“Freedom” - Teddy Hyde

This song is downright picturesque. The sentiment is beautiful, the instrumental is meltingly lovely. And oh my god the horn part. You are not prepared for this, it will pulverize you (tenderly).

“Down By the Side of the Road” - John Prine

This one is definitely about Mary, and it’s one of my favorite stories I’ve ever heard. I highly recommend listening to this, it is the missing link in a long line of ghost stories.

“Toes” - Glass Animals

You ever just wanna feel all the horror of The Island of Dr. Moreau PLUS The Most Dangerous Game in less than 5 minutes? Well with Toes by Glass Animals, now you can!!!

“The Sick Bed of Cuchulainn” - The Pogues

THIS SONG MAKES ME FERAL. GRRRRRRRRR.

“I Bleed” - Pixies

This is my favorite Pixies song, despite the fact that Hey is probably better. I love the desert. I love coterminosity and cyclical time. I love devolving into the fluid consciousness of the past! And I love the weird, dissonant harmony in the final chorus.

“505” - Arctic Monkeys

I’m in love again. The smoky hotel rooms and wet streets. I’m drifting away, catch me. Or don’t.

“Pizza Boy” - Jack Stauber

The perfect song to sing for any empty room, rainy day, life change, mental breakdown, or lovely person. And sway away.

TIER 3 - HELL YEAH TIER:

“Los Ageless” - St. Vincent

This is just a really really really good song about Los Angeles that has some of the sickest guitar I’ve ever heard. It also happens to be one of the horniest songs I’ve ever heard, and I would not trade it for anything.

“Body of Years” - Mother Mother

Every writer should hear this song.

“Rockets fall on Rocket Falls” - Godspeed You! Black Emperor

The first instrumental on this list, because I generally prefer lyrical songs, but this song tells a story in its own right. I feel like I’ve listed a lot of apocalyptic pieces so far, and this is perhaps the apotheosis of apocalyptic vibe.

“How Long” - Anais Mitchell

There is a deep kind of mystery to this song that is not in the other songs on Hadestown. A sense of inscrutability, despair, and wide separation that not even love can fully heal. A sense of bitter and cold resignation. And an amazing chorus, both lyrically and melodically, that builds with vocal layering and lyrical changes in a way that just makes me so fucking happy.

“Life During Wartime” - Talking Heads

The lyrical world of this song is so expansive and immersive and exciting and escapist and terrifying. It’s so fucking fun, it makes me want to jump around and get all sweaty.

“Love Love Love” - Mountain Goats

Raskolnikov reference, automatic W.

“One Summer’s Day” - Joe Hisaishi

I have extremely nostalgic attachments to this beautiful piano piece from my favorite animated movie, which is also the movie I happened to watch before leaving for college, appropriately.

“Atlantic City” - Bruce Springsteen

WOAH BREKAING BAD REFERENCE? This song low key gives me the same narrative and visual vibes as Hey, only with very different lyrical sensibilities. A beautiful, mournful melody and lyrics packed with sharp, astute characterization and wistful, desolate imagery.

“Wriggle” - Cosmo Sheldrake

Gospel song. Baptism song. Edward Lear would be proud. I am screaming and cheering.

“The Mind Electric” - Miracle Musical / ミラクルミュージカル

SEE HOW THE SERFS WORK THE GROUND AND THEY GIVE IT ALL THEY’VE GOT AND THEY GIVE IT ALL THEY’VE GOT AND YOU GIVE IT ALL YOU’VE GOT TIL YOU’RE DOWN SEE HOW THE BRAIN PLAYS AROUND AND YOU FALL INSIDE A HOLE YOU COULDN’T SEE AND YOU FALL INSIDE A HOLE INSIDE A SOMEONE HELP ME UNDERSTAND WHAT’S GOING ON INSIDE MY MIND DOCTOR I CAN’T TELL IF I’M NOT ME

TIER 4 - LET’S GOOOO TIER:

“Pepper” - Butthole Surfers

Something tells me this fountain was not made by the hands of man… idk though… this song makes me want to die in a parking lot on a summer afternoon.

“Dead Flowers” - The Rolling Stones

No explanation needed.

“An Open Letter to a Ruby-Shoed Pixie” - Teddy Hyde

Incredibly well written, the poetic flow is astounding. You can tell it comes from a place of raw and tender unfiltered love and that’s impossible to ignore.

“Hymn 131,513” - Daniel Profeta

The force with which this song is vaulted into the world is unparalleled. You can feel the heart pumping behind it. The lyrics tumble into each other, each truer than the last. Weird tangent--the “look above you, I’m never far” obviously implies some satanic or corrupt element, but I am also kind of obsessed with the idea that this God is simply chthonic. We’ve had too many sky daddies, we need more earthly pantheons. We need to walk on the gods. “Bury me a thousand feet deep in a form-fitting coffin an inch shorter than me.”

“Sunny Afternoon” - The Kinks

I’m partially nostalgic for this song, but also, I think it’s one of the best the Kinks have to offer. It’s just an utter vibe from beginning to end. I feel like I’m sliding down a half-medicated poolside chair into the rotisserie pit of my own mistakes.

“Moonsickness” - Penelope Scott

From the first line this is extremely relatable. Penelope Scott managed to write a song about periods and womanhood that is about so much more than that, that is universally relatable and painful.

“Sundial” - Lemon Demon

There’s just something I can’t describe about this song--the lyrics, the unique rotating melodies, all feel so quirky and fun and engaging.

“Paris 1919” - John Cale

We are all ghosts dancing to this song, “down on darkened meetings on the Champs-Elysees.”

“I’m Always In Love” - Wilco

Describes me to a T. I have problems. And you know I had to put Wilco on here.

“You’re Mine” - DAGames

Don’t eat ass in the halls.

Phew. That's it.

I wanted to put a Clipping song on here but I feel like I haven’t explored their catalog sufficiently yet. I also wanted to put an Advance Base song, but that might be one of those situations where none of his songs stand out tremendously, but Nephew in the Wild is still one of my favorite albums.

Thank you to @my-ancient-marss and again to Daniel Profeta for the inspiration for this list. It was a lot of fun to sift through and organize, and I definitely have a new appreciation for some of the songs on this list. Anyway, I hope others will follow suit. See you all on the flipside!

[findusinaweek]

Annotated Alexidas playlist, as inspired by @aeide and @ainulindaelynn. I don't organize or layout when writing or making art most of the time, but I do make playlists to keep myself on track. Beneath cut is explanations, headcanons, justifications. I finally got it to work.

Run Boy Run - Woodkid. Alexios leaving Sparta as a child, running for his life. 

Show Him The Ground - Iron and Wine. Boys learning to fight. Rethinking whether learning to fight makes you a strong individual: “Would it make you feel much better to show him the ground?”

Wage Wars Get Rich Die Handsome - The Mountain Goats. My inner mantra while writing Alexios.

Korinth - The Flight. Because Korinth is lifechanging for them. 

Ancient Kithera - Kalia Lyraki, Assasins Creed. I like to imagine things playing in the background while they go about their daily lives.

A Spartan Fight - The Flight, Assasin's Creed, Mike Georgiades. Just seems right. I am sure it is not what plays when they meet, but I cannot remember and title wise it makes sense in this order.

Blood Royal - The Mountain Goats. "I remembered you/ I remembered where you come from". Brasidas recognizing who Alexios is, as a Myrinne's son.

How I Get myself Killed - Indigo De Souza. "I need to be kicked/maybe fucked/maybe told I'm in the way./ This is probably how I get myself killed". Brasidas on meeting Alexios. He isn’t wrong. 

Braid - Perfume Genius. "Secret is braided/ In between". What made me write Braid. I wanted to explore the intimacy I heard in this song.

Brasidas - The Flight, Assasin's Creed, Mike Georgiades. Ya know. I just picture him smiling at Alexios. 

Ancient Celebration - Kalia Lyraki, Assasins Creed. More background music. I think they should drink together while this plays, share soft smiles at each other. 

Epitrotos & Iambos - Petros Tabouris, Panos Stefos. More background music.

cherubim - serpentwithfeet. I like to think of love and devotion, how they can twine together to make something so strong that it is a bit off-putting (the song being in a minor key). "I get to devote my life to him/I get to sing like the cherubim./ Boy every time I worship you/ My mouth is full of honey". Sure, there is innuendo, I wanted that. But the song is tense, while the lyrics are full of longing and praise. I think that is how Alexios feels about Brasidas.Not me listening on repeat and learning to draw dick for Alexidas. 

Procession of the Olympians - Michael Levy. Background music.

An Angry Blade - Iron & Wine. "Who left you so?" and "You're an angry blade and you're brave but you are alone". Brasidas understands what it is to be a soldier, but he sees something in Alexios that he does not often see in other fighting men. He wants Alexios to let it go. It reminds him of Deimos.

A Happy Family - The Flight, Assasins Creed, Mike Georgiades. This is my favorite song on the ost! I wrote about it before, but I love the shift at 2:51. It's like Myrinne's theme, but...wrong? I like to read it as Alexios being unsure if a happy family is possible (I do not play him as forgiving his father, and if I can stand to continue after Amphipolis, he will not spare his sister. I need to play that at least once. Catharsis?). Can also be read as hopeful, determined to make a happy family possible. But I like drama and being sad.

Die 4 You -Perfume Genius. Alexios' devotion, love as something that pushes you offbalance. This a song apparently about erotic asphyxiation , so sure, maybe it's that too. I don't know.

Safe with Me - Soap&Skin. "No love can be safe with me". Alexios worries about whether it is possible to be good for a partner in a relationship. Whether he, with his job as a mistios and the cult at his back, can be safe for Brasidas. If he had a therapist, he’d probably worry about being too traumatized or something of the sort. But unfortunately, he only has Barnabas (who tries his best).

My Boy (Twin Fantasy) - Car Seat Headrest. "My boy/we don't see each other that much/ It'll take some time/ But sometime down the line/ We won't be alone". Alexidas pining. You know. When you are gay and long distance. As one does. 

Valley of the Two Kings - The Flight. Sparta stuff.

Alan - Perfume Genius. GUYS. GUYS. GUYS. This is it. THIS is what I think a good relationship looks like. This is everything I love about being in love. "Did you notice/ We sleep though the night./ Did you notice babe?/ Everything's all right". The joy and surprise of being queer and safe with someone you love. The utter shock at everything being ok. Feeling comfortable in your own skin. (Also I SAW Perfume Genius live and SAW Alan and hooo boy he has nice piano hands, good finger posture. I was entranced. I stared throught he strobe light at his fingers. It freaked out my ex. I do not have good finger posture. I get it, Mike Hadras. Your boyfriend is amazing. )

bless ur heart -serpentwithfeet. Arguably my favorite love song. Having a love that inspires others, that gives each other strength. Knowing you can be safe in that love? Alexios and Brasidas for each other. "Boy, whoever reads about how much I adore you/ I hope my words bring them something new". Being open about your love, having it become something that is passed on. Yeah. That’s some good shit. 

Something to Cry About - Daniel Rogers, Ensemble de Organographia. Background music, somewhat unsettling. As Herodotos tells you constantly: There is much to do, and many unknowns on the horizon.

Two Men In Love - The Irrepressibles. "Will you lay down your armor/ and be with me forever?". Well? Is that something they can ask of each other? Is love stronger than duty? Can you put both together? 

Forget About - Sibyelle Baiar. "You make me forget about/Past and pain". I think they are an island to each other. I think they are healing for each other. “You do me good”. 

Sparta- The Flight. Background music again. Good stuff. 

Wood Boy- serpentwithfeet. Alexios' thinking about bottoming. That’s it. 

Coast - Shannon Lay. OH wow, I have many thoughts about this song. I listen to this and picture Alexios thinking about how Deimos fought Brasidas at Pylos. "She came for you/ But now you're gone and I'm afraid for you, my friend". Alexios (and I) get weird about the sea: "Darling I am telling you I belong by the sea" for some reason (this is a reoccurring theme in my headcanons). He did not belong by the sea, he belonged by Brasidas side, but here we are. We are stuck at the coast. 

Bounty - Tiny Ruins. "Hey, I'm on the run/ Didn't I say I go where I want?" First verse is Alexios as a mistios. "Yeah, You're a wanted man/There's a bounty that keeps us/hand in hand". AU where Brasidas lives and also becomes a mistios.

Heal - Soap&Skin. I don't know, they talk out their traumas and get better together? "Do we heal?" And then they do get better! “Fear used to be near here/ But won’t be anymore/ I have no fear”. 

Lost in the Dark Forest of Questioning- Michael Levy. Background music that makes me think they get lost in thought together. Laying with his head in his lap, playing with each other’s hair, eating together. 

Age of Kings - The Mountain Goats. "Held you in my arms for the first time that day/ felt like god's anointed when you didn't push me away./Gold light shining on so many things/in the age of kings". Brasidas thinking of the first time he sleeps with Alexios. I think it means a lot to be mutually liked, to not have to portray Spartan ideals with a lover. Also Sparta has two kings, so...age of kings.

Historiography - The Mountain Goats. Loving despite everything going on. Cherishing time together. Not remembering all the details because you are together and you are in love and the world melts down into just the two of you.

The Woods - Daughter. Brasidas thinking about Alexios and his sister.

The Shores of Megaris- The Flight. Yup. Game music.

[heydranga]

Hey welcome back to random thoughts with yours truly.

Today's random thought is about mulan.

I think the Huns/hans? Are better people then the men from china.

Let me explain!

They aren't sexist at all. They saw a village and killed everyone leaving no survivors. Shan Yu saw Mulan was a woman and wasn't like "A woman defeated me?" Nah he was like "The SOLDIER from the mountains" he saw Mulan as an equal regardless of her gender.

In the og story when mulan was discovered she became the emperors concubine and committed suicide.

In the disney version she would have been killed by shang if she didn't save his life.

Also shout out to Ling, Yao, and Chin Po. They saw her fight and we're like nah that's our equal we all would have died without her brain power bro.

Also Shang should have been gay, let's be honest.

Anyway, I feel like Mulan's father was the goat because you know he taught her how to ride a horse and he probably would have thrown hands with any man who dared to mistreat his daughter. He knew his daughter was a tomboy and encouraged it for years. You also know he adored his wife as his equal rather than as someone who should give him sons.

The Huns mostly likely treated women the same way. I don't get how the only way a woman can bring honor to her family is by giving birth to sons. Like come on. "We need more people for the war but oh no not women" what type of sense does that make?

I've recently discovered that some people ship Mulan and Shan Yu at first I didn't get it but then I actually thought about how he would at least look at Mulan as a equal rather than an enemy.

Also disney never gave the reason why The Huns had beef with the emperor.

Now onto the 2 mulan movie. The emperor was ready to give all his daughters to a man he himself never met. That's like sending your children to a harem or pimping them out to strangers.

Shang out right pissed me off in the 2nd Mulan movie. Like I get it Mushu was wrong for trying to split them up but I feel like he was revealing how their relationship was always rocky. Shang didn't even bother to really listen to Mulan or ask her opinion on what she wanted.

Like when the villagers were asking questions they were literally opposites. How do you expect Mulan to give you as many children as possible did you not catch on in the time you guys have been dating that Mulan loves her independence and that she didn't want to be the one stuck at home with the children while you did whatever?

When Shang was thought to have been dead I was excited I was like yes now Mulan to live out her life as a Kung Fu master who trains girls to be their own person. Then the whole I'll marry the prince in the princesses place thing happened and I gagged.

Love should never be treated as a 1 way street or a way to control or to make ends meet. You either see each others as equals, think of each others feelings, ask what the other wants out of life and see if it has conflicting interests, actually communicate your problems rather then being quick to start a fight or dismiss the other.

Ugh anyway that was my rant, have a nice day, stay safe out there.

[mountaingoatsfirstlineaday]

im only vaguely remembering this (im pretty sure he talked about it in one of the i only listen to the mountain goats episodes? maybe balance?) but i think he was saying smth about like. as a young artist wanting to try a bunch of new things and being kind of naive about it and i think that might be a big difference. like yeah he is trying new things but hes much more aware of what he SHOULD do so a bit of that freedom is lost. not sure if that makes sense lmao

okay so it's been a while since i listened to the balance ep of iolttmg, so i just gave it a relisten this morning, and I think I know what you're talking about -- john and joseph were talking about artistic randomness. Like setting up arbitrary rules for yourself or the kind of stumbling around that comes with inexperience, picking up a different instrument to write songs on because you don't know "the rules" for that instrument yet.

personally to me this is a fascinating concept, because in my own songwriting it's always the curiosity and the not knowing that make me want to write music. I want to know what i can do, what i can make these things sound like. How loud i can scream before my vocal chords rupture. so i suppose i come from a similar place as jd.

thanks for sending in the ask! very interesting addition to the convo!

[nitewrighter]

Tagged by @spacepunksupreme to post about some albums I’ve been listening to!!

Station to Station by David Bowie: Admittedly as much as I post about David Bowie, I’ve tended to stay firmly in the Hunky Dory/Ziggy Stardust camp, maybe occasionally venturing out to Aladdin Sane. I gave Bowie’s “Thin White Duke” phase a wide berth because that seemed like the fucked up and evil David Bowie who most certainly was not my beloved Ziggy.  And he did write this album during a fucked up workaholic coke-fueled mental health crisis---like he was consuming pounds of coke and eating only milk and bell peppers and he was convinced there was a demon in his swimming pool, shit was bad. Basically learning that that was going on while this album was being written prompted my more morbid curiosity. But listening to this album... especially Word on a Wing, it’s surprisingly vulnerable, and the general polish of the album is underscored by lyrics that are definitely hinting at him actively struggling with his perception of reality. It’s kind of Bowie wrestling with some demons, but he’s doing it with this art rock dance hall swag. 

Doolittle by the Pixies: The lead singer’s voice is scrunkly. And the guitar makes me feely like i’m chilling on a deck chair next to an abandoned gas station on a slightly too-warm day. 

The Horror and the Wild by The Amazing Devil: “Tell me you watched The Witcher without saying you watched the Witcher.” No but seriously, dark folk that offsets itself with no small amount of Joey Batey hamminess makes for a delightful album.

Ziltoid the Omniscient by Devin Townsend: Listened to this for the first time when one of my mutuals was blogging about it nonstop out of nowhere! Ya girl loves her concept albums that go whole-hog into ridiculous premises. There should be more puppets in metal. There should be more puppets in music in general.

Coyote Stories by The Crane Wives: I was listening to the Decemberists non-stop in college so their sound is very much in my wheelhouse.

I, Jonathan by Jonathan Richman: An underrated gem! Earnest but with a warm sense of self-irony.

Genuine Negro Jig by the Carolina Chocolate Drops: This is one of my go-to albums to cook to. Banjo makes food taste better. It’s just science.

Heretic Pride by The Mountain Goats: My go-to soundtrack for stomping around the neighborhood and only semi-successfully stuffing back tears when I am being crushed by grief, anxiety, and existential crises. A girl, mayhaps, has been going through it.

Let It Be by The Beatles: Rungo Bungo!!!

Tagging @telltaletypist, @ohdarnitripped, @sine-luce-angor-minus, @tylwythwaffles, @callmeshei, @stealingpotatoes and anyone else who wants to do it!!

[beebrainedstudios]

if you ever have the time for it i am DYING to see what your holland playlist would look like!

Well, in that case...

Here’s Heavy Is The Head, an ADSOM Holland Vosijk playlist for all your bitter Antari needs! This playlist is long, but that’s because it’s specially formulated to have songs suited to different points in Holland’s life, and they appear in order so you can listen to specific events at your pleasure! So anon/anyone else looking, if you’ll indulge me, here’s a list of all the songs used, some with notes describing their place here;

First, general thoughts. I wanted this playlist to have plenty of dark ambient moments, but also several harsh and defiant ones, too; Holland is not as much of a sad character to me as he is angry, and a lot of his power and drive comes from a place of vengeance, wrath, and righteous justice. So, there’s a lot of rock, folk, and indie pop here. I tried to include all types of music to suit different tastes too, since I’m fairly diverse with my music choices. All that said-

Disclaimer: Some of these songs have profanity/swearing in them. As well, some of them have dark themes, undertones, and implications, so know that ahead of time. It’s a Holland playlist- I don’t feel like there’s anything here that’s darker than canon, but it’s still something any potential listeners should know. Consider this your warning.

Part 1- A Darker Shade Of Magic

Hollow (Cloudeater)

“I stay empty, I feel the hunger…”

Look Away (The Dear Hunter)

“And don’t you misjudge what I’m capable of, if I’m heir to a broken will…”

Wrath of Man (Chris Benstead)

(No lyrics, just the creeping sense of a vengeful creature stalking you. If anyone’s seen this movie, you’ll get the tone it sets.)

Paul Newman vs The Demons- Avett Brothers

“You may have to drag me away from my demons, kicking and screaming…”

Oleander (Mother Mother)

“I”ll be unclean, I’ll be obscene, you’ll be the rest…”

(Holland from the perspective of the Danes, specifically Athos.)

The Wolf (Phildel)

“The wishes I’ve made are too vicious to tell…”

Pain (Three Days Grace)

“Cause I’d rather feel pain than nothing at all..”

(Here half as a callback to an old joke and half because Holland is not immune to an edgy rock phase.)

Black Eyes (Radical Face)

“My heart will be blacker than your eyes when I’m through with you..”

Arsonist’s Lullaby (Hozier)

“On all the ashes in my wake…”

(Holland, willing or no, is still canonly an arsonist. Also, Hozier.)

P.O.L.I.T.I.C.S. (MISSIO)

“This friendship is worse than, P-O-L-I-T-I-C-S…”

(One of the most diametric differences between Holland and Kell is their views on each other’s kingdoms.)

In The Air Tonight (Natalie Taylor)

“If you told me you were drowning, I would not lend a hand…”

Blood On My Name (The Brothers Bright)

“Nowhere to run, nowhere to run, nowhere to run…”

(Mood for the beginning of the final Holland vs. Kell fight in ADSOM)

One Way Or Another (Until The Ribbon Breaks)

“And if the lights are all down…”

(End of the fight, Holland’s death #1, and his fall into Black London)

Part 2- A Gathering of Shadows

Bleeding White (Avett Brothers)

“I’m bleeding gold in the streets, but there’s no one to see, because the kingdom is empty…”

(Holland’s king now.)

Kings (Tribe Society)

“I’ll take my throne, lay it on a mountain, and make myself a king…”

When They Come For Me (Linkin Park)

“And it seems ugly, but it can get worse…”

Me And Mine (The Brothers Bright)

“I will burn your kingdom down, if you try to conquer me and mine…”

(Holland making some foreign relations plans.)

Feeling Good (Michael Buble)

“It’s a new dawn, a new day, a new life…”

Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing (Set It Off)

“Tell me how you’re sleeping easy, how you’re only thinking of yourself…”

(Holland’s revenge arc starts.)

Choke (IDKHBTFM)

“I wouldn’t hesitate, to smile while you suffocate…”

Roman Empire (MISSIO)

“You’re an empire, the darkest of empires…”

(Holland’s view of Red London.)

My Name (Charlie Winston)

“I won't apologize for the mess that you're in, I'm gonna hide my eyes from your crimson sin…”

Liver Lungs Spleen Heart (Chris Benstead)

(Again, no lyrics, but this is the mood when Holland’s plan really starts coming into effect.)

Have It Out (Mother Mother)

“But what is he good for, if he’s just a spectator of war, I have it in for, have it in for, have it in for…”

(Holland and Kell’s “conversation” at the end of AGOS + Holland’s grudge against Kell in general.)

The Yawning Grave (Lord Huron)

“Darkness brings evil things, oh the reckoning begins…”

(The tables turn on Holland.)

Burn Him Down (Kitsch Club)

“This Woodsy’s been worn one too many a time…”

(For context, this song is about burning the suit of a retired Forest Service mascot, which in a twisted way is parallel to Osaron possessing Holland. In short, destroy the old guy because he’s damaged and worn- AKA Holland.)

Part 3- A Conjuring Of Light

The Waking Nightmare (Frankenstein World Premiere Recording)

“I’m here in the waking nightmare, and every moment tastes of death…”

Four Walls/The Ballad of Perry Smith (Bastille)

“Now we’re faced with two wrongs, I don’t know, no I don’t know…”

(Holland facing his imminent execution.)

Bring Me To Life (Evanescence)

“Without a thought, without a voice, without a soul- don't let me die here…”

(How could I not include this?)

Sin Triangle (Sidney Gish)

“I've got to work on my face now, I'm wearing shades when it's dark out, but don't you worry I'm just being cool, like everybody else around this school…”

(Holland while on the boat/observing the rest of the group.)

I’m So Sorry (Imagine Dragons)

“You’ll never know the top ‘till you get too low…”

Human (Rag’n’Bone Man)

“I’m only human, that’s all it takes, don’t put the blame on me…”

Sing To Me (MISSIO)

“Sing to me 'cause I can't hear myself, through the loudness of my own hurts…”

I Will Not Bow (Breaking Benjamin)

“And I am not proud, cold-blooded, fake, I will shut the world away…”

(The final battle with Osaron.)

Up The Wolves (The Mountain Goats)

“It’s gonna take you people years to recover from all of the damage…”

(Holland’s sacrifice.)

Part 4- Backstory/Life Flashing Before His Eyes

Head Full Of Doubt/Road Full Of Promise (Avett Brothers)

“And there was a kid with a head full of doubt, so I’ll  scream ‘till I die and the last of those bad thoughts are finally out…”

(Holland’s grand destiny.)

A Dustland Fairytale (The Killers)

“Is there still magic in the midnight sun, or did you leave it back in sixty-one, in the cadence of a young man’s eyes…”

(Holland as the Someday King.)

Borderland (John Marc McMillan)

“Help me Holy Lord, I see the light of Heaven’s porch, but so many of us are born here outside your chain-link fence…”

(Holland growing up and meeting Vortalis.)

Poor George (James Supercave)

“Poor George, poor George, he never learned how to stop…”

(Vortalis’ reign and subsequent death.)

I Knew You Once (Hollie Allen)

“Yes, I knew you once, and it was nice…”

(Holland’s past relationships and how he misses them.)

Bohemian Rhapsody (Panic! At The Disco)

“Carry on, carry on, as if nothing really matters…”

(Holland’s entire life flashing before his eyes, riddled with pain, power, and a refusal to submit.)

Part 5- The End

Kettering (The Antlers)

“And I didn’t believe them when they told me that there was no saving you…”

(Kell and Holland preparing to leave for White London, with Kell wishing things could be different and Holland wishing they had been.)

Never Been Alive (Avett Brothers)

“I’ve never been alive, like I am now…”

Numb (MARINA)

“And I’ll light up the sky, stars that burn the brightest fall so fast and pass you by, cough like empty lighters…”

(Holland’s final death- the end.)

Congrats to everyone who read this far- this is my first playlist, so I may have gone a bit overboard. Please enjoy, and let me know if there’s any other ADSOM characters I should do one of these for!

[holdoncallfailed]

tagged by jake @willemdafoeplscallmemynumberis hehe

1. what is the first song you remember hearing? probably hey good lookin’ by buckwheat zydeco because my dad loves him and my mom would sing it a lot. we have a home video of me dancing to buckwheat zydeco from when i’ve just barely started walking.

2. what is the first band you got into? the beatles ofc.......i feel like i’ve talked a lot on this blog abt my (former) beatles obsession so i shan’t extrapolate any further but if u know u know.

3. do you collect any physical music? yes i have a decent vinyl collection which i frankly don’t listen to as much as i should. i used to have a lot of CDs because my car in high school was too old to have an aux cord so i had to buy albums or burn mix CDs in order to listen to music. one of my friends who has a car has all my old CDs now so it’s fun to listen to them when i drive around with him.

4. what is your favourite piece of music memorabilia? my blur fanzines probably hehe, or my old melody maker magazines. OR my neutral milk hotel concert shirt from 2014 (!) because it is the best quality shirt i’ve ever gotten from a show. 

5. what's your favourite concert you've ever been to? the aforementioned nmh show lol...or sufjan. every belle & sebastian concert is my favorite concert. lorde was also so special and i'm particularly glad now that i saw her when i did. 

6. if you could see one artist who is no longer alive in concert, who would it be? nina simone!!! what i wouldn’t fucking give. 

7. have you met any musicians? yes i met john darnielle of mountain goats fame after a show when i was sixteen. i’m sure i’ve told this story here before but i was so anxious because i knew whatever i said to him wouldn’t be enough to convey how much i love his music. he signed my phone case. my friend only had a movie ticket in his wallet in terms of things to autograph which JD thought was funny and he signed his name as ‘arnold schwarzenegger’ lmfao. i also said hello to carrie brownstein outside of a bathroom in a texas airport once. 

8. what is your go to album when you're feeling happy? hm i don’t know if there’s a specific album i listen to when i'm happy! there are plenty of albums i listen to when i'm sad though lol. 

9. what is one music documentary you love? stop making sense if it counts!!!!!! or monterey pop. 

10. do you prefer listening to playlists or albums? playlists

11. do you prefer to listen to albums in order or on shuffle? usually shuffle i think which i realize is controversial!!! i tend to listen to albums that i initially listened to primarily on CD or vinyl in their proper order (beyoncé’s lemonade, puberty 2, yeezus, anything by the beatles lol) but in general i don’t really care. 

12. what is your favourite deep cut song by your favourite artist? hmmmmmmm not rly a deep cut i guess but my favorite version of inertia by blur is this live one from the 1999 electric ballroom gig (bonus my sharona gag at the beginning lol). also i prefer the control freak remix of bugman?? for some reason???? 

13. what is your favourite cd/cassette/vinyl you own in terms of packaging? i guess my led zeppelin iii LP cos of the trick cover (this is a video of someone demonstrating it) 

fanks jake this was fun i tag anyone who wants to!!!

[cowboy]

what are your like top 10 oM songs?

this is SUPER hard to answer so I’m gonna try to be accurate but this also changes very often. but also I’m just gonna go with my long term favorites. in no particular order bc i don’t think i could put one as number one

1. anyway just kidding my number one of all time is Party’s Crashing Us no contest. this is because it was the first song i ever heard of theirs, and I really only had heard sunlandic twins because it was the one my sibling played the most. (I started liking oM because of my sibling lol). It just makes me so happy and sad at the same time it’s such a beautiful song. I only feel alive when the vus flashing.. alarms going off in my heaaadd.. i wanna grab you and just kiss you maybe i should sit down no sense in cashing us nowww..... the partys crashing us nowww....

2. okay from now on actually in no particular order, an elurdian instance is still one of my favorite songs, and the one people tend to say is a “very me” song. although it’s really hard to choose off of skeletal lamping bc that used to be my favorite album of theirs for like a couple years. anyway it’s such a nostalgic song.. the bit about the mountain goats and the last summer as independents and stuff always makes me so ;_;

3. we will commit wolf murder I swear to fucking god it’s SO good. I’m considered ugly from every angle... youre the only beauty i don’t wanna strangle... the lyrics are beyond amazing and like his voice is so soft and he doesn’t overdo the falsetto (though his falsetto is always good). and i dont even dislike the weird ending which i usually do (he overdoes it on this album too but im aware shes just that kind of girl and has to do the weird artsy instrumentals). good fucking song

4. speaking of paralytics stalks, what an UNDERRATED ALBUM. I LOVE dour percentage. “this planet is an orphanage” is such a good line also his falsetto here is extremely good. i love singing to this song. he also wrote it about a friend breakup which i love and well it’s just a good song. I’m also gonna have this be a tie with malefic dowery which has a similar vibe; so soft and singable...

5. ok paralytic stalks again maybe but spiteful intervention is easily possibly my second favorite song of theirs. the beginning makes me acutlaly insane. i used to listen to it at 5 AM on my way to work on the freeway and hearing him say “oh god the morning light, sunrays bring my paranoia, I CAN’T FUNCTION UNLESS I’M THE ONLY ONE -- AWAKE” literally unlocked something inside of me. SUCH a good song

I���m manic right now

6. faberge falls for shuggie thank you very much. hissing fauna used to be my favorite album for a very long time and the intro to this song would just live in my mind forever. i love his screaming/yelling and weird voice in this one. he’s like speaking to himself in it (did shuggie do it yet? no. not yet) and i love when he does that shit. the instrumentals are so good. and the scream bit at around 2:00 is so delightful.

i’m starting to realize i don’t actually know my top ten favorites and i have like top 20 actually. this is hard

7. i have to add in some satanic panic of course, so climb the ladder is on here. he has such a sweet little gift for making such nice love songs. i also love lysergic bliss of course but i think a lot of the songs off that album are so underrated including this song. wahh

8. sleeping in the beetle bug!! such a delightful tune and i love the key it’s in. i love cherry peel. the lyrics are so funny and the breakdown in the song is great. he is so good at guitar man

9. stag to the stable is my #1 lyrical depression song what a GOOD song to have a little breakdown to. rune husk is such a sexy EP too. i want the cover on a shirt

i’m extending this to 12 songs i really dont care sorry

10. Empyrean Abattoir. this album is an underrated basic rock album of his but this song in particular does something to my brain... the breakdown is also super good on this. when he transitions between the softer mellower parts into the yelling... the beginning is still my favorite part though . TBQH

11. feminine effects is such a sweet little song and the “bobby baby” makes my heart go SOFT so so so soft. i dont know who the vocalist is but I LOVE her voice. i think shes the one on lousy with sylvianbriar as well? is that nina?? anywho. WAIT SPEAKING OF NINA shoutout to heimsdalgate like a promethean curse i love that line. dancing to this song live is like crack to me. i shout the lyrics every time

12. tie between triumph of disintegration, imbecile rages, and raindrop in my skull off of lousy. what a great country-esque album. i always listen to it when i’m chillliing. raindrop in my skull is one of my favorites because the aforementioned singer has such a nice voice.

(shoutout to miss blonde your papa is failing for being the saddest fucking song of all time)

okay so the rest of his albums are pretty poppy and i love pretty much all of them (except ur fun . ur fun sucks) but there arent top 10 favorites on them really. i will say i love IFSWYT and i think there are some songs that might become a top 10/20 song if i get more time with them. well anyway. sorry for the ranting but i love all these songs so much. god bless

[the-river-person]

Monster History in the Librarby

Niven was getting ready to close the Library for the night. All the usual patrons had gone home already. Both of the editors for the Snowdin Newspaper, as well as the Loox that often hung around by the tables and played word games like crosswords, junior jumble, or soduku. Speaking of which, Lady Garf, one of the editors of the newspaper who specialized in making games for it, had left a few of the ones she’d been working on. With a sigh he collected the pages and stored them behind the main desk, he’d have to remember to give it to her tomorrow. The bell on the door tinkled and Niven looked up to say that they were actually just about to close. But the words died on his lips and he stared at the person who had come in. Face hidden by a dark cloak, they were somewhat tall, nearly reaching the height of Sir Papyrus, captain of the Royal Guard. Though he couldn’t see their face, he caught a glimpse of white fur. Was it Ice Wolf? Just a little over a year ago he’d started coming in every few months to check out books to read during his work breaks. No, Ice Wolf was much bigger. “Is this the Librarby?” Asked the figure, a male voice, deep yet not unpleasant, almost musical really. Niven grimaced at the question. He’d once harbored hopes of getting the sign repainted. But there really wasn’t any point now, was there? Not only had everybody just gotten used to it, but even if he did repaint it, the sign would just reset along with everything else in a few short weeks. It wasn’t worth the effort, but it still irritated him. Forcing himself to smile he quickly decided just to see what this Monster wanted before closing up. “Yes, it is. We don’t usually see too many non-locals in here. Most just pass by on their way to the ruins or the Greater Snowdin Caverns. Are you from the Capital?” “You could say that,” said the figure, sounding mildly amused. They offered no further explanation, and Niven decided not to push his luck further that way. “What can I do for you?” For a moment the Monster was silent, looking round the small library as if gauging its potential somehow. Not for the first time, Niven wished for the resources to make a much grander library, something akin to the great libraries he’d read of in human books: Ashurbanipal, Alexandria, Pergamum, Villa of the Papyri, Trajan’s Dual Library, Celsus, the Imperial Library of Constantinople, House of Wisdom in Baghdad, "Dharmaganja" ("Treasury of Truth") and Dharma Ghunj ("Mountain of Truth") in India’s Nalanda University. There were so many, and all he had was a few shelves. A couple histories, fiction, somone’s book report left here years ago and never retrieved (it was gleefully shelved as something new and at least 3 people had checked it out since for the sheer novelty), poetry, only a single science book about astronomy, and an entire shelf devoted to joke books and word games. But if someone was really coming out here, far from the Capital, to look for something specific. Well... They had to be desperate. New Home’s public library was much bigger, and if you couldn’t find something, you might humbly petition the King and Queen for access to the castle archives in the chance it might be there. Nobody came to a tiny town at the edge of civilization. Well... they did come. Sometimes they even bought things at the general store or stayed a the inn. But that was really just people on their way to the Ruins after Reset Day, the crowds and the general traffic as Monsters carried out their plans for the next three weeks. Getting puzzles ready for the famous DT and Royal Guardsman Monster Kid, who lived right here in said small town. So some people came through, a lot of people. But not for books. Never for the librarby that hadn’t even spell its name right when the sign was painted. “I’m hoping,” said the Monster. “That you might have texts on Monster History from before the war. History, perhaps theology? Mythology and folklore? I’ll take anything you’ve got.” Oh, so that’s what he wanted. Niven gulped. Okay so maybe it wasn’t accurate that nobody had been coming to their tiny library from out of town. There was that person from the capital he’d only seen once, a shifty fellow who was supposed to be a castle servant. White hair, pale purplish skin, and a terrifying grin with sharp yellow teeth. Niven had been freaked out by the Monster’s weird face markings and the J like tail that had lashed back and forth in agitation. Jevil, or so he had said his name was, had been after books on Monster Religion. It was a surprising subject, one few cared about. But Niven had a couple of rare tomes on it, possibly texts even the Royal Archives didn’t have. And that, it turned out, was the entire point. Jevil was a scribe in the Royal Archives and kept the smaller of the castle’s two libraries in good order for the King and Queen’s more general use. Thankfully he hadn’t come again after the first time, having taken a stack of books with him. He sent them back a month later, along with a few coins for the late fees, and asked for more books, naming each specifically. So Niven had shipped them off to the Capital, and sure enough they returned the next month with a request for more books. Sans the skeleton had become a familiar face as he came by so often to pick up or deliver boxes of books headed for the weird little Monster. And Jevil wasn’t the only one. Ice Wolf had been checking out the weirdest things. Niven would have expected a joke book, or even an interesting novel, but no. Ice Wolf wanted to read about physics and geology and historical documents and traditions. Niven hadn’t had much cause to write to the Capital Public Library in... well ever really. But to get some of the texts Ice Wolf wanted he pulled up his sleeves and penned message after message requesting various books until someone came down about nine weeks in to ask why on earth there was suddenly more book traffic going to Snowdin. “Oh, heh heh.” He laughed nervously. “I believe we do have some things. If you’ll come this way please.” The Monster followed him into the lower levels of the library, a section which held most of the least circulated books and materials available only by request. He really needed to dust down here, now where was the light? Ah yes. A dim bulb flickered to life, bathing the shelves in a warming and distinctly yellow light. From the shelves he pulled book after book, most dusty, a few with a little water damage, and many quite old. These he stacked before the Monster, who shifted in surprise as he looked over the growing pile. As Niven set another book on the pile he caught a better glimpse of the face beneath the hood. A white furred goat-like face with black markings on his lower cheeks and eyes of a dark muted red. Niven almost dropped the books in surprise but hid his reaction by faking a sneeze, though maybe with all the dust in here it really wasn’t that fake. This was a Boss Monster! But not Asgore, not nearly tall enough and certainly much thinner. But not the motherly Toriel either. It didn’t make sense, all the other Boss Monsters had been killed in the war, only the King and Queen had made it Underground with the others. And the only other Boss Monster living since then had been... Hadn’t Asriel Dreemurr become a flower? How had he regained his body? Or... something similar. It wasn’t quite a child anymore, though not yet an adult. Somewhere in between if appearance was anything to go by. A teenager maybe. That didn’t make sense either as his age should have been tied to Asgore and Toriel’s, and none of them could age anyway with the Resets, but maybe being a flower did odd things to you. Niven watched out of the corner of his eye as the prince began flipping through some of the books. “Monsters and Humans have always dwelt together in the world, though the nature of this coexistence had been woven together with myth, legend, and superstition for thousands of years.” Asriel read the passage from a “Brief History of Monsters and Humans”, it was volume nine of the collection, which was anything but brief. The author had been criticized for his long winded and needlessly flowery language. Still it made for good reading, if you had the time for it. “Owing to the nature of Monster’s Souls and the intrinsic connection their magical bodies have to the state of their soul, Humans were often under the mistaken impression that the Monster Clans were more numerous than they really were. As new generations of Monsters were born, they sometimes took on new and often unique forms different from their elders, forms that matched the state of their very soul.” The Prince broke off reading and looked up at Niven, who suddenly realized he’d stopped taking books off the shelves and had been staring as he listened. Flushing, the Lizard started to turn back to the shelf. “Is that why some of the Monsters around are things like Aeroplanes or shaped like bathtubs and obsessed with washing? Because they were born with new forms?” Niven turned back around. It was a good question, and not really covered that well in schools. Sure they touched on the subject, but no one really focused on the implications of how Monster Souls behaved. “Well, more or less. You have to understand that Monsters such as the Tsundereplane couldn’t have been born until Monsters learned of the existence of human airplanes. And anime of course. Then when this new Monster was born, their soul manifested a body that fit who they were at their foundations, the most basic structure of all the things they could become. We Monsters don’t have much control over this, we can’t shift our own forms at will, but our appearance is far more closely tied to who we are than you would think. Creatures like Woshua were born of groups of water dwelling Monsters. Humans often characterized us with names like Fay or Fairy, Spirits, Daemons, and lots of other things. And human folklore has a lot of tales about faeries who insist upon cleanliness and washing, often enacting terrible punishment if specified arrangements weren’t kept, like leaving washing water out at night for them to bathe in, or having a strict routine of personal hygiene while living in an area where said fairy has to deal with you often. Sound familiar? At some point the bathtub must have been an image they focused on, and at some point a Monster child was born with that form as part of who they were.” Asriel nodded, forgetting that he was trying to hide his face and letting the hood slip down a bit as he listened with wide eyes. Just barely visible in the upper shadows of the hood were his horns, not terribly big, just poking up from the white tufts of fur. “Alright,” he said. “I’ll take this one. And these.” He plucked another four books from the pile. “Can you hold the rest for me?” Niven found himself agreeing to do just that as he followed Asriel back up the stairs and let him out. As he locked up and turned out the lights, he wondered why nobody had heard anything about the prince yet if he was back to his true self?

[erstwhile25]

Old Salts, and Bitter Fruits.

It was a brisk La Noscean morning, the kind where the bitter chill winds coming off the seas wrestled with the warm sun reflecting off the mountain slopes.  Most mornings the sun won out, but in the height of winter, the wind was such that it could slip under your clothes and shake hands with your bones.  Hannah knew from experience (as most of her knowledge was prone to spring from these days) that it wasn’t as bad as the ongoing frosts of Ishgard, still one needed to bundle up against it, lest they found themselves making friends with a fever.  She had just finished gathering up the last of the winter peas from the fields, and had set her basket aside to rub a little life back into her chilled knobbly fingers.  

Age had been kind to her, she reflected as she sat her bony ass down on one of the smooth stones that marked the borders of her son’s fields.  Most women who had seen as many seasons as she had needed the assistance of a cane to walk, and that was if they could leave their rocking chairs at all.  However she was still able to bend at her waist, and carry a basket that was half her weight in stone.  True, her joints ached terribly before the coming of a storm, and she’d no longer had a tooth in her mouth that wasn’t porcelain or silver, but to expect nothing from time but a head full of grey hair was folly if ever she heard it.

It was a subject of some debate back on her son Sigmund’s farm.  His wife, a pretty little midlander named Sarah who didn’t have so much as two foul thoughts in her head to rub together for fire, was opposed to the idea of her aging mother-in-law working in the fields.  She insisted that if Hannah kept it up, then one day they would find her out there, dead amongst the stones and weeds.  The girl, and she was still a girl in Hannah’s eyes, never even contemplated the possibility that Hannah would have it no other way.  After all it was probably the bull headed need for physical labor that kept her in such fine shape for her autumn years.  During her years on the salt, Hannah had never met a job she didn’t prefer to do for herself.  In fact, one of her hardest lessons aboard a ship had been to trust in the work of others.  

Hannah shivered, and rose off the rock, tugging her basket to her shoulder.  Near on twenty years had passed since she had set foot on a deck, and still every fourth thought out of her head was about her life on the waves.  It was what every sailor meant when they said “The Siren’s Call.”, since most were too chickenshit to call it their own stupidity, blaming a pretty woman seemed the next best thing.  Still they were right about one thing, there wasn’t any sense to be had in it.  She had a good life now, Sigmund shared her own love of steady physical labor, and between the two of them they had made his farm one of the best producers on the coastline.  Sigmund and his little wife hadn’t been coy in their marriage, and now they had a fifth grandchild on the way to swell the household even further.  Hannah had made the offer a while back to have a cottage built for herself on the edge of the property, giving them the space every married couple needed.  However they wouldn’t hear of it, bless their amorous little hearts, the pair insisted having their family under one roof, all of their family.

So here Hannah was, with no need for coin, or a roof over her head, besieged on all sides by love from gangly grandchildren and moon-eyed betrothed.  All of these things rested neatly in the palm of her hand...and there was still space for something else.  It made her feel like shit, but there was no denying it, some part of her longed for the feel of the rolling deck beneath her feet and the anticipation of the great unknown.  Rationally, she knew the reason she would never return to the waves, it was the same reason she’d fought so viciously with Sarah about planting the fig trees behind the house.  Not because Hannah had any particular inclinations about figs as a fruit, but because of how the trees looked when they were denuded of their leaves in the winter.  They looked like skeletal fingers clutching up through the sea water, always reaching for the sky. 

It was staring at those trees that her son found her.  She had walked the pebbled path home without realizing it, as mired in her thoughts as a cart stuck in the peat moors.  It wasn’t until he rested a cautious hand on one of her shoulders that she realized where she was with a little start.  

“Someone once told me staring at a tree won’t cause it t’grow fruit.”  He rumbled through a chest now broader than hers had ever been, when had he grown taller than she?  She smirked up at him, handing off her basket without needing to ask that he take it. 

“Depends on what ye came out t’pick, not all fruit grows green.”

“Mmmm” he set off on a slow plod towards the front of the homestead. “Sounds like bitter fruit indeed.”

“Tis at that.” She said out the side of her mouth, following at his side..

“Ye know…” he said, plowing on into the conversation like an ox “Ye need not be the only one t’eat this fruit.”

She smiled up at him fondly.  The trouble was he meant it too, he would patiently listen to everything she had to say about her past life, and forgive her for it to boot.  Trouble was some things weren’t for him to forgive, and she wasn’t deserving of forgiveness anyhow.  

“Some mistakes are jest that lad...bitter fruit only ye can eat in yer old age.  Now hush, n’let me be an old woman in peace.”

“Salty old bitch.” he said, without a hint of malice.

“Green little shit.” she spat, with all a mother’s love. “Thought ye would be out still pickin stones in the western fields, not herding old goats.”

“I was headed that way, but someone claimin t’be a friend oh yourn showed up on our doorstep.”

Hannah stopped as soon as he said it, her foot on the first of the sensible stone steps leading up to the porch of their home.  She eyed the door above them as though it was a serpent rearing to strike.  “That makes them either an idiot or a liar...what’d ye make them t’be?”

Sigmund set down the basket of peas, and as he bent over Hannah noticed a cudgel was tucked into the back of his belt.  It was a plain and heavy affair carved from one of the thick branches of the oaks that dotted the path to the house; Sigmund said he kept it around for wolves and men in need of manners.  Hannah had only seen him use it twice, and that was all she needed to suspect he’d inherited more from her than a need for physical labor.  Nodding towards the house, he gave his mother a knowing look. “He looked like someone who could be trouble iffin he wanted t’be, don’t think he wanted t’be though.  Said he jest wanted t’talk to ye, so I left Sarah t’entertain whilst I fetched ye.”

Fetched me and that there cudgel, Hannah thought as she sucked on one of the silver teeth at the front of her mouth.  She supposed she could have berated him for leaving his family alone with a strange man, but there was time enough for that after she dealt with this.  She went to the wide stump near the front of the house, where they all took turns splitting firewood for chill evenings.  There embedded in the stump was a well worn hatchet no longer than her forearm.  It was hardly a weapon for most folks, but it was a tool she was intimately familiar with.  With a quick yank she freed it, and it slid easily enough into the apron straps behind her back.  Thusly armed, she stomped her way up the steps good and loud so whoever was in there heard her coming.  

Hannah had to admit, with the one exception seated at the kitchen table, she had walked into the picture of farmer’s hospitality.  Sarah had been an inn keeper’s daughter before Sigmund had offered her a life on his homestead, and thusly she had kept his hearth with the same inflexible sensibility that had commanded the line of innkeepers before her.  Everything was where it should be; from the fragrant cooking herbs hung to dry along one wall; to the color coordinated rows of jams and preserves they had sealed in the spring.  Every pot, every pan, every humble clay cup was precisely in the location it needed to be to convey a sense of welcome and warmth to those who were either returning home, or simply temporarily visiting.  It was this way, not because Hannah, or Sigmund, or any of his multitudinous get were particularly neat, but because Sarah Commanded It Be So.  The family bore it with good natured cheer, partly because they loved the small woman, and partly because they enjoyed their home being so.  Even crusty old Hannah enjoyed it; Which was why, when Hannah saw one of Tseng’s things seated at the table amidst everything she considered home, her blood ran colder than any Ishgard winter.  

It didn’t help that Juniper, the eldest of her grandchildren, was seated next to the lean salt haired outline of a man.  Juniper’s innocent grey green eyes were as wide as the tea saucers her mother was setting out, as the little girl of eight tapped one of the many ostentatious gold and silver rings on the thing’s spidery sea worn fingers. “What about...that one?”

 It opened its mouth, showing very white teeth in a wolfish grin, and a raucous laugh tailored to titillate rolled around the kitchen.  “I got that one from a princess of the Ananta, she dared me t’try dancin on one foot afore all her clan, as her people do.  I fell flat on my arse, but she claimed I should have aught t’show fer it anyhow.”

Juniper’s eyes narrowed, and her tiny mouth puckered in the inherent shrewdness of all eight year olds “Wot’s an..Antnata?”

“Oh they’re a sight t’be seen..” It winked (...or was it blinked?) to her and laid a finger along the side of it’s slightly crooked nose, as though the two of them in this bit of information had a precious secret to share. “Serpent women whose beauty tis beyond compare, they live in the outer Fringes outside Gyr Abania.”  

“Liar.” Shot back Juniper with no hesitation whatsoever. “No one’s prettier than Mum.”

This spurred a fierce blush from Sarah’s pale cheeks, and a second, even louder round of laughter from the thing. “How fool oh me t’ferget her” it said between guffaws. “Yer daughter does ye credit madam, she’ll have her pick oh the crews when she comes oh age.”

Hannah saw the spark in Juniper’s eyes as soon as the thing said it, and she knew, she KNEW somewhere in that little sprat’s mind, a life at sea was already painting itself.  It was that stupid, disregarding, need for adventure that still called to her as an old woman, and she would be damned it she let it claim one of hers. 

“She’ll have her pick oh the fields till then.” Hannah said archly from the doorway.  Before she had a chance to seat herself at the table, she was nearly bowled over by her granddaughter who flung herself into Hannah’s stained apron to hug her waist and then tug on the same strings that held the hatchet behind her back.  

“Nana! Nana!  Guess what??” With all the energy of a hummingbird in its prime, Juniper bounced up and down before her.  Hannah couldn’t help but run a gnarled hand through those curling brown locks and ask the expected question.

“What, my cherub?”

Sparing a suspicious glance behind her at their guest, Juniper went to her tiptoes and whispered in a voice that all present could hear.  “He’s a pirate.”  

Hannah smiled at that, how could she do anything but?  Still the important thing was to get Juniper as far away from the trouble at their table as fast as she could, if she had to lie to the child to do so, so be it.  “Taint nice t’call someone a pirate, even iffin they do look like one.  Asides, there’s no such things as pirates any more, the Admiral’s sweepin em all back out t’sea.  Now yer father’s out on the porch about t’start shellin peas, why don’t ye go help him?”

“But Nan..”

“Now child.” Hannah cut the babe off with a clipped tone that brooked no backtalk, a tone she hated using, but nonetheless had the desired effect.  With a bit of a wounded look, Juniper shot around her, and out the front door.  Hannah looked to Sarah, and for a moment, she thought she would have to ask the woman to leave as well.  However Sarah seemed to pick up from the look that this was neither a conversation for her or tea, and with a sigh set the pot off the stove.  Turning to leave for the door, Hannah’s prim and proper daughter-in-law paused to eye them both and then spoke.  “If you two are planning to kill one another, please do it outside.  If I come back and find anything in here broken, we’ll be digging two graves instead of just the one.” That said, she turned on a heel and followed her daughter out.  

“Some men rescue the damsel from the dragon…” It said, watching Sarah’s flouncing departure. “Other’s jest marry the dragon.” 

She stared at the man-like thing for a moment, carefully considering her words, diplomacy after all was the bedrock of civilization.  “Shut the feck up.”  

The one yellow eye narrowed to a slit as she said it, and for a moment she thought they really would just kill one another in her family’s cozy little kitchen.  Instead the thing that looked like a man eased back into it’s chair, and with a lazy hand motion, admitted the floor was hers.  So she licked her lips and pressed on.  “No jokes, no fables, no amusing anecdotes...jest plain speech.  I know ye get somat from that other stuff...yer like her in that respect, but whatever that tis ye ent gettin it from this house, not from these people.  Not while I’m still alive and kickin.”

It looked slightly affronted by that, keeping its eye on her as it reached for the bowl in the middle of the table, and selecting one of the pears that sat there.  She blinked and there was a knife in its hand, cutting off the rind of the fruit into a neat little curl off to the side.  A small rueful smile curled its way across that face, not unlike the peel.  “Ye sit there, talkin about me like I’m some terror from the deeps come t’visit horror upon ye and yer family.”  it said.

Hannah kept her eyes steady and forward, not daring to look away.  She’d warned Argus Stormwater another lifetime ago never to take his eyes off this one, he’d ignored her advice, and had paid for it with his life.   With the same steady calm as her stare, she pulled out a chair at the table, and then rested her bones upon it.  “Convince me that yer otherwise Kail.” 

“Oh come now.” Kail said as it continued undressing the pear.  “M’a lawful citizen oh Limsa Lominsa just as yerself, aught that not warrant me a little faith?”

Hannah didn’t let her expression alter one jot.  “I was there the night ye gave Jehige a second grin then tossed him off the docks, I’m well familiar with what ye are cutter.”

There followed a silence thick enough to spread on toast after she laid that out between them, Kail’s knife paused in mid slice, and that yellow eye eased up to lock on with her gaze.  “Look me in the eye and tell me he didn’t have that comin.” It said, and there wasn’t a hint of regret in that voice.  

It had been as if the act had been cut wood, drawn water, or any one of a dozen chores that Kail had needed to do that day, and it would probably never see the murder as anything else.  Oh it was true that Jehige would have sold his mother to the slaving guilds for spare change, but the utter casual nature that Kail had discarded him was a stark reminder to Hannah.  It was a reminder that if Kail was ever doing figures in it’s head, and reached the answer of one dead Hannah, then that is what her grandchildren would find in her bed.  

“I don’t think either oh us are in any position t’sit in judgement.” She said, and even as she said it, she realized it was true.  With an effort of will she drew her finger tips from the handle of the hatchet, where they had unconsciously come to rest as her mind had wound her up even further during the conversation.  She set her hands upon the table, and left them there.  “What is it ye want Kail?”

It grinned wide and white, not unlike a shark ready to take a bite.  “As it so happens, I want t’do ye a favor.” It said, and then it did bite, right into the peeled pear with no shortage of vigor and relish.  As it chewed with juice dribbling down it’s chin, Hannah sat there staring, unsure as how to respond to that.  She found her voice after it took yet another bite of the fruit, seemingly content to wait and watch for her reaction.  “Ye say that, but somehow I’m convinced this ‘favor’ oh yourn tis goin t’look more like barter.”

Kail favored her with a deceptively casual shrug, she had seen it used more than a few times when this thing was a younger boy.  It meant simply that the can of worms went deeper than you thought, Kail was only showing you the surface.  Still she found herself listening to what it had to say.  “Tis an opportunity, and we elder salts know there ent no pay without a little pain.” It said, then it leaned in close. “But what pain wouldn’t be worth bein able t’have a night’s kip without havin nightmares oh Tseng?”

Hannah had known this would concern the old man, had prepared herself for it when she had seen Kail sitting at her family’s table.  Yet still when she heard his name spoken aloud, she felt the small hairs on her arm try to crawl skyward.  She wasn’t as superstitious as the rest of her peers, but she was almost certain that was one of those names that echoed back to the ears of its owner.  “Twenty years tis a long time t’hold a grudge boy, what makes ye even think he’s still about?”

For the first time, Hannah saw the cheer on Kail’s face roll back like the tides, leaving behind a very naked and raw anger still as fresh as that night so long ago.  It’s words were clipped and under control, but only clearly from a small lifetime of tempering them to be so.  “This tisn’t about a grudge, this tis about finishin what we started.  N’iffin yer old bones ent tellin ye that he’s still out there, then yer a better liar than I am.”

She couldn’t help but snort at the hypocrisy, and made to rise from the table. “There ye are callin me a liar, but yer about t’split down the middle fer a chance t’get at him.  Not about a grudge my arse.  Yer about t’get a whole bunch oh folk killed chasin a ghost, n”I fer one ain’t…”

Something landed on the table between the two of them, dropping with a strange permanence that suggested nothing but someone picking it up would ever move it from that spot.  Kail had fished it out a pocket and tossed it on the table, Hannah stared as the world seemed to twist about the small thing.  At first glance it was a gemstone, a tear drop of a strange opalescence, without a single facet to suggest a jeweler’s tools had ever touched it.  It was in her hand before she told herself to pick it up, and she was drawing it closer for her old eyes to see.  She had to be sure.  She dimly heard Kail’s slow growl of a voice somewhere in the distance, but she simply didn’t have the room in her head to listen as she slowly became lost in the folds of light beneath the gem’s surface.  There it was...that oily sheen was as sure a signature of Tseng’s hand as any lord’s seal.  Steeling herself, she tore the gem from her gaze and set it back on the table.  She turned her weary eyes upon Kail, and asked it...asked him, she would have to get used to that idea now if they would be working together.  “Where?” 

He took a flask out one of those many pockets and passed it across the table to her, she gratefully took it and availed herself of the burning contents.  “I took it from a gunship I had t’scuttle back in Ala Mhigo.” He said “ Twas with a bit oh correspondence that suggests the captain was one oh Tseng’s.”

Hannah froze in mid sip, a horrible thought occurring to her.  “He ent workin with the Imperials is he?”

To her relief, Kail shook his head.  “He eats and breathes hate fer them, he’d slit his own throat afore it came to that.  Slipping a few pawns in their ranks and absconding with some of their resources though?”

She nodded in reply, it was a move that was just as much a signature of the old man as the sheen in the stone.  Kail was right, Tseng wasn’t just alive, he had a hand in the world stage.  Despite all the time that had passed, all the good she had done in the years between, she had helped him do so.  There was only one reply to that.  “What do ye need from me?”

  Kail removed the gem from the table, reaching for it with all the care one handles a snake. “I know how t’get Tseng’s attention.  To do that though...I’ll need t’sail into the Teeth.”

Hannah winced at the thought.  Far out to the east in the Sea of Glass were a set of islands known to sailors as the Seven Maws. As sailors were both poetic and original, they called the barrier of razor sharp obsidian glass that surrounded the islands the Teeth.  It was inaccessible from the air as the obsidian apparently carried trace amounts of aether, this aether caused a perpetual lightning storm to crackle over the islands.  Any airship that tried to pass through it was ripped apart by enough bolts to give even Raiden the Storm Father pause.  On the flip side however, to try and sail through the Teeth by way of the water was no task for the faint of heart.  Hannah could count on one hand the number of Captains who had told her they had sailed through the Teeth and that she believed.  Kail wasn’t one of them. “So what are ye talkin t’me fer?  Ye need the best navigator ye can lay hands on.  That ent me.”

“Well..” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’ve a navigator already in mind, but I think he’s not of the mind t’accept iffin I’m the one doin the offerin.”

Hannah felt her mouth set into a grimace, here it came. “Why?”

“I sort of ...broke his leg and killed half his crew.”

In the swollen, pregnant, and morning sick silence that followed; Hannah wondered if she could break one of Sarah’s clay jars over Kail’s head without giving her daughter-in-law cause to carry out her earlier threat.  In the end she eschewed the fantasy to continue the conversation. “So yer the bastard Toumgara is swearing up and down the docks he’s going to murder at his earliest opportunity.” 

“T’be fair, he started it, and I ent the only one t’thank fer given him a black eye.”  If Hannah didn’t know any better, there was a fond tone in his voice as he said it.  

“Regardless how the feck do ye expect me t’smooth things oer?” She asked “Toum’s young enough t’still be floatin on his pride, he wouldn’t sail fer ye without a good reason.”

Kail took a sip from his flask, which she never remembered handing back to him.  “He also loves the old stories, and by extension the old crews that helped make them.  I don’t think ye could smooth things oer, but I think Hatchet Hannah could.”  He said, giving her a significant glance that seemed to pierce straight through what she had been building the past twenty years, and to the solid steel tool thrust through the strings of her apron.  She had to put effort into not flinching away from that. With a smirk sharp enough to cut oneself on he added. “Iffin that doesn’t work, tell him there’s treasure involved, that allus works.”  

Hannah blinked as he started to rise from her table, not even waiting for her answer.  She didn’t want to ask...but there was still that small part of her that roared for rolling waves, and sheets full of the southern winds, so she did. “Is there?”

Kail’s face didn’t shift an iota beyond that smirk as he rose, when he stood straight however...he winked at her...or was it a blink?  He left without another word.  She sat there staring at the bowl of pears in the middle of the table, not really sure what she would do now.  After a few moments Sigmund came into the kitchen, herding Juniper and telling her that no she couldn’t have a fox of her own, he didn’t care how cute the other one had been.  Hannah watched them, and knew, sure as spring was coming, that if she didn’t fix this, Sigmund would find out...and he would take it upon himself to do what she couldn’t.  So when her son sat down in the seat that her past had been warming, and asked her what had happened.  She didn’t answer, she just grabbed a pear from the bowl, and took a bite.  

[valhallanrose]

What the Water Gave Me

In which Astoria unleashes something they cannot put back.

Astoria is nonbinary, and uses she/they pronouns interchangeably. 

3.2k words. CW for discussions of blood. Also spiders. Fuck those. 

Fic Title: What the Water Gave Me by Florence + The Machine

Lashes fluttering and a groan passing her lips, Astoria stirred in a darkened space, light beaming in from overhead and passing through the dust that they had kicked up from their fall. It swirled lazily above their head, settling on their clothes and making them sneeze the longer they laid there. 

Where were they…?

As they carefully shifted each limb, assessing and determining they hadn’t broken anything - though their ass had certainly taken a hell of a hit when they fell, since their pack cushioned the rest of the blow. They began to work their way through the last things they remembered before they found themselves very much not on the surface they had started the day on - 

Ah, right. 

Astoria had been traveling with their grandmother into the Bulan mountain range with a few other archaeologists, and they decided to split up to grid out the areas of interest that they would spend the next few weeks investigating. And despite being the youngest of the group at a mere sixteen, they’d insisted they could map out a portion of the valley, given permission hesitantly by Granny with many, many promises that they would be careful and not stray past where they’d been told to go. 

And then they fell directly into a hole within the first ten minutes, as well as knocking themself out for a little while as the cherry on top. 

Lovely. 

Sighing heavily, Astoria got to their feet, assessing the broken wood around them and turning it over in their hands with a critical eye. Granny Myrna had always taught them to be observant, after all, and the glasses weren’t just for show.

“So this was probably...a wooden door or panel of some kind, and the grass grew over it over time...no wonder. Shit’s so rotted I doubt it would hold a sparrow.” They mused, dusting their shirt off with one hand in hopes of cleaning off a corner large enough to wipe off the lenses of their glasses. “But why...?”

They blinked a few times, shielding their eyes with one hand to try and adjust to the darkness, before audibly gasping and taking a few steps out of the light. 

A tunnel, lined with stone to create a long-standing hallway that led further into the darkness. It smelled...musty, and damp, and there was definitely some sort of fungus growing on the walls, but to Astoria, it might as well have been bricked with solid gold. And as much as they wanted to explore now, the right thing to do was to wait, because she didn’t have half the equipment she needed to go on a deep survey of the area that she should have - so with a resigned sigh, they turned around to assess the other side of the space. 

A ladder was secured to the wall, and Astoria took a few steps closer, placing one foot on the lower rung in hopes that maybe it had been spared the effects of time - 

Nope. 

As soon as they placed one foot on the rung of the ladder and lifted themself up to climb to the next, the first rung crackled and snapped under her weight, making her yelp as she fell the short distance back down to the ground. 

Slowly, Astoria groaned, letting their head fall back and assessing the fact that the opening they’d fallen through was still a good three feet out of reach - meaning they were very much stuck in that hole. 

With a resigned sigh, Astoria kicked aside a few pieces of broken wood and sat themself firmly in the patch of light they had in hopes that it would make her easier to find. It might take a while, but...well, they were patient, and they’d been smart enough to at least pack a book into their satchel. So, they did just that, pulling open the covers and burying her nose between the pages as she began to wait.

And wait...

And wait...

And wait. 

The sun passed overhead and cast shadows down into Astoria’s patch of light, moving across the sky as she let herself get lost in stories of kings and queens and knights of the round table until she couldn’t read the lines on each page no matter how hard she squinted. 

They tipped their head back and startled slightly at the realization that the sky was no longer clear blue, but painted with rosy hues and streaks of violet, meaning the sun was already dipping well below the horizon. And...they were still stuck, in this hole, with no way out. 

Already they could feel their chest beginning to tighten as they quickly tucked their book away and got to their feet. 

They hadn’t heard anyone calling, nor had anyone actually looked into the pit...and it was getting dark, which usually was the time everyone settled in to camp. But if they hadn’t come for her...maybe something had happened to them, too. 

No. No, she couldn’t panic, couldn’t let her nerves get the best of her. If waiting wasn’t working, she’d just have to find her own way out. Rationally, if this were some kind of building or structure, it was more than likely that there would have been more than one entry or exit point. The point where she fell in was one, so...perhaps there was another way out somewhere else. And if the structure was too small, maybe she’d find something to at least boost her out of this damn hole. 

They reached for their satchel, unhooking the small oil lantern that swung from the side and digging around for the matches they’d buried beneath god knows what in said bag. The key turned once, twice...and then the lantern sparked to life, illuminating a small space around Astoria with a comforting amber glow. 

They raised the lantern higher, the light dancing on the lenses of her glasses for a moment before they looked beyond the flame. 

In the daylight, the tunnel had seemed ripe for exploration, its shadows beckoning to Astoria’s sense of curiosity and practically begging her to venture deeper. But now, when the light was dying overhead...something settled heavily in their cut, making them wonder if they were truly making the right decision. 

But they had to try. If nothing else, they had to try. 

Squaring their shoulders and taking a deep breath, Astoria nodded to themself, blowing a few strands of hair out of their eyes as they took the first step forward.

“Right. Here we go.”

*     *     *     *     *

The complex was certainly bigger than they’d accounted for. 

At the first turn, they’d dug into their back for a charcoal pencil, making a small mark on the stone wall to indicate which way they’d come. One turn led to another, then to another, long halls melting into winding staircases they took with great care to make sure they didn’t eat rocks on the way up. But no matter how far they went, it seemed that they found more to explore, and not necessarily the exit they wanted. They’d thought continuing up would mean more chances of finding one, but...it seemed luck was not with them. 

They sighed heavily as they marked another corner, considering now that the smart thing to do would be to turn back and go back to where they started to keep from getting lost, but...the idea of giving up also left something bitter in Astoria’s mouth. 

One more turn, they decided, and then they’d make their way back. If they didn’t find an exit then, that’d be the end of their exploration for the night. They needed rest, and tomorrow would be another day. 

Astoria turned left, the only sounds to accompany her being the quiet crackling of the wick and the heels of her boots thumping on stone as she made her way down another long hallway. She came to another intersection a few moments later, huffing to herself as she realized that she was getting nowhere, and was about to turn on her heel and walk back when a crosswind came whirling down the hall behind her. 

Astoria froze mid-stride, head whipping back to listen and hair flying away from her face as she stepped into the crosswind’s path. 

Wind...underground. Which meant there was an opening somewhere nearby, which probably was what let the wind in and funneled it down the hallway she now stood in. Hope rising in their throat, they quickly set off down the hall, walking into the wind before breaking into a full sprint to find the source of the wind. 

The hall seemed endless in those few moments but eventually, it dumped Astoria into what she thought for a moment was a cavern, but the longer she looked...she realized it was a sort of rotunda. Or chamber, perhaps? It was wide, with a domed ceiling, the whole room seemingly centered around an oculus carved into the ceiling and angled to allow ample visibility to see the moon. The room was...strange, certainly, but she wasn’t too focused on the shape. 

As she stepped inside, something gleamed under the light of her lantern, making her step closer to the wall and raise the light closer with a critical eye - only to nearly drop her lantern at the same rate as her jaw. 

Gold leaf, somehow spared the effects of time, painstakingly laid over armor of warriors from ages past. Their weapons were raised, and the movement of Astoria’s light revealed they were frozen in conflict with enemies in silver-plated armor to their gold and swords to their spears. Slowly, they began to walk the rotunda’s upper platform, guiding their light across its surface to take in the scenes before them. 

They passed mosaics of bloody battlefields, burning villages, bodies aflame or decrepit with illness unknown - passed images of priests and priestesses mid-prayer to animal-headed figures that seemed to give no mercy, and then…

Astoria stopped at one of the murals, raising their lantern higher to try and take it all in even as it stretched far above their head. 

Before, the animal headed figures had been those of foxes and owls, serpents and stags, but...this one was a goat. A dual set of obsidian horns rose up from its white-furred head, eyes crimson and face marked with black - for some reason, despite its unfamiliarity, it sent a chill down Astoria’s spine. 

They guided the lantern down, revealing a black stole and a crimson stained throne where the goat-headed figure sat in profile, gazing down upon a person kneeling prone before them. Idly Astoria recognized the similar headdress to those of the priests and priestesses in an earlier panel, but the distinctive features were rubbed away, the only victim to time that they’d found thus far. Astoria moved the lantern again, only to pause when the light cast a long shadow over part of the mural they stood before. 

Astoria moved the lantern back, watching the shadow move until their eyes fell upon the skull embedded in the wall, placed in the distorted figure’s raised hands in offering to the goat-headed one. They let out a noise of contemplation as their fingers brushed over the edges of the skull, feeling where the back portion of the skull had been embedded into the wall - 

Only to scream loudly and nearly throw her lantern down as a spider crawled from the bleached eye socket and crawled over her fingertips when they passed down the bridge of the skull’s nose. 

“Bloody spiders!” They yelped, swiping their hands over their arms, their legs, every inch of their body that they could reach. “Useful you might be, but you eight-legged bastards can fuck right back off to the hell you came from, crawling all over like that.”

Skulls were familiar. She’d been in plenty of burial mounds and crypts by then, knew the value of human bones for what insight they could provide to the scholar studying civilizations long since turned to dust. Bugs and similar creatures were also familiar and a topic of interest, but that didn’t mean she was perfectly okay with them popping out of nowhere and scaring the living daylights out of her. 

They huffed, bangs flying up out of their face as they tried to settle themself, then gasped as they looked down toward the lantern at their feet.

“Oh, no, no no no - god damn it.” She muttered, using a booted foot to nudge the glass about as she assessed the damages and winced as the fragments crunched under the soles of her boots. It was completely shattered, unsalvageable by all accounts, which meant...which meant she had no light to lead her back the way she came. 

The last embers flickered and died on the wick as it laid against the stone, and Astoria found herself plunged into near complete darkness. 

Though full and bright, the moon did not cast enough light from where it shone through the oculus for them to truly understand where they were. They carefully reached for the stairs that would lead them down into the ‘pit’ they’d seen before but not observed, thinking perhaps they could find something wood to ignite - their preservationist heart cried at the idea of destroying a possible artifact, but this was a matter of survival - something somewhat forgivable in their own perspective, but that didn’t mean they had to be happy about it. 

Feeling their way down the steps and around the ledges, they searched for something, anything made of wood, growing more and more frustrated as they found only clay and stone and tile - only to jump and yelp when they took another step down and liquid splashed up their calves and soaked into their boots. 

Once she got over the surprise, Astoria let out a laugh, plunging her hands into the water beneath her feet and letting it flow between her fingers in the dark. She thought that the oculus must have allowed for the rainfall to gather, and the water had no smell, meaning it probably wasn’t stagnant or otherwise gross...and for a moment, everything seemed like it would be alright. 

Astoria didn’t notice the way the room seemed to shift as she plunged her hands in again, hundreds of stone eyes boring into the back of her neck as her sleeves became drenched and her boots finally flooded with the weight of the water she now stood in. A smile pulling up the corners of her lips, she raised cupped hands to her lips and drank deeply from the water in her palms - 

She wasn’t sure why it took her a few moments to process, in hindsight, but she knew from the moment the water passed her lips that something was very wrong. 

It was the copper tang, first, quickly overtaking Astoria’s senses to fill their mouth with the taste of hot iron rather than the cool water they’d been expecting. They choked, clasping hands over their mouth to try and keep the quickly rising bile down, but everything burned. Their eyes filled with tears as they tried to stumble out of the pool, collapsing on the edge as searing pain in their chest sapped them of strength. 

They fought for consciousness for what felt like hours, blinking up at the moon through a haze of tears, realizing that something in the water must have been toxic and they’d been so stupid as to drink without thinking - and now they were fairly certain they were going to die.

You are so much younger than those who came before you.

Astoria tried to lift their head, but an unseen hand smoothed across their hair, coaxing them into relaxing again as their hand found the person’s and squeezed tightly in desperation to hold onto something, anything that might help keep them grounded as it felt like fire licked across every inch of their skin. 

“Help me.” They breathed, tears trickling down their cheeks. “Please...please, help me.”

The pain will ease soon, little one. It always does. But I cannot help you - the only way out of this is through it now. 

Astoria was about to try and ask what they meant before the heat intensified, searing behind her eyes and making their lungs feel as if they were melting in their chest. The scream that passed their lips as their back arched up off the stone to a near breaking point was so shrill they could hardly hear it in their own ears, thrashing violently but unable to move as it felt as if two hands pressed down with bruising force on the slopes of their shoulders - 

And then there was nothing, only the pitch-black nothingness of merciful unconsciousness that came to claim them as they lay in the pool. 

*     *     *     *     *

When Astoria awoke again, their eyes met the clear blue sky for a few moments before the tear-streaked face of Myrna leaned into their view and pulled them heartily into a near crushing embrace. 

“Oh, thank the gods.” Myrna breathed, her fingers smoothing over Astoria’s tousled hair. “You’re alright, my darling, you’re alright. You’re safe now.”

“Who…?” Astoria managed, but Myrna shook her head, pulling back to look them in the eye and give their shoulders a squeeze. 

“Not now. Rest. We’ll talk about it later, I promise, but...I’m sure you’ve had a very, very long few days.”

Myrna pulled Astoria in again, whispering prayers in their native tongue to all who might listen, but their eyes had fallen to their lap - to the ruddy brown stains on their clothes and dried blood caked into the folds of fabric, the creases of their hands, even the ends of their hair that they could see out of the corners of their eyes. They turned their head, spotting the bruises peeking out from under the collar of their shirt, realizing with a tremor of terror that the crushing feeling hadn’t been their imagination. 

And granny said a few days...days? How could she not remember a single thing after what happened at the pool, not remember how she’d found her way back out or how the others had found her? 

A familiar voice, sweet as honey and deep as a river all at once, rose up from the depths of her mind as if in answer to a question she was too afraid to voice. 

It would have done our partnership no good if you were to perish in the labyrinth. And how I have longed to breathe the mountain air again…

The voice chuckled, stroking a loving hand down her mind as if to ease her into slumber. Her lashes fluttered, and Astoria felt themself fighting sleep they did not want.

It has been...so long since another has taken the boon. In time, I will answer your questions, but for now...all you need know is that you may call me Agrippa.

And as Astoria unwillingly fell into slumber again, one thought prevailed on their mind, even when the world fell away and dreams rose up to catch them - 

What had they done?

[addercharmer]

The mall was oddly empty for a Friday afternoon, Izumi was stupidly glad. 

Making her way to the center fountain, Izumi keeps her eyes searching for one of her friends' hair colors. 

Sky blue was the first she saw already standing by the fountain. Kayama had walked up to the blue haired boy at the same time as Izumi did. 

"Hiya!" She chirped once she was within hearing range. 

"Hey, thanks for the help. I have no idea what to get a six year old boy." Izumi greets and thanks them again. 

"Six?" Shirakumo asks, he looks deep in thought. 

"Un, six. He has wings so I figure he needs a full sized bed at least, and if he has any bird-like instincts a lot of blankets." Izumi explains a little more. 

"Yo, yo, yo." Yamada announces his arrival in his new favorite fashion, Izumi is just waiting for him to start calling everyone 'listeners'. 

Aizawa is right behind Yamada, his eyes zero in on Izumi's empty hands. "I thought I said bring coffee." He grumbles. 

"I figured you would want fresh hot coffee, we can get that first." Izumi plasates her hands raised in a sign of surrender. 

The glare she gets in return would have made her shrink in on herself if not for the uptick of the corner of Aizawa's mouth. 

With a sigh Izumi looks around quickly and starts making her was to the coffee house she sees just to the left of where they are. 

"So coffee, then a furniture store, a home store for the blankets and pillows, then maybe a toy store?" Izumi asks her friends. 

"No clothes?" Kayama asks. 

"I've never seen him so I will have to go out for those tomorrow, maybe you could come again?" Izumi half asks. "I have terrible fashion sense, like most of my clothes are bought by dad." She admits. 

Behind her Izumi can hear Shirakumo and Aizawa snort. 

"You aren't much better." Yamada tells the pair as he passes them to walk next to Izumi. 

"I can help tomorrow." He tells her as they cross into the coffee house. 

Izumi is the first to the counter, she orders herself a caramel frozen coffee and indicates to the barista that she was paying for the rest of the group. 

Drinks in hand the five teens make there way to a furniture store that advertised that they specialized in physical mutation needs. 

Izumi was a little awed at what she saw, there were nests, and wet beds, and beds made extra sturdy. 

She automatically made her way over to the beds that looked like giant shallow bowls. It took a few moments for a salesperson to make their way over. 

"Can I help you?" A woman who had large horns that curled at the side of her head much like a mountain goats' asked. 

"My dad is adopting a boy with wings. We need a bed." She tells the salesperson bluntly. "I just want to see what each mattress is made of before I choose." 

Izumi steps away from the woman and reaches for the information card of the first bowl like bed. She takes time to read the ten options as her friends lay in each of them to judge which feels better. 

It's the first one she had seen that she picked had an inside made of gel and memory foam, it would be best to offer support no matter Hawks preferred sleeping position. 

Aizawa and Kayama both agreed that it was the most comfortable, where Yamada and Shirakumo both argued that the one that was simply weaved fabric was the most comfortable. 

Taking the ordering card she stops by a dark cherry wood bed frame and matching desk, picking up the cards for those as well. Izumi makes her way to the check out. 

"Can I have these rush delivered before seven tonight?" Izumi asks as the three items are being rung up. 

"It will be an extra charge of one hundred dollars." The horned woman tells her. 

"Okay." Izumi agrees, Nezu hadn't given her a limit, he had just said not to go overboard. 

Izumi takes the delivery form and fills it out quickly, she then swipes Nezu's credit card with a pleased hum. 

As she's gathering with the others to leave she spots an ash wood dining table, quickly she grabs the information cards and runs back to the check out. 

The transaction complete without the rush delivery Izumi makes her way out of the store to where the others are waiting. 

"Sorry, we didn't have a dining room at the old house." She tells them. 

"Old house? Did you move?" Shirakumo asks and Izumi looks at him before she remembers that she hadn't told them yet. 

"Yeah, dad had our stuff moved during the festival. He bought this huge place on Sakura Ave." She shares the news. "Us getting the baby bird was riding on my being a medalist in the festival." 

The three boys' faces suddenly look horror stricken at the revelation, and Kayama looks extremely sad. 

"The commission is evil." Izumi deadpans, before she grabs Kayama's wrist to link their arms at the elbow. 

"So, are we close enough to use first names now that you know I'm getting a little brother?" She asks the group, using their last names asked he feel a little like they are her teachers still. 

"Izumi-chan!" Nemuri and Oboro both shout at the same time. 

"I was already using it, Izumi-chan." Hizashi points out. 

Shōta grumbles under his breath but his cheeks are pink and he nods. 

Izumi bounces as she walks into the home store, she's happy she's got friends. 

Looking around the entrance of the store Izumi spots signs hanging over their heads and pointing to where they should be able to find what they are looking for. 

Arm still linked with Nemuri she starts off towards the bedroom designated area. 

"I think we should split up." She suggests. "Nemuri and Oboro, would you guys look for some pillows, I think maybe two regular sized, one body sized, and maybe four smaller ones in fun shapes?" 

The two of them link their own arms and skip off towards where the pillows are. "Don't forget to grab sheets and pillow cases." Izumi shouts after them. 

Feeling bold, Izumi links arms with both Hizashi and Shōta Izumi all but drags them over to the blankets. 

The three of them spend half an hour testing each blanket for softness, and weight. By the end they had seven blankets picked out, two were weighted blankets that weren't supposed to hold heat but still give the needed weight, Izumi had selected one for herself as well. The other five blankets were a variety Of different fluffiness and thickness, Izumi's favorite was a pastel green that was the second softest thing she had ever held. 

Nemuri and Oboro still hadn't found them so Izumi was quick to text and ask where they were. 

The group of three found the two sitting in the middle of an isle debating the best fabrics for the sheets, Izumi laughed at them as Shōta joined in arguing for and against them both. 

Looking at what they had pulled off the shelves Izumi grabbed two that were a high thread count, one black and one gray, then she picked up a jersey knit set in a sky blue. 

Holding the packages tight to her chest she picked up one of the small pillows on the ground and tossed it at Shōta hitting him in the chest with a thump. 

"Come on guys, toy store next, you can each pick out two things for him." She tells them, trying not to feel like a parent negotiating with children. 

With Hizashi carrying one weighted blanket and five fluffy ones, Shōta carrying her weighted blanket and the body pillow, it left Nemuri and Oboro to gather up the six smaller pillows makes for a comical sight as they make their way to the registers. 

Choosing to buy reusable fabric bags for the purchase, Izumi let's the boys in their group carry everything to the last stop of the day, once there they grab two carts to give everyone free hands, and a place to put their choices. 

Each broke off in seperate directions at first, but then all of the gravitated to the area that held the stuffed animals. 

Izumi herself had chosen a pack of puzzles that would hopefully be fun but challenge Hawks mind before she went and selected a green bunny that's fur was surprisingly close to her hair, and a white bear that looked the closest she could find to Nezu. 

The others had all grabbed games that could be played with others, but the stuffed animal choices were what had Izumi grinning. Shōta had chosen a black cat, Nemuri had chosen a classic brown otter, Oboro and chosen a purple octopus, and Hizashi had chosen a bright eye searing yellow bird. 

After paying Izumi checked the time, it was only five-thirty.

Looking back at her friend she quickly asked. "Wanna come over for dinner? Maybe help me build the bed?"

Four agreements later of different levels of energy had Izumi grabbing three of the six bags of toys, leaving the others to sort the rest out themselves until they got outside and called a taxi. She made her way to the entrance of the mall that she had originally come from. 

Against Izumi's usual luck there is a taxi large enough for all of them already sitting curb side, knocking on the window with her free hand she catches the driver's attention. They open the back of the van once they catch sight of Izumi and unlocks the doors as the others load up the back.

"Thank you, we are going to seven-two-eight Sakura Ave South." Izumi says as she climbs into the front seat. 

The four teens in the back are all arguing loudly with each other on what they should order for dinner, Izumi figures that in the end they will order pizza. 

"Damn." Oboro says as they pull up to the house. 

Silently Izumi agrees, outwardly she says. "It's big because we have some people that are going to need a new place to live soon." 

Unloading everything from the back of the taxi goes just about as well as loading did, each of the boys fighting over who would take the heaviest things, Izumi just rolled her eyes as she paid the driver. 

Izumi is the first to make it to the door and opens it only to stop and carefully listen for any noise that would let her know if someone is home. 

It's all quiet, and Izumi is pretty happy that she still has a little time, she knows that the commission is in Tokyo, and it's about an hour and a half drive from UA where Nezu had to stop to get his specially designed car. 

That alone meant three hours of travel time, and Izumi thought that the commission was going to drag their feet as long as they possibly could. She would need to order enough food for Nezu and 'Keigo'. 

All four teens finally in the house Izumi led them to the second level and into the empty room. 

Earlier when she had noted the dimensions of the room she hadn't paid attention to the wall or carpet color, but she was happy to see that the carpet was a dark chocolate brown, and that three of the four walls were such a light brown they almost looked cream, the fourth wall was a dark green that without a light on Izumi guess it would look black. 

They all piled the bags in one corner of the room to keep it mostly out of the way to get the furniture set up. 

Half way down the stairs Izumi felt like hitting herself. 

"We forgot a desk chair and curtains." She said and brought her hand to slap her forehead. 

"Shit." Nemuri said and pouted. 

"Get them tomorrow." Shōta told her as he pinched his nose. "You promised food."

Getting everyone situated in the living room took some shuffling, Izumi had asked the boys to move the couches into Nezu's prefered position of ninety degrees of each other with the one that looked more used facing the window. Izumi then pushed the coffee table parallel to the window as well. 

"Sorry no T.V but we do have my laptop and a project." She told them preemptively, ash she dug around in the box labeled electronics. 

Making a squeak of triumph when she pulled out the box that they always kept the projector and all its cables in. 

She drops it carefully on the coffee table and then runs up the stairs again to grab her laptop out of the same lockbox that her phone was in. 

Back in the living room again she hears the same argument from in the taxi about food, with a sigh of resignation she sits herself infront of the coffee table, situates her laptop on its serface and opens it up to load. 

Once the password window opens she has Nemuri looking over her shoulder, she's greatful that it's a current hero's quirk that she needs to match the name with and not the name of someone from her original hero class. 

"What's that?" The other girl asks.

"Oh, dad had me write my own password program, it shows a picture related to a hero's quirk and then I have to put in the hero name for the password." Izumi explains simply. 

"Huh, can you do that on anything?" Shōta asks from where he is now leaning over Nemuri to see better.

"Yea, I have something similar to it on my phone, that one makes me put in the date and time according to the twenty-four hour clock." Izumi explains and shows them what she means. 

All of them look interested in the program on her phone and if they ask Izumi is willing to put the program on their devices. 

"Anyway, food. I want to make sure we have enough for dad and the baby bird. Dad likes cheese pizza when we order out, and I think the profile I saw said that Keigo likes fried chicken." Izumi says as she pulls up the webpage for Nezu's prefered pizza place. 

"Oh, I'll eat cheese pizza!" Nemuri says with a happy smile on her lips. 

"Pepperoni." Is Shōta input. 

"Cheese!" Hizashi almost slips into his quirk but Shōta quickly looks at the blond with his own active. 

"Pepperoni." Oboro yells, throwing his hands in the air. 

"So two large cheese, two large pepperoni, and sixty boneless wings sauce on the side." Izumi says as she clicks on their chosen meals adding sauces all in the mild range. "It will be here soon." 

"So what movie are we watching?" Hizashi asks the group. 

"Prequirk or post quirk?" Izumi asks them, she personally preferred prequirk, especially when it came to thrillers or animated movies. 

"Prequirk." Shōta demands when the others are silent. Izumi grins at the boy, she's going to put on a thriller. 

"Kiss the girls, it is!" She announces not giving them any choice. 

A few clicks later she has the movie ready to play, and she's connecting the projector and linking it up against the wall kiddy corner to the window. 

Looking over her shoulder she then skips over to the window to cover the half closest to the wall. 

Getting back to where she was originally sitting, Izumi started the movie. 

"You want to know all about me don't you?"  

The voice of a male actor filled the room. 

It didn't take long for the four others in the room to lose themselves in the movie, all of them silent.

It was eight when the others left, giving themselves enough time to reach their own homes before it was dark. 

And it was around nine when Nezu and Keigo got to the house, the bed and desk had been delivered and assembled by the delivery team at six-thirty leaving the small group of teens with nothing to assemble. 

"Izumi, we're home." Nezu calls as he opens the door. 

"Welcome home!" Izumi calls back from the living room where she is working on unpacking all their books after she did her best to set up Keigo's room, even using one of her own sheets as a makeshift curtain. 

When Nezu makes his way into the room he is trailed by the most adorable little boy she had ever seen. 

"Keigo, this is Izumi." Nezu says gently. 

Izumi dropped to her knees to be at eye level. "Hi Keigo, it's nice to meet you." She says slowly and carefully. 

"H-hi." The little blond whispers, she sounds scared but oh so hopeful. 

Izumi opens her arms slowly and carefully before asking. "Can I ha:?" 

Keigo doesn't wait for her to finish the question before he throws himself in her arms. Izumi rubs one hand in slow circles on his lower back as her other cards through his hair. 

"Welcome home Keigo." Izumi says again just to make the boy understand in some way that this is his home now. 

Keigo refuses to let go of her even as he eats the chicken she had ordered for him, his eyes light up with pure glee on the first bite and he inhales the rest one handed, the other tangled in Izumi's shirt with a healthy helping of hair as well. 

Izumi smiles at the boy as he falls asleep, she's careful when she lifts him and carries him up the stairs. The only problem was that he had a death grip on her shirt and hair, no matter how she tried he wouldn't let go. 

With a sigh Izumi gave up and picked the winged little boy back up and took him to her room. It was an awkward ten minutes as she balanced Keigo in one arm and wiggled out of her jeans and then into a pair of pajama pants. 

Izumi felt another flash or rage at the commission at the same time she was also grateful, the only clothes that Keigo had arrived with was two sets of child sized white scrubs. They would be comfortable to sleep in but they were not something she would ever put a child in daily.

With more careful maneuvering Izumi crawled into bed and the shifted Keigo so he was laying with his chest diagonally across her own, his wings spread out making a blanket of their own for Izumi, even as she pulled one over his back as well. 

"Sleep well my rosefinch." She whispered into the mess of blond fluff that was Keigo's hair. 

[keplercryptids]

2, 12, 22, 23, 29 for mahety; 16, 17, 18, 25, 29 for z'ress

2. would your character carry around a tiny bath and body works hand sanitizer? if yes, would it have a specific scent?

yeah probably and something flowery, idk scents, mahety has a constitution that i do NOT have.

12. how loudly do they cry?

loudly, i think! like, assuming she’s full-on crying and not just, teary. mahety’s not afraid to let those sobs out lol, it’s good for you!

(answered 22 already!)

23. what's the pettiest thing your character's ever done?

oh god, probably just her overall tendency to tell embarrassing stories about z’ress to people he’s clearly trying to impress right when she meets them fdjskalfjsakl. listen, mahety can be very petty and has probably done way worse to marks etc, especially if they’re too stupid to realize they’re being conned, but her tendency to embarrass z’ress is just fun.

29. is there an artist whose style you associate with your character? (visual or otherwise; poets and musicians, etc. count)

oooooh. hmm. because i’m insane and keep track of such things, i do know that mary oliver and nizar qabbani are two poets with big mahety vibes. i also think she would love beyonce, if beyonce existed in sirona.

16. what does getting flustered look like for your character?

z’ress gets clumsy. starts dropping shit, which doesn’t normally happen to him lol. he also stops being able to have a comeback, which is ALSO unusual for him. just turns into a big bi disaster in general.

17. does your character have to glance at their hands to remember left and right?

omg yes, please let’s give z’ress a version of my “doesn’t know the difference between east and west” problem. legends only.

18. does your character have stuffed animals? would they if they could? what kind?

nah. z’ress didn’t, like, grow up with sentimental toys or anything he was allowed to keep, and it’s not something he’s felt drawn to as an adult. which is ironic since he 100% draws comfort from certain objects. i just don’t think he’s ever translated that to “oh, i should have soft objects that are nice to hold, instead of sharp metal tools and a book” lol.

(i answered 25 for z’ress and it destroyed me)

29. is there an artist whose style you associate with your character? (visual or otherwise; poets and musicians, etc. count)

again, because i’m insane, i know that ocean vuong, danez smith and ada limon are poets with big z’ress vibes. there are also a ton of songs i associate with z’ress but not from like...z’ress’s perspective, if that makes sense? like, i don’t know if z’ress would listen to the oh hellos or the mountain goats but both have 100% written songs about him lmao.

[drinkthepoisonedchalice]

Sacrifice

This ficlet was written in response to @writethisacc on twitter’s Halloween prompt “sacrifice”

    Jimin had to admit, he rather liked Jeongguk’s habit of suddenly appearing in his bed. Usually he would show up when Jimin was lazing about in his mountain of pillows, hands immediately seeking skin, rousing Jimin from his doze and demanding his attention. Jimin wasn’t in his bed this time though, but rather was sat at his vanity applying a deep purple smokey eye when Jeongguk popped into existence, fully dressed for once in his preferred style of black leather and clunky boots, perched on the edge of Jimin's bed.

    “We should go get some coffee,” the demon said by way of greeting. 

    Jimin spared him a glance over his shoulder before reaching for his glitter pallet. “Why, are you tired? What am I saying? You don’t sleep.” Jeongguk met his eyes in the mirror of his vanity, dark and black and bottomless. “I don’t think we have time. The party starts in half an hour. I can make you a cup before we leave.” 

    “You should be careful about the things you give demons. Even an offering like a cup of coffee could be used to tie you to them for life.”

    Jimin snorted. “I gave you a blowjob last night, does that mean I’m eternally bound to you now?”

    Jeongguk looked away, a hint of tongue poking through his cheek as his eyebrows furrowed. “You know I’d bind you to me the moment you let me.”

    Jimin sighed as he stood up. Jeongguk always got fussy like this even though he was the one who persistently brought the topic up. “Sorry, Jeonggukie,” Jimin said as he made his way to stand between the other man’s knees, one hand reaching out to brush one of his curly black locks out of his face, “I much prefer having you show up in my bed to spending the rest of my life as your acolyte running all of your hellish errands.”

    Jeongguk’s hands easily found Jimin’s hips. “Just because you’re my acolyte doesn’t mean I can’t take you to bed,” he growled as he pulled Jimin into his lap. Jimin went willingly, graciously accepting the burning kiss Jeongguk pressed to his lips. “Think of the power, Mimi,” Jeongguk said as his hands wandered down to Jimin’s thighs, squeezing the supple flesh hidden under Jimin’s slacks. “No more hiding in your sister’s shadow. I thought you wanted powers of your very own.”

    Jimin hummed as Jeongguk detoured to press kisses against his jaw, down his neck. “I do. You know I do. I’m just not sure if I want them at the cost of dedicating my short mortal life to being your servant.”

    Jeongguk licked at the base of his neck and Jimin shivered all the way down to his toes. “But you don’t have to be mortal. If I make you mine I get to dictate when you die.”

    Jimin raised an unimpressed eyebrow, but Jeongguk was too busy nosing at his collar to see. “So I get to live until you get bored with me?”

    Finally Jeongguk looked up at him, eyes as black and fathomless as night. “Who said I would get bored of you?”

    Jimin swallowed. It took all of his effort to push at Jeongguk’s shoulders, feet returning to the floor. “Either way, there’s still more I need to learn before I can leave my coven.”

    Jeongguk slouched back against the bed as Jimin returned to his vanity, only holding himself up with his elbows. “How much can you really learn without powers of your own?”

    Jimin shot him a scathing glance in the mirror as he reached for his mascara. “Enough to be able to summon a demon, that’s for sure. Besides, you know my potions need work.”

    Jeongguk sighed and flopped onto his back. “I can teach you potions. You just like to be difficult.” 

    “Or maybe I’m just not ready to leave my coven yet,” Jimin shot back, and even though he couldn’t see it he could practically feel Jeongguk rolling his eyes. 

    “Why are you even dragging me to this party again?”

    Jimin capped his mascara with a smile. “It’s called irony, darling.”

    Jungkook sighed as he pulled one of Jimin’s pillows closer to cradle it against his chest. “I call it boring. It’s Halloween. Let’s go to a haunted house.”

    Now it was Jimin’s turn to roll his eyes as he lightly ran his highlight brush across his cheekbones. “Come on, Jeonggukie. You know tonight is more than just that. Witches have always performed a sacrifice on Samhain. Besides, tonight's party is literally about you. You can’t tell me you’ve never wanted to go to one of these things.”

    “Yeah, I’ve always wanted to see you guys sit in a circle and chant for an hour. Prime time entertainment right here, folks.”

    “You’re such a brat,” Jimin hissed as he snapped his highlight container closed. “Look, we’ll go to my aunt’s house and eat and drink for a few hours, then we’ll cut open a goat and say a few spells and be home in time for me to choke on your dick for twenty minutes before I go to bed.” 

    “Twenty minutes,” Jeongguk scoffed.

    Jimin pouted at his reflection in the mirror. “You know my jaw starts to hurt after too long.”

    Jimin blinked and Jeongguk was leaning over him, hands braced against the vanity desk as he loomed over Jimin, nose trailing down the witch’s cheek. “Then I guess I’ll just have to-”

    Jimin’s bedroom door opened. Jimin turned his head to see his mother standing in the doorway. He didn’t have to look back at the mirror to know that Jeongguk was gone. 

    “Your sister and I are getting ready to leave,” Jimin’s mother said. She looked stunning in her long black dress, the silken fabric hugging her curves, her lips as red as sin. The silver crucifixes hanging from her ears and around her neck matched Jimin’s own. “Will you be riding with us?”

    Jimin shook his head. “No, I’ll be meeting you there.”

    From the twist of his mother’s lips he could tell that she didn’t approve, but she simply shrugged it off. “Don’t be too late.”

    “I won’t,” Jimin promised as the door closed and Jeongguk was back again, his face buried in Jimin’s neck. 

    “Don’t tell me you were expecting to take the bike,” Jeongguk said, muffled into Jimin’s skin.

    “Are you kidding me?” Jimin pushed the demon back so he could stand. “Of course we’re taking the bike.”

    Jimin nearly salivated every time he saw Jeongguk’s Harley. It was sleek and black and sexy and Jimin practically purred along with the engine every time he got to ride it hanging on to Jeongguk’s back. After his mother and sister had left they strolled out to where the bike was conveniently located at the end of their driveway. 

    “So where are we headed tonight?” Jeongguk asked as he threw a leg over the bike, settling comfortably into the leather seat.

    “My aunt Yeojin’s house. She’s the one the sacrifice is for, so she has to host.” Jimin mounted the bike behind Jeongguk, pressing up tight against the demon’s back. Jeongguk didn’t own helmets, which Jimin would have thought was reckless if it wasn’t for what Jeongguk was. 

    “And what is the old witch asking for tonight?” Jeongguk asked as he brought the bike to life underneath them.

    “She wants an heir.” Jimin wound his arms around Jeongguk’s waist and held on tight. “She’s nearly at the age where she won’t be able to have children anymore, and none of her attempts to conceive have turned up. The coven decided that she was old enough to justify asking a demon for help.” 

    Jeongguk looked back at Jimin over his shoulder, his brow furrowed and lips drawn. “Asking for a baby, that’s...that’s a big spell.”

    Jimin just smiled up at him and snuggled closer. “Maybe that’s why they’re asking such a powerful demon.” 

    Jeongguk just shook his head and turned them out of the parking lot. 

    Months ago, Jimin had summoned Jeongguk just to see if he could. He’d believed that he couldn’t, of course, not possessing powers like his mother and sister did, so when Jeongguk had shown up in the middle of the pentagram in Jimin’s basement he'd had no idea what he was actually planning to ask for. Not having thought he would actually get that far, when Jeongguk had asked him what he wanted Jimin had shrugged his shoulders and said, “to get laid, I guess.”

    Jeongguk had smiled and then promptly bent Jimin over the altar and fucked him stupid. Jimin wasn’t really sure why Jeongguk kept coming back after that, but he’d also learned not to question good sex. If sometimes, between rounds, he and Jeongguk let slip bits and pieces about themselves then that was fine too. It was about two months into their arrangement that Jeongguk had pulled himself out of Jimin’s bed after an hour of edging him until he cried, thrown Jimin’s pants at him and told him they were going for coffee. The relationship had progressed from there, to the point where Jimin now had enough sway to drag Jeongguk with him to his aunt’s Halloween party. 

    They were a chatty bunch, his mother’s coven. Half of the night Jimin would be listening to his aunts prattle on about their daughters’ achievements, while the other half would be spent with said daughters on the back porch smoking herb and avoiding their mothers. Nonetheless, Jimin’s wine glass was never empty and his aunt Sowon’s pumpkin spice cake was to die for. Jeongguk behaved himself quite well too, letting the aunts gush over how handsome he was as Jimin took him on a turn about the room. It was his night after all, it only made sense for him to soak up praise from the women about to ask him for a baby. 

    The witching hour was close at hand when Jeongguk finally pulled him in with an arm around his waist and whispered into Jimin’s ear, “if I have to hear about little Hyunmi’s graduation ceremony one more time I’m going to set something on fire.”

    Jimin just patted the demon on the chest. If his count was right, and it probably wasn’t, he was about six glasses of wine into the night and feeling all the lighter for it. When he leaned close to murmur back into Jeongguk’s ear he kept bumping his nose into the other man’s cheek. “Come on, I’ll give you a little preview of tonight’s entertainment.” He then took Jeongguk by the hand and led him out of the main party room, toward the other, deserted end of the house where the door to the basement was located. 

    The ritual area had already been prepared ahead of time, before the party even started. The candles lining the room and adorning the altars had already burned halfway down the wax, the usually barren cement walls covered in deep purple drapery. The center of the room was hollowed out, three steps leading down to the space where they would hang a goat from the ceiling and collect its blood before the entire coven joined together to paint the witch receiving the gift in their sacrifice. Jimin assumed that tonight they would all be painting aunt Yeojin’s womb red. 

    Something was different about tonight’s sacrifice though. Jimin pulled Jeongguk along behind him by the hand as he approached the table set up in the middle of the basement. Where there should be a chain over his head and a bucket at his feet there was instead a table covered in purple silk. 

    “That’s weird,” Jimin said as he began picking at the items on the table, an amethyst encrusted goblet, a set of thick leather restraints. “I’ve never seen the basement like this before.”

    “I don’t think you’ll be sacrificing a goat tonight, Mimi,” Jeongguk said as his eyes roamed over the altars set up around the room. He stepped away to grab a bottle of wine resting among the chunks of amethyst and lavender incense and turned the label for Jimin to see. Jimin knew the vintage. It was aunt Yeojin’s favorite, a potent red that he had been drinking all night. The moment his glass was halfway empty one of his aunts had been filling it back up again. 

    Jimin ran his hand along the edge of the table, away from the goblet and the restraints and the cold silver dagger and towards the layers of purple fabric piled up at the end. He ran his hands across the soft fabric of the jacket, the silkiness of the button up shirt and the cummerbund. It was a suit, the same dark plum color as the rest of the decorations. It was his suit. His mother had bought it for him last month. 

    “No,” Jimin whispered, “they wouldn’t. They-”

    “Tell me, Mimi, as you dragged me here, did it truly never cross your mind that you might be the sacrifice?” 

    When Jimin looked over at Jeongguk the demon met him with calm, steady eyes, a complete contrast to how Jimin’s heart was now jackrabbiting in his chest. “Jeongguk, we need to-”

    The door to the basement opened. Jimin looked up to find his mother standing at the top of the stairs. He didn’t have to look back to know that Jeongguk was gone, he could feel it in the way his chest was caving in on itself, the way he struggled just to breathe. 

    His mother showed her surprise at his presence for just a moment, quickly slipping back into an air of unbothered serenity. “Oh,” she said, “you’re already here. Well, no matter, I suppose we can go ahead and start.”

    “Mother, please,” Jimin took a step back, then another until his back hit the edge of the table, “you don’t have to-”

    With a wave of her fingers his mother’s spell hit him in the chest, and everything went dark.

    When Jimin came to he could feel a hand under his head lifting him up as the rim of a cup touched his lips. Jimin choked as warm liquid rushed into his mouth, his nose and throat burning as he tried to swallow the wine they were drowning him with. 

    “There you go, darling,” his aunt Yeojin said as she stood above him. She gently placed his head back on the table, brushing a few strands of hair out of his face. Jimin recognized the ceiling above him, the chain hanging from it. He tried to move his arms to sit up but they were held to his body by thick leather restraints. Of what he could see of himself he knew he had been dressed in purple fabric, the suit his mother had bought him. 

    His aunts were surrounding him, moving about as they finished their preparations. He had seen them do this a hundred times before as he stood at the edge of the room, shoulder to shoulder with his cousins. Now he was looking up at them, catching glimpses of their pale faces under the hood of their cloaks. None of them would look back at him, none except his mother, who stopped at the head of the table to calmly pet his hair. 

    “Mother,” Jimin whispered. His voice shook, his body trembled. “Why?”

    “Oh darling,” his mother cooed, “even you know that something cannot be created from nothing, and there is nothing equivalent to a human soul.”

    Jimin could feel a wetness dampening his eyelashes, and his mother quickly wiped it away before it could ruin his mascara. “But why me?”

    The smile his mother gave him was gentle, if condescending. “Because a witch’s powers can only be given to her daughters. What other purpose could you possibly serve besides this?”

    “It’s time,” aunt Yeojin said, and Jimin’s mother quickly left his side. 

Jimin knew how things would go from here. The witches, his coven, his aunts, joined hands around him. Incense of lavender and sage was thick in the air as they began their chant, invoking Jeongguk to hear them and bend to their will. 

Jeongguk was already here though. Jimin could see him standing just behind his aunts, watching as Jimin squirmed and cried and trembled on the table. Their eyes met, Jimin's desperate, Jeongguk's dark and deep and endless. 

"Jeonggukie," Jimin whimpered, "help me, please." 

Jeongguk just shook his head. "I can't. I can't enter a witch's circle." 

Jimin choked on a sob. 

"But," the demon said, "I can give you the powers you need to help yourself." 

Jimin's hands twisted in the purple silk beneath him. He could see the cold silver dagger in his aunts' hands, each giving it their blessing as it was passed around the circle. "I'll do anything, please," Jimin begged. 

Jeongguk's smile was indulgent, victorious. "You know what you need to do. Say the words." 

Jimin's breath hitched. The dagger was in his aunt Yeojin's hands now, receiving the final blessing. He looked into Jeongguk's eyes, willed the demon to pull him into those depths and keep him there. "I give myself to you. I'm yours. I'm all yours." 

Aunt Yeojin sunk the dagger into Jimin's chest. 

Jimin screamed. 

His chest was burning. His body was burning. The flames jumped from his skin and consumed everything in their path. The women around him screamed, and Jimin squeezed his eyes shut. 

When he opened them again Jeongguk was the only person left standing over him. The air was thick with smoke, and the back of Jimin’s mouth tasted like charred meat. He pushed himself up into a sitting position, no longer restrained by the leather bindings or even his suit. He touched a hand to his chest but there was no wound, no blood, just a scar that looked as if it had been there for years.

Jeongguk shrugged out of his leather jacket and draped the heavy material over Jimin’s shoulders. “Let’s go get some coffee.”

[chickensarentcheap]

Sanctuary - Chapter 1

So this can be seen as either a companion piece to I Found (my first and still on going Tyler Rake/OC fan fic) or a sequel. It works either way lol.   I decided to work outside of the box and do more fluffy/soft/cute Tyler mixed in with his edge ;)    So this will be multi chapter and include everything from fluff, angst, drama, love, suspense, you name it. 

If you’d like to be tagged, please just let me know. I love comments, messages, you name it!

Tagging: @c-a-v-a-l-r-y  @alievans007  @hemmyworthy  @valkyrie-of-the-light

FIVE YEARS LATER

 He listens to the sound of life...his life...drifting up from the floor below. Hands behind  his head, eyes closed, the cotton sheets cool against his skin. Trying to squeeze in that extra bit of sleep despite the noise:  incessant high pitched giggling, some squabbling and name calling, the occasional ear piercing shriek. Outside the dog is whining to be let back in the house; not wanting to miss out on the action and the endless attention and treats the kids toss its way. A two year old German Shepherd that one of his son's had...much to the chagrin of everyone else in the house...named Macaroni. Mac for short. Further back on the property, in a safely fenced off area, chickens cluck and squawk within their pen as two goats tend to making sure their area is free of weeds and any left over food.

 It's a simple existence. A four bedroom farm house in Telluride, Colorado that had taken three years to fully renovate. A mixture of white wood siding and red brick; old fashioned touches like claw foot tables and a storm cellar, along with the newer and more modern amenities: a home gym and fully finished basement with its own entrance, kitchen, living space, bedroom and bathroom. Pushed four hundred meters from the road, there's enough land for a decent sized hobby farm; the chickens and goats, three separate vegetable gardens, an above ground pool and tons of free space for the kids to play. There's a creek at the very back; running horizontally at the edge of their property line, a common meeting ground for deer, fox, and other wildlife. And the one thing that had truly sold them on the place -when it had been nothing more than a rotted old place that looked as if it should be bulldozed to the ground- a view of the snow capped mountains.  A far cry from the sand and surf of Australia, but a paradise in its own right.

 “Okay...boys...boys...you need to take it down a notch...”  his wife's voice, a hint of exasperation in her tone. “..why are you like this? Please just go and sit down and do something quiet for five minutes so I can get breakfast started. Why do you have to act like wild banshees the moment your eyes open?”

 “Maybe daddy's up,” one of the twins-Tyler Junior's voice. Or TJ as he's affectionately known to everyone in his life. He's the taller of the two: sharing his father's height and naturally broad shoulders, along with the same texture and colour of hair and brilliant blue eyes. He's the wilder of the two. Loud and boisterous. Fearless. To a fault.

 “Can we go check?” Tanner now. Smaller and slighter than his older (by a mere six minutes) brother. With slightly darker hair than his siblings, and his mother's build and smile and the freckles splashed across the bridge of his noise. He's the quiet, introspective one. An old soul trapped in such a young body.

 “You two get down from there,” Esme hisses from the bottom of the stairs. “No going up there. Daddy is asleep. He's tired. Do you want me to throw you out there with the chickens and the goats? Because I will. I swear to God I will.”

 He smirks at that.

 “Maybe he's awake,” Millie pipes up. Even more hopeful than her younger brother. She's a daddy's girl. Through and through. Has been since the moment she made her entrance into the world and had been placed in his arms, her entire fist closing around one of his fingers.

 “I said no. Now all three of you get down here right now. Daddy didn't get in until late last night. He's had a very busy two weeks and he needs to sleep. Are any of you even listening to me right now? Are you feral?”

 Tyler actually laughs out loud at that.

 The kids have extremely keen ears, and their mother's patience is already running low, and now he can hear the pounding of little feet against the wooden stairs as they seize the opportunity and make their move. And he's just manage to slip into a pair of sweats and climb back into bed when the door is being thrown open. The twins collide with either side of the door frame; causing the human equivalent of a three car pile up.  And they decide to just throw down right there and then; head locks and elbows to the face as they fight over who actually gets to enter the room first.

 Millie takes charge, and with a roll of the eyes, simply shoves them both out of the way. She's tall and slender for only five. With unruly light brown hair and blue eyes that are always filled with both mischief and curiosity. A healthy mix of tomboy and girly girl: a room filled with both dolls and action figures. She enjoyed both tea parties and dress up but could turn around and climb trees and roll around in the dirt in the blink of an eye.

 All three jump onto the bed to greet him and he finds himself tackled by the lot of them. Letting them push him down onto his back; a tickle fight immediately ensuing, followed by a wrestling match. They all love to rough house. Even Tanner, who is smart and compassionate like his mother but could lay an ass kicking on his bigger twin. They're tough kids. Both physically and mentally.

 “I gotta pee!” Tanner announces, as he slides across the bed on his butt, jumps off and scurries from the room.

 His brother takes it as a chance to catch him unaware, and in less than a minute they're in the middle of the hallway, rolling around on the ground fighting. It will end the way it always does. Tears. Maybe a black eye or a split lip. If left to their own defences, they'd spend a half an hour beating the hell out of each other followed by a quarter of the day declaring they hate one other. Then they'd forget about why they were even mad and once again join forces to wreak havoc.

 ****

Millie crawls across the bed and plops down onto her side, snuggling into him. Nestling her head underneath his chin, one of her hands on his shoulder. And he drops a kiss on her hair and wrapping an arm around her, pulls her close. Once again closing his eyes, enjoying a few extra moments of relaxation. Until she's moving against him and her tiny fingers are attempting to pry his eyes open.

 “Wake up daddy,” her hand moves to his beard, giggling as she rubs her palm against it.  “It's time to get up.”

 “What if I don't want to?”

 “It's breakfast,” she announces, and she's at his eyes again, growing frustrated as he screws them shut even tighter. “Daddy...” she grumbles. “...don't be such a boy.”

 “I am a boy,” he reminds her.

 “It doesn't mean you have to give me a hard time like the rest of them.”

 Tyler grins. “You sounded so much like your mother just now.”

 “Smart like mommy, cute like daddy,” she declares.

 “Atta girl. You know what's up.”  He opens his eyes: bright blue meeting bright blue.

 “Hi!” she chirps, and leans in so they can rub the tips of their noses together. It's their 'special thing'. Something he'd taught her shortly after her second birthday. And she refuses to share it with her brothers.

 “Hi.”

 “I missed you, daddy.”

 He will never grow tired of hearing that word. Or the way it makes him feel. How it fills him with a sense of accomplishment. That someone like him...with all the monsters in his closet and all the battles he's fought ...could both make and deserve something so perfect.

 “How could you miss me? You were still up when I got home. I tucked you in. Read you a story. Five of them to be exact.”

 “I missed you while I was sleeping,” she says, and fiddles with the chain around his neck.

 He'd been gone for two weeks this time; helping Nik with a handful of  simple 'in and out' extractions throughout central and south America. Returning with little more than a couple of bruised ribs, scrapped up knuckles, and a small gash above his right eye. He only takes the easy jobs now. He has way too much to lose. A wife and kids. Even his own side business: home renovations and handyman work.  A way having steady cash flow and being able to get food on the table, the bills paid, and keep a roof of over their heads.

 She is investigating the cut above his eye now. It hadn't been deep enough for stitches, but the skin around it was starting to swell and turn a vivid purple. Millie had lost it when she'd seen his injuries; crying like she'd never cried before. The only thing calming her down had been a bowl of ice cream and those five stories he'd been suckered into.  

 “You were gone a long time,” she pouts.

 “Too long,” he agrees.

 “Did you miss me?”

 “Of course I did. Didn't I call you every night when I was gone? I missed you very much. And your mommy. And your brothers.”

 “But not as much as you missed me, right? Because I'm your favourite.”

 “I love all of you the same. I don't have any favourites.”

 She pulls back, taking his face in her tiny hands. “Just tell me, daddy. I can keep a secret.”

 It feels like a lifetime ago when she was just a tiny baby that he could carry around in one hand. Now she's in kindergarten, taking gymnastics, enrolled in martial arts, and willing try any sport that tickles her fancy. Sometimes he misses the old days. Getting up in the middle of the night to tend to her, feeling that tiny body just melt into his, smelling that powdery, fresh scent that clung to her hair and clothes. She's a daddy's girl. Always has been. And there's no sign of that changing any time soon.

 He hopes it never does.

 “Daddy?”

 His eyes are closed again. Relishing the precious and all too fleeting moments with his first born. His only daughter.  “Yeah?”

 “I love you,” she announces, and it nearly brings tears to Tyler's eyes. She is so innocent and so pure, as is her blind faith and trust in him. She has no clue of what his other job entails. Just that he goes a way a lot and she hates it. And sometimes he comes back with cuts and bruises and the occasional broken bone.

 It's his number one fear: what will happen when she gets older and she learns just what he's been up to all these years. He worries it will change how she looks at him. Right now she adores and idolizes him; there's no problem that daddy can't fix, no toy he can't repair, no monster he can't chase away. Soon that will end. She'll grow out of that and their relationship will be different. And he worries that the truth and the monsters and demons of his past will drive her away.

 He tightens his hold on her. Drops a kiss on the top of her head.

 “I love you too.”

 ****

 His family is gathered in the kitchen. The smell of pancakes, eggs, and sausage hanging heavily in the air as google home mini perched on a nearby counte rtop plays the current and most popular music. Tanner scurries back and forth between cupboards and table as he happily and dutifully finishes setting places for his mother. The baby in his high chair; ten months old, a lock of strawberry blond hair falling across his forehead, brilliant blue eyes focused intently on scooping  the selection of dry cheerios and slices of banana on the tray in front of him. Declan is long and lanky like Millie and TJ. Feisty and mischievous at even such a tender age.  The genes run strong in the Rake family. Never a doubt to strangers on the street that those four came from the same mom and dad. Especially the latter.  Their appearances strikingly similar; both physical and in their mannerisms and facial expressions.

 “Help your brother,” Tyler instructs his daughter, placing her on the ground. “And no fighting over who gets what colour cup or what spoon.” 

They were only eleven months apart and while incredibly close and nine times out of ten the best of friends, they loved to scrap. Their little pissing matches often turning physical. But Mille is strong and clever and never backs down from a challenge.

 He joins his wife at the counter where she stands dishing food out onto plates. His hands coming to rest on her shoulders, then sliding down her arms and coming to rest on her hips. They’re wider now; she’s had four children after all. His children. Yet she is still firm and tone in some places, soft and more curvaceous in others.  Her hair is shorter; skimming the tops of her shoulders, wispy bangs over her forehead. She is beautiful even first thing in the morning; a wide headband holding her hair away from her face, clad in a pair of simple black leggings and one of his t-shirts. And he leans into her, eyes closed as he breathes in the soft scent that lingers in her hair.

 “Good morning,” his lips are against her ear, hands tightening on her hips as she pulls her back against him.

  He feels her shudder against him and he smiles as he presses a kiss to her cheek. He had heard that once children came into the picture, a lot of women lost some, if not all, desire for sex. They were tired. Physically and emotionally. But not his wife. In fact, it had seemed to heighten her need for it even more. She’s always been insatiable; right from the very beginning of their relationship. The only woman he’d ever known -including his first wife- whose sexual appetite almost matched his. Last night she’d been especially in the mood; pouncing on him the second he walked into their bedroom. And then  proceeding to wake him up twice in the middle of the night with no so gentle demands that he make love to her.

 Who was he to say no?”

 “Good morning,” she tilts her head back and smiles up at him “Did you sleep okay? I’m sorry the kids were so loud and woke you up.  They were excited you were home.”

 “They only woke me up once. You woke me up twice,” he teases, grinning when she blushes, and presses a kiss to the tip of her nose. “By the way…” he places his lips against her ear once again, and presses his groin against her ass. “…you were incredible.”

 Her blush deepens, spreading all the way to the tips of her ears. “You weren’t so bad yourself.”

 “You definitely were not complaining,” he chides, and then kisses her cheek. Behind them, TJ makes a very distinct gagging noise.  “One day you’re going like kissing girls,” he informs his son, as he leans back against the counter and accepts a mug of steaming black coffee from his wife.

 “Never,” the little boy declares.  “Girls are gross.”

 “Your mommy isn’t gross,” Tyler points out. “Far from it. Daddy thinks she’s the most beautiful girl in the world. One day you’ll find a girl that you feel the same way about.”

 “Nope,” his namesake remains steadfast. “Never. Ever. Girls that aren’t mommy are nasty. And kissing is gross. Just…ughhh…” his nose crinkles in disgusts as he shudders dramatically.  Definitely his mother’s son with that little display.

 “Kissing is where babies come from,” Mille announces, as she scrambles into her seat at the table.

 “Well there’s a little more to it than that,” he says, and Esme digs her elbow into his ribs and shakes her his. “Well there is.”

 “Like what?” Millie inquires. “Kissing and what?”

 “Kissing and things,” her mother replies. “Things you don’t need to know about until you’re older. Much older.”

 “How much older?” the five year old isn’t giving up that easily.

 “When you’re thirty and your father finally lets you go out on a date.”

 “Thirty!” Mille squeals. “That’s old as shit!”

 “”Hey!” Tyler admonishes. “None of that. Only mommy says that word. She invented bad words like that.”

 “Yeah…” Esme snorts.  “…way back when the Pony Express still delivered mail.”

 “I think you made the F word, daddy,” Tanner says, and his twin giggles beside him.

 “Someone needs to watch their language when little ears are around,” Esme scolds, and hands him a cold plate of eggs and pancake for the paper.

 “You might get your mouth washed out with soap,” TJ adds. “That’s what grandma says she used to do to Uncle Mike when he was little and swore like a drunken sailor.”

 “Thirty is really old,” Millie muses dramatically, as she tucks her hair behind her ears.  

 “Your mother was being generous,” Tyler says. “I was thinking more like forty.”

 “Daddy, that’s mean. You can’t boys away from me that long.”

 “Don’t say that him,” Esme pipes up. “He’s going to take that as a challenge.”

 “She can date, but I’m sitting on the front porch with a gun in my lap until she gets home,” he vows, and his wife rolls her eyes and begins carrying plates of food to the table, leaving an extra on the counter.

 The baby squeals happily when Tyler steps up beside the high chair and reaches up for him with dirty hands. Fists repeatedly opening and closing in a request to be picked.

 “Mate…” he sighs, as he takes in the state of his youngest. Banana smashed into oblivious, smeared into his hair.  “…why do you have to do this to me? What kind of mess did you go and make? Your son tried to shampoo his hair with his banana,” he informs his wife. “Look at him. He’s a bloody wreck.”

 “How come he’s only my son when he’s bad?” she smirks, and tosses him a package of baby wipes.

 “Because the bad genes come from you,” he states, and then uses the wipes to clean the baby’s face, hair, and hands before unbuckling him and lifting him from the seat. Little arms curling around his neck, a face nuzzling into his shoulder. “Here we go, mate, here we go,” he says, and then slides into his chair. “Time to eat. Time to get big and strong so that you can kick some ass when you get older.”

 “Really, Tyler?” Esme sighs. “Really?”

 “Daddy said ass,” TJ giggles, and soon he and his brother are dissolving into hysterics and making fart jokes. Their sister rolling her eyes and giving them hell for being so rude.

 Just another day in paradise.

 ****

  “Well…well…well…” Esme grins.  “…it lives. Long enough to emerge from it’s dungeon to eat.”

 There’s a slight blush to Ovi’s cheeks as he enters the room, a sheepish smile tugging at the corners of his mouth as he lays a hand on her shoulder and presses a kiss to his cheek. She may not be the woman that carried him for nine months and given birth to him, but she was very much his mother. Spending the last five years making sure he was well taken care of; nurtured, shown affection, encouraged to enjoy the simple things that came with a quieter existence. And he may not use the word, but he feels it in his heart. And he knows she does too.

 He’s much taller now; half an inch shy of Tyler’s six foot three frame. He’s not as muscular and powerful as the man he considers his father, but is tall and athletic; a sinewy, well toned body from all the hours he’s spent lifting weights,  helping out on their little hobby farm, and accompanying Tyler to his reno and handy man jobs. And while he lives in the apartment in the basement, he never misses a meal with the family. He craves the togetherness; the conversations and the jokes and hearing the kids giggling and playing.

 He snags the plate of food off the counter and heats it in the microwave, then slips into the chair to Tyler’s left. “What time did you get back?” he inquires, as Esme moves to fill his empty glass from a pitcher of orange juice on the table.

 “Around nine.”

 “That was a long one,” he remarks, and Esme nods in agreement.

 She has gotten used to his time away, but still doesn’t like it. It’s cold and lonely in the middle of the night and sleep rarely comes; too many worries about where he is and if he’s okay.

 “What happened here?” Ovi gestures to the area above his own eye.

 “Just a little mix up with someone that wasn’t too happy with me. Nothing serious. Where were you? The car was gone when I got home.”

 He’d been the one that had taught the kid to drive; taking him on back country roads in a beater pick up truck that they’d picked up for cheap.  Ovi’s come a long way in five years; physically and mentally. He’s no longer plagued by the vivid nightmares of what had happened in Dhaka or how’d he’d killed Gaspar to save  Tyler’s life, and essentially, his own.  He had thrived in the public school system and quickly and effortlessly made friends.  Joined the swim team. Ran track and field. Tried his hand at football. He had decided to take a year off from pursuing a higher education; electing to busy himself on the farm and learning how to use power tools, sweating under the weight of hard, manual labour.

 “Ovi had a date,” Millie sing songs. “With a girl.”

 He reaches across the table to tousle her hair, and she gives that musical little giggle.  

 “It wasn’t a date,” he says.  “I was helping her study.”

 “Yeah…” Tyler smirks as the sips his coffee. “…it was studying.”

 “Right…” Esme grins from across the table. “…studying. I was a teenager once. I know what studying is code language for. Tyler and I like to study together. He’s actually an excellent tutor.”

 “Which is why we have four kids,” he adds.

 “I am never going to study,” TJ declares, causing the adults to laugh.

 “Oh boy child…” his mother sighs. “…you are in for one heck of a rude awakening when you get older. No kissing and no studying? Come back and talk to me when you’re fourteen.”

 “You’ll like studying,” Tyler says. “Even by yourself. It’s not as fun as when you study with someone else, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.”

 Ovi laughs, nearly choking on a mouthful of orange juice.

 “Excuse me,” Esme directs a kick to his shin under the table. “When was the last time you actually had to study alone?”

 “I was just gone for two weeks,” he reminds her.  “Just because you wanted to study together when I got back doesn’t mean I didn’t have to study by myself while I was away. Go that long without studying? I haven’t gone that long without studying since I was fifteen.”

 She holds a hand up to silence him. “Okay that last part is just way too much information.”

 “Sometimes you have to study alone,” he continues with a shrug. “Because your study partner is tired. Or they feel sick Or they have a headache. Study partners get headaches a lot.”

 She kicks him under the table to get his attention, then mouths: “I will kill you in your sleep.”

 He shoots her a grin and a wink, reaching out with his foot in order to run his toes over her instep, along her shin, and then around to the hell.

 At first she glares at him, glass against her lips, then gives a smirk and places her other foot in his lap. Causing him to clear his throat noisily and shift in his seat when she presses her toes into his crotch. But he doesn’t make her stop.

 “So what’s her name? Esme asks. “This study partner of yours?”

 “Chloe.”

 “Oooo that’s pretty!” Mille gushes. “That’s a princess name. Is she pretty like a princess?”

 “She is,” he confirms, but then reaches across the table to tousle her hair. “But not as pretty as you.”

 “How’d you meet her?”  Tyler asks, his hand slipping below the table to push his wife’s foot out of his crotch. The last thing he needed was to get up from the breakfast table with a raging hard on. He is almost forty one now, but she still has a way of making him feel like a horny teenager.

 Esme pouts dramatically, then goes back to her breakfast. Foot now on his thigh, his fingers massaging at the bases of her toes.

 “The internet,” Ovi sheepishly admits.

 Tyler groans. Jesus , mate. We talked about this. We’ve been talking about this for five years now. No social media. It’s too easy for people to find you on there and track you down.”

 “I’m being really careful,” he insists. “My security settings are really high. I don’t use my real name. Esme has a facebook.”

 “With only her family on it. It’s not the same thing. How’d you end up randomly meeting her online in the first place? Don’t tell me you did something creepy like sending her a message out of nowhere because you thought she looked cute.”

 “It was a group. For single people in Colorado.”

 “Oh for fuck sakes,” Tyler mutters, much to the chagrin of the kids; the twins giggling and telling he was going to get his mouth washed out with soap and Millie who immediately scrambling for the ‘swear jar’ that sits on the counter by the stove. Informing him that he knows five bucks because it was a ‘really, really, really bad word’.   “Why would you go on something like that? I get being lonely and wanting to meet girls, but for Christ sakes, mate.”

 “I wasn’t thinking, I guess. I just wanted to meet new people and talk to them. I wasn’t really planning on meeting anyone. I was just wanting  to talk.”

 He’s had a handful of girlfriends in high school. Nice, down home kind of girls that came from decent families and seemed to have no secrets in their closets. Tyler had made sure of it: giving their names and addresses to Nik so she would do a little digging. Everything had come back clean, thankfully. But it was better to be safe than sorry, especially with kids in the house.

 “How much do you even know about this girl?”

 “Enough.”

 Tyler arches both brows, waiting for a better response.

 “We’ve been talking for a little while,” he admits. “A few weeks now. She lives in Butte. So when we wanted to meet in person, we agreed to drive hallway and meet in the middle.”

 “How old is she?” Tyler presses. “What does she do for a living?”

 “Twenty three.”

 Out of the corner of his eye, he can see the way his wife’s widen at the revelation. There’s almost five full years between them and while that had never stopped them, it seemed a little wrong when it was a nineteen year old boy being pursued by an older woman.

 “She teaches in a day care,” Ovi continues. “So she’d fit in really well around here. She loves kids and you guys have a lot of them, so…”

 “I wanna met her,” Mille decides, and her brothers join in.

 “You can’t just bring strangers to the house,” Esme speaks up.  “You know that’s one of the big rules. We can’t just have anyone and everyone walking through the front door. How much do you really know about her other than her name, age, and what she does for a living? Do you know anything about her friends? Her family? Her background?”

 “I can always get Nik to run a check on her,” Tyler suggests. “I mean, if he really wants to see this girl…”

 “Still doesn’t mean I want a stranger coming to my bouse. Being around my kids.  Wasn’t that we agreed on about five years ago? When we moved here and I was having the twins? That we wouldn’t take the chance of just letting someone walk through the door? There’s always a chance, remember? That someone is looking for us. Those are your exact words.”

 “But if I get Nik to do a background check, we’ll get some answers. If nothing comes up, great. He can see the girl. If someone comes up, then he doesn’t. You wouldn’t, right?” he looks at Ovi. “See her if something came up?”

 “No! I would never do anything like that! I’d never bring someone like that around here.  I just want the chance to get to know her. That’s all. She’s really nice and really pretty and I think you guys would like her.:

 “I’m going to like her,” Millie chimes in. “I already do. If she’s good enough for my Ovi, she’s good enough for me.”

 “Pound it…” he says to her, as he holds out a fist and she enthusiastically responds. “…now blow it up.”

 They’ve always been close. Right from the moment they’d brought her as a baby to the Mahajan house five years ago. It was the first infant he’d ever had contact with and he’d been immediately smitten; mesmerized by the little sounds she made, how she would look up at him with those big blue or wrap her entire fist around one of his fingers. And when he wasn’t holding or begging to hold her, he was playing the piano for her; having her in the car seat on the floor next to him while he entertained her with his favourite songs. As she grew older, she’d always referred to him as ‘my Ovi’. Sometime she’s even called him her brother, and when people tried to point out it wasn’t physically possible that they were related in any way, she’d argue that ‘Christmas presents aren’t always in the same wrapping paper and neither are people’.

 Pretty wise for a five year old.

 “It won’t hurt to take a look at her,” Tyler attempts to reason with his wife “What’s the worst that can happen? We see something we don’t like in her background and he cuts ties with her. That’s it. No harm, no foul.”

 She’s become increasingly paranoid with each baby they’ve brought into the world. Always worried that there was someone out there just waiting to trample on the happiness that they had managed to find. And when he’d gotten back into the job without consulting her first, the worry became obsessive and all consuming.

  And there was also some lingering animosity towards him on her part; that he’d willingly go back into a profession that put a target on not only his back, but hers and the kids as well. He no longer saw it that way; he was more than capable of protecting his family and there were others -like Nik, Yaz, and the rest of the team- that would help them out no questions asked. Besides, the jobs he took were considered low on the scale of risk when it came to severe injury or death.

 “If nothing comes back and she’s totally clean, there’s no reason why she can’t come around,” he adds, and gives her foot a squeeze. “You know I’m not going to just let a stranger walk up in here. I wouldn’t take that chance. So I’ll get Nik to look her up. The kid does deserve to have a life. Isn’t that we brought him along with us in the first place?”

 Sighing heavily, she uses her fork to push the remains of her food around her plate.

 “Nothing is going to happen,” he assures her. “We do things this way, there’s no chance of something going wrong. Let’s at least give the girl a chance, yeah?”

 “As long as you promise to have Nik look into her. And as long as you…” she trains her gaze on Ovi.  “…promise me you won’t bring her here until Tyler find outs about her. I’m serious, Ovi. I can’t have some random off the street getting near my kids. I just can’t.”

 “I won’t,” he vows. “I’d never do something like that.”

 Giving a small smile, she nods and then pushes her chair away from the table and begins tidying up the dirty plates and utensils, instructing the kids to run upstairs and get cleaned up and dressed.

 “Is she okay?” Ovi asks. “She seems a little….mad.”

 “I think she’s a bit pissed at me. I was only supposed to be gone four days and it ended up turning into two weeks. It’s hard on her. Being home alone all that time with the kids. This job was supposed to be easy and it turned into a real shit show instead. Definitely not what I thought I was walking into.”

 “Well at least you’re alive, right? You’re home. At least you’re still here.”

 “That’s all that matters, mate. Dragging myself through that front door. As long as I get home to my wife and my kids, it’s a good day.”

 As long as he wasn’t being brought home in a body bag.