#vio says stuff!

[vioshipping]

I should do one of those hunger games simulator things with my f/os I think it’d be funny

[balmungkriemhild]

late to foxgirl friday but oh well _(：3 」∠ )_ Hiyamei's design looked better with pants so I decided to give her pants and make a sorta coherent reference of her outfit.

(consider donating to my Ko-fi, thank you!)

[vio1315]

Thoughts again

A lot of people will say things like 'never tell someone x' and 'this phrasing is horrid' kind of stuff

But honestly I think peoples thinking is a lot narrower in this kind of advice than I had previously thought

Like you know how when someone has a sort of saying they fall back on for everything and you feel kind of put off when they give you that advice?

Generally that saying was helpful to them is why they're parroting it.

And you don't have to adopt this kind of advice yourself, and you can find it frustrating etc, but I don't know if removing it from everyone's use should be the thing to strive for either

[vio-hisustory]

Oh.

Oh oops!

Sometimes you forget about things for a year and a half! (Maybe longer)

[mountainashfae]

hey the actual problem with the childhood prompts is I suddenly have to think about Vio’s relationship with gender in the Pathfinder setting since uhhhh I got self-indulgent in the Cerdinen setting and his gender and being trans is a Lot Simpler in a way I get embarrassed to bring up publicly. The experiences are NOT the same. I’m still going to refuse to think hard about that for these prompts.

[ultraviollettt]

i think they should kill off tim drake tbh. for character development

[bowsnbots]

//-I love getting sick it's my favorite activity

[orionremastered]

could you do where they react to scars? like maybe from sh? how they would act around a s/o with them and stuff. it’s totally okay if not! and oml i love all of your hc sm they are so fun to read and like insanely accurate!

Masterlist

I Can Love You For You

CW: (past) Self-harm

Dick Grayson

It happens when he's talking about something in that animated way that makes you smile

It just so happens that he's holding a cup of coffee and it spills... all over your hoodie

You both scramble to take it off which is when he sees the scars

He holds your wrists and keeps asking you what they are. what happened. why you felt that way

He's so concerned for you it makes you feel loved in a way you haven't felt loved in a long time

Makes you your favourite snack and drink before telling you to explain everything that happened

Jason Todd

He wakes you up during him having a nightmare and you wait for him to wake upon his own accord

It's the first time you've slept over at his place and he didn't tell you about having nightmares

When he finally wakes up you comfort him and he seems to trust you

Trust you enough to open about what happened to him without you knowing him for more than a month or two. he tells you everything and almost seems ashamed of it

So you open up too. To tell him it's okay and that what happened to him wasn't his fault

Eventually you both fall silent and just hold each other. Understanding that you're both just half a person and together you might fit as one.

Tim Drake

He figures out pretty early into your relationship, like two or three weeks, that you used to self-harm

He's seen it many times and he knows the behaviours that follow, but he just doesn't know how to bring it up to you in a way that isn't forcing you into anything uncomfortable

A month or two into the relationship, this idiot is still trying to figure out how to bring it up when you tell him

He wasn't expecting it but is relieved that you feel comfortable enough to talk to him about it

He remains supportive and comforting the whole time, holding your hand and rubbing your thigh (only if you want him to, of course)

Damian Wayne

Definitely notices something's constantly off about you

At one point he's almost convinced himself you're a criminal trying to spy in him and his family, though that thought only lasts like an hour

At one point he asks you to take a shower with him and you just say 'No.'

That's when it hit him

He gave it away that he knew by constantly holding your wrists and suddenly all your razors were gone and the kitchen knives vanished too, only able to use his knives when he was the one cooking

You eventually opened up to him one night and told him everything. he didn't judge you and didn't say anything until you were finished telling him

Held you so tight that night that you almost couldn't breathe

Need mental help of any kind?

There's no need to feel ashamed about what's happened to you. Life can get the better on all of us at one point or another; but if someone does walk in and you don't have time to close the website properly, you can use the button at the top of the web page to quickly switch the tab to a weather forecast website.

[mmelete]

Ranking the LU Links on Social Media

Wild and Hyrule. Wild would be a a YouTube vlogger. Hyrule is his usual guest and they explore abandoned hospitals/schools. nobody knows how they’re still alive, but hey, they’re making bank so—-8/10

(Wild also has a cooking channel that Hyrule is notoriously banned from.)

Four. I want to say that Four does video essays about random topics, never really shows his face and gains thousands of followers. Sometimes, you can really tell which Color created the video (Blue is notoriously known for hating on badly done smithing techniques and Vio slanders every YA romance book known to mankind). Also has an ASMR channel (fire crackling and 2800 hour loop of metal pipe sounds). 8/10

Time wouldn’t know how to upload a video erm ugh uh I mean, Time would def just video silly clips of his animals or pretty scenery and upload it. Not really one for the views, just for vibes. 4/10 (the video quality is grainier than sand)

Speaking of silly animals…Twilight either just post little snippets of his goats or he’d totally have a channel dedicated to his strangely very intelligent, very strong “husky”…and if Twilight and the “husky” have never been seen in the same room together, well, that’s their problem…5/10

Wind. Girl vs. Boy challenges and trick shots. Occasionally streams a Minecraft SMP. Has over one million subscribers. Need I say more. 7/10

Sky. ASMR and Woodcarving tips galore. Sun runs the social media behind the scenes. Has a bunch of random tips and tricks for very niche things, but he’s super chill. The Bob Ross of Everything but Painting. 10/10

Legend. There is absolutely no way that you will convince me that Legend DOESN’T do fashion/cosplaying stuff. Makeup tutorials, design reviews and color palette challenges…Warriors is his usual guest and the fans LOVE their snappy interactions. 9/10

Warriors. Is a model on the side but only really does YT for his friends. Part of me wants to believe he’ll do some makeup tutorials, but I have a gut feeling this man has a whole channel dedicated to hair care and sewing/knitting. Artemis found his channel one time and that’s why Warriors joined LU and went through Dink’s portal /jk. 5/10

[randomkduck]

what if there was an au where Shadow is revived as a cat, but he has no idea by who or why he’s a cat all of a sudden. While trying to figure it out he ends up getting found by Red who’s like “aw cute homeless babyyyyy… mine now!” And adopts him, which is of course like “no, wait. fuck. nO. WHY” and he keeps trying to get away from them cause they’re gonna be furious when they figure out there cat is their old enemy and knowing his luck it’s only a matter of time. but Red’s very purrsistent and finally manages to drag him home and is like “HEY GUYS I GOT US A CAT!!” and the only one okay with this immediately is Vio, and Blue takes one look at him and is like “Shadow.” And of course Shadow panics a little because “Fuck I’ve been found out already!” But Red’s like “huh?” And Blue says “a black cat with red eyes and the look of a war criminal? Yeah, I’m naming him Shadow there is no other possible name for him.” And shadows like “rude” but then Vio chimes in with “yeah we can name him Shadow Meowthazar the floof wizard or something” and Red is like “YES” and Shadow already hates his new life.

and you know for a fact that people tell there cats shit they wouldn’t tell anyone else because why go to therapy when you have a cat right there. And Shadow’s mission goes quickly from “find out who brought me back” to “give these people as much aggressive cat therapy as possible ma gawd.”

Green teaches him tricks and stuff to prank the others and Shadow is 1000% down for this because now he has an excuse for knowing how to open doors and read and also gets the added bonus of fucking with everyone, his favourite person to fuck with is surprisingly Vio which is only partially Green’s fault with his subliminal messaging because Vio has all the best responses whereas Red chalks it up to magic floof wizard powers and Blue just gets really excited like “finally someone to do my paperwork” or “oh you helping out Vio” nod “okay good help him get his ass out of his room to participate in society next” salute “thanks bud *gives him a treat and a pat*”

What if someone breaks in one night while everyone’s sleeping (like a monster or something) and they wake up to the sounds of a their cat possibly dying and the intruder in pain and they rush downstairs to save their cat but he’s just sitting on top of his felled opponent seemingly unscathed (because shadow powers and quicker healing) and they’re like “shit I am so glad this cat like us” and Red is like “I hereby knight thee Shadow Meowthazar floof wizard the slayer of intruders lord of Vio’s dark armies” and everyone is like “yes” and except Vio who is like “lord of my what?” Shadow regrets everything in life.

[bokettochild]

I absolutely love fics that give all the Links different written languages.

BUT

For the ones that don't...

Who do you think can or can't read/write cursive? I firmly believe that Wind's grandma taught him how to read it, but he never writes in it so he can't without double checking certain letters multiple times.

Ooh!

Yes, Wind is quite proficient in Hylian cursive! He and Aryll actually both are since Granny doesn't really use anything else except back when she was first teaching them how to read, and even then, her letters are all swoopy and graceful (they love that). He reads it well, but his handwriting is still awkward and crooked (JoJo had it overlapped onto Warriors'). Aryll spends more time writing things down so she's a bit better than he is, but only a bit.

Four is familiar with cursive, since he spends a lot of time at the castle and most of the royals use it. he can read it well, and he can sort of write it, but Blue finds the excessive loops to be ridiculous and while Red thinks they're pretty, it's too tricky to do all the time, so only really Green uses cursive, and only when split. Vio likes how it looks, but he writes to get things down, and he thinks too fast to care about how his writing looks (it looks like chicken scratches).

Legend is also quite used to cursive, and he can write in it, when he takes the time to try. Most of the time, he's like Vio and just trying to jot things down, but if he's writing a letter or a note to someone, he tends to at least try and make it look nice, and cursive does a decent job of that. I'd like to note, also, that since he's a bit of a book collector too, Legend is very good at reading even the crappiest of handwriting, not just cursive.

Hyrule hasn't got much expose to written materials, but most of what he has seen are old books with the gilded letters and the like, so he doesn't even know cursive is a thing until Aurora introduced him to it. He's not very good at reading it, and definitely can't write with it, but he's getting better.

Wild might have been able to write in cursive before he lost his memories, but he doesn't any longer. Most of Hyrule doesn't bother with cursive, not even Flora, since she, like Legend and Vio, has only the intent of writing things quickly and no longer has anyone to tell her to make it look nice. Purah and Robbie are the same. Sidon and the Zora do use cursive, but Wild doesn't really care enough to try reading it, since most of the time anything they bother to write is just official mumbo-jumbo to him anyway. He does have rather neat printing though!

Sky can read cursive, as can all the students at the academy, but he prefers to print things out, because it's easier and he was always a rather lazy student. Zelda feels the same way, but Groose actually has the best penmanship out of them all (he wanted to be better than Sky). They can all write cursive, but again, Sky never cared to practice enough to make it look very nice, so he sort of struggles to do it.

Twilight on the other hand! Twilight has the fanciest gosh-darn handwriting out of the whole chain! Since he's a total book nerd (look at his house), I'd say he's probably been exposed to all sorts of handwriting, and as a kid decided he would make his handwriting look like the stuff in fancy books. Ulli helped him to learn, and he now writes with a very neat hand indeed. Most of the time he prints things, to save time, but this man could be a calligrapher if he so chose! He really likes to do those embellished first letters like in old books, and while sometimes he gets teased about it, Shad may or may not have asked him to help with some of his publications because of his skill.

Warriors has very neat handwriting, but unfortunately, cannot read or write in cursive. I'm a street-rat Wars truther, so this man probably only recently learned to read in my take on him. He makes sure his handwriting looks nice, but cursive is a bit too much for his needs. Soldiers don't get sent things with cursive most of the time, so when he does, he can usually just ask Impa to help him read it, as it's usually in regards to an official frivolity anyways.

Time cannot cursive. Malon can, but she's not very good at it either (reading or writing). Time doesn't care to learn, Malon doesn't really care to improve, and the only way to get Time to even try would be to tell him he could use it top mess with Wars.

[vioshipping]

I saw the Mario’s madness V2 update not too long ago and. Wow. That was frickin crazy. And really well made. Also why do I keep thinking about Mr. Sys

[hotcheetohatredwastaken]

Celebration: 88,978 Words in One Day!

Just yesterday, a few other LU writers and I, Hot Cheeto Hatred, hosted our first ever monthly (hopefully) Write-a-thon! This event ran on June 4 from 12 am EST to 12 am EST, with one goal in mind---write as many productive words within that day as humanly possible. Words included in the final marathon count ranged from storyboarding, fic writing, editing, answering comments, journalling and homework---basically, any words that furthered yourself, the writing community at large, or your stories. We utilized either the Discord Sprint bot or self-reporting to collect the numbers at the end. Everyone involved gave it their all, with most of them being present for most if not all of the run time as they were able, and I'm so proud of their dedication towards their craft. Anyways, here's the final breakdown of the numbers below, as well as the awards and titles earned by each participant, as decided by the discord server (and myself at random).

Now onto the awards:

I am pleased to report that @not-freyja (Freyja above) won the "Writer of All Time" Award, pulling ahead with 20,565 of our total words. What an accomplishment! Freyja participated from dawn to well, dawn, and they absolutely deserve all praise and awe.

I'm giving myself, @hotcheetohatred (Cheeto), the award "Writer of Some Time," as I fell behind our lovely Freyja by a mere few hundred words fifteen minutes before the clock struck midnight. Next time, Freyja, next time...

The "Actually A Writer" award goes to @marcusdoodlesalot (Marcus), who, despite the name, DOES actually write, not just draw! Who would have thought. Not Freyja, that's for sure.

The "Early Bird" award goes to @lerikwrites (Lerik), who solely sprinted in the wee hours of the morning (my time, at least). Terrible. Good job.

"Star Commentor" goes to @elle-rosewater (Eliot), because I stole most of her words for the count from my own comment section in the BDOR Prologues. We love you, Eliot :3 Can't wait to see you next month.

"Cheerleader" goes to @la-sera, who gave us much encouragement throughout the day. I stole your 19 words from you saying you were excited to read Estelian's work. Hope that's okay, because I really wanted to include you---you provided a lot, even if you didn't write with us this time <3.

@whumpitywhumpitywhumpity (Dowsemaxxer) earns "Spirit-ed Storyboarder" for all of his lovely, informative talk on Spirit and just what makes him so great as a rather underappreciated LU boy.

Two awards next! "Chief Editor" and "Most Student" both go to @unexpectedstormy (Stormy) for faer work on getting. stuff. done. Fae did a steady amount of work, so proud.

"Editor (of Word Count) in Chief" goes to @tashacee (Tash), who, at reporting time, was scrounging up 100 and 200 word bits like spare change while I desperately tried to do math. I love you, never change.

The title of "Specter" goes to @somer-writes (Somer), who logged in very few sprints, but participated with the rest of us and pulled up at the end with a whole 7.5K words and a bunch of fics to post at the end, with a lot of it being Ghost AU! He's amazing.

The award "Better Late than Never" goes to our resident artist and recently turned fic-writer @estelian-01 (Este), who joined only in the last half of the marathon but managed to pull a whole 4K! Pictures might be worth a thousand words, but Este wrote a couple more anyway.

@across-violet-skies (Riv) gets the title "Mover and Shaker (of Blorbos)" for managing to participate and get quite the hefty wordcount only a DAY after moving. They're a trooper, that's for sure.

@anime-obsessed (Vio/Nene) earns the award "Most Old School" for writing with pen and paper for most of the day. Please go rest your wrist after all of that.

The award "Head in the Clouds" goes to my bestie and beloved beta reader @needfantasticstories (Skip), who spent the day listening to music and writing Skyloft drabbles. I am nervous/excited to see if those drabbles turned out fluffy as a Loftwing, or perhaps into something more angsty.

@noorahqar (Qar), my lovely fragile Victorian wife, earns the title "Chatty." You know why. But you were there nearly all of the run time, and so engaging and encouraging throughout---a blessing to us all. And even then, you managed to pull so many words. I'm impressed.

And finally, @rosehipandroots / @rosetintedtears (Rose) receives the titles "ndskanefnre" (self chosen) and "Birthday Santa." The first was borne of panic of being asked to choose a title---the second of her relentless effort to get her birthday fics done. Great job.

I'd like to thank everyone that I tagged for participating in the write-a-thon, and thank all of you for helping me draft this post as well. If I messed up any word counts or details or pronouns, you want to request a title/award change, or I missed someone, please DM and let me know! The next Write-a-thon will be held on July 1 from 12am to 12am GMT, and we'll be trying to beat our record. Can't wait to see all of you then!

[vio1315]

With me it’s:

Fun = 0

Happiness = 0

Motivation = 100

[undertheopensky]

Forging Tired

Whumptober Day 26: Working To Exhaustion

Characters: Four, Blue, Sky

Trigger warnings: None

Read on Ao3!

---

Sky doesn’t realise it until after dinner, but Four hasn’t banked the forge fires.

“I’m not done yet,” Four waves at the admittedly intimidating pile of repair work yet to be done. A couple of plates from Time’s armour probably need to be replaced entirely, they have such large holes in them.

“It’s getting real late. Don’t stay up too much longer, you need to get some sleep.”

“Nah, I’m fine. Body’s not tired.” Four flexes one arm and gives him a grin that looks so much like Wind Sky’s eyes cross.

“Maybe not,” they sure hadn’t done much physical stuff today, just run around the village resupplying and gathering information, “but your brain still needs rest.”

This time Four snorts. “The brain is fast asleep, but that’s okay, we don’t need it for this.”

No one asks any more why Four sometimes refers to himself in the third person or plural. At best, he’ll pretend you didn’t say anything, and at worst, he’ll look at you like you’re the strange one. The closest they’ve gotten to an explanation is an offhanded, sympathetic “Yeah, we get it,” when Time first told them to stop asking about his timekeeping, because it was a holdover from a quest too traumatic to describe.

So, slightly weird, probably a Quest Thing, doesn’t seem to affect him day-to-day.

That said Sky’s a little concerned about him working with hot metal with his brain asleep.

“Are you sure? We can wait another day or two before setting out, I’m sure Time won’t mind. We don’t want you exhausting yourself over this.”

Four makes a rude noise, which is out of character enough Sky blinks. “I think I know my limits well enough, featherhead. Besides, forging’s not that hard. I wanna take advantage of actually having all my damn equipment for once, and goddess knows we probably won’t be here long. Our shit needs a lot of maintenance done. Don’t worry about the noise. The forge’s been soundproofed since we were little. Go away and sleep, featherhead, you need it more than us.”

He shoos Sky from the forge, polite but implacably firm.

Sky can’t exactly argue. Four is the smith here, and he knows himself best. If he says it’s fine, Sky will just have to believe him.

And as promised, as soon as the heavy door swings closed, the sounds of the forge muffle to almost nothing.

---

With Sky finally gone, Blue feels the tension ease out of him. Finally, some peace and quiet. He loves his brothers, and he supposes the heroes they’re travelling with aren’t TOO bad, but sometimes he just needs time alone in the quiet with his own thoughts and his own projects. There’s not a lot of privacy on the open road, or in a head crammed full of four distinct people.

Vio struggles with it, too, Blue knows, as he sets up the next few pieces of metal to heat and shovels fresh coke into the fire. But unlike Blue, the nerd is soothed by late nights spent reading or taking the darkest hours of watch, where Blue needs to do things to calm the itch in his brain. Armour and weapons maintenance is great for that - but it’s not always quiet. And waking everyone up with his activities would very much defeat the point.

Then, once he’s got things set up, Blue sits down at the bench with pliers and wire.

The worst thing about Sky’s mail is that the links are an eighth of an inch larger than standard - than literally everyone else’s. Blue had had to make a winding rod specifically for his damn mail, and has to double check every time before starting repairs to make sure he’s pulling from the right patch of spares.

If he had more time, he’d just make him a mail shirt from normal links. Standardise them across the board, and improve Sky’s resistance to piercing claws. But he doesn’t - they don’t - and besides that when this is all over Sky will be going back to his home in the clouds with its stupid mail measurements and its barely-there monster attacks and he’ll have no use for the close-set rings of modern mail and they’ll never see him again -

The forge fires burn hot enough that Blue can pretend it’s the air making his eyes sting.

Mending mail is busywork, stuff to keep his hands occupied while he waits for things to heat. It needs doing, and if he does it here then he can rivet the rings shut properly instead of the temporary road fixes (shit he needs to check Twilight’s mail he knows he put in a patch at one point but doesn’t remember riveting it in, need to do that before they leave) but some things can only be done at the forge. Like the plates of steel he’s got resting to the side, waiting to be turned into a new piece of Time’s armour.

He should probably get started on that actually so Blue puts aside the mail and reaches for his tongs. A lot of this is just shaping, forming the metal to the exact dimensions and curvature of Time’s body, and then adding buckle straps and point anchors so it can actually be attached. This is the loud part, metal-on-metal ringing and echoing in the enclosed stone room and making his vision swim just a little. He has to pause to blink it away. Does his head actually hurt, or is it just more echoes from the hammer?

Doesn’t matter; he’s got work to do. Blue checks the first piece for fit and moves on to the second; best to get this heavy work done before he gets tired. Working the steel cold takes more effort, but makes it less brittle in the end. Kind of important, that the metal sheets guarding someone’s body don’t shatter under a stiff blow, turning them from a defense into a hazard. You can get away with working horseshoes and stuff like metal fittings hot and then quenching them down, but it’s not worth it with plate armour.

Once he’s got the base curve in place, he checks the lines he drew earlier before his vision started to wobble, then hunts down the blunted chisel he needs. This is the fiddly bit. Blue sets the metal down on the wooden block with the groove specifically for this task, lining it up with the drawn lines, and starts hammering out the ridges.

It’s time-consuming, but the raised metal redirects weapons to less vulnerable points. Blue’s seen a sword swing into an arm then slide off into empty air, instead of an armpit or elbow, because of these ridges. They’re useful.

Time didn’t have any, originally. And while he can’t say for sure - Blue suspects that if he’d had them on his armour that first time a moblin got the jump on him, its spear wouldn’t have slid past the plates into his side quite so easily.

Four’s been quietly upgrading it piece by piece ever since.

The vambrace is harder, more of a curve to force the steel into, but he’s long practised at getting stubborn materials to cooperate. Once it’s done, and added to the pile he’s making of Time’s shit, he pulls the pattern steel Red had spent all day folding and forge welding from the fire. Already the basic shape of it is there: the tapered tip, the length of the blade, the narrow throat and tang. Once it’s finished, it’ll be a dagger for Hyrule. His current one has been sharpened so many times it’s thin enough to use as a lockpick, and they want him to have something good-quality to replace it, something that will last him.

(Will last him beyond this time of portals and black blood, because getting new equipment in his time is so, so difficult and they never want him to go without ever again, and one knife isn’t much in the grand scheme of things but it’s something they can do, and they’ll do their goddess-damn best work on it for him.)

It still needs some more shaping before it’s ready to go under the whetstone, though, so Blue tucks it back in the fire and picks up Wind’s knife, the one with the loose hilt. How the sailor expects to get anything done when he has to hold his entire hand at right angles to keep the thing straight Blue doesn’t know. Apparently he’d been stuffing it with fabric scraps to stabilise it, which, great, now Blue has to dig them all out before he can decide if the hilt is at all salvageable.

It doesn’t help that his fingers are a little shaky. Shit. Maybe he needs a water break.

He sets the dubiously-fixable knife aside while he drinks. He doesn’t feel thirsty. Dry-eyed, maybe, and his throat aches from the forge air, but the water doesn’t really help. Still, hydration’s important.

A sudden clank makes Blue drop his cup, water scattering on the floor as he spins. The fire flares - oh. A coal had - split, or settled, and the still-dull blade of Hyrule’s dagger had shifted and struck the edge. It looks about ready to go again anyway, so Blue grabs it - with tongs! He’s not an idiot! - and starts hammering an edge into it.

As the blade flattens out and becomes more knife than bar of metal Blue takes care to bevel off both edges neatly. He flips it, to make sure he gets both sides, then flips it again to even it out. He wants the balance on this thing perfect, and if it takes a bit of fiddling, all the better. That way he knows it’s good. Blue holds it up, eyeing the straightness of the blade from the side, and then down the length of it, and nods to himself, moving to set it. Good. He’ll let it cool a little before heating it again, and -

Blue stumbles. The blade clangs down on the bench he’d meant to set it on gently, spinning away from the tongs and fortunately not hitting any part of him with the still red-hot metal. Fuck, he’d forgotten to pick up his cup. It’s a good thing it’s so hot in here that all the water evaporated off or he might have slipped. Fuck.

He checks the blade - fuck, he dinged it - puts it back in the fire, then picks up his cup to set it back beside the water barrel. The metal handle is painfully hot under his fingers. Although - he could do with more water. His eyes are stinging again.

Blue drinks, long and slow. The water tastes metallic, or maybe that’s just the forge air coating his tongue. It settles uneasily. Doesn’t matter - his stomach will get over it.

He fixes the dent made when he dropped the half-made dagger, hammering until metal fills the gap and then hammering it out even again to repair the edge. He also spends more time carefully squinting at it to make sure it’s still straight, so long that the metal goes dark and cold.

Then back in the fire it goes.

Blue gets back to mail repairs, working rings into place, then riveting them shut with scraps from broken links. He considers, as he works, if the long-handled riveting pliers could be made to fit into their tool pouch. They can’t bring along the whole forge, that would be silly, but this one thing? They already carry the cutting pliers to make links with so it’s not like they need anything else for the rivets, and it doesn’t need heat treatment -

He pinches a fingertip with the pliers and swears loudly, shaking it and resisting the urge to shove it in his mouth - his hands are covered in oil and coal dust. Squinting at it - no real damage - he shakes it one more time and picks up the mail patch he dropped. It stings a little, to apply enough pressure to hold the metal fabric. Actually -

Checking the dagger, he pulls it from the fire and rests it on the anvil to cool. This is always time consuming, heating and cooling the steel to normalise it before the final edge can be put on. Heat it, then cool it, then heat it again; all part of ensuring the blade isn’t brittle and will hold its shape and its edge for as long as possible. It’s familiar in a way so ingrained he can almost touch it, watching the metal change colour. Fading from yellow, through red, down to the still blisteringly-hot but normal appearance of steel.

Blue blinks, and finds himself sitting on his preferred stool, metal still cooling in his tongs. Shit. When did he sit down? He’s wasting time, here. Back in the fire, back to work, fingertip still throbbing faintly.

Half the plates on Time’s tassets got ripped off during the fight with the iron knuckle, which are fiddly and annoying but not hard to replace. Once he’s got them shaped and punched Blue is tempted to just hand the lot off to Time for the old man to stitch them in place. Teach him to get distracted watching Twilight’s sword form. Shit, there’s so many of them, too. Time’s lucky his leg was in few enough pieces that Hyrule and Warriors could put it back together.

Blue hammers out scale after scale. Get the curve right; adjust the tongs, hammer out the part they’d hidden; set the edge, set the ridge, set it aside, and grab the next one. He piles them up on the metal workbench; they’d be less annoying to work with if he could just pile them in a coal shovel and dunk them in the fire to soften them, but even if they’re small they’re still armour and he needs to keep them as supple as possible.

And speaking of it’s time to pull the dagger again. The tongs grab it, fumble it, dump it back in the coals, then grab it agin. Blue is very careful as he sets it on the bench. He has no desire to set his own boots alight. This is the last cooling phase, though, so he can let the forge fire die down. Finally. His eyes itch and ache in the hot, dry air. He’d rub them if he wasn’t - still - covered in forge leavings.

Punch the holes for Time’s tasset scales; set them in his pile to deal with in the morning. Finally get the hilt off Wind’s knife and decide it is salvageable, actually, if he glues in a wedge of cedar to fill in the split that was letting it get loose in the first place. How did Wind even do that? Rewrap it in leather strips and it’ll be done; another job for the morning. When his hands aren’t so shaky. He’s getting glue everywhere, ugh.

…does he need to pull the dagger again? No, wait, it’s already on the bench. Does it need to go back in the fire? …no, he already decided it was done. He reaches to grab it, half-intending to measure it up for the hilt and crossguard, but hesitates at the heat radiating off it. Right. Fresh from the forge. Doesn’t look hot, but definitely is. He’ll leave it for an hour or so.

Blue shakes himself, hard, feeling the pull of it in his neck and his forehead. His head aches, behind his eyes. There’s a fine grey fuzz at the edges of his vision. Right, with the forge fire dying, he needs a bit more light. Where’s Vio’s lantern…?

By the too-pale magical light, Blue works, and works, until there’s nothing left to do but wind more wire into chainmail rings and weave them into the cuts and gashes left by enemy claws and weapons, tamp down rivets and move to the next section until he needs to wind out more rings -

It’s endless and monotonous and he can feel the screaming under his skin finally starting to cool, as the fire burns itself out.

Something they do need, he thinks as he pulls out the temporary patch he’d put in Twilight’s mail tunic, is a store of fully-finished rings. Hammering out their linking points and punching rivet holes is best done on an anvil. Then, as long as they have a stock of scrap wire for rivets (inevitable, they’re constantly damaging mail), the cutters and the riveting pliers, they can do repairs that are just as strong as the original work itself. Once they run out of wire, well, that’s more of an issue. The drawing plate is much too heavy to bring along with them.

Blue seals up the last ring in Twilight’s mail and sets it aside, then hops off the stool to go in search of the metal rods he needs to make wire. He knows they left a whole stack of them somewhere.

In truth, most forging doesn’t require a lot of raw strength. The weight of the hammer and the drag of gravity does a lot of the work, and all you need to do is direct it. Blue’s got more muscle from wielding a warhammer, honestly. The exception, he thinks distastefully, is wire drawing. That does need some force, since you’re dragging a piece of metal through smaller and smaller holes, not stretching it so much as drawing it out longer and longer and thinner and thinner, and of course it’s metal, it doesn’t want to do that.

Blue finally finds the basket of rods on a low shelf behind a huge box of half-finished nails - Red’s doing, surely - and carries it to the draw plate. There’s certainly no moving the thing to anywhere else. It weighs more than he does at least twice over, solid iron plate set into a heavy stone base.

Choosing a rod, Blue hammers out a quick point, feeds it through a hole that’s just a little smaller than its current size, clamps it, and starts to pull.

His eyes burn. His head aches. His fingers sting, all the little places where slips and cuts and burns have piled up over long hours. Without his mind keeping track of eight timers at once, it’s free to focus on the physical, and oh, he feels so heavy -

Blue breathes deep, metal and coal dust and ash, and feeds the wire into the next hole.

---

Sky is unhappy but unsurprised to find the patch of floor allocated to Four empty.

Weak morning light streams through the curtains. It’s just enough to see by as Sky checks that Legend’s unmoving form on the bed is just due to stiffness and exhaustion, not something more worrying, and tiptoes around scattered bedrolls. Twilight cracks an eye as he’s stepped over.

“A’right there?” he checks, voice low.

Sky smiles. “Just seein’ who’s up.”

Twilight grunts and to all appearances goes straight back to sleep. For all he wakes with the dawn on the ranch, he does enjoy his sleep, when he can get it.

Sky empathises but he’s got a mission.

Through the shop windows he spots Wild outside, running through the carefully prescribed stretches that kept his scars limber. Once he was done with those, he’d be all up in Four’s kitchen, eager to make food more complex than could be managed over a simple campfire. Four even had an oven, which Wild had been very excited about.

Still, breakfast will come later. The forge door still stands closed, just as it had last night after Four kicked him out. Moving slow, Sky eases the heavy door open, hoping to find him passed out in a corner somewhere.

Instead Four is sitting upright at the workbench. The winding rod in his hands is familiar, though he’s moving far slower than usual, and his hands shake when he reaches for the pliers.

“Four, have you slept at all?” Sky asks, disappointed.

“Huh?” Four turns to look at him, and there’s a distinct pause before recognition flickers. “Oh, Sky. I’m nearly done with your mail. Or…” He squints at the links on the table. “No, mail’s finished. Spare rings. We’re always running out.”

“Sleep, Four,” Sky stresses. “Goddess - have you been working all night?” He eyes up the frankly ludicrous pile of mending that now sits on the other side of the bench from where it started, separated into neat piles by owner. And Four is still going - slowly cutting rings off the spiral, one by one.

“‘M fine.”

He changes tacks. “Four, c’mon. It’s time for breakfast. Wild will sulk if it gets cold, you know he will.”

Four blinks at him, visibly hazy with exhaustion, and finally, slowly, drags himself to his feet. He looks worse, upright. He’s pale and a little haggard, swaying slightly just standing in place. Goddess. He’s going to be an utter wreck today, and they’re supposed to head out for the Castor Wilds later. Maybe Sky can convince Time to wait until after lunch and Four will revive some after a nap -

The smith’s feet tangle. Sky lunges to catch him -

Four catches himself with a quick shake of the head. “Phew, close one,” he mutters. He brushes past Sky into the rest of the house, steps suddenly quick and sure. “C’mon, Sky,” he calls over his shoulder, “help me keep Wild from dirtying every pan I own, I do not want to do dishes today.”

He still looks distinctly unwell over breakfast, but the shake in his hands, the sway in his step, the dull slowness of his eyes and responses - all that is gone like it was never there. He even smiles and keeps up with the conversation. Sky doesn’t know what to make of it.

(In the back of his mind, though, he wonders.)

[mountainashfae]

God I love character design so much. All 4 of Vio’s outfits are lovingly drawn from other sources that give them emotional weight (even if the Kingmaker outfit is just directly derivative of his Cleric outfit). The inspiration for his outfits from Aurien and Bellam and Sarenrae and even Orion are fun to point out and my design practice of keeping his color palette consistent throughout the designs makes all of them feel like Him.

In direct comparison and working perfectly into their story is Aurien who has 8 canon outfits but only two of them actually carry over design aspects aside from their iconic blanket and some jewelry because those two were before Aurien was recreating their identity with each new stage of their life.

I just!! Love putting thought into every aspect of a design!! There’s so much characterization you can slip into just the designs!!